(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Well, at least they’re not Republicans. Or something.
Yesterday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend the Patriot Act, a law that violates the Fourth Amendment right of all people within the USA to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure. The Patriot Act grants extraordinary government powers to spy on Americans’ private lives, grabbing records of their communications, commercial activities, and even checking on which library books we’re reading. The law makes it crime for anyone conscripted into aiding these government spying programs to tell people that they’re being spied on either – they’re required by law to lie, and pretend nothing happened instead.
Last year, the judiciary committees of the Senate and House attempted to draft reforms of these kinds of terrible abuses. The reforms were weak, but a small step in the right direction. However, the Patriot Act extension passed this week by the House and Senate contains none of those reforms. In fact, the Patriot Act extension just passed by Congress has no reforms at all.
(emphasis added)
See here’s the thing that gets me about this and other things when people tell me that the Democrats just have a lot to do and that governing is complicated and difficult.
The Patriot Act provisions were set to expire this year. People who rallied the entire country to vote for Barack Obama, the entire liberal blogosphere was on fire for years at the unconstitutionality of this law and its depredations on the Fourth Amendment among others.
And now, some defenders of the Democrats want people to continue to support them on the pretext that “Well, at least they’re not as bad as the Republicans.”
Let me remind the reader that provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire this year. To defeat those Patriot Act provisions required no action at all.
Yet here we are.
Tell me again how the Democrats are at least not as bad as the Republicans, that change takes time, and how governing is complicated and difficult. Tell me how not doing something is complicated and difficult.
Are our principles so bare, so shallow, that we shall be forced to actually support that which we railed against and attacked, for years, on the tribalistic instinct to defend and keep in office those who have a certain letter after their title?
I wanted to break the back of the Republican Party on account of this type of thing. But this cannot now be laid at the feet of the Republicans. Not only is this a case of not taking action when action is possible, to improve the rule of law, this is actually taking action when no action would have been better than this.
Perhaps someone will tell me that the Republicans will eat my cat if they get elected. Is things getting worse at a walk instead of at warp speed the best we can hope for in this country? Is this what the Democrats want to convince me to work for, and donate to, to say nothing of voting for?
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(and if I get a request for a donation to the Democratic Party, and I write a check, I guarantee it.)
It happened so quietly too..
I am not a conspiracy theorist but the Obama administration has quelled dissent a little too much for my taste. It is almost as if…
he were….chosen.
people will hear about it after the olympics is over
they’re not as bad as republicans.
At least they can sing and dance and put on a good show and smile in your face….
“Who cares about ‘the left’…”
http://irregulartimes.com/inde…
Representatives With The Courage To Vote NO
Neil Abercrombie – Tammy Baldwin – Roscoe Bartlett – Xavier Becerra – Howard Berman – Rob Bishop – Earl Blumenauer – John Boccieri – Bruce Braley – Mike Capuano – Jason Chaffetz – Judy Chu – Yvette Clarke – Emanuel Cleaver – Cohen – Jerry Costello – Joe Crowley – Elijah Cummings – Pete DeFazio – John Dingell – Lloyd Doggett – John Duncan – Donna Edwards – Vern Ehlers – Ellison – Eliot Engel – Sam Farr – Bob Filner – Barney Frank – Marcia Fudge – Al Green – Raul Grijalva – Phil Hare – Jane Harman – Alcee Hastings – Dean Heller – Maurice Hinchey – Mazie Hirono – Rush Holt – Mike Honda – Hank Johnson – Tim Johnson – Walter Jones – Steve Kagen – Dennis Kucinich – John Larson – Barbara Lee – John Lewis – Dave Loebsack – Ben Luján – Dan Maffei – Carolyn Maloney – Ed Markey – Doris Matsui – Betsy McCollum – McDermott – James McGovern – Gregory Meeks – Michael Michaud – George Miller – Walt Minnick – Gwen Moore – Jerrold Nadler – Richard Neal – Jim Oberstar – John Olver – Frank Pallone – Ed Pastor – Ron Paul – Don Payne – Tom Perriello – Chellie Pingree – Jared Polis – David Price – Laura Richardson – Tim Ryan – Linda Sánchez – Loretta Sanchez – John Sarbanes – Jan Schakowsky – Robert Scott – Jose Serrano – Carol Shea-Porter – Brad Sherman – Jackie Speier – Mike Thompson – John Tierney – Ed Towns – Nydia Velázquez – Peter Visclosky – Maxine Waters – Mel Watt – Henry Waxman – Peter Welch – Lynn Woolsey – David Wu – Don Young
of all the hype about the President’s bipartisan health care conference that was 7 1/2 hours of pure, concentrated bs. Yup, he fixed it.
Author
But then again I may be sufficiently lacking spunk by now. Hee.
Watch all of the videos. I am not asking you to believe in, endorse all the paradigms of but rather just ask why would people think this way.
http://www.wearechange.org/
Change you can believe in.
If you read the article, they hid their vote so its hard to see who did what. They snuck it through because they knew that their base hated the thing.
The Democrats are proving that they are no better than Republicans.