The respected Foreign Policy magazine details how the recent close vote on the NSA warrantless surveillance program was heading to a victory for privacy when the White House called in Nancy Pelosi. With heavy pressure from Pelosi, the White House was able to get just enough votes to kill privacy. Even with her ignoble role in this vote (and prior work to reduce civil liberties), many democrats are still supporting Pelosi in what is now a robotic form of politics. As their leader takes an axe to privacy, Democrats are again adopting the mantra that the other guys are worse and she is still good on other issues — making privacy just another item to trade off as part of the blue state/red state paradigm maintained by our duopoly of government.
Rep. Justin Amash came close to stopping the NSA with a 205-217 with many Republicans joining Democrats to fight for privacy. THe White House put on a full court press to block the effort. However, it came down to Pelosi to deliver the death blow for civil liberties — establishing once again that she is entirely untethered to any principle beyond blind loyalty to Barack Obama and the continuation of her own political ambitions. Roughly 60 percent of voters would get rid of all of the incumbents but we have a system that perpetuates the power of politicians like Pelosi. It does not matter that the public hates Congress or that people like Jimmy Carter have said that we no longer has a functioning democracy. The Democratic operatives just hold up some conservative nut case on YouTube like a shiny thing to distract the public from another blow to civil liberties by Democrats.
Think of it. Here is a representative from San Francisco (one of the bastions of civil liberties) fighting to cripple privacy as the California Senator, Dianne Feinstein, leads the fight to expand warrantless surveillance and shield the security state from review. Their public roles against civil liberties shows how successful the Democratic party has become in convincing voters that they have to continue to support them because the Republicans are worse. It is the ultimate expression of the relativism that has taken hold of the party. With Congress at a record low in popularity, the incumbents continue to be reelected because they have convinced voters that it is all a matter of red states and blue states — not abstractions like due process or privacy. It is the easiest concession to make: you do not have to take a principled stand in opposing people like Pelosi so long as you can point to bad people in the other party. It is the sharks and the jets and you have to “stick with your own kind” even if you can’t quite remember what that kind is. You just can’t let the other side win even if our politicians are cleaving off fundamental rights and protections.
I also must confess to some suspicions about the closeness of the vote. Often when Congress is doing something shameful, leadership will engineer a close vote to allow members to vote on the right side in districts that are vulnerable. I expect Pelosi worked to allow as many Democrats to vote for privacy while the result was locked in by the White House. These members can now return and assure voters that they fought for privacy even though they did nothing for years despite prior reports of such surveillance. The security state gets to keep its massive surveillance system and Pelosi gets the continued support of President Obama as leader of her party in the House. Everyone wins accept the public, but they hardly matter.
Source: FP
“Send in the Clowns” is one of my favorite Broadway tunes.
Damn! I see the FP link. Nevermind. But I still maintain my position. Turley is not a neutral observer and I eagerly await some blistering posts when the Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling.
Also, how about a post on Hobby Lobby being a Christian Corporation?
George Washington’s Revenge
http://www.infowars.com/paulrevere/comedy/george-washingtons-revenge/
Why is there no link to the FP article?
Why is there no post about Republican treason?
Why is there no correction to the Turley headline “judge orders Justice to payback stripper $1M?
Why is there no article on what the Red states are doing to Voting Rights?
Why is there no article on the Republican attack on Obamacare?
Why is there no article on Koch’s private security in northern Wisconsin.
Turley is not a neutral voice.
Reblogged this on euzicasa.
Bruce
1, July 26, 2013 at 10:32 am
Ross Perot was right when he said something like ” when more than 50% of the people depend on the government for their livelihood were screwed.”
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This is such a disconnect with the times….Statistics are pretty clear that the Government is responsible for consistently undermining the people in favour of the profits of Corporate johns… Oppression leads directly to dependancy and that is a very very very good reason to NOT OPPRESS YOUR OWN PEOPLE!
There is a reason restricting government is the only answer and that is because it is ultimately run by (fallible) humans. It starts with limiting the dollars going to DC and the rest will follow.
Politicians are power-grabbers. They love to have the power to intrude into people’s private lives. The congressfelons and the White House will use the spy-on-everyone powers as well as the intrusions of ObamaCareless to seek out political dissent on both the left and the right, on the Tea Party and the Occupy people.
Silencing the State’s critics is the main reason for the spying and the other bureaucratic intrusions.
I suggest that we chose a stronger word in discussions of issues such as this which reach to the very core of the survival of constitutional rights. Replace ‘voters’, and ‘public’ with ‘citizen’. We are not merely faceless members of a ‘voting bloc’ or ‘members of the public’ and we are assuredly more than mere ‘consumers’. We are citizens of a constitutional republic and as citizens we have ‘rights’–a claim which must utterly shock the likes of potus-bo, bush-cheney, and pelosi.
And the republicans aren’t any better.
Ross Perot was right when he said something like ” when more than 50% of the people depend on the government for their livelihood were screwed.”
Nick; the democrats of today are not the democrats of the fifties and early sixties and before. L.B.J. started the move to bigger government with the great society and the 1958 democratically controlled congress during the Eisenhower administration started stealing social security funds. Today most people that vote democrat are looking out for their self interest by earning their livelihood directly or indirectly through the government
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/25/christie-goes-after-libertarians-hard/?tid=pm_pop Chris Christie, the only republican that polls well against Hillary Clinton, is taking a hard line on national security, He is out attacking white supremacist friendly Rand Paul. The problems with some of these libertarian leaning candidates is that they are good on some national security issues but bad on everything else. I voted for one in the Texas republican primary, and he voted yes on Amosh – Conyers amendment.That was one of the only votes that he has cast that I have agreed with.
In Re Nancy Pelosi:
I don’t mind saying this a bit considering the amount of crap I’ve taken for not liking Ms. “Impeachment’s Off the Table”.
I. Told. You. So.
Do you expect When a pack of seeds take Power?
“The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is the largest membership organization within the Democratic Caucus in the United States Congress with 71 declared members. They work to advance progressive liberal issues and positions.[1]
The CPC is currently co-chaired by U.S. Representatives Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN). It was founded in 1991 and has grown steadily since then, having more recently added 20 members since 2005 and having hired its first full-time Executive Director, Bill Goold, in May of that year. Of the 20 standing committees of the House in the 111th Congress, 10 were chaired by members of the CPC. Those chairmen were replaced when the Republicans took control of the House in the 112th Congress.” wiki
Pelosi voted the wrong way but the members of the Democratic Progressive Caucus did not. Their leaders are Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison. They are 71 members strong.
My old man was a lifelong, blue collar Democrat. In the 1980’s he became suspicious of some of the changes he was seeing. By the end of the 80’s he was becoming disgusted w/ what he saw. He died in 1989. The apologists and rationalizers will comment here as surely as the sun will set tonight. However, the Democratic party has done a complete 180 degree turn from the party I knew in the 1960’s; when I first became aware of politics and it’s significance in our lives. When women first started becoming part of the political landscape I had hopes for changes in the way Washington worked. The only change is we now have errand girls and boys.
I implore folks to @ least not respond to me w/ “Yes, but the Republicans…” Because I am talking about THE DEMOCRATS!
It is time to remove these lying thieves from power.
We must consider a Revolution.
She is a traitor to the Constitution