Senate Renews Warrantless Eavesdropping Act 218
New submitter electron sponge writes "On Friday morning, the Senate renewed the FISA Amendments Act (PDF), which allows for warrantless electronic eavesdropping, for an additional five years. The act, which was originally passed by Congress in 2008, allows law enforcement agencies to access private communications as long as one participant in the communications could reasonably be believed to be outside the United States. This law has been the subject of a federal lawsuit, and was argued before the Supreme Court recently. 'The legislation does not require the government to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application. The court’s rulings are not public.'"
The EFF points out that the Senate was finally forced to debate the bill, but the proposed amendments that would have improved it were rejected.
Terms of Usage (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Terms of Usage (Score:5, Informative)
Every company needs a "we can do whatever we want" clause in their terms of usage, why not the United States?
Because the contract [archives.gov] expressly forbids it
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That app only runs when the government has hacked the operating system.
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Every company needs a "we can do whatever we want" clause in their terms of usage, why not the United States?
Apparently, you didn't read the EULA.
Perpetual war (Score:5, Insightful)
These "wartime" acts will always be in place from now on, because the U.S. will never not be at war again.
Re:Perpetual war (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course: The US has basically been at war since 1941. It's also officially been in a state of emergency since September 2001, because presidents can do things in a state of emergency that they otherwise can't.
Another good example of a government under continuous emergency: Egypt was officially in a state of emergency from 1967 through May of this year.
Re:Perpetual war (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. Harry Reid and gang can pass crap like this but not a single budget in going on 5 years. Our Congress and executive branches are treasonous.
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> Indeed. Harry Reid and gang can pass crap like this but not a single budget in going on 5 years.
That is because both parties support domestic spying, but the Republicans have been actively obstructing any economic legislation that the Democrats have introduced.
Re:Perpetual war (Score:4, Informative)
> Indeed. Harry Reid and gang can pass crap like this but not a single budget in going on 5 years.
That is because both parties support domestic spying, but the Republicans have been actively obstructing any economic legislation that the Democrats have introduced.
Um no. Harry Reid has never even put a budget up for a vote. He's never even created one for discussion. How can the Republicans obstruct something that doesn't even exist? Quit pointing fingers and start laying the blame on the majority holders that are running the show. You're not doing yourself or this country any favors giving assholes like Reid a free fucking pass.
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I did not say budget, I said economic legislation. The reality is that the blame for the US's current economic mess lies squarely on the shoulders of the Republicans. They had a chance to work with the President and with the Senate, and they refused. No amount of swearing or calling people names is going to change that.
Re:Perpetual war (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly you don't understand economic messes.
The current record amounts of deficit spending were all enacted under a Democrat-controlled Congress (both House and Senate), and it has been maintained by not passing a new budget, which is likely done so that people like yourself can still attempt to point the finger at Republicans.
During the Bush era, Republicans were absolutely complicit in spending then-record amounts on deficits while fighting two wars, but they were completely dwarfed following the Congressional takeover by the Democratic super majority held through the first half of Obama's first term. And that doesn't even consider the fact that our deficit hardly took a hit when troops were pulled out of Iraq.
The incredible lunacy of it all is that Democrats are going to blame Republicans for the fiscal cliff. Democrats are holding the lions share of the taxpaying population hostage for the so-called millionaire tax that looks to tax people making above $400,000. Either the rich get tax increases, or we all do. That's a wonderful plan to repair an economy that supposedly just saw the worst Christmas since 2008.
As for the reality of our current mess? The housing crisis was caused by Democrats: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/122012-637924-faults-community-reinvestment-act-cra-mortgage-defaults.htm?p=full
The sickening part of it all is that Bush attempted to fix the housing bubble before it actually trashed our economy: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/business/new-agency-proposed-to-oversee-freddie-mac-and-fannie-mae.html
But Democrats blocked it.
If you actually look at the problem, then you may really see the cause of it.
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Clearly you fail to see the truth, and simply repeat rhetoric spewed by people in power currently. This is not an issue of Democrat or Republican, and your belief that is it shows you are a fool. Both parties support the same corrupt back end.
