Quote of the week...

In what was no doubt, at least for me, the quote of the week, here we have John Boehner (being from Ohio how does this guy have a perma-tan anyway??), minority leader Congressman from Ohio stating the following on the floor of the House about democrats wanting to, you know, actually look into this FISA bill update that will allow the US Government to spy on its own citizens without a warrant:

"We will not stand here and watch this floor be abused for pure political grandstanding at the expense of our national security,"

John, of course you're going to stand there and watch it. Why? Because you've done far worse on the floor of the same House than these guys are doing. Here we have the democrats, who unlike in the Senate, are looking into this bill. Exploring it. Reading it. Looking at the information behind it, and then they'll address. This is something that doesn't need to be taken lightly, since indeed it is essentially about allowing the federal government to wiretap our phones, and read our e-mails without getting a warrant, as is required by that whole, you know, Constitution thing that resides in the National Archives in Washington DC and all. Of course Boehner forgets about national security back in the days when he and his cohorts were busy trying to oust Bill Clinton from the presidency for having the audacity of being a democrat in the White House and in the Presidency. Because, remember, back when Clinton was going through his impeachment, he was also trying to kill Osama Bin Laden, except at that time, the republicans in Congress were complaining that what Clinton was doing was trying to "wag the dog", referencing a movie of the same name that showed a President embroiled in scandal who created a war in order to take the emphasis off of his scandal. