Political Roundtable Part XVIII

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Cmon Nate. You’re conveniently overlooking the revenue side of the ledger.

[Pointgod]

Dude, that's one of your more laughably stupid comments. Ray Rice is a good example - he basically lost his career for doing the same thing Porter did. Did you fight for Ray Rice? If not, why would you fight for Porter? Politics aside, do ya think it makes sense to hold football players to a higher standard to important people in the WH?

Ray Lewis won Superbowl MVP a year after being convicted of obstruction of justice in a murder trial. He was a first ballot HOFer as soon as he was eligible. The guy is a hero in Baltimore.

He asked about Ray Rice not Ray Lewis. Funny how you deflected though.

[Doug_Blew]

Firstly, his first wife said that he only hit him that one time on their honeymoon. Secondly, his second wife alleged "emotional abuse". The only physical abuse was one time when he grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and pulled her out of the shower. And there is no evidence of him physically hurting someone in 15 years following the first incident.

Firstly, I only let Bob take me from behind that one time when I was 21. The second time, a few years later, I went down on Jim at the park. But there's no evidence of any other activity. I promise you honey, i'm not gay ... is what your above statement sounds like to me.

If you get a DUI, you lose your clearance. If you do hard drugs in college, you probably wont get a clearance. If you beat your wife, it looks like you dont get a clearance. But there's a good chance you can get a job as a Hygenist. So i think Rob Porter will be fine.

[DCZards]

There's a big difference between physical abuse and emotional abuse. One is easily definable, the other is not. Surely, this guy Porter was a d*ck in his private relationships with women, but that doesn't mean he can't hold down an office job.

This was no ordinary "office job." It was in the WH and our taxpayer dollars was paying the "d*ck's" high-salary. Given what was known about his spousal abuse, Porter never should have been hired for that position.

[Doug_Blew]

With 3 'Hops,' NSA Gets Millions Of Phone Records
July 31, 20136:19 PM ET
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Testimony before Congress on Wednesday showed how easy it is for Americans with no connection to terrorism to unwittingly have their calling patterns analyzed by the government.

It hinges on what's known as "hop" or "chain" analysis. When the NSA identifies a suspect, it can look not just at his phone records, but also the records of everyone he calls, everyone who calls those people and everyone who calls those people.

If the average person called 40 unique people, three-hop analysis would allow the government to mine the records of 2.5 million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist.

As I understand it, it has been reduced to a 2-hop analysis, but that's still enough. With a Title 1 FISA warrant on Carter Page, they could look into all calls and emails made by Page, all calls and emails made by people Page has communicated with, and all calls and emails made by people who communicated with people who communicated with Page. And they could go backward in time indefinitely as far as NSA records are kept.

The snippet you pasted says it allows the NSA to analyze calling patterns. It's still unclear to me if they're listening to the phone calls that do not involve the identified suspect.

If they are listening to data from 2 hops away, I assume that there are FISA warrants on many people. That would cover a multitude of people. I'm guessing you and i are 2 hops away from someone with a warrant. I get calls about someone wanting to clean my vents every other day. Imagine how many people that guy called.

[Ruzious]

Dude, that's one of your more laughably stupid comments. Ray Rice is a good example - he basically lost his career for doing the same thing Porter did. Did you fight for Ray Rice? If not, why would you fight for Porter? Politics aside, do ya think it makes sense to hold football players to a higher standard to important people in the WH?

Ray Lewis won Superbowl MVP a year after being convicted of obstruction of justice in a murder trial. He was a first ballot HOFer as soon as he was eligible. The guy is a hero in Baltimore.

Do you think obstruction of justice equals beating your wife? Let's get back to Ray Rice please.

[Doug_Blew]

Dude, that's one of your more laughably stupid comments. Ray Rice is a good example - he basically lost his career for doing the same thing Porter did. Did you fight for Ray Rice? If not, why would you fight for Porter? Politics aside, do ya think it makes sense to hold football players to a higher standard to important people in the WH?

Ray Lewis won Superbowl MVP a year after being convicted of obstruction of justice in a murder trial. He was a first ballot HOFer as soon as he was eligible. The guy is a hero in Baltimore.

He asked about Ray Rice not Ray Lewis. Funny how you deflected though.

But Ray Lewis cant get a security clearance. I'm sure Rob Porter could play for the Ravens if he could hit someone harder than he hit his first wife.

