Discussion for article #240804
How soon will it be before the GOP Candidates start screaming in pretend fury? And who will be first?
3…2…1
SecretService screws up…again.
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…and blames President Obama
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Optics!
Is it just me or does has the quality of the Secret Service just gone down since January 2009? I wonder if there’s a connection…
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I don’t think so. It could be perceived as having empathy for disease-stricken people, and human empathy is the kiss of death for the GOP base.
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It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that GWBush and/or Cheney had the organization sabotaged in some way so as to cause President Obama to leave the White House one way or another.
“Secret Service Apologizes For Kicking Cancer-Stricken Kids Out Of DC Park.” Now THERE’s a headline that you don’t want to see if you’re the director of the Secret Service.
About 700 people participating in CureFest for Childhood Cancer were
told by the Secret Service and U.S. Park Police, which cited security
reasons, to evacuate the park in front of the White House, according to
the newspaper.
OK, I’m not understanding this at all. If the SS knew that the group was CureFest for Childhood Cancer what exactly was the damn “security” reason? According to the article they were there due to a “scheduled candlelight vigil.” Not understanding this at all.
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Obama found out that some of the children were christian, so he sent his flying monkeys jack-booted persecutors out to drive them away.
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Aaaaah, it’s already popping up all over the Faux KKKomment boards. “Obama shut them down so he could go to the black caucus meeting.” They just have to add in the race resentment factor as well…like building a hate sammich.
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O’Reilly will be ON THIS TONITE!!!@@@@ 
Did they think it was an Al Quida meeting? Isn’t this wave of authoritarianism great?
if ever there was an executive department that needed to be unwound, it would be Homeland Security. Every agency that was yanked out of another department and folded into it is worse for it. The Secret Service is just the most prominent of the formerly competent agencies made constant screwups by the merger.
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It seems like Rethuglicans would be all over this in praise of the SS. After all, how many people were wearing watches (aka half-bombs)?
Now we know where Bush planted all the deadwood from his Presidency.
Assholes!! Maybe they should take a stroll through St Jude’s and see all the kids fighting for their lives battling cancer!!
As a Washingtonian myself (don’t shoot me), the irony is this “random closing of Lafayette Park” protocol started recently as a (rather strange) way of increasing security after the two embarrassing instances of folks scaling the fence to gain entry to the White House grounds.
On more than one occasion I’ve been there or passing by when they start pushing folks milling about on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House back across the park (which is quite lengthy), corralling and holding everyone on the sidewalk of I (Eye) Street for what appears to be no reason. I suspect they do it anytime anyone high profile enters or leaves the White House (even if they are departing from the south lawn, completely out of sight on the opposite side of the White House).
I’m hoping this promised review involves finding ways to truly increase security, rather than implementing the seemingly arbitrary “we need to do something” approach which led to the current protocol.
Let me see if I can express this thought in a way that won’t piss off everybody here haha…
There NEEDS to be some more human flexibility built into government. When we try to legislate how EVERYTHING is done, we end up with a system that works well 99.9% of the time, and fails miserably with comically inept results the other 0.1%.
We then have the spectacle: first its a public apology, we then launch expensive official reviews, and finally we add new regulations… and the same thing happens again. I guarantee you these guys were just following regulations - but if the guy in charge was permitted to make a simple judgement call, perhaps it all could’ve been avoided. If not, we could’ve held him accountable for his decision. There needs to be personal accountability in the massive organizations that are modern western democracies - that way there’s a better chance a situation like this gets handled with a human touch, and if not there’s a PERSON held accountable, rather than the entire branch of government. Just look at healthcare.gov - that was entirely the fault of feckless sub-contractors (I used to write code for one here in Halifax) and yet its still used to discredit a massive government program that helps millions of people. Its madness.
Incidents like this aren’t even that serious a problem in the grand scheme of things - but they reduce public trust in government, to the point where idiots like… the GOP can advocate for its demise almost entirely. We hand too much ammo to those morons.
I hope I’m expressing this thought adequately… I really feel like in modern nations like the USA and here in Canada too, we keep striving towards what I can best describe as “automatic” government. I think we need a flexible, adaptable one - and that starts with flexibility and personal accountability, not regulations trying to cover all possible scenarios.
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