Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold On Preventing the FISA Amendments Act from Being Jammed Through the Senate
June 26, 2008
“I’m pleased we were able to delay a vote on FISA until after the July 4th holiday instead of having it jammed through. I hope that over the July 4th holiday, Senators will take a closer look at this deeply flawed legislation and understand how it threatens the civil liberties of the American people. It is possible to defend this country from terrorists while also protecting the rights and freedoms that define our nation.”
if you want to go to his site to leave him a thank you note, please do so here.
Or, you can stick your head further in the sand and hope Obama quits helping McCain prop up Bush’s illegal policies. You decide.
Last night, Keith Olbermann delivered another of his “Special Comments“, this time, to do damage control on a position he took last week justifying Barack Obama’s support of the FISA Bill that promises to not only give immunity from civil prosecution to the telecom companies but it also greatly enhances the powers of the White House allowing them to secretly listen in to ALL communications without real oversight from a FISA court.
To sum up Olbermann’s position, he claims that the timing of the Housing legislation that ran over and forced the actual vote of the FISA Bill to be pushed back till June 8th is a great opportunity for Obama; to vote FOR THE BILL.
That’s right, Olbermann’s position is that Obama should vote FOR THE BILL.
There’s allot of convoluted thinking that takes place in Keith O’s comment, so we will take it one step at a time, shall we?
(The “surge” failed on many different levels. But the one thing they credit the surge with, the reduction of violence in Baghdad, isn’t about the numbers of troops on the ground; it’s about treating the inhabitants of Iraq as if they are all criminals, and forcing them to live in a ghetto-like prison of a city; where everyone is forced to move through checkpoints and “show their papers” many times a day. They have literally walled off the entire city so that they can control every movement of it’s inhabitants. This is the “freedom” they brought to Iraq. I wrote about this over a month ago, in an article called “The Israeli Model surges Toward Iraq“. Now, the real question is, when will they start selling this idea here at home? the answer, they already have.)
Baghdad hasn’t been this quiet in years. But the respite from bloodshed comes at a high price.
Up to 20 feet high in some sections.
Rows after rows of barrier walls divide the city into smaller and smaller areas that protect people from bombings, sniper fire and kidnappings. They also lead to gridlock, rising prices for food and homes, and complaints about living in what feels like a prison.
(So close, he is… Yes, we didn’t go to Iraq to bring “freedom” like Scott McClellen says so often in his new book and on almost every interview he gives. We didn’t go for cheap oil, and we didn’t even go for oil at all; we went into Iraq for the oil COMPANIES. And that is a big difference. At some point we are going to have to redefine treason to include selling out the American people to benefit corporations at the detriment of those same Americans.)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who has introduced measures to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, said Thursday that oil executives who secretly met with the vice president in 2001 should be held criminally liable for pushing an illegal war.
“In March of 2001, when the Bush Administration began to have secret meetings with oil company executives from Exxon, Shell and BP, spreading maps of Iraq oil fields before them, the price of oil was $23.96 per barrel. Then there were 63 companies in 30 countries, other than the US, competing for oil contracts with Iraq,” the Ohio Democrat said during a speech on the House floor.
(The only problem I have with the following article, and therefore Vidal’s conclusions, is that Bush does not have the capacity to formulate the destruction of the Republic as it has occurred. He also was not present in many of the secretive meetings that took place prior to 9/11 nor was he even trusted to be in charge on Sept. 11th, when all the plans of those who wrote them back in the ’90s were to begin. Instead they shipped him off to the kids table in Florida. He wasn’t a member of the Project for the New American Century nor was he really an oil man. But yes, Bush has presided over the ruination of the American experiment is self rule; the gradual decline of true democracy in this country crumbled at free-fall speed on the morning of Sept. 11th 2001. Now the “war on terror” is the verbal main course in every debate for both parties. Candidates are ridiculed for having a “pre-9/11 mind-set” or appearing “weak on terror”.)
Gore Vidal, US novelist, historian and social critic says the Bush regime has killed all of the constitutional links that made the US a republic.
On early Friday morning Iran time, in an exclusive interview with Press TV, Vidal said that President Bush has rid the country of the Bill of Rights, habeas corpus and the entire legacy of the Magna Carta in the name of war on terror.
On December 12th of 2007, I made a mistake. This evening, for an hour I made the same mistake. I won’t make it again. I promise you that Mr. Wexler.
How long did you think you could get away with this little game of yours? Did Eric Johnson come to you one day after Kucinich put forward HR 333 to impeach Cheney, and say “hey, there’s some good numbers here from this impeachment thing. Now how can we ride on this for awhile?” Is that what he said, Robert? No wonder you pay him $120k a year + (and no wonder people say government is bloated. A Chief of staff for a congressman getting paid that kind of money while you guys up the minimum wage $2 per hour over three years.), or was it your idea to ride the courage and the coat-tails of a real representative back into office?
Today I got a phone call that professed to be a conference call on impeachment with Robert Wexler. So I listened in an took notes on what he said, like an idiot.
Is Barack Obama a social democrat or a capitalist tool?
Is John McCain a Glory Boy or a POW songbird?
If these are the choices we have in the upcoming presidential election, a faked out war hero, pushing the Bush agenda, and a corporate tool talking like a social democrat, you’ve got to know this country is up the creek or down the shaft.
Watch the latest installment of “Everything Changed after 9/11″. A facinating story about how a lie has been repeatedly used to attack our constitutional protections. Yes, boys and girls, the “terrorists DO hate our freedoms”, that’s why they are wrecking our Bill of Rights every single day.
(We will stop being treated like idiots by the ruling class, when we stop acting like idiots. Imagine, Obama standing before 10,000 Americans, and he sites his “Yes we can” catch phrase expecting to start his slogan chant again, and is met with a crushing silence. Then, rising from the back at first and edging forward, “Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit”. You think they would have to work harder to explain their positions? You think they would pay more attention to their voting record if they knew we would hold them accountable when it matters? Fuck Tim Russert, that apologist spokesman for the corporate shell game that our government has been reduced to. He chose $5 million a year over his journalistic principles.)
Washington has become Versailles. We are ruled, entertained and informed by courtiers. The popular media are courtiers. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are courtiers. Our pundits and experts are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games. We are being had.
