Posted on 12/21/2005 6:13:04 PM PST by tsmith130
Fox news reporting the Senate has agreed to extend the Patriot Act for six month.
On Rush yesterday, Larry Craig gave a good accounting on this subject. There's a link on Rush's site if anyone is interested.
LOL.
Drill ................ and soon.
And if Able Danger is an indicator of the willingness to go after terrorists, then allowing government to abuse power it feels it needs, without checks and balances, and by making those powers permanent, all in the name of safety, rings hollow.
Nobody can tell me that our government (i.e. defense and intelligence) didn't know exactly where terrorists were camped out prior to 9/11 and for us to wait, what was it...two months?...before we hit them suggests to me, what with the evidence noted above, that even with all of the power granted to them, they'd be content to watch them going about their business of trying to kill Americans while they amass data on them.
Thanks for the news!
GET A GRIP
Good question. I've been wondering the same thing.
Which Senators opposed the 6 month extension? Or is the vote structured in such a way that a vote against is a vote for indefinite continuance instead of 6 month extension? Can't find the info on Senate web site.
LOL! Not that far back! Just back maybe 30 years or so, when government at all levels didn't have to know so much about me other than whether I made any money or not.
I actually do a lot of that. Most places have to report buyer information on sales that are above some dollar amount that are paid with cash though, so it's still hard to avoid. That's part of the War on Drugs, that impacts everyone whether they're involved with the drug trade or not. And of course, the WOD has been hugely successful in stopping the drug dealing... /sarcasm
Good fiction as you should know should teach us something about the human condition.
President Bush is keeping us in a "perpetual war" for no good reason, other than to enrich himself and his friends.
I'm just saying that absolute power corrupts. And when government officials demand unreviewable power for indefinite periods of time, we should be incredibly wary, no what what the justification.
For instance, in the CongressionalRecord Mr. Watt, from North Carolina said, " In section 213 it talks about sneak-and-peek searches. In a letter to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the Department of Justice said on July 5, 2005 that that section had been used 153 times as of January 2005. Only 18 of those times were the uses for terrorism investigations." P6232
Elsewhere on FR, there is talk about the potential for abuse with regard to gun sales records and the very real possibility that that could lead to gun registration, gun confiscation--and we ought to be able to agree that there are people in government and others that would like to see that happen.
Why couldn't additional safeguards, whatever form they may take, be put in place? No safeguards are not really an option, considering the willingness of our elected officials to wipe their feet, repeatedly, on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
nopardons, reading the posts, I assume you have been getting into character for when the family comes over for Christmas. Please tell me that your real name is Hulga and that you have a wooden leg. I'd respect you for that. More so if you have connections in Tennessee.
The link above may not work, but the quote is in the Record on the page noted.
No, the FFs wanted the Senators to be picked by the state legislatures for a couple of reasons
1) it dilutes the general feeling so many like you put into your elective votes. You vote what you feel, not what is right. On feeling, not on Constitutional principle. That's not how you elect Senators or President. Well not if you want the nation to run smoothly. But hell it's been so much fun for the past 100 or so years so why stop now?
2) because of the way you vote Senators pander for your vote through federal funding, promises of turning the nation around to what you believe is right (even though they can't), and soundbites. Instead of being about the business of this nation of states, they're too busy fighting the networks for airtime to show the good folks at home they're really working for them..
They set up the Electoral College, imagining that it would usually be tied, and that Congress would then pick the president. If that were the case today, you still wouldn't be happy with the results...would you?
Well of course I would ask for a source for this argument, but I won't get one. The Electoral College was established so that the small states would not necessarily be overrun by the larger states, much the same reason the Senate was established as it was. However if it were the case that the legislatures of the separate and sovereign states appointed the Electoral votes without popular election I would not only have no problem with it, I would welcome it.
and filling out oodles of paperwork..........
The Constitution doesn't mandate any such monopoly. Where the intent is for the federal government to exercise a power exclusively, that intent is stated right in the document, either by using that word or its equivalent, or by imposing prohibitions against others exercising the same power. There is no such language in the Constitution with regard to the post office.
Not really. There were a few who apparently misread my question. That's about it.
Not really. There were a few who apparently misread my question. That's about it.
Well, there are probably many possible answers to your question and here's just one..
you could do as I often do and assume in this case that the premise may be wrong that the wall will be resurrected, with or without the Patriot Act extension. It may just be another overreaction by our side as we're often prone to do...OR, it may be a rope-a-dope move to feign one thing to gain another.
The real blame for failing to pass a bill allowing drilling in ANWR lies with the House of Reps. The House had a chance to pass ANWR as part of the budget reconciliation bill a couple weeks ago (the bill that passed 51/50 yesterday). The RINO's in the House (Chris Shays and company) blocked ANWR from the reconciliation bill -- a bill that cannot be filibustered. The RINO's did this at a time when Bush's popularity was in the high 30's and they believed he was too weak to fight. ANWR will come up again in the next reconciliation bill in 2006 and it will be interesting to see how brave the House RINO's will be with Bush's popularity at 50% or better and in an election year.
ANWR is a security issue!!
That is the purpose of the six month extension (in theory)....to let the civil liberties folks fully air their complaints before the next vote and try to propose actual solutions to the issues they see.
Hopefully, it will go smoothly the next go around.
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