Senate's New Duties: Take Away Inalienable Rights, Ignore the Old Duties

[XLFD]

Governed masses, the United States Senate has decided to ignore their responsibilities under the Constitution. 

For example, they have failed to pass a budget in the last 1300+ days leading to a federal government that runs headless from self-made crisis to self-made crisis trying to scrape up enough money to keep going.  Like an irresponsible young adult, they have little fear about running themselves further and further into debt, but unlike those adolescents, they can just print more money seemingly without care as to the inflationary impact of it, taxing all, especially our nation's poorest citizens. 

Meanwhile, the menacing "fiscal cliff" that looms large ahead of our nation, due in large part to the political posturing of Senate leadership, makes an observer think they are more concerned with the scores they will receive when they dive over the same.

 

What are they doing while they neglect such duties?  Some are enjoying the holiday spirits, like GOP Senator Mike Crapo, who got nabbed for driving drunk (but neglected to drive his car over a cliff, like Scottville Mayor Joe Baxter earlier this season).  The Mormon lawmaker said in 2010 that he didn't consume alcohol, but times are tougher I guess.

But their main interests seem to be trying to devise ways of keeping the nation safe-- by diminishing and demolishing the Bill of Rights-- particularly the Second and Fourth Amendments.

 

 

Sen. Feinstein and others have developed some ways to deprive good citizens of their armaments.  A discussion that we would likely not be having without the Connecticut school shooting which 'triggers' some reflex in those who wish to roll back the rights guaranteed to the people to allow them to hunt and protect them from bad people using weapons for evil purposes, and more importantly, an over-reaching government. 

But perhaps even more scary, and a greater intrusion into the established rights we Americans enjoy is the attacks on the Fourth Amendment, and smatterings of other rights, by the unusual special session to debate the reauthorization of the FISA Act, and some proposed amendments to reform that law.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wished to pass this without debate or chance for amendment before Christmas; he, like many Senators of both stripes, love this Act. 

Briefly, the law allows the government to get secret FISA court orders—orders that do not require probable cause like regular warrants—for any emails or phone calls going to and from overseas. The communications only have to deal with “foreign intelligence information,” a broad term that can mean virtually anything.  One secret FISA order can be issued against groups or categories of people—potentially affecting millions of Americans at once.

 

The day after Christmas seven hours of the Senate's business had three amendments to the FISA Act to address the civil liberties it takes from all Americans.  Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) attempted to cut the proposed extension from five years to three; that lost 52-38. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) proposed requiring the attorney general to disclose "significant" FISA court interpretations of surveillance law; that lost 54-37.  Then Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) proposed allowing Fourth Amendment protections to electronic communications.

“Why are your phone calls more protected than your email or text messages?”, he elaborated in defense of his stand, seen in this snippet from his presentation:

 

 

Good questions, Rand, and yet the Democrats and Republicans both resoundingly found those premises no longer matter, shooting down Paul's amendment resoundingly 79-12.  The next day, a Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) sponsored amendment calling for more transparency for the extent of the intercepted communications failed 53-42 the next day.

 

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California), Intelligence Committee Chairwoman said incidences of abuse of FISA have been "few" and "inadvertent." She  strongly urged her colleagues not to support any of the amendments because she said the bill would then have to be reconsidered by the House and that FISA-supported surveillance would need to halt after Dec. 31, posing a threat to national security.   "What this (Wyden's Amendment) aims to do is to make public a program that should not be made public at this time," she said.

 

So 223 years into our Constitution's existence, our Senators are staunchly avoiding their duties to pass a budget, and pass forth meaningful legislation to address an economic emergency due to politics, and yet at the same time they interject themselves in special meetings to take away the rights many of us considered inalienable just a generation ago.  No wonder it has driven some of them to drink.

[XLFD]

The latest crisis that should have been deliberated awhile ago, but is dealt with at the last minute, was 'averted' last night with the fiscal cliff deal.  As details of this deal come out we will find that the Keynesian "government spending is good" philosophy has won again as taxes and other things not called taxes are consuming more of your earnings.   

[Dave]

If I was a member of this congress I'd be embarrassed of the performance. Many members on both sides of aisle including the leadership are doing a horrible job and don't deserve to be in a position where they can make any laws.

[Willy]

Nice article X. We don't need any terrorists groups or foriegn governments to destroy us. We have the Democrats and Republicans. Kruschev was correct when he said we will be defeated from within.

[XLFD]

The scariest part for me is that the only truly bipartisan efforts by the Congress to enact legislation happens to occur on those issues that take away liberties, thus choosing an eerily-defined "security" over matters of personal freedom.  This can be noted on Rand Paul's amendment, which got only about 1/8 of the Senators to agree to a sensible notion. 

[easymoney]

I also seem to remember Kruschev saying something about not attacking the US because everyone had a fire arm.

Hell, after reading some of the guns Dianne F wants to outlal ( over 120 in all )  I'll be breaking the law, more than half of what I own is on her list. To grand father, I'm SUPOSED to register my fire arms with the government, and, that ain't going to happen....

[Willy]

Are our elected officials making decisions that reflect the ideals of our Republic or are they taking us down the path to another form of Government.