We'll be hearing from Murkowski in person next week, and her newsletter also goes into considerable detail on current Congressional matters. It would be well to have a built-in sunset to such acts as the Patriot Act. In the wrong hands such acts could lead directly to totalitarianism.
Dear Senator:
Your vote in support of the democrat fillibuster has been duly noted. I wish you were my Senator but take great solace in knowing that I can vote against both my Senators from Wisconsin.
"In the wrong hands such acts could lead directly to totalitarianism."
How so, with respect to the Patriot Act? What provisions? What checks are missing or needed? If additional checks are needed they can be offered and discussed.
What is atrocious is that the Patriot act renewal was debated and voted on, and approved in both houses. There were compromises, but open votes sent some version of the renewal from each house to the conference committee. So, after all those who opposed to renewal of the act lost, from both houses, it was left to the conference committee to reconcile the differences between the the two houses. Then came those who lost the open votes with demands that they did not get enough of the comprises they wanted so they demanded the already approved Senate bill be pulled back from the conference committee. The filibuster was over releasing the bill from the conference committee without removing the joint version produced from the versions approved by each house.
We now have, effectively, minority government and under the feckless GOP leadership this is not the first instance of it.
We can argue all we want about rights, but when we elect majorities and those majorities cannot move the actions we have elected them to move, then our democratic rights have been surrundered to a minority. This is how totalitarian governments take hold in a democracy.