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STOP BY A BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD
Posted on 06/15/2002 11:16:02 AM PDT by forest
Those on Capitol Hill still call their branch of government "The Congress," but they refuse to operate the branch as directed by the Constitution. In reality, those on Capitol Hill often act more like they are a combination state legislature and city council.
For instance, last week the Senate was arguing about yet another hate crime bill (S. 625). Senate Republicans blocked action on the hate crime bill and Democrats were crying like little kids about it. That bill would make it a federal crime to violently attack someone because of their sexual orientation or other physical disability. The problem is, that law duplicates assault and battery laws found in every state and town in the nation.
"Senate Republicans made clear that they will not take action to fight terrorism at home," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who most certainly knows a bit about assault, battery and negligence. "Today's vote is a clear sign of the lack of commitment by Senate Republicans on this basic civil rights issue."
Then came Senators Tim Hutchinson, (R-Ark) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) with S.1922. That bill addresses the issue of senior citizens falling and hurting themselves.
In 1999, David W. Fleming, acting director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote to the Senate, more than 10,000 seniors died from fall- related injuries. Fleming said that survivors often are riddled with lasting injuries or the fear of falling again. Altogether, he estimated that falls account for more than $20 billion a year in medical costs.
"Education and prevention are steps we must take to address this epidemic," said Sen. Tim Hutchinson. The legislation would provide $38 million annually for three years to launch an education campaign, fund research to prevent falls and improve treatment, and look for ways to expand Medicare and Medicaid coverage.
One proposal of legislators is that seniors be taught to wear hip protectors to reduce the risk of injury.
Now, we agree that it would be great if there were some way to keep senior citizens from falling. What we do not agree on is that legislation can change that one iota. And, even if legislation could help, that is still not one of the duties delegated to Congress by the Constitution.
Last Wednesday, the Senate heard testimony on how to interfere with the operation of the Internet. It appears that some critics say ICANN, a California company that controls the Internet's domain names, has not moved fast enough to protect the security of the Internet's domain name system.(1)
The report, obtained last Tuesday by The Associated Press, says the Commerce Department has not assumed a strong enough role in overseeing ICANN. Commerce's public comments have been "general in nature and infrequent," and no detailed minutes exist of meetings between ICANN and Commerce officials.
According to AP, criticisms of ICANN prompted Senator Conrad Burns, R-Mont., to threaten ICANN with legislation that would make the future of ICANN depend on a complete reorganization. "ICANN has clearly exceeded its authority and mutated into a supranational regulatory body lacking oversight," Burns said. "Clearly, this legislation needs to happen as soon as possible and should be crafted with an eye to giving the U.S. a greater oversight role over ICANN."
GAO got into the control game, too: "ICANN's legitimacy and effectiveness as the private sector manager of the domain name system (remains) in question," the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said in testimony prepared for the hearing by the Senate Commerce subcommittee on science, technology and space.
We can kiss the Internet goodbye once they start on it. Few Senators know how to use it. They just know that it exists and so they want control of it.
And, that's it in a nutshell. Congress found a couple little things it was not in direct control of so they were plugging up the loopholes. The central government demands centralized control of everything.
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