The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Well, I'm not sure if there's much point in my writing this blog anymore, but I'll do so anyway. A few days ago, I noticed President Obama's poll numbers were sagging some. I found this to be especially interesting because the economy has been continually improving under his leadership - so for his approval numbers to move in the opposite direction, I found this to be intriguing and somewhat perplexing. In an August 3rd - 5th Fox News poll, it had President Obama at 42% approval and 52% disapproval (net -10). Identical numbers were displayed in an August 9th - 13th Reuters/Ipsos poll. An August 10th - 12th Economist/YouGov poll showed the president at a -9 net approval (44% approval versus 53% disapproval). My hunch about all this was that a growing number of liberal Democrats and Independents were angry at the president for the NSA controversy, and this played a significant factor in his dropping poll numbers. However, I felt so long as the economy continued to imp...

While I am a liberal and like President Obama much more so than his predecessor, I will not shy away from criticizing he and his administration when I feel it's warranted. That brings me to an article I read today. Remember James Clapper? He's the Director of National Intelligence who lied when asked if the NSA collects data on a significant number of Americans when he said, "No. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly." Well, Mr. Clapper is back in the news again. In light of the NSA controversy, President Obama announced that he would form an independent group to assess our surveillance and intelligence gathering. He then announced that Mr. Clapper will be the head of this supposedly independent group. That's right - the same Clapper that lied about the NSA collecting data on millions of Americans will head an independent review on such matters. The Vegas odds are at 1 : 1 that this story will be covered on either Th...

While I feel both the Benghazi and IRS stories are getting blown out-of-proportion, I feel the Department of Justice-AP surveillance case isn't. Unfortunately, as reported by Timothy Lee of The Washington Post , it appears as if the DOJ's actions were legal. In Lee's article, he reported the following: "But here’s what’s really scary: The Justice Department’s actions are likely perfectly legal. U.S. law allows the government to engage in this type of surveillance—on media organizations or anyone else—without meaningful judicial oversight. The key here is a legal principle known as the 'third party doctrine,' which says that users don’t have Fourth Amendment rights protecting information they voluntarily turn over to someone else. Courts have said that when you dial a phone number, you are voluntarily providing information to your phone company, which is then free to share it with the government." I sincerely hope that in light of this recent report, ...