[Zonkerbl]

I think the current scandal is evidence that the abuse allegations are something Porter wouldn’t want to have become public and thus made him susceptible to blackmail. I admit it’s effed up though. I have a top secret clearance and I’ve done all sorts of stupid ****.

[closg00]

Know anyone who works for a living waiting tables, tending bar? OMG Trump is doing everything he can to make people hate him even more.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-tip-pool-plan_us_5a7dc7bfe4b0c6726e12d0bb

[stilldropin20]

Know anyone who works for a living waiting tables, tending bar? OMG Trump is doing everything he can to make people hate him even more.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-tip-pool-plan_us_5a7dc7bfe4b0c6726e12d0bb

It’s probably a way to get employers to pay their portion of fica, Social Security and Medicare as well as make sure all tips get claimed on individual taxes.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[stilldropin20]

Firstly, his first wife said that he only hit him that one time on their honeymoon. Secondly, his second wife alleged "emotional abuse". The only physical abuse was one time when he grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and pulled her out of the shower. And there is no evidence of him physically hurting someone in 15 years following the first incident.

Clearly, the guy has (or at least had) anger issues. I certainly wouldn't want my daughter dating him. But there are literally millions of men in this world who have lost their cool, particularly while young, and may have done something effed up in the heat of the moment. Sure, a divorce seems warranted. Sure, maybe civil litigation would have been appropriate at the time. And if charges were pressed and proven, maybe the guy deserved the appropriate jail time. But charges were not pressed. No guilty verdict was rendered. They divorced and moved on. There are no known accounts of him striking a women in the ensuing 15 years. Does one moment of anger at age 23 mean a guy shouldn't be permitted to have a job 15 years later?

Imagine if the Obama Administration hired a 38-year-old black man who, in 2003, got involved in a gang altercation where he beat somebody up. He plead out to a misdemeanor and did some community service or something. In the following 15 years, he got his life together, got a degree and worked his way up in the world until the Obama Administration noticed him and hired him. It would be considered a success story. A troubled young man with a troubled past got it together and ended up working for the President of the United States. That's fantastic!

Here’s the funny thing Nate. Everyone of these guys were still a big fan of Gilbert Arenas post Mexican standoff in the locker room with the Sean Stephenson .

Probably from Famsa Ray Rice to After he knocked his Gf out.




Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

Dude, that's one of your more laughably stupid comments. Ray Rice is a good example - he basically lost his career for doing the same thing Porter did. Did you fight for Ray Rice? If not, why would you fight for Porter? Politics aside, do ya think it makes sense to hold football players to a higher standard to important people in the WH?

Dude, the whole thing is a joke. CNN didn't need to spend one week on this. they could have simply let him quietly resign. And ESPN and everyone else didn't need to spend 6 months on the Ray Rice thing. Spend a day on either? Fine, I guess. But a week for Porter? and 6 months to a year for Rice? Both wrong. And I have no problem with a judge throwing both in jail for 6 months.

[Ruzious]

Here’s the funny thing Nate. Everyone of these guys were still a big fan of Gilbert Arenas post Mexican standoff in the locker room with the Sean Stephenson .

Probably from Famsa Ray Rice to After he knocked his Gf out.




Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

Dude, that's one of your more laughably stupid comments. Ray Rice is a good example - he basically lost his career for doing the same thing Porter did. Did you fight for Ray Rice? If not, why would you fight for Porter? Politics aside, do ya think it makes sense to hold football players to a higher standard to important people in the WH?

Dude, the whole thing is a joke. CNN didn't need to spend one week on this. they could have simply let him quietly resign. And ESPN and everyone else didn't need to spend 6 months on the Ray Rice thing. Spend a day on either? Fine, I guess. But a week for Porter? and 6 months to a year for Rice? Both wrong. And I have no problem with a judge throwing both in jail for 6 months.

Significant jail time for both would be fine by me too, but... why are you so obsessed about how much time CNN, ESPN, FnSNN spend on anything? It's an automatic deflection mechanism to block out what's actually happened. Some day, Trump's going to hit the nuke button and "accidentally" blow up Puerto Rico, and you're gonna be whining about Cf'nNN spending too much time covering it - and offhandedly say "Oh yeah, it's a shame PR no longer exists, but Damn CNN - what a joke! Ya know like, people died when Obama was president! Why don't they cover that???"

[stilldropin20]

There are a couple big differences even if you buy the "Porter reformed" angle. First in your theoretical scenario the assault was presumably against someone of relatively equal strength. Also in the theoretical scenario the incident is out in the open(misdemeanor plea), so it doesn't have much value for blackmail purposes.

