White House Refuses To Comment On Petition To Investigate Chris Dodd 765
malraid writes "The White House has issued a statement in which they refuse to comment on the petition to investigate Chris Dodd for bribery from the MPAA to pass legislation. The reason given: 'because it requests a specific law enforcement action.'"
Referred? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who could say this was unexpected? (Score:4, Interesting)
Who do you like in the parties of n > 2? I'm looking for a better option than Mickey Mouse, mostly because that nasty rodent's been buying politicians to keep himself under copyright for years.
Did anyone really expect anything else? (Score:5, Interesting)
The worst part about this petition and the result, is that it will get basically zero media coverage. All of the mainstream news organizations are tied into SOPA and the lobbyists just as tightly as Dodd.
Re:Alright (Score:3, Interesting)
It would have been nice if they reply atleast pointed us in the right direction.. who the fuck are we supposed to ask to look into this if not the Whitehouse?
Re:Executive branch (Score:5, Interesting)
He probably didn't break the law, and that's the sad truth. There's a very fine line, maybe a smudge, between being paid for votes, and being paid because you support a platform. They amount to the same thing, at the end of the day, but one is illegal and the other isn't. What he said on Fox news was probably not illegal either, once put in this framework. It would shake my confidence if I ever had any.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
its not about obama, dammit.
it wasn't entirely about bush.
its ENTIRELY about the system and how anyone who enters leaves corrupt.
money makes the political system work and that's what's wrong.
stop pointing fingers at one guy. can't you see beyond that (please?)
Re:Executive branch (Score:5, Interesting)
people growing up, NOW, can realize this. the internet teaches much more of the truth than the textbooks or teachers (are allowed or will).
we didn't have any kind of internet (not even BBS dialup, at the time) and our means to share info was very local and very limited. we were brought up in near total ignorance. 'trust authority'. all that stuff - that we now know is opposite and untrue.
today, kids DO have the ability to hear more than one side of the story. well, for as long as the internet remains free...
I hope that over the next 20 or so years, this generation weeds out the older guys and pushes thru a new style. I have zero hope for today's old rulers, but tomorrow's rulers could actually be from an informed base.
and sadly, I think the old guys in charge know this, too. they want to milk things as they are for the next 5-25 years, until *they* die out. after that, they don't much care how the world runs. but they do want to keep the world and power base as it is right now.
the struggle is: do we allow that and for how much longer?
this is the class war. its real. its simmering, but its growing, to be sure.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't be stupid. As soon as bullets start flying, the country is dead. It won't come back in your lifetime, or your kids' lifetimes for that matter. Technological advancement has brought us easily available explosives, which make clean revolutions absolutely impossible. So long as even 0.001% of the population doesn't like the new government, they can just start slaughtering people to force a change. The only reason they don't do so now is because it's seen as "unacceptable" and would be counterproductive to their goals. As soon as violence becomes the norm, the only way back is through decades of bloodshed.
Just look at the Troubles. Four decades of violence, and that's in a country with 2% of America's population and less access to weapons, at a time when technology didn't make mass murder as simple as it is today. That would look like a picnic next to a new revolution in the US. We're talking hundreds of thousands dead, maybe millions, and you will not live to see the end of it.
This "bullet box" rhetoric needs to end. The people who mod it up should be ashamed of themselves, and the people who post it ought to be on government watch lists.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
Your little idealistic plea is nice and all, but I hope you see that you're perpetuating the system.
Prosecuting one person is a good place to start at ending the systematic corruption. Whining about it and trying to divide attention makes it less likely that anything concrete will ever get started. That's why it's good to "point fingers at one guy". I don't think there's a single person that thinks all of the corruption in the entire system is due to one guy, but we need to direct attention somewhere.
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Executive Orders aren't laws. As the Executive, it's clear that he has a certain level of authority over the Executive Branch. Executive Orders simply are a mechanism by which the President exercises that Constitutionally granted authority over the Executive Branch.
As the Commander-In-Chief of all U.S. forces, the president is within his authority to order military action against hostile military forces. Doesn't matter that some U.S. citizen has joined those forces. War doesn't stop because there's a traitor in the enemy camp.