Anyone that thinks otherwise is refusing to see, or look at the truth. I get it, it's hard on the mind when you start to learn that the beliefs you have are absolutely unfounded and false. It's called cognitive dissonance, and it's been known for thousands of years
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Alex Jones? I hear he's running false flag operations. That would explain why so much if his stuff is batshit crazy. It's clearly to throw sceptics like you off the scent, and to make the sheeple think that you're crazy for believing that the Kenyan is ratcheting up the FEMA/UN death camps, staffed by Jewish bankers and Marilyn fucking Monroe.
Yeah, that's a strawman but it's no less insane than Jones and his colloidal silver slurping disciples of paranoia. Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of profiteering
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Simplify the messages from Alex a bit. This is a basic teaching in Logic and Rhetoric which you lack or intentionally ignore. Take away the messages about "evil devil worshipers" and see what the facts given show. It's corruption at such a level that you can't begin to comprehend (Nor can I, and I have been digging for 2 decades. Every day am shocked the things I learn). Then again, perhaps you do know, and are just a shill? Your post history does not indicate that you are, but one never knows.
Whether
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So what you're saying is that if only Democrats hadn't stopped Bush from creating this new agency, the housing bubble would have magically disappeared? Has there ever been a bubble that just went away without popping? Would this agency have had any oversight at
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Once again, no amount of swearing, name-calling, or temper tantrums is going to change reality. The US is about to take a dive over a cliff because a groups of extremists are refusing stand down from a childish ideological platform and start cooperating to reach a deal.
Re:Perpetual war (Score:5, Insightful)
We have been cutting taxes for the past ten years. It has not worked. There is no non-ideological reason to think that cutting them again will help. Remember, the last time that the US had a booming economy was in the late 1990s, and taxes were higher then than they are now. Letting taxes rise to what they were before the Bush tax cuts came into effect will not tip the US economy into a recession. At worst it will slow down economic growth a bit. The real danger is that the automatic cuts in government spending that will start kicking in on Jan 1 will remove money from areas of the economy that are already in trouble.
Re:Perpetual war (Score:4, Insightful)
Letting taxes rise to what they were before the Bush tax cuts came into effect will not tip the US economy into a recession.
It may also be helpful to stop calling that outcome a tax raise. Letting temporary tax cuts expire may be argued against, but it is hardly a tax raise unless they at least go higher than what used to be the rate in the 90s
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I always thought the economic boom in the late 90's was due to massive corporate infrastructure spending.
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We have been cutting taxes for the past ten years. It has not worked.
First: The key is cutting SPENDING. As long as the government spends enormous amounts of money the value behind that money is sucked out of the public sector economy, depressing it, regardless of whether this is done by taxes, inflation, or borrowing. Spending has EXPLODED over the past ten years - especially with the "bailouts".
The different modes of ripping off the people hurt the economy in somewhat different ways, and some have great
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I am worthless? and a perpetual drain on the country? Why? Because I disagree with you? So much for rational discourse.
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Indeed, you're incapable of it. You're such a worthless liberal hack that you're incapable of seeing anything but the DailyKOS talking point. Go fuck yourself.
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Yes, I suppose that you are right. I always thought that rational discourse meant respect for the other point of view, and a civil tongue. How wrong I was.
Re:Perpetual war (Score:4)
You're too fucking stupid to even see the problem let alone actually fix it.
Says the guy who insists the entire blame for the current fiscal clusterfuck lies on the shoulders of half the government, while apparently believing that the other half are completely innocent patsies.
Logic and reason aren't your strong points, are they Cap'n?
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Says the guy who insists the entire blame for the current fiscal clusterfuck lies on the shoulders of half the government, while apparently believing that the other half are completely innocent patsies.
It does appear to be the case that the blame is not (currently) distributed equally. As best as I can tell, Republicans are trying to negotiate a compromise without making any concessions whatsoever. Democrats are not blameless, but at the moment they do seem more reasonable.
