Our government at work

It is not just this president -- the whole thing needs to be rebooted. From Associated Press:

Gov't obtains wide AP phone records in probe
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

A lot more at the story -- this is just the briefest clip to whet your appetite. Also, this story went live at May. 13 7:50 PM EDT which is about two and a half hours ago my time. It has already garnered 2,300+ comments and 6,500+ tweets. Also in the not-so-news category. The Internet Tax bill that was just voted into law was heavily funded by a number of corporations. These corporations spent 40X to 1X for the passage of this law. This vote was bought. Raw numbers from MapLight: For Washington State, our two Senators had the following "campaign contributions". Maria Cantwell - pro $384,481, con $3,738 Patty Murray - pro $616,623, con $19,808 This is not chump change -- in Senator Murray's case, she got over a half-million dollars in "campaign contributions" to vote yes on S. 743 - Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013. All this to spike smaller internet businesses from growing to where they could threaten the established cronies. It is also curious (NOT) to look at the list of entities that supported this bill and to see just how many Unions are represented -- Teachers, Police and Firefighters, State and Local Government employee, Automotive, Labor Unions -- this is a huge number for something that will not really affect the outcome of their businesses. How does an internet sales tax affect a Teacher or a Firefighter or an Automotive worker except making personal sales a bit more expensive. This is buying votes. This is a large captive block of people whose involuntary dues are being spent on crass political manipulations.