General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Wow. With all these NSA revelations rolling in Obama's legacy may not be Obamacare. [View all]Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)How can you make such a statement with a straight face? Every ten days or so another revelation comes out from the plethora of documents that Snowden gave to the reporters. We couldn't get lucky enough for Greenwald to hold the remainder for a book as was mentioned before. At least then the revelations would come all at once, and only one or two would be significantly outrageous enough to garner attention, the rest lost in the flood of data.
President Obama's popularity continues to decline, and eventually he's going to be left with the core groups of the Democratic Party. But one of those groups is people like myself who continue to believe that Civil Rights is an important issue. How long before we can no longer honestly answer that we approve of President Obama's actions when we are polled? More and more of us are.
What do we do if Republicans get more stature in the Senate and hold onto the House? Do you realize that the Republicans need only take six more Senate seats to control that chamber? Then all the tea party cuts to Government will be the choice of President Obama. Sign them, or shut the Government down. How much will he have to sacrifice to keep what he can't afford to lose?
Then you'll have Rand Paul on the hunt for the Oval Office, playing up the NSA spying all the time, demanding that information that is being withheld, be released. He may even release some himself on the floor of the Senate, where the Constitution says he has the right to debate it. Oh sure, we can piss and moan about his violating security, but other than that we would be left with another pile of crap to chew on.
I don't think you realize that this is the most dangerous time our party has faced since Ronald Reagan. At least with President Clinton's scandal, we had the argument that everyone would lie about cheating. We can't say that everyone would read and listen communications if they could. If anyone else did it they would go to jail for wiretapping.
ProSense, we have to decide what is good for our party long term. Holding onto the millstone of NSA spying as it drags us to the depths of disaster is not a good policy. Let the jackass Republicans argue we need to spy on the American People, we need to come out in favor of and as the staunchest defenders of Human Rights that the nation has ever seen. If we continue to join with the same jackass Republicans we say are wrong on every other issue, holding hands and linking arms with them for the authority to spy on Americans, how do we extricate ourselves when even the most determined defenders of the party realize it is a bad idea? How do we run against them in fifteen months when all we can offer as a party is that we totally agree with them on NSA spying, we just think they're assholes on other issues?
Think it through. Not just what excuses we're going to have to use today, or tomorrow, but where we'll be in a year praying that we don't lose the Senate. Because if we are very smart, and a little lucky, we might be able to. Holding onto this millstone? We're going to lose it to the Paulites in the Rethug party.