Thoughts & Commentary on the Obama Administration

[PanzerJaeger]

HAH

We'll start rolling out our Ohio poll results tomorrow but there's one finding on the poll that pretty much sums it up: by a 50-42 margin voters there say they'd rather have George W. Bush in the White House right now than Barack Obama.

Independents hold that view by a 44-37 margin and there are more Democrats who would take Bush back (11%) than there are Republicans who think Obama's preferable (3%.)

A couple months ago I thought the Pennsylvanias and Missouris and Ohios of the world were the biggest battlegrounds for 2010 but when you see numbers like this it makes you think it's probably actually the Californias and the Wisconsins and the Washingtons.

There's not much doubt things are getting worse for Democrats...and they were already pretty bad. Somehow the party base needs to get reinvigorated over the next two months or there's going to be a very, very steep price to pay.

[Xiahou]

Change you can believe in

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut requested a wide range of premium increases, which will take effect Oct. 1, to cover the costs of new benefits required by federal health reform. Higher prices mostly affect new members shopping for a health plan on the individual market rather than people who have group plans through an employer or some other organization.

The Connecticut Department of Insurance approved Anthem's request without changes, including a boost of as much as 22.9 percent just to comply with one provision: eliminating annual spending limits per customer. But it's unclear how much more customers will pay because of the variety of plans and the complexity of other factors, such as a person's age.

Wait, Obamacare is driving up healthcare costs? No one saw that coming, huh?

[Beskar]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/panzerjaeger/Miss_Me_Yet.jpg[/IMG]

Nope, but that is the whole intention of the poster. It is basically saying "Think Obama is bad? Remember Bush".

Though it is America, they would want Bush, as the results of dumbing down in education pay-off.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Bush was a big government spendthrift. Why replaced him with an even bigger government bigger spendthrift is beyond me. Oh yeah, now I remember, the electorate had a choice between McCain and Obama.

Of course, our elections have been rather silly of late. Dole in 1996, Kerry in 2004, McCain in 2008...it's not like any of these folks had a compelling campaign going. Add in the results of 2000, where voters were so numbed that they couldn't really pick between them ("other" did well that year) and it's not as though we've had compelling leadership lately. By that standard, Obama isn't so very bad.

[Xiahou]

This sound about right?

-

The analogy I always liked to use was: Bush was driving us off a cliff..... then Obama took over and stomped on the accelerator.

[drone]

Obama invokes 'state secrets' claim to dismiss suit against targeting of U.S. citizen al-Aulaqi

The Obama administration urged a federal judge early Saturday to dismiss a lawsuit over its targeting of a U.S. citizen for killing overseas, saying that the case would reveal state secrets.

The U.S.-born citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, is a cleric now believed to be in Yemen. Federal authorities allege that he is leading a branch of al-Qaeda there.

Government lawyers called the state-secrets argument a last resort to toss out the case, and it seems likely to revive a debate over the reach of a president's powers in the global war against al-Qaeda.

Civil liberties groups sued the U.S. government on behalf of Aulaqi's father, arguing that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command's placement of Aulaqi on a capture-or-kill list of suspected terrorists - outside a war zone and absent an imminent threat - amounted to an extrajudicial execution order against a U.S. citizen. They asked a U.S. district court in Washington to block the targeting.

In response, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the groups are asking "a court to take the unprecedented step of intervening in an ongoing military action to direct the President how to manage that action - all on behalf of a leader of a foreign terrorist organization."

Miller added, "If al-Aulaqi wishes to access our legal system, he should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions."

The administration states that the planning and execution of US citizens are state secrets. No need for minor details like actually filing charges, an indictment, much less a trial. Change we can believe in.

[Xiahou]

More hope and change:

Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications -- including encrypted e-mail transmitters such as BlackBerry, social networking websites such as Facebook and software that allows direct "peer-to-peer" messaging such as Skype -- to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

The legislation, which the Obama administration plans to submit to Congress next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering technological innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.

Basically, the administration's plan is to require all Internet technologies to have a backdoor. This will force products that are unable to comply out of business and make them illegal. Further, building backdoors into everything to the government to use is a glaring security hole. Additionally, it would undermine customer confidence in products.

This is a terrible, terrible idea. Luckily, if they're not planning to submit the law until next year, there's a pretty good chance that it won't get passed. The GOP will have a majority in the House by then and will probably block it's passage just because it was Obama's idea..... hopefully.

[Lemur]

This is a terrible, terrible idea.

Yup, it's a baddie. Didn't we go through this once or twice already, with predictable failures?

The GOP will have a majority in the House by then and will probably block it's passage just because it was Obama's idea..... hopefully.

Until you added that "hopefully" I was scared that you had the sight.

-edit-

Bruce Schneier (the godfather of network security, for those who've never heard of him) weighs in.

Obama isn't the first U.S. president to seek expanded digital eavesdropping. The 1994 CALEA law required phone companies to build ways to better facilitate FBI eavesdropping into their digital phone switches. Since 2001, the National Security Agency has built substantial eavesdropping systems within the United States.

These laws are dangerous, both for citizens of countries like China and citizens of Western democracies. Forcing companies to redesign their communications products and services to facilitate government eavesdropping reduces privacy and liberty; that's obvious. But the laws also make us less safe. Communications systems that have no inherent eavesdropping capabilities are more secure than systems with those capabilities built in.

Any surveillance system invites both criminal appropriation and government abuse. Function creep is the most obvious abuse: New police powers, enacted to fight terrorism, are already used in situations of conventional nonterrorist crime. Internet surveillance and control will be no different.

Official misuses are bad enough, but the unofficial uses are far more worrisome. An infrastructure conducive to surveillance and control invites surveillance and control, both by the people you expect and the people you don't. Any surveillance and control system must itself be secured, and we're not very good at that. Why does anyone think that only authorized law enforcement will mine collected internet data or eavesdrop on Skype and IM conversations?