Posted by Congress Watcher on July 3, 2008 at 11:47 am · Filed under Personalities, Senate legislation
Another day has gone by in which Barack Obama has refused to address the concerns that a growing number of his supporters have expressed about the FISA Amendments Act, which Obama says he will vote for on Tuesday.
There’s a reassuring competence in the people protesting Obama’s support for the FISA Amendments Act. Take, for example, the comments below from Byron, a voter in Tucson, Arizona. Byron sees right through Obama’s claim that he must support the FISA Amendments Act in order to prevent the Protect America Act. Byron has the intelligence to remember that last summer, Barack Obama voted against the Protect America Act, and rightly so, because it has been an extremely abusive law.
Furthermore, Byron recognizes that Barack Obama’s move away from protecting the Constitution isn’t even the most pragmatic approach to earning the votes of wayward Republicans. Republican voters, after all, distrust Big Government. Why would they be convinced to vote for Obama with Obama’s support for a Big Government spying program?
Thanks for thinking for yourself, Byron. We need more thoughtful, informed citizens like you.
Here’s what Byron wrote to Barack Obama:
“Your support of FISA is a bellweather of things to come. It would be so easy to run against this bill: “Big government wants to wiretap your phone and email, with only a “trust us”. This is as unacceptable as gun registration. When I voted against this bill, I voted for freedom.” You want republican swing voters? That is the way to do it. Be strong. Instead you choose to flip flop from voting against the PAA (which we now can’t allow to expire?), statements of filibuster support, to now embracing a “better bad bill”. It is hard to remain much of a supporter and my wife and I certainly won’t be donating money or volunteering time to assist your campaign of triangulation.”
Posted by Congress Watcher on July 2, 2008 at 11:34 am · Filed under Personalities, Senate legislation
Barack Obama shocked his supporters last month by declaring his support for George W. Bush’s Orwellian program of spying against millions of Americans, codified and retroactively legalized by the FISA Amendments Act. It’s not too late for Barack Obama to change his mind, however. The Senate vote on the FISA Amendments Act is scheduled for next Tuesday, July 8.
With that in mind, a large number of Barack Obama’s supporters have organized a group urging Obama to keep his original promise, and vote against the FISA Amendments Act. As of this moment, the group is just 26 people short of having ten thousand members.
The members of this group against the FISA Amendments Act are willing to put their money where their mouths are. One member, David Fagelson from Pennsylvania, writes of Obama, “Apart from being such a gross assault on the constitution, it is an assault on the rule of law itself. If ever there was a time that he should have taken a principled stand, it was on this.” Fagelson continues,
“I am reluctantly diverting all the money I had earmarked for the Obama campaign in order to address a more urgent matter: stopping the FISA bill. This legislation undermines the rule of law, let alone the constitution and I deem it more important to stop or reverse that pernicious legislation than giving to Obama.”
Consider that Pennsylvania is a swing state, and you start to see the serious threat that Obama’s support of the FISA Amendements Act has become. Obama activists in swing states are one by one dropping out of his campaign, withholding their money and refusing to volunteer their time. Consider that these are the people who Obama had counted on to form the foundation of his campaign.
If Barack Obama has not heard the message of these pro-Constitution activists, it is because he doesn’t want to listen to anyone but professional campaign consultants anymore. Mr. Obama, it’s time for you to break out of your bubble.
Please, listen to your supporters. Keep the promise you made back in February. Vote against the FISA Amendments Act!
Update: In just the few minutes since I wrote this article, the number of members of the group against the FISA Amendments Act on the Obama web site has shot up to ten thousand eighty.
Posted by Congress Watcher on July 2, 2008 at 11:13 am · Filed under House legislation
Marine mammals are in serious trouble. Fish populations are so gravely depleted that Pacific grey whales have been seen migrating north with such severe starvation that their ribs are showing. Seal species around the world are being devastated by climate change.
What’s the response of the Republican Party? Aim lower.
Last year, Alaska Republican Congressman Don Young introduced H.R. 1007, a bill to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1992. Young’s legislation would remove the official goal of zero deaths of marine mammals as a result of fishing. If passed, the law would also make economic convenience a legally acceptable justification for the killing of marine mammals in the process of commercial fishing.
Young’s legislation contains the following bizarre excuse for legalizing the slaughter of marine mammals: “Species and populations stocks of marine mammal that have reached historic levels are impeding the recovery of endangered species and threatened species through predation or competition in the ecosystem.”