There's a clear distinction between a criminal who we should try to arrest if at all possible (and criminals do get killed by cops without a trial in similar circumstances, even on U.S. soil, where they are armed and resisting arrest), and enemy combatants who are engaged in armed conflict against our armed forces.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats the game they truly play.
You focus your direction on one person, those who can misdirect the best will survive and thrive. You try to change the system, they will show solidarity against changing something that obviously works and has been around for hundreds of years.
The system does not work. The system cannot be changed. The system will always be gamed. Those who play the game the best will always win.
If all the smart and altruistic people in the US left for Canada there would only be psychopaths and stupid people left and they would nuke the hell out of everyone just to spite us.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
One major goal of government, including the United States' government, is to maintain peace. People who stir up calls of violence, rather than peaceful protests, should be watched and discouraged. It is unacceptable for that discouragement to involve censorship, just as it is unacceptable for a petition to involve explosives.
Unfortunately, the mere mention of any investigation makes the short-fuse radicals even more enraged. Nevermind that the goal is usually "see if this guy's dangerous", the person in question will often see it as a terrible threat, and will actively antagonize the police. The anti-establishment culture is as much responsible for our recent loss of freedoms as the legislature who sees increasing threats of violence.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
Excuse me for butchering the quote, "democracy is two wolves and a sheep discussing what's for dinner, in a republic the sheep gets a shotgun." Since we live in a republic, it seem to be spot on. Not that I agree with it, but sometimes the majority is wrong. Guns probably won't really help solve it in the long run though, lots of guns might.
Re:That's how it works. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
But no, rather than accept that the country will always be messy and that we should do the best we can, you want to burn it all down.
No, I will not accept that. You want people to just shrug their shoulders and say "Meh, shit's fucked up, shit's always been fucked up, so fuck it?" Bullshit all over that. You be as complacent as you fucking want. I know we can do better.
I don't want it to come to that point, I really don't. But like I said, I will not be a victim. I'm not going to sit idly by and watch our right to privacy be taken away, our right to free speech taken away, our right to freely move about the country taken away, our right to be secure both in our person and property taken away. Our own government has been doing this to us at a fever pitch for the last fucking decade, not fucking Al Qaeda, not Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, not Iran, not China. This was our own fucking government doing this bullshit, across all three branches, and the people just repeated the same old litany "Well, if it makes us safer..."
Fuck that bullshit. No more. Put your hands over your ears and keep repeating "it's not that bad, it's not that bad, it's not that bad..." if that's what you want to do, but forgive me and the millions of other people that actually believe in something better for not being quite ready to bend over and get fucked with the rest of the cattle.
Re:the plutocracy sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
You know guns work just as well in the hands of those who mean evil as those who mean good. I don't quite understand this mythological belief that a well armed populace is some sort of protection from fascism. If fascism ever does come to this country, those at the vanguard of this nation's fall will be well armed "patriots" whipped into a xenophobic frenzy by a silver tongued demagogue.
When domestic matters are settled by guns rather than words, the country is lost. Therefore, to depend on guns or look forward to their use means you are part of the problem: you've already given up on your country, whether you realize that or not.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a vet who has fought for this country, for our liberties and our way of life
Unless you're old enough to have mustered out in 1945, this statement is false. You may have fought for something, all right, but it wasn't for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
At least not for you and me.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps, AC, you struggle from reading English. It is blunt from my text, and the OP that we are not American, nor do we live in the USA.
Your language and absolute rejection of critique and the nature of it is EXACTLY my point.
Nobody here "hates" the USA. We despise the one eyed ignorant and devicive viewpoints.
Maybe you have trolled me. Point struck then, sir, but I suspect you are a typical citizen. ....And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
There is one to bake your noodle.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
To get my way? I just want to be left the fuck alone! I want the government to stop listening in on my fucking phone calls, stop scraping my instant messages, stop trying to give me the fucking finger in the ass routine every time I have the audacity to get on an airplane, stop handing over my fucking tax dollars to goddamned Wall Street bankers, stop allowing these parasites we call "corporations" to put slaves across the world to work and bring their wares here for nothing while 1 in 5 of us are either unemployed or underemployed, stop allowing our infrastructure here to fucking fall apart while we're helping other countries build....