There are no innocents here -- and most of the problem is due to the fact that too many representatives (on both sides) are too entrenched in their home region due to gerrymandering. Not enough of them worry about re-election, I guess
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Says the guy who insists the entire blame for the current fiscal clusterfuck lies on the shoulders of half the government, while apparently believing that the other half are completely innocent patsies.
It does appear to be the case that the blame is not (currently) distributed equally. As best as I can tell, Republicans are trying to negotiate a compromise without making any concessions whatsoever. Democrats are not blameless, but at the moment they do seem more reasonable.
Right, and "seem" is the important word here. In reality, if you can ignore the media hype and study voting records, you'll learn that D and R are two sides of the same coin, and actually have many confluent goals, the continued erosion of rights and freedoms being paramount.
It's Daes Dae'mar, [wikia.com] pure and simple.
There are no innocents here
With regards to American politics, no truer statement has ever been spoken.
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You're right, they should come up with a budget and Reed shouldn't get a free ride. However, it's also true that whatever they came up with would never get past the Republican controlled House and would only be used as political fodder.
Re:Perpetual war (Score:5, Informative)
It is not the Senates job to introduce a budget. in fact it would be unconstitutional for the budget to be introduced by the Senate. It is the responsibility of the House to introduce budget, it can;t come from the Senate, it can't come from the President. So can we please drop this bullshit about how it's Harry Reid's fault for not coming up with a budget. The blame falls clearly on the House and thus on Boehner's lap.
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Of course, because the Democrats are just slightly better Republicans in your world, am I right?
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That is because both parties support domestic spying, but the Republicans have been actively obstructing any economic legislation that the Democrats have introduced.
Are you really this thick?
It is the Democrats, that had the power to ram through health care reform without any Republican support at all (only 1 vote from a Republican, and it wasnt needed), that are telling you that the Republics are the reason that the senate hasn't once brought a budget up for a vote the entire time Harry Reid has been majority leader.
This isnt rational thought telling you that. Its the Democrats telling you that. But since you believe everything the Democrats say, even when its so
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Again, no amount of name calling is going to change reality. The Senate has sent many economic bills to the House over the past four years, and almost every one has been blocked by the Republicans. There has been, and appears to still be, a deliberate policy to obstruct any legislation that originates from the Democratic side of Congress.
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Again, no amount of name calling is going to change reality.
What name calling? You are clearly thick if the plain facts are trumped by the convoluted shit you have to conjure in order to ignore those plain facts.
The Senate has sent many economic bills to the House over the past four years
The Democrats controlled the senate for 2 of those years, with enough power to pass health care reform without any Republican support at all. What happened there, eh? Could it possibly be that Harry Reid is so corrupt that even the House Democrats cant support the over-the-top corporate handouts in his "economic" (*) bills?
(*) translation: special-intere
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I love it when folks say that Democrats "rammed" the health care reform.
You love the truth, then.
Between House and Senate, exactly 1 Republican voted for it. Exactly 1. You can call that bipartisan if you want, but everyone knows that you are full of shit when you do it.
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I'll ready the guillotine. Can we do previously elected officials as well?
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Oh, and appointed ones as well. Almost forgot.
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Can we do previously elected officials as well?
Only if we can do the people that voted for them over and over.
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Why are you leaving the judiciary out of this? We have cases that come up before the court trying to stop this stuff, and the Solicitor General just says "state secrets privilege!" and the court says "Too bad citizens, we can't allow this case to continue, even if you might be right on the merits".
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It would be funny if it didn't affect the rest of us. Anywa
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Indeed, but the common people of the internet are the ones who will suffer for the actions of the idiots who wish to engage in such a war, which is why all of the more intelligent internet types have been dancing on egg shells to prevent this. Of course, there are some people out there, driven by nationalism or money, who do not care if a few thousand innocents die if they get what they want. Coming up with a solution to this problem without becoming like them is, of course, very trying.
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The Korean war never ended.
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The Koreans never signed an armistice, but OTOH the USA never declared war there, either. It was, IIRC, a 'Police Action."
