The USA PATRIOT Act
For those that missed it, last week the United States Senate voted to extend the USA PATRIOT Act for another 5 weeks (while negotiators draft permanent changes for Congress to consider); the vote was 95 - 1. Based on how the liberal media rails against the Act, you would never imagine the wide-spread support the Act enjoys. As with the original vote in October 2001 (98 - 1), only Senator Russ Feingold (D, WI) voted against the Act. I have no problem with what I believe to be the Senator's principled differences. What's hysterical is the extraordinary demagoguery waged against the Act by so many others that still end up voting for the Act. Pander. Pander. Pander. Oh, and how about that 95 - 1 vote? Darn, if only we had a "uniter" in the White House.
As I noted below, I was a caller on the Eagan and Braude show a couple of weeks ago and I did make the point to Mr. Braude that "elections matter." Very quickly, some other points I made were that the Republican Party has a long history of trying to empower the Executive Branch. I cited three instances during the Clinton Administration. They were:
1. giving the President the power to fast-track foreign trade agreements,
2. giving the President the line item veto, and
3. rescinding the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
I was right on 1. and 2., but I was wrong on 3. On 2., the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the line item veto in a 6 - 3 opinion. On point 3., the Republican Congress narrowly defeated rescinding the War Powers Resolution. The reason I mis-recollected this was that many prominent Republicans supported the rescission, most notably Reps. Henry Hyde (IL) and Newt Gingrich (GA). Yes, my angry, liberal, friends, Republicans gave President Clinton more power and some wanted to give him even more than that.
For those that missed it, last week the United States Senate voted to extend the USA PATRIOT Act for another 5 weeks (while negotiators draft permanent changes for Congress to consider); the vote was 95 - 1. Based on how the liberal media rails against the Act, you would never imagine the wide-spread support the Act enjoys. As with the original vote in October 2001 (98 - 1), only Senator Russ Feingold (D, WI) voted against the Act. I have no problem with what I believe to be the Senator's principled differences. What's hysterical is the extraordinary demagoguery waged against the Act by so many others that still end up voting for the Act. Pander. Pander. Pander. Oh, and how about that 95 - 1 vote? Darn, if only we had a "uniter" in the White House.
As I noted below, I was a caller on the Eagan and Braude show a couple of weeks ago and I did make the point to Mr. Braude that "elections matter." Very quickly, some other points I made were that the Republican Party has a long history of trying to empower the Executive Branch. I cited three instances during the Clinton Administration. They were:
1. giving the President the power to fast-track foreign trade agreements,
2. giving the President the line item veto, and
3. rescinding the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
I was right on 1. and 2., but I was wrong on 3. On 2., the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the line item veto in a 6 - 3 opinion. On point 3., the Republican Congress narrowly defeated rescinding the War Powers Resolution. The reason I mis-recollected this was that many prominent Republicans supported the rescission, most notably Reps. Henry Hyde (IL) and Newt Gingrich (GA). Yes, my angry, liberal, friends, Republicans gave President Clinton more power and some wanted to give him even more than that.
posted by Zack at 8:23 PM
1 Comments:
i agree with anonymous, more posts more often, but i've said this before.
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