Think about this for a second: Which marine mammals that have reached historic levels are threatening to cause the extinction of other species? Are sea lions eating too many salmon, for instance?
If a marine mammal is at a population level that is truly in line with its historically sustainable levels, then it can’t be to blame for the endangered status of their prey or competing species. After all, historically, those species fit together just fine, ecologically speaking. No marine mammal species, historically speaking, drove any other existing marine animal to the brink of extinction…
…unless you count human beings taking to the sea in their boats as a marine mammal. It’s human activity that has upset the ecological balance of the oceans, not wild marine mammals.
In the case of sea lions and salmon, for instance, it’s human beings who have driven salmon populations to the brink, through pollution, dams, and overfishing. Yes, sea lions who find the oceans stripped nearly clean of fish are desperate to eat as many salmon as they can, but it’s not the sea lions who are to blame for the problem.
Luckily, Don Young’s legislation isn’t faring much better than marine mammals themselves. It’s been over a year now since Young introduced his bill, and in all that time, he hasn’t managed to convince even one other member of the House of Representatives to sign on to H.R.1007 as a cosponsor. The legislation is stuck in committee, and that’s where it should remain, forgotten and left to die.
Rhode Island for Obama button
Posted by Congress Watcher on July 1, 2008 at 8:09 am · Filed under House campaigns, House legislation
If you want to think about great American traditions, there’s no tradition more central to the tradition of being an American than the Bill of Rights. The guarantees of freedom established in the Bill of Rights are what made America great. Among the amendments in the Bill of Rights is the fourth amendment, which reads,
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Every single aspect of the fourth Amendment is violated by the FISA Amendments Act, H.R. 6304, which was passed by the House of Representatives a week and a half ago and will be voted on by the Senate a week from now.
- The FISA Amendments Act retroactively legalizes gigantic dragnet searches of millions of personal communications by Americans, not particularly noting the places, persons or things to be targeted.
- The FISA Amendments Act supports searches and surveillance of Americans’ papers and “persons” without any search warrant
- The FISA Amendments Act removes the requirement of probable cause, allowing government spying and physical searches without any proof that the people being searched and spied upon are even suspected of a crime
The FISA Amendments Act is an insult to the American tradition of constitutional freedom. Yet, many members of Congress have already voted in favor of the proposed law.
One of those members of Congress is Mike Pence of Indiana. Pence represents the 6th congressional district in his state, but he hasn’t accomplished much for his home district over the last couple of years - unless you count giving a speech praising Garfield, the cartoon cat as an accomplishment.
Pence is being opposed in the election this year by Barry Welsh, who is running a campaign founded upon respect for the American tradition of liberty rooted in the Constitution. Would Barry Welsh have voted for the FISA Amendments Act?
I spoke to Mr. Welsh on the subject yesterday, and here’s what he had to say:
I would not have been able to vote for the bill in its current configuration. A couple of things really troubled me, and the telecom immunity is probably the main troubling spot.
It’s not a situation where I want to necessarily be prosecutorial towards the telecoms. My concern deals with the attempted acquisition of immunity. My concern is that the immunity is not so much for the telecoms as it is possibly as a cover for the current administration.
The reason I say that is that I go back to the Nixon years in Washington D.C., and in the Nixon White House. When Nixon resigned, everything was forgotten, if you will. There were few investigations after that, and it seemed that once the President left town, everything was rosy, and that wasn’t the case. We didn’t do due diligence during the Nixon Administration, and several of those players popped their heads up again throughout the Reagan and this, the George W. Bush Administration.
So, I don’t want to see the same thing happen again. I want to make sure that we’ve got all the people that have bent the law for their own benefit and taken advantage of the people, I want to make sure that we don’t allow those people to slip away again. Quite honestly, I have a feeling that the immunity through the telecom is more of a potential cover for the Administration than necessarily for the telecom community.
Posted by Congress Watcher on June 30, 2008 at 12:35 pm · Filed under House legislation
There are two subtly different meanings of the word compromise. One meaning, used by those politicians of the FISA Amendments Act, suggests reconciliation between two opposing sides.
That sounds so nice, doesn’t it? Who could argue against coming together, so that both sides can have a little bit of what they want? Well, to tell the truth, I could.
Sometimes, compromise is a downright rotten idea. Let’s say that you meet up with a cannibal who says that he wants to kill you and eat you. Would you seek a compromise? Would you say, “No, I’m sorry, I don’t want to let you kill and eat me, but for the sake of common ground, why don’t I cut off my left hand so that you can have a snack?”