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Sadly a declaration of war which provides the ability to override certain areas of the Constitution is never made. People don't think it's a big deal whether Congress formally declares war or not, but it is. It would be one thing if a formal declaration had been made but the truth is we're really not at war in any real sense.
Congress has even managed to pretend that the war budget doesn't exist. Most of Iraq and Afganistan had been funded via "emergency appropriations" instead of an actual budget with everything else in it. Maybe the official budget debates would stem the warmongering a bit, if our laws cannot?
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Certainly not the point that rights need to be suspended.
War or not, I don't believe the government should ever be able to 'suspend' rights.
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Way before 2001, it's been since the 1960s. I served int he US Army, there are always conflicts. Many of which, you never heard of nor ever will. More obscure than Serbia, which they hid from the public for quite a long time. These are of course outside of the most obvious "War on Drugs" which has been a perpetual cesspool of sleaze and scum from both sides of the spectrum. The "war on terror" was just the latest target, and most publicized since the invasion of Iraq in 2001.
Lots of Reichstag history
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However, it's easy to back the "Cold War" and the investments we made into the military industrial complex. While some will argue that we created and financed communism, there was a real threat looming for a long time. The US's advancements and spending in the MIC ended the war peacefully. I'm not saying it was not a massive false flag, there are facts showing it as just that.. just that the solution worked.
The other thing with the Cold war, was that it did not help a police state at all. US Citizens we
Shows you where their priorities are (Score:4, Interesting)
They have time to debate and pass secret warrantless wiretapping, but not to keep the price of milk from going up to $7.
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Of course you realize, that the reason milk prices could go up is because someone long ago decided that the price of milk WAS in fact the job government?
http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=8804bd07-7cfd-4fb7-9d0e-9c0a90fc7501 [msn.com]
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Soy milk with aluminum shipped in from china is still good to go!
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who gives a poo about Milk, it's unhealthy anyway. :) I'm all for warrantless eavesdropping.
You're both noncomposmentos. Milk is what comes from a mother's tit and is the healthiest thing you can have; it's only unhealthy if you're lactose-intolerant.
Your chances of dying because so
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A country that has a "secret court" of any kind (Score:5, Insightful)
A secret court is better than none (Score:2)
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Secrecy is sometimes necessary (Score:2)
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How do you get such a warrant except behind closed doors? Are you proposing that all wiretap warrant applications should be public? Are you proposing that every target of a wiretap application should be informed of it and allowed to oppose it in court? This would make the wiretap a joke. Maybe that's what you propose: abolish wiretapping, with or without warrant. If so, then law enforcement will be severely hampered and people will indee
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Got that "Fiscal Cliff" resolved then, did you? (Score:2)
Wasn't it Senate majority leader Reid whining about the "Fiscal Cliff" yesterday? Is this what he's been working on instead?
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The Senate has done everything that it can to resolve the upcoming sequestration. The problem is that some Republicans in the House of Representatives are deliberately trying to prevent a deal from happening. The Speaker of the House cannot even marshall enough votes from his own party to pass a piece of legislation that he introduced.
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Both sides have been talking for weeks, the problem has been that one side, the Republicans, have refused to go beyond token compromises. The House could have passed Boehner's Plan B, but they refused because it contained a small tax increase. The nut-jobs won. This is not a case of it taking two to tango. This is a case of one group of people threatening to crash the car if the driver doesn't go where they want to go. No amount of cursing is going to change that.
See which bastards voted for it (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the vote of each Senator [govtrack.us] on this bill. Only 23 voted Nay, only 3 of those Nays were Republicans, and 4 Senators didn't even show up to vote. And President Obama is quite ready to sign it into law.
This country is broken.
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Here's the vote of each Senator [govtrack.us] on this bill. Only 23 voted Nay, only 3 of those Nays were Republicans, and 4 Senators didn't even show up to vote. And President Obama is quite ready to sign it into law.
This country is broken.
Washington State voted no because they know the gov is going to use them warrant less eavesdropping against it. Colorado apparently had 1 senator too stoned to vote no.
