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
Gene H.
I’m not surprised, and I am surprised, too.
Surprised Congress “let” themselves become absolutely corrupted…
… Not surprised at the financial influences buying their allegiances.
And none dare call it treason…
seamus,
Gene H, a mench, I don’t think so, if he wishes to hang out with murdering, American hating trash, Media Matters/SPLC that’s his prerogative & his reputation, not mine.
Let him defend it!
Yeah, it’s the ugly truth we all face some days, but he needs informed & he can then make his own choice of who to hang with & his rep not mine.
Sorry Gene, the truth hurts, but you’re make your own karma friend, deal with it.
Yeah, Pelosi, not Gene H. He’s a mench.
It’s beer thirty here Gene, what time is it there? 🙂
Oh, and the free speech I’m talking about is . . . free speech.
There aren’t any flavors of it. There is only the one kind.
It is readily apparent I am none of those things and that seamus was describing Pelosi.
However, despite not being a whore, I am very easy under the right conditions.
**seamus 1, July 26, 2013 at 9:00 pm
Gutless, feckless, whore. **
In 18 hundred blah blah the US Sepreme Court ruled them there’s Fighting Words, But Gene H is full grown so I’ll let him defend himself.
🙂
Sorry I’m not feeling wordy.
Gutless, feckless, whore.
The difference is that the free speech you’re talking about their friends leave behind a trail of dead bodies & my friends have the pictures/docs linking your friend to them.
Feel free to assocate with what ever mafia family you wish. 🙂
Oky,
There is absolutely nothing you could say that would make me think Alex Jones is a credible source at this point. You have a right to parrot his gibberish all you like. I have the right to call it gibberish from a source that totally lacks journalistic credibility. That free speech, she is a two-edged sword.
Gene H,
You could go watch: Rules of Engagement for free on line & rewatch Clintons crew burning down Waco.
And then you can move onto: A Noble Lie
And then we can move on from there to the next, next & next & next……………..
And how’s the Libya scam coming along?
Any updates?
Max-1,
While I find the cash for votes correlation revolting, I wish I could say I found it surprising. Thanks for the link.
Yeah, they must be America hating if they don’t like Alex Jones. 🙄
Just like SPLC are the bad guys too.
Media Matters looks like it couldn’t be a bigger collection of American Hating Trash equaling only the Bush/Cheney propaganda front group engaged in the same type activities.
Hardly could be considered an unbiased source for anything.
**
Benefactors and staff
MMfA started with the help of $2 million in donations from liberal philanthropists connected to the Democratic party. According to Byron York, additional funding came from MoveOn.org and the New Democrat Network.[16][17][18]
In 2004 MMfA received the endorsement of the Democracy Alliance, a partnership of wealthy and politically active donors. The Alliance itself does not fund any of its endorsees, but many wealthy Alliance members acted on the endorsement and donated directly to MMfA.[19][20][21] Media Matters as a matter of course has a policy of not comprehensively listing donors. Six years after the Alliance endorsed MMfA, financier George Soros—a founding and continuing member of the Alliance—announced in 2010 that he was donating $1 million to MMfA. Soros said: “Despite repeated assertions to the contrary by various Fox News commentators, I have not to date been a funder of Media Matters.” Soros said concern over “recent evidence suggesting that the incendiary rhetoric of Fox News hosts may incite violence” had moved him to donate to MMfA, which thanked Soros for announcing his donation “quickly and transparently”.[22]
Former chief of staff to president Bill Clinton John Podesta provided office space for Media Matters early in its formation at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank that he had created in 2002.[23] Hillary Clinton advised Media Matters in its early stages out of a belief that progressives should follow conservatives in forming think tanks and advocacy groups to support their political goals.[23][24]
Media Matters hired numerous political professionals who had worked for Democratic politicians and for other progressive groups.[18][25] In 2004 article on Media Matters the National Review referred to MMfA staffers who had recently worked on the presidential campaigns of John Edwards and Wesley Clark, for Congressman Barney Frank, and for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.[18] **
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Matters_for_America
Blouise,
The only reason America has TWO PARTIES is…
… Because Corporations can’t afford a third party.
Blouise, I don’t think they can punish his district too much. It is in northern Virginia where they live.
And then there is this:
Roberts’s Picks Reshaping Secret Surveillance Court
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/us/politics/robertss-picks-reshaping-secret-surveillance-court.html?nl=us&emc=edit_cn_20130726&_r=0
Republicans and Democrats are hand in glove folks, hand in glove.
ap,
Thanks for that link at 6:04pm.
“Of the top 10 money getters, only one House member — Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia) — voted to end the program.” (from said link)
How much you wanna bet his district will be punished.
“Swarthmore mom
Blouise, I am no more hopeful about this than I am about Voting Rights.”
I know and agree. At least up here you will be able to find more like minded associates. A friend of mine likes to say that the “Center” keeps us splintered. Unique way of looking at things.