Sometimes, I have a feeling that the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives might think that compromise would be a good idea. I wouldn’t.
This brings me to the second meaning of compromise: The creation of a dangerous vulnerability. For example, if the pipes from a sewage treatment plant got crossed up with the rinsing system at the strawberry packing plant next door, we could say that the food safety protocols at the strawberry packing plant had been compromised. Or, in the case of the cannibal, if you went ahead and cut off your left hand to provide a snack, we could say that your circulatory system had been compromised, or that your ability to play the guitar had been compromised.
It’s this second kind of compromise that was achieved with the passage of the FISA Amendments Act by the U.S. House of Representatives. In this case, it’s the fourth amendment to the Constitution that has been compromised. That’s the part of the Bill of Rights that guarantees protection from search and seizure without a warrant.
There are some things in life that just shouldn’t be compromised: Things like whether a cannibal gets to eat part of your body, or whether strawberries should be rinsed in sewage, or whether the Constitution is the law of the land in the United States. If these things are compromised, grave threats to life and liberty result.
That was the idea behind the statement made by Elijah Cummings, U.S. Representative from Maryland, after the FISA Amendements Act, H.R 6304, was passed by the House of Representatives on June 20,2008. Cummings wrote,
“Today is a very sad day for the people of America, as their government has decided to further infringe upon the protections afforded to us by the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Our Founding Fathers recognized our right to privacy as being so critical that they had the foresight to make it an Amendment in one of our most revered and fundamental documents—the very foundation of our nation’s democracy.
My colleagues and I were elected to the U.S. Congress to represent the will of the people and to protect U.S. citizens from threats both foreign and domestic. I am disappointed in the compromises that were made in this legislation, because when it comes to our civil liberties, there should never be any compromise. I will relentlessly fight to ensure that surveillance becomes as transparent as possible to provide the oversight needed to prevent its abuse against U.S. citizens.”
Posted by Congress Watcher on June 29, 2008 at 9:27 pm · Filed under House legislation
For the last couple of months, Republicans in Congress have been whining and complaining that gasoline prices in the United States would go down a whole bunch, if only the the Democrats in Congress would do only something to increase the amount of oil drilling taking place on federal lands.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, but last Thursday, the Democrats in Congress did just that. They proposed a law that would increase the amount of drilling for oil taking place on federal lands.
Funny thing - almost all the Republicans voted against the bill. Why? Well, H.R.6251, called the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act, moves to increase the amount of drilling for fossil fuels on federal lands without increasing the amount of land available for oil drilling. Instead, the law would force oil drilling companies to stop slacking off and to use the federal lands they’re already leasing more efficiently.
You see, although oil companies complain that oil supply is low because there isn’t enough public land available for them to drill on, those same companies are moving as slow as slugs to actually begin drilling on the public land they’re already leasing. The huge majority of land leased for the purposes of oil exploration hasn’t actually been tapped by the oil companies yet. They’re just sitting on that land, not drilling it.
For the sake of increasing the supply of oil, as Republicans in Congress have said that they want, the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act would have banned the federal government from granting new leases to companies that have not been drilling on the leases they already have in a timely manner. It makes perfect sense. If an oil company isn’t even using the leases of public lands they already have, why should they take on yet more leases… unless what those oil companies really want to do is just squat on their leases of public lands with oil under them only in order to prevent the oil from being drilled, thus decreasing supply and artificially driving up the cost of petroleum products so that they can make a bigger profit without doing any more work.
Those right wing members of Congress who voted against the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act were doing the bidding of the big oil companies, regardless of the harm to the larger American economy. That’s really scummy. In fact, that kind of oil-slick corruption is downright crude.
Take note: They’re not all Republicans. 19 Democrats jumped the tracks to vote against this work ethic for oil companies. The members of Congress who had the gall to vote against the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act and its attempt to force oil companies to become more efficient in bringing oil out of the ground and to the gasoline pump were:
Alan Augustson 2008 2.25" Magnet (10 pack)
Posted by Congress Watcher on June 28, 2008 at 8:15 am · Filed under House legislation
Over at Protect America Act, they have taken it upon themselves to recognize the good work of those members of the House of Representatives who voted one week ago against the FISA Amendments Act.
The FISA Amendments Act does not just grant retroactive immunity to giant telecommunications corporations who gave private files containing information about the personal communications of millions of Americans, although that is part of the FISA Amendments Act. The proposed law also gives the Attorney General of the United States, and through him the President, the power to search through Americans’ homes without a search warrant or any proof of suspicion of a crime. The same kind of power is granted for electronic espionage against Americans’ emails and telephone calls as well.