And regardless, continued allegations regarding a bad temper and potential for violence would be relevant.

Yeah, if he was going to be a cop or something. But he's in an office job. Again, do we really want to set a standard where a guy who has been alleged to have been involved in spousal abuse (admittedly alleged with good evidence) can't be permitted to hold down a job 15 years later?

Nate,

here's what i think. The top of the FBI has a major hard on for Trump right now.

1. They are pissed that he "released the memo" that made many of them look bad.
2. Think about Rod Rosenstein walking into the intel committe and threatening to "release their emails" on all of them.
3. Think about Wray coming out publicly and claiming "sources and methods" would be compromised.
4. When sources and methods were not compromised at all. Everyone already knew about the Fisa and how dirty it was. I wrote about last march on realgm for christ's sake. Worst kept secret in the FBI.
5. Think about Comey's Tweet.
6. Wray released a statement just today expressing "grave concerns" over the R memo to say nothing of the D memo.


1. So the FBI must have leaked this whole thing with Porter as retaliation. Remember, its the FBI that performs the background investigations for security clearances. So its the FBI that held this "dirt" on Trump administration. They purposefully leaked it to make trump look bad.

Then after Trump pretended to not know about it. Wray came out today said that the White house had been previously briefed. And even contradicted the White House's timeline. I mean. Come on, man. Wray is acting in bad faith as a political appointee because he knows Trump can not fire him because Mueller will consider "obstruction."

Talk about tangles the phuck up. The FBI was out to sink him from day one. he let them hang around long enough to launch a phony collusion investigation against him and now have him tripping over obstruction charges at every door he opens. Meanwhile they are deliberately leaking info like this dirt from the previous "Porter" security clearance investigation.

talk about a rock and a hard place. and D's are ready to impeach. All they need is about 25 seats in the house and 7 in the senate. I say 7 because Mccain, Flake, and Corker will happily caucus with D's to impeach and they can likely strum up 2-3 more R's to impeach.

Basically its the 4th quarter. Game 7. He is Lebron. Down 65 to to the GSW to start the 4th quarter. Thats how tight he is being squeezed from all sides right now.

I think he can get through it.

1. He cant lose the House in 2018. His best friends are the house intel committee. House judiciary committee. House oversight committee.
2. His most powerful allies are Nunes, Jim Jordan. and Trey Gowdy. He should promise to nominate 1 of them to FBI director (nunes). Another to AG (Gowdy). And another deputy director or depuity AG (jordan). Dangle that carrot out in front for them in year 2019 for each of them.
3. Obviously they would need to navigate him through all of these trap doors.

But how about Wray? Purposefully contradicting the White house? If the FBI had completed their investigation, if that's true? then why not just deny the security clearance for Porter??

Read on Twitter

One thing is clear and been clear. This FBI is out to sink trump. Even Wray. Wray is a political appointee. Weird that he would be so brazenly defiant. Which means they are all in with either route of "death of a thousand cuts" or worse, "show me the guy and I will show you the crime..." leading to eventual impeachment.

I dont even need to mention main stream media. This road will be tough. Land mines everywhere. Wray, Rosenstein, perhaps Mueller, and lower level FBI are going to leak away and dare trump to fire someone. Just so trump can get walk into another trap. They just dont want this man to Govern.

I will be fine with his presidency if he can do immigration reform and entitlement reform in 2018. Combined with Tax reform and the infrastructure bill that spends money here in the USA instead of on foreign wars, i feel like we covered a lot of ground. even if he is impeached in 2019, I think he would have made his mark. It will be the best 2 years in office for fiscal policy in over 50 years. By far. especially he is gets the wall fully appropriated. Still some work to do but if thats all we get i will be happy enough.

The cherry on top will be if Trump can last at least 4 years and get a stronger AG (like Guiliani) STAT, along with a better FBI director to go after all the Obama deep state hold overs for their 2016 election scandals. Then win re-election in 2020 resign off into the sunset and let professional politicians finish the job--just so CNN will STFU!!! My Gawd, remeber when CNN would cover Obama's kids regularly and fondly. The presidential puppies. At this point, i'm good with Mike Pence (the devil). Anything to shut these phuckers up!!

How do you see this playing thing out?

[cammac]

And regardless, continued allegations regarding a bad temper and potential for violence would be relevant.

Yeah, if he was going to be a cop or something. But he's in an office job. Again, do we really want to set a standard where a guy who has been alleged to have been involved in spousal abuse (admittedly alleged with good evidence) can't be permitted to hold down a job 15 years later?