Well, I guess all the senators that voted yes are cool with them being wiretapped. After all, it's for their safety.
guess it's time for encryption to go mainstream, of course, it will be illegal to use any encryption soon...
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Actually, I'd like to see the photos that the FBI/CIA/NSA sent to each Senator with the understanding that they'd better vote the right way. Or else.
Uh, ..... actually no, I wouldn't.
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Thank you! I'm glad to see that my Senator (and former Representative) Sherrod Brown voted nay, in fact that only thing that he's done in his entire time in office that's seriously surprised and upset me was cosponsoring PIPA which he did not because he was beholden to the industry but rather because he believed in the goals of the legislation (I strongly disagree with him on that of course, but at least he wasn't just voting for his corporate masters like so many in Washington).
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The "bipartisan consensus" viewpoint in Washington DC has these basic views:
1. The NSA, CIA, FBI, and DoD are completely trustworthy organizations that can be given complete control over the lives of US citizens.
2. Large corporations, especially big business, are the cornerstone of the American economy. To keep the economy going, do exactly what the CEOs of these corporations say to do.
3. Political protesters are either a totally pointless annoyance, or a Threat to America.
4. Taxes are penalties.
5. People i
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Here's the vote of each Senator [govtrack.us] on this bill. Only 23 voted Nay, only 3 of those Nays were Republicans, and 4 Senators didn't even show up to vote. And President Obama is quite ready to sign it into law.
This country is broken.
Broken relative to what? Those bills tend to be pretty popular, I doubt 23/100 Americans would vote against it if it were put to a referendum. Heck, a small plurality support warrantless wiretapping even in the US [gallup.com], which makes me severely doubt that you could find much opposition to wiretapping international calls where one end is not a US citizen.
Now, I don't like it (I'm definitely in the 23/100) but willful blindess to uncomfortable facts does not seem to me like a valid (or effective) political strategy
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The U.S. Senate exists -- in addition to giving small states equal power to larger states -- to provide more measured and wise deliberation of issues facing the country, in contrast to the House more aligned with the will of the people. That the Senate would again approve legislation so counter to the ideals of liberty which the United States was founded upon, speaks
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Here's the vote of each Senator [govtrack.us] on this bill. Only 23 voted Nay, only 3 of those Nays were Republicans, and 4 Senators didn't even show up to vote. And President Obama is quite ready to sign it into law.
This country is broken.
It only takes one Democrat president to veto it. Funny how you drop party label for that.
In that case, don't forget that it was Republican Representative Lamar Smith [R-TX21] that introduced the renewal in the House that started the renewal. Honestly, both parties are the problem and the labels mean little at this point.
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Montana: 2 senators, both dems: NAY, NAY
It's funny... (Score:3)
It's funny how our government can easily pass laws like this that the public is almost universally apposed to with very little effort what-so-ever. But when it comes to balancing the budget, something we're almost universally in favor of, they can't do a damned thing.
Putin: Bring Back The Wall! (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously -- things were so much better when we had the Red Scare to keep our Government busy.
Ever since the Berlin Wall fell, it's been a constant War On The People.
Can the US and Russia please just go back to hating each other?
I've had it with my government truing to come up with new and improved ways to infringe my rights.
Just an extention of US Export Controls (Score:3)
Rail all you like but the US you think you knew _never_ existed. The US has always exerted strong jurisdiction and controls of both imports (Morrill Tariff caused the US Civil War) _and_ exports. Most people know about imports but few know about US Export controls which date back to 1790 with a prohibition against exporting straight pine logs useable as ship masts and spars by the enemy of the day, Great Britain. The current lists are rather long and complex -- search on CCL and EAR.
It should come as no surprise to information-workers that some of these controls cover intangibles like information (xDxxx and xExxx series codes), especially when these can be viewed as "products" and not "free-speech". To avoid running afoul of the US Const 1st Amend (and potential invalidation by courts), the export regs have exemptions for certain types of public materials like conferences.
