Scandalmania Continues

I voted for President Obama in 2008. Four years later, I didn't vote for him and I'm becoming increasingly thankful that I didn't. (I didn't vote for Mittens either.) But things are getting ridiculous. Given the current state of Congress, I was hoping, hoping beyond hope that the White House could maintain some semblance of competency but apparently they can't do that either.

The IRS Scandal continues... some people might shrug it away and say 'well everybody's used the IRS to harass their political opponents.' Fantastic. But it doesn't make it OK. If Nixon did it and that wasn't OK, why is it OK when President Obama engages in similar shenanigans? And I'm sorry, the whole 'I had no idea what was going on' isn't exactly comforting either. How can you not? If something that widespread went down and you didn't even hear so much as a whisper, then maybe the GOPers are right. Maybe the government is too big.

But today, today it's been revealed that Verizon has been handing over oodles of phone records to the government.

Seriously?

Look, I'm not naive. I assume that the National Security Agency has something, some quantum computing device that enables it to sort through random shit on the internet and do things that would probably make us collectively s--t our pants if we knew the full extent of them. I think the general happiness of the public is centered around maintaining the illusion of privacy which means that if they're going to do things like this, they shouldn't get caught.

But they did get caught. The only question is: what, if any consequences will result?

UPDATE: Sigh... no one is listening to our phone calls? Somehow I don't find that all that comforting Mr. President. Now that the illusion of privacy is gone, I don't see how you can possibly defend this level of domestic surveillance. But they're going too... and I'm sure something will 'appear' to get cancelled but make no mistake about it-- this is going to keep right on going, whether we want it to or not. We just won't hear about it.