The FISA Amendments Act completely unravels the fourth amendment to the Constitution. It makes protection from unreasonable search and seizure a mere privilege for those that please the government, not an inalienable right.
If the FISA Amendments Act passes, there will be true freedom for the American people will be destroyed, and the accountability to the law for powerful politicians and corporations will be lost.
Thank you to the following members of the House of Representatives for voting against this unwise scheme to sacrifice the Bill of Rights on the altar of Homeland Insecurity.
Posted by Congress Watcher on June 26, 2008 at 11:03 am · Filed under House legislation
Congressman Neil Abercrombie represents Hawaii in the U.S. House of Representatives, but on June 20, 2008, he also represented all Americans who believe that freedom is the best source of security. Abercrombie voted against the FISA Amendments Act, criticizing the changes that the proposed law would make to the essential fabric of American freedom:
“These changes will not make Americans any safer from terrorists. They simply reflect George W. Bush’s belief that the President has virtually unlimited power to ignore Constitutional protections for individual privacy and civil rights.”
It’s like Congressman Abercrombie says - the FISA Amendments Act establishes a Big Brother spy network that enables the President of the United States to spy on practically anyone he wants, while being accountable to no one. The FISA Amendments Act takes the FISA court, and makes it a mute observer, unable to stop lawbreaking even when the White House admits that illegal spying is taking place. There can be no more certain privacy, if the FISA Amendments Act is passed.
President George W. Bush seems to think that he can keep secrets from the American people, but that the American people are not entitled to their own private lives. Abercrombie noted this dangerous quirk of character, stating,
“President Bush seems unnerved at the prospect of American citizens filing lawsuits to protect their Constitutional rights. I wish he was as concerned about protecting citizens from giant corporations as he is about protecting giant corporations from citizens.”
Thanks to Representative Abercrombie for his important defense of the fourth amendment and its guarantee that we shall all be protected from unreasonable search and seizure of the sort that have been typical of the Bush warrantless wiretapping program.
Posted by Congress Watcher on June 25, 2008 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Senate legislation
The following are the heroes of the Senate today. They came together to defend the Constitution, to stop the FISA Amendments Act, a proposed law that essentially removes the fourth amendment’s protections from unreasonable search and seizure from the Bill of Rights. They attempted to filibuster the bill. For that, they deserve your respect.
You’ll notice the name of one very prominent senator is missing from that list. That name is Barack Obama.
While these heroes defended our rights, Barack Obama couldn’t be bothered to show up for work in the Senate. He was too busy holding a press conference at which he announced his support for the death penalty.
If Barack Obama wants to be President, let him campaign for President, but let’s not have him as a Senator in the meantime. Obama promised last Friday that he would be in the Senate. “I will work in the Senate,” he said, to remove retroactive immunity from the legislation.
Barack Obama wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there when the filibuster was attempted. He wasn’t there when the debate was held.
Broken promises and abandonment of the Democrats in the Senate. Who ever thought Barack Obama would sink this low to pander to the politics of fear?
Kansas Liberal Black Baseball Cap
Posted by Congress Watcher on June 25, 2008 at 4:21 pm · Filed under Ideas
In 2006, Nancy Pelosi, eager to become Speaker of the House, made a terrible promise: “Impeachment is off the table,” she said.
The signal could not have been more clear to George W. Bush: It didn’t matter what he did. He would not be held accountable to the law. Since that time, George W. Bush has acted as if Congress had no authority other than to pass laws - no oversight, and no investigation.
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich spoke before the House of Representatives yesterday, reminding the body of the consequences of allowing a President to be unaccountable to Congress:
“When the leadership of this House said back in October of 2006 that impeachment is off the table, what they did is they set the stage for the administration ignoring the subpoenas of the Congress for information. Once the administration understood that they did not have to comply with the law and that Congress essentially took away the one power that Congress has to compel the administration to respect Congress as a coequal branch of government, once that was taken away, the administration basically just decided it wasn’t going to appear in front of Congress to answer questions, they wouldn’t produce documents or papers that were relevant to congressional investigations.
Congress is a coequal branch of government. It is urgent that we reestablish our coequality, that we create conditions of a check and balance of administrative abuse of power. This isn’t a Republican matter, it is not a Democratic matter, it is a matter for our country. We need to have the Congress be strong. We need to hold this administration accountable.”
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