So these intercepts, however distasteful ("Gentlemen do not read each others letters") have an established basis in law a power-grabbing government is happy to seize. Their oath "protect and defend the Consititution" seems to mean "push up as hard as we dare against it, joyfully crossing the line when we can find a good enough justification".
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(Morrill Tariff caused the US Civil War)
No it didn't. Slavery and the fear that Abraham Lincoln would put an end to it caused the US Civil War. Don't believe me, believe the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union [yale.edu] which was passed by the South Carolina convention days after they voted to secede:
A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
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Because you're misreading the first line: That's not the convention date, that's a reference to a similar convention 8 years earlier.
Ron Paul (Score:2)
Those bastard republicans! (Score:2)
Anybody notice (Score:2)
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Re:Passed by a Democrat controlled congress in 200 (Score:5, Insightful)
Passed by a Democratic Senate and House, signed by a Republican President, renewed by a Democrat controlled Senate and Republican controlled House, signed by a Democrat President. It's one of the few bi-partisan issues left.
Both sides can't agree on much of anything else, but they can both still agree to be evil. How touching.
Re:Passed by a Democrat controlled congress in 200 (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet for all the rhetoric that the press keeps pumping out about righties and lefties, the general public keeps eating it up. All the while it doesn't matter who gets voted in. Both 'sides' will screw the public. The real rouge, it's the govt against the public, not the righties vs lefties.
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Anyone else for a drug in the water supply which has people forget their party affiliations? Everytime you wake up, you have to re-examine the issues to know who you are supporting, and why...
Re:Passed by a Democrat controlled congress in 200 (Score:5, Informative)
Glenn Greenwald has some great analysis on this vote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/28/fisa-feinstein-obama-democrats-eavesdropping [guardian.co.uk]
This is of course in contrast to his pre-election 2008 promise to oppose the original bill (which he didn't do, voting for it instead). Now he loves it so much, he won't countenance any modifications.
Democrats: The New GOP.
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Can't this get modded up more! Nothing underscores the need for a third party to supplant one of the existing parties more than this.
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For the record, both of the amendments mentioned in your quote were proposed by Democrats. Both from Oregon. This rampant anti constitutional behavior is orthogonal to party division. There are douche bags and sane people on both sides of the aisle.
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This rampant anti constitutional behavior is orthogonal to party division. There are douche bags and sane people on both sides of the aisle.
Although, as this vote demonstrates, it's not evenly divided: The sane ones were 3 of the 47 Republicans, 19 of the 51 Democrats, and 1 of the 2 independents. 4 ducked their job responsibilities entirely. According to this vote, your best bet for sanity is electing an socialist-leaning independent, followed by a liberal Democrat, followed by a libertarian-leaning Republican. Centrist Democrats and conservative Republicans will happily vote to screw you over.
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There are one or two outliers in either major party. Those outliers should be tossed from the data set because they are completely unrepresentative of the mass of those in the DNC or GOP.
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While that may be true, they account for 100% of my elected senators. I'm not keen on them being 'tossed from the data set'!
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Democrats: The New GOP.
Well considering that the Republicans are just Southern Democrats from 40 years ago that switched sides after the Democrats backed civil rights, it's only appropriate. Look at the Tea Party: Southern Conservatives in favor of states rights and leaving the union because a black man in in charge. 40 years ago, they were blue dog Dixiecrats.
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I'm trying to find a roll call on the amendment but I don't think it's up yet. Here's what I found:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d112:5:./temp/~bdPthc::#locshare/share [loc.gov]
Thomas makes it hard to link, so if this doesn't work its Senate amendment 3438
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Actually, Egypt's state of emergency ended in May, several months after Mubarak had been kicked out.
Revolution is impossible (Score:2)
Bread and circuses. That's all it takes. Look no further than your television and sports spectacles, your McDonalds and your grocery store if you're looking to explain public apathy.
If asked, most US citizens couldn't tell you what the constitution says; they couldn't tell you what the authorized powers of the government are; they couldn't even recite the bill of rights to you (much less explain what they mean in 1790's terms.) Ignorance is rampant.
There will be no revolution -- it's impossible in the USA a
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