The government has been wiping it's ass with the Bill of Rights for decades, but the last few years or so they've been ramping up. They see the writing on the wall. They know the jig is up, so they're making their last ditch cash/power grabs while enough people still have the faith in their government necessary to facilitate it. Once that's gone, it's all over. The locusts will pick up and move on to greener pastures while we fucking eat each other. The Occupy protests are going to look like a block party a year from now.
I understand your point, I really do, but I truly believe it's too late for that now. We're stuck in a positive feedback loop. There's only going to be more civil disobedience, resulting in more of our rights being taken away, resulting in more civil disobedience, resulting in more rights taken away, resulting in more civil disobedience...you get my point. You may not share my opinions, but to be honest, I'd rather be prepared for that eventuality than not, and since buying more than 7 days worth of food or owning multiple guns is probably enough to get you on some government watch list (if me simply talking about my extreme dissatisfaction with my government as of late isn't enough), I'm probably fucked. But I am not going to be a victim.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
Partisan politics operating under colour of Democracy is an abject failure in its theory but NONE OF YOU SHEEP CAN SEE IT.
What Partisan politics do is polarise one group of people against another - much as what we're seeing here. RvD, two sides fighting each other instead of fighting the REAL ENEMY which is the criminal element RUNNING YOUR COUNTRY.
What changes when the regime changes?
NOTHING.
Why?
The promises might be slightly different, but the endgames in any case are EXACTLY THE SAME. Gain at the expense of EVERYBODY ELSE.
Fuck you lot, as long as you keep consuming and breeding more consumers and continue to buy into the Great Fiscal Lie, then the 1% will continue to divide you and they will continue to control you, all the time further abrogating your rights previously guaranteed by a two hundred fifty-odd year old piece of parchment!
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
Because Cheney built up an impressive array of "civil servants" (much like in Torchwood) that are all unelected, highly powerful people. Obama really couldn't do the job without them... Cheney and Rumsfield go all the way back to Nixon. They made impressive gains at shaking out the upper and middle military ranks of officers "disloyal" to the PNAC agenda, along with a few high profile firings, and throwing opponents from their OWN party under the bus as an example.
In short, Bush was part in creating a stitation where a large part of upper government is established for the next 20 years. There is really little Obama can responsibly do at this point... Fire half the generals during a war? Most of the upper Executive agencies were "packed" in the ranks with people aligned with Cheney's agenda.
The biggest indicator for me was how in the middle of a "war" the President didn't groom ANYBODY from his OWN party to continue the work? You really gotta hand it to them.
Philosophically, this is where Neo-Cons are using their "corporate" attitude so they don't have to worry about elections to advance their agenda. Fill the CIA with leaders that will report a "terrorist" under every rock, and the current President has to act on "expert" advice.. The same tounges quiet to Bush's foibles will wag to the press about Obama in a minute. It plays right into the Democrats ideal that people in government want the "best" for "everybody" but they have been played since Clinton and even Carter by the other side packing the ranks of people that are supposed to be experts and non-partisian.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it's craptastic that Dodd isn't getting investigated [at least, not publicly].
Wow, why wasnt this your sentiment when you posted the first time? I think that you are mad that you have to admit it.
But it's not like the republican's fall all over themselves to investigate fellow republican's when they are in charge.
There you go, bashing Republicans again...
You couldn't even go more than one complete sentences without transforming back into a Republican basher. The Democrats and their actions are the ones being discussed, but you can't stand it.
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:2, Interesting)
>I was listening up to "teabagger". Anyone that would smear an entire group of people with a crude sexual slur just because they disagree with them can't be too bright.
Anybody that would dismiss an entire opinion just because at once point it called a spade a spade can't be all that bright either.
Do you also dismiss everything Winston Churchill ever wrote because he once called a duchess "ugly" ?
Re:Dying from lack of surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
Whether or not you think so, the actual data says otherwise:
* Marijuana legalization [gallup.com] recently crossed 50% support.
* Gay marriage [gallup.com], which has been steadily shifting in favor of legalization.
* Leaving Afghanistan [pollingreport.com] polls at 56% in favor, and has for months.
* Iraq War [pollingreport.com] polls at 66% opposed, and the majority has been opposed to the war since at least 2006.
The only presidential candidate who even comes close to following the majority's wishes on those issues is Ron Paul, and he's generally been dismissed as a nutcase.