Nate,

here's what i think. The top of the FBI has a major hard on for Trump right now.

1. They are pissed that he "released the memo" that made many of them look bad.
2. Think about Rod Rosenstein walking into the intel committe and threatening to "release their emails" on all of them.
3. Think about Wray coming out publicly and claiming "sources and methods" would be compromised.
4. When sources and methods were not compromised at all. Everyone already knew about the Fisa and how dirty it was. I wrote about last march on realgm for christ's sake. Worst kept secret in the FBI.
5. Think about Comey's Tweet.
6. Wray released a statement just today expressing "grave concerns" over the R memo to say nothing of the D memo.


1. So the FBI must have leaked this whole thing with Porter as retaliation. Remember, its the FBI that performs the background investigations for security clearances. So its the FBI that held this "dirt" on Trump administration. They purposefully leaked it to make trump look bad.

Then after Trump pretended to not know about it. Wray came out today said that the White house had been previously briefed. And even contradicted the White House's timeline. I mean. Come on, man. Wray is acting in bad faith as a political appointee because he knows Trump can not fire him because Mueller will consider "obstruction."

Talk about tangles the phuck up. The FBI was out to sink him from day one. he let them hang around long enough to launch a phony collusion investigation against him and now have him tripping over obstruction charges at every door he opens. Meanwhile they are deliberately leaking info like this dirt from the previous "Porter" security clearance investigation.

talk about a rock and a hard place. and D's are ready to impeach. All they need is about 25 seats in the house and 7 in the senate. I say 7 because Mccain, Flake, and Corker will happily caucus with D's to impeach and they can likely strum up 2-3 more R's to impeach.

Basically its the 4th quarter. Game 7. He is Lebron. Down 65 to to the GSW to start the 4th quarter. Thats how tight he is being squeezed from all sides right now.

I think he can get through it.

1. He cant lose the House in 2018. His best friends are the house intel committee. House judiciary committee. House oversight committee.
2. His most powerful allies are Nunes, Jim Jordan. and Trey Gowdy. He should promise to nominate 1 of them to FBI director (nunes). Another to AG (Gowdy). And another deputy director or depuity AG (jordan). Dangle that carrot out in front for them in year 2019 for each of them.
3. Obviously they would need to navigate him through all of these trap doors.

But how about Wray? Purposefully contradicting the White house? If the FBI had completed their investigation, if that's true? then why not just deny the security clearance for Porter??

Read on Twitter

One thing is clear and been clear. This FBI is out to sink trump. Even Wray. Wray is a political appointee. Weird that he would be so brazenly defiant. Which means they are all in with either route of "death of a thousand cuts" or worse, "show me the guy and I will show you the crime..." leading to eventual impeachment.

I dont even need to mention main stream media. This road will be tough. Land mines everywhere. Wray, Rosenstein, perhaps Mueller, and lower level FBI are going to leak away and dare trump to fire someone. Just so trump can get walk into another trap. They just dont want this man to Govern.

I will be fine with his presidency if he can do immigration reform and entitlement reform in 2018. Combined with Tax reform and the infrastructure bill that spends money here in the USA instead of on foreign wars, i feel like we covered a lot of ground. even if he is impeached in 2019, I think he would have made his mark. It will be the best 2 years in office for fiscal policy in over 50 years. By far. especially he is gets the wall fully appropriated. Still some work to do but if thats all we get i will be happy enough.

The cherry on top will be if Trump can last at least 4 years and get a stronger AG (like Guiliani) STAT, along with a better FBI director to go after all the Obama deep state hold overs for their 2016 election scandals. Then win re-election in 2020 resign off into the sunset and let professional politicians finish the job--just so CNN will STFU!!! My Gawd, remeber when CNN would cover Obama's kids regularly and fondly. The presidential puppies. At this point, i'm good with Mike Pence (the devil). Anything to shut these phuckers up!!

How do you see this playing thing out?

The alternate and real reality is the Trump Administration is so Micky Mouse that they keep screwing up on a almost daily basis and try to blame others than take responsibility.

[Zonkerbl]

I think it's hilarious that Trump gave the finger to the FBI and is now whining about them being mean to him. What did you think was going to happen, dumba$$? How many people do you know who told a cop to eff off and suffered zero consequences? How stupid can you be?

[stilldropin20]

Dude, that's one of your more laughably stupid comments. Ray Rice is a good example - he basically lost his career for doing the same thing Porter did. Did you fight for Ray Rice? If not, why would you fight for Porter? Politics aside, do ya think it makes sense to hold football players to a higher standard to important people in the WH?

