WatchDear readers, I'm in Washington DC this week for spring break with the family, seeing the sights. My internet access is spotty, so not sure I'll be able to do the newslinks. You can always view and vote on the latest unfiltered links here:
Tomorrow morning we have a White House tour. If I run across Obama I'll ask him how he could possibly have signed the NDAA.
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If you're in town on Sunday, make sure you hit the Dupont Circle Farmer's market. Say hello to Heinz at Next Step Produce and pick up something tasty.
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Charlottesville, VA
Bob H;
Pretty tiresome repeating that lame birther BS...
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San Clemente, CA
BobH says
Yes, it is - but you got to move quickly, there's multiple offers above asking already!
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BobH says
From a previous conversation with him, I think Bob H mistakenly believes that where your father was born or your father's citizenship is somehow relevant to "natural born citizen".
I'm pretty certain that "natural born citizen" means only that you were born in US territory. Parents are completely irrelevant.
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BTW comment about people bowing to Obama and Obama bowing to Saudis was voted back into moderation, and I did delete it after that because no one actually bows to Obama nor have I seen any indication of him bowing to Saudis.
Now Bush on the other hand, is very well documented as both holding hands with and kissing Saudi princes on the lips. Just do a search. Those may simply be Saudi customs that we find very strange, but it really looks bad.
Actually I just remembered that when travelling in Turkey in college, I saw men holding hands with each other and supposedly that meant nothing but friendship.
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If Obama was bowing to the Saudi's, it's only because the Saudi's have us by the you-know-whats. The same reason Bush was bowing to the Saudi's.
Again, I'm no die-hard fan of Obama. I'm pretty indifferent toward his presidency. But I really don't understand the far-right nuttiness toward him. Is it because he's black and his middle name is Hussein?
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museum of history
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bgamall4's website
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BobH says
Considering Mitt Romney, a guy who strapped his dog to the roof of his car is from Mars, I don't think Obama has a problem with your issue.
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bgamall4 says
Mitt Romney is already bad enough, but we should be precise and say that he strapped a CARRIER (BOX) that was CONTAINING his dog to the roof of his car, for a trip to Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamus_(dog)
Let us be careful not to stoop to the level of the Republi-con liars and propagandists, even accidentally.
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Patrick,
it would be beyond cool if POTUS Obama was a closet reader of Patrick. Net.
I bet SOMEONE in the white house reads Patrick.Net. Wear a T-Shirt that says "I'm Patrick from Patrick.Net" and see what happens!!
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justme says
I agree about being accurate, but it was considered torture and cruelty to animals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamus_%28dog%29
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justme says
+1
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46 male
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This is me in front of the Federal Reserve today. I wanted to get closer, but the guys with submachine guns would not allow that. They seem quite sensitive to who is on the grounds.
Very different from the real public buildings, which have no fee and welcome you.
One of the guys with the submachine guns is just over my right shoulder, on the left in the picture. Like a little satanic angel.
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Pacifica, CA
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Did you see the Norman Rockwell drawings near the press room? I always thought those were striking. I am not generally a big fan of his, but I like those drawings.
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elliemae's website
Is it just me, or does Patrick look suspiciously older than his icon photo these days? Have we aged him?
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Santa Cruz, CA
Natural born citizen would have implied born to American parents at the time of the Constitution. I doubt they would intend the child of a foreigner on a student visa to qualify, but I also doubt the founders would have imagined it, since there was no such thing as a student visa then either.
Nor would the founders approve of a 17 year old mother but this of course is another minor nitpick.
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Santa Cruz, CA
Bowing to Hu Jintao, and Akihito also isn't American presidential custom as far as I know. I saw the photos where McArthur sat and made Hirohito stand in his presence.
Mentioning Bush is instructive. If you see him in the White House tell him to stop being a sissy with the Saudis for me too.
I may hold my girlfriends hand, and I may also kiss her. I hugged guys in Mexico as was the custom.
However, I have never bowed down to anyone in my life. I hope never to see another American president bow and kowtow ever again.
