Democrats Cave on Telcom Immunity
Jun 19
The government can now outsource abuse, becasue now its is a bedrock principle of our political class that no one who violates your rights can be held to account for that if the President asked them to violate your rights. If the President tells a company it’s legal, it’s legal.
The reports say that conservative Democrats pushed for this. If that’s true, and I have reason to doubt it, it has now become a staple of the conservative movement that the President and his helpers are above the law and that the 4th Amendment is not actually a sacred right.
Why the hell should I vote in November?
#1 by Big U at June 19th, 2008
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So if stuff like this is true does that basically start to paint all politicians with the same brush? According to the the Wall Street Journal article that was linked, House Democratic leaders approved going to a vote in spite of what many in the party wanted. Is this a sign that power corrupts no matter what party you belong to?
And as a note, I didn’t see mention of conservative Democrats from what I read. All I saw was congressional Democrats. That would be a huge distinction because I would highly doubt the House Democratic leaders would be on the conservative side of things (thought I could easily be wrong).
#2 by Big U at June 19th, 2008
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hehehe. and no Kevin I’m not trying to be a pain. It just looks that way.
#3 by Kevin at June 19th, 2008
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Big U
hee
Yes, to a certain extent, power corrupts. I don’t mean in the “bwahahahaha look what power I have way!” but in the “well, we are the good guys!” way. That last way is pretty much the political consensus now - -that power in the hands of authority is Godd becasue the authority wants it to Do Good.
Part of this is just the same chickenshit “oh noes! they will call us soft on terrorism!” crap thats left over from the 80s and 90s, of course. Our leadership is to attune to that time period and not enough to this one. its one of the things that makes Obama so refreshing in democratic circles. I am hopeful things will get better, but we are going to lose a lot until it does.
The Blue Dog thing is here:http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=cqmidday-000002899718
#4 by DavidD at June 19th, 2008
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Vote in November so that you can help keep that dangerous power out of John McCain’s hands.
#5 by LarryE at June 19th, 2008
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Big U -
For the sake of accuracy, we should note that despite the frequent media references to “Congressional leaders,” the people who came up with this surrender were secord-tier leaders among Democrats, not the top leadership. That doesn’t necessarily make it better as that top leadership could have put an end to this if they’d wanted to, but still it should be noted.
On the substance of your comment, I think this is not so much “power corrupts” as it is “fear undermines.” The Democraps, as I said yesterday and yes that is a plug for myself,
“Pah!,” by the way, meaning “an interjection expressing disgust,” is my pronunciation of PAA, the Protect America Act, the reprehensible bill passed last August which served as the basis for this so-called “compromise.”
#6 by Big U at June 20th, 2008
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Well, count me confused. I would think this would be a spectacular way to show how the Democrats differ from Republicans.
#7 by Kevin at June 20th, 2008
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:show how the Democrats differ from Republicans”
But on this issue, not enough of them do, and not enough in the leaderhip want to. The Washington consensus really is a for a bomb first, spy everywhere security state. its unfortunate, but its real. Yes, the majority of the caucus is against this, but there enough Blue Dogs and “tough” foreign policy people in the leadership to make this happen. This particular sickness is bipartisian enough to be the majority position on congress.
#8 by Big U at June 20th, 2008
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Not related to this story but related to the power issue. “big enough, strong enough, and important enough”. Sounds like the beginning lines of bullying to me. I’m starting to see that political stripe doesn’t really matter in the US. They all like to push their weight around.
http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/story.html?id=6c67991a-7d83-45b3-bb6a-9eb2ed6abab6
#9 by rayfromuk at June 21st, 2008
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Obama caved as well. From this distance there would seem to be not one iota of difference between parties. The fear as I perceive it, is, Obama having been elected the first man of colur to be president, will think job done and nothing of sustance will change except the ladder that gave him access to the top job will be pulled up after him.As an example,Have the UK had another woman PM since Thatcher?
I wish America he very best of luck in the comming Year, I think you will need it.
#10 by Steve Plonk at July 5th, 2008
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Thanks, America needs all the luck it can get. However, it remains to be seen what happens in November. If Obama gets elected, some folks think that the nails will start being hammered in the coffin of the “ownership society”.
Who knows? I wish I had a “crystal ball”.