Dude, the whole thing is a joke. CNN didn't need to spend one week on this. they could have simply let him quietly resign. And ESPN and everyone else didn't need to spend 6 months on the Ray Rice thing. Spend a day on either? Fine, I guess. But a week for Porter? and 6 months to a year for Rice? Both wrong. And I have no problem with a judge throwing both in jail for 6 months.

Significant jail time for both would be fine by me too, but... why are you so obsessed about how much time CNN, ESPN, FnSNN spend on anything? It's an automatic deflection mechanism to block out what's actually happened. Some day, Trump's going to hit the nuke button and "accidentally" blow up Puerto Rico, and you're gonna be whining about Cf'nNN spending too much time covering it - and offhandedly say "Oh yeah, it's a shame PR no longer exists, but Damn CNN - what a joke! Ya know like, people died when Obama was president! Why don't they cover that???"

fair enough from your point of view. I'm just sayin' there's not enough meat on that Rob Porter bone to gnaw on it 24/7 for a week straight. Don't you think they would be better served by at least giving trump 20% positive coverage. So they could reel in some fish. maybe catch a few?

Not getting caught in the weeds on Puerto Rico, but the island is very near and dear to my heart. Got married there. I've been there over 50 times and even lived there for 2 years. Family still lives there. One of the few places on planet earth where virtually no racism exists in the hearts of virtually all of the native puerto ricans. Even envy is minimal. People love people. people are kind. But as for dropping bombs? The US dropped "practice" bombs on Vieques for over 30 years. It ended under Bush. various cancer rates are 20-30% higher. One of the most diverse Coral reefs that is millions years old was destroyed in many parts. Many ancient species died. We dont know how important those species were as we have not even begin to tap the potential contained in the ancient DNA of the world. I'm speculating that the oldest creatures will likely unluck future medical remedies for various diseases. So yeah. Not cool. Pretty sure Trump wont be doing that. In fact I'm hearing that trump and the GOP congress is going to spend upwards of $50 billion to help rebuild the island which often suffers form unemployment levels in the 30-40% range over the past 20 years.

back on point.if I was in charge of CNN I would do what fox does. Have at least 1 anchor that firmly supports him and give that anchor an hour per day. Fox gives shep smith an hour, sometimes 2 per day and a big spot on national stuff like elections. And he hates trump. Wallace is very fair and critical when necessary. Kelly was critical of trump. Juan williams is a blow hard liberal and he gets at least 15 minutes per day and guests on nearly everyone else show and gets national time like shep smith. Tarlov gets a solid 30 minutes per day and she is a blow hard liberal. But CNN? They got no one. They bring on poor jack a few times a day for a handful of minutes and talk over him for the entire time. lol. And jason gets about 4-5 minutes per day. combined, they are about the only capable conservative voices on CNN. Its bad for business, imo.



I mean real news is happening. Some of it very good. Excellent in fact. Much better in 2017 an din 2018 than any other year of the obama regime.

From 2009-2014 i bought over 250 homes. Every one of them was either short sale or foreclosure. In 2015 i bought 4. In 2016, 3. and in 2017 i cant touch anything. Prices have sky-rocketted. I'm not going to get into a long winded post about the economy and the real estate market to justify this sentence so I'm going to just say it. The economy sucked balls under Obama. and is red-phucking-hot under trump.

from 09-14 i bought many homes from people that lived in their homes for over 12 years. Just 2-3 years prior to 2008 they had on average $150-200K equity. when i bought the houses, the home owners were $150-200k negative equity or upside down...and in foreclosure, foreclosed, or in short sale.

most people dont know this but your everyday average american does: 1. not own a business. 2. not have a big savings account. 3. Nor a huge 401K. 4. None of that. What they do have (and all they have) is equity in their home and under Obama. 10 million people lost their homes. 10 years later 6 million people are still upside down on their mortgage.

and this is where every day average americans hold 95% of their wealth. Obama poorly mitigated that crisis and in fact allowed Warren buffet to purchase prudential and through them purchased nearly $50 billion in foreclosure properties for pennies on the dollar? Why?? The damn banks wrote off the losses anyway??? why not just let the home owner keep their home for those same pennies on the dollar? we bailed everyone else out? Why not bail out the average every day american?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/obamas-failure-to-mitigate-americas-foreclosure-crisis/510485/


I mean isnt this who democrats claim to represent????? democrats are lost buddy. They serve the 2 least likely of marriages: the very rich and the very poor. and somehow want to bring the middle class under their umbrella as well? and its just not possible. You cant serve the rich and the poor. someone will always be pissed on and told its raining. And you definitely cant serve all 3 classes.