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Wallingford, PA
Also, "The Phillips Collection" -- http://phillipscollection.org/ -- is just a block away; it is one of the nicest and most manageable art museums I have visited. Auntiegrav says
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Ellicott City, MD
Maybe you can read up about the Schecter Poultry case where SCOTUS overturned the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. That case, in 1934 or '35 proves Obama was a liar the other day. The NIRA sent business owners to jail for selling their products at levels they wanted. Henry Ford said, correctly, it was a law straight out of Stalin's Russia. But FDR's Ivy League advisors all admired the new economics being practiced in Russia!!
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elliemae says
But I think he's wearing the same shirt. ;)
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Patrick says
How appropriate that the largest private mafia in the world has submachine guns.
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sbourg says
Ask the people who lived during the age. FDR was a hero. He thought big. Libertarians think small. Both hated the banks for what they did.
FDR produced Glass-Steagall. The libertarians think that is socialism. What do they know? Nothing.
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Eh..depends on how you look at it. Due to FDR they had to pass the Hatch act which dramatically limited how politically active people that work for the federal government could be.
FDR might have thought big but that really wasn't the point. Putting taffifs on goods isn't exactly going to get the economy going. More importantly it was mostly world war two that got us out of the great depression and that killed tens of millions of people.
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elliemae says
You're right, something seems suspicious. Patrick, I demand to see your long-form birth certificate!
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bgamall4 says
Same thing happened during Obama's inauguration at the Pentagon. Then again, I'm guessing that's expected.
Patrick, you're missing all the other financial/political action. Swing by the World Bank and K Street. Oh, and DO NOT go to Chinatown to eat. It's a joke compared to San Francisco.
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Davis, CA
I think you should have handed out some bumper stickers in front of the Federal Reserve. I'm sure those folks appreciate anti-debt commentary!
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Vicente says
That's why there's the guy with the machine gun.
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I am definitely aged lately, but still wearing that red shirt!
The White House tour was somewhat disappointing, just a stream of people shuffled through the one floor of dining rooms etc and out the other side. No oval office. My father in law did see Obama's dog though.
White House is much smaller than you might think.
Tour of Congress was similarly mass-produced and uninformative, no viewing of either the House or the Senate, just the Rotunda and a few rooms near it. They should make that clear before you start.
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Patrick, if you had a lobbyist's badge you would get to see more.
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bgamall4 says
As a Libertarian I did not think Glass-Steagall was socialism. Maximum freedom and limited government does not mean no government.
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justme says
Maybe American people can hire Patrick to be our lobbyist in Washington. This way we the people can compete with special interests for representation out there.
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Patrick says
It probably seems small with that many people in it and when you figure that you are not seeing the whole thing.
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FortWayne says
Being a lobbyist to fight lobbying seems contradictory though.
I'd rather have some distributed internet freeware that tracks issues and organizes people against the corporate interests. Maybe there should be a forum about each member of Congress and each bill. That wouldn't be all that hard to do if I had the time.
If it were based on bittorent, then it would be pretty much uncensorable too.
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Patrick says
Scouring each proposed assembly or senate bill line-by-line looking for Trojan Horses is a lot of work. Can be done, but is a lot of work. Then there is the problem of liars and propagandists injecting themselves in to the system.
But worth a try. I'd sure like to see an example of a bill color-coded into good/bad or green/red and annotated with an explanation of why each paragraph is good or bad.
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Speaking of Trojan Horses:
I assume that many people have by now heard about the ALEC lobbying group that pushes corporate and right-wing "model legislation" upon our elected representatives?
The "stand your ground" Florida so-called self-defense law is said to be a product of ALEC.
http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
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Patrick says
You should have told them you were with Goldman Sachs. They would have let your right in and given you coffee.
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Somewhat off topic, but Patrick, you can still be a natural-born citizen if you were born abroad to American parents. If I'm outside the US and I register my child's birth with the embassy, that child gets US citizenship at birth and is thus a natural-born citizen.
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zzyzzx says
This is hilarious... with my very limited ability to read the Arabic alphabet, I'm looking at "Kenya" and wondering why it's called "Yawah" in Arabic... until I got the joke. (Hint: the person who made this photoshop must not have known what direction Arabic is written in... or figured that getting it wrong would only make it funnier!)
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Michinaga says
Yes, I think John McCain was born outside the US (Panama?) and got US citizenship because his parents were citizens and registered him.
But if you're born on US soil, then it doesn't matter who your parents are at all.
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Patrick says
And why isn't the Tea Party protesting about that? Oh yeah, hypocrisy.