[stilldropin20]

I think it's hilarious that Trump gave the finger to the FBI and is now whining about them being mean to him. What did you think was going to happen, dumba$$? How many people do you know who told a cop to eff off and suffered zero consequences? How stupid can you be?

You are both correct. But the FBI is supposed to serve under Trump. In terms of effing with a local cop, trump is like the mayor and the police chief. When he took office his entire “police department” was out to get him because the leaders of the outgoing administration certainly had it in for. I think we’ve at least establish that much by now. And he didn’t exactly call them out. In fact, the house Intel committee called them out. and the Senate intelligence committee has also called them out a little bit. Conservative media called them out.

And Trump has gone along with the recommendations of the house Intel committee and is appalled that his “police force” was working against him both before the election during the transition and since he took office. So even though I appreciate both of the analogies, this isn’t a punk kid flipping off the local cop. it’s the duly elected president of the United States running his executive branch of government and the FBI certainly falls under that thumb.

In the end, this comes down to the will of the people being subverted. I know you guys did not vote for Trump, but the rest of the country did in terms of electoral votes, it was a landslide.


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[cammac]

Social Security is one of the most underfunded and actuarial negative programs offered by the federal government.

Americans with wages exceeding $1 million will stop paying into Social Security for the year. That’s because anyone earning at least that much hits the Social Security payroll tax cap of $128,400 today, barely seven weeks into 2018.

While from a benefits level it does make sense from a fairness level especially with the welfare reforms for the rich in the tax reform plan not so much. Plus the solvency of the plan is in jeopardy and millions of seniors depend on it.

The payroll tax cap prevents billions of additional dollars from flowing into the Social Security Trust fund, which will be able to pay roughly 80 percent of benefits beginning in 2034 (if Congress takes no action)

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/373713-millionaires-should-pay-their-fair-share-of-social-security-payroll-taxes

[nate33]

Dude, that's one of your more laughably stupid comments. Ray Rice is a good example - he basically lost his career for doing the same thing Porter did. Did you fight for Ray Rice? If not, why would you fight for Porter? Politics aside, do ya think it makes sense to hold football players to a higher standard to important people in the WH?

Ray Lewis won Superbowl MVP a year after being convicted of obstruction of justice in a murder trial. He was a first ballot HOFer as soon as he was eligible. The guy is a hero in Baltimore.

He asked about Ray Rice not Ray Lewis. Funny how you deflected though.

Not deflecting. Pointing out another example.

The Ray Rice example is not analogous because it was recent. If Porter beat his wife last month, I would expect him to be fired.

[nate33]

With 3 'Hops,' NSA Gets Millions Of Phone Records
July 31, 20136:19 PM ET
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Testimony before Congress on Wednesday showed how easy it is for Americans with no connection to terrorism to unwittingly have their calling patterns analyzed by the government.

It hinges on what's known as "hop" or "chain" analysis. When the NSA identifies a suspect, it can look not just at his phone records, but also the records of everyone he calls, everyone who calls those people and everyone who calls those people.

If the average person called 40 unique people, three-hop analysis would allow the government to mine the records of 2.5 million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist.

As I understand it, it has been reduced to a 2-hop analysis, but that's still enough. With a Title 1 FISA warrant on Carter Page, they could look into all calls and emails made by Page, all calls and emails made by people Page has communicated with, and all calls and emails made by people who communicated with people who communicated with Page. And they could go backward in time indefinitely as far as NSA records are kept.

The snippet you pasted says it allows the NSA to analyze calling patterns. It's still unclear to me if they're listening to the phone calls that do not involve the identified suspect.

If they are listening to data from 2 hops away, I assume that there are FISA warrants on many people. That would cover a multitude of people. I'm guessing you and i are 2 hops away from someone with a warrant. I get calls about someone wanting to clean my vents every other day. Imagine how many people that guy called.

The article says "phone records" and "NSA phone database". They've recorded all the calls.

And your second paragraph is exactly the point. If they got a FISA Title 1 warrant on me, they could pour through all of tapes of your calls if they wanted to because of our 2-hop relationship through the vent cleaner. Presumably they wouldn't listen to your calls because your relationship is so obviously tangential to mine, but what if their secret motive was to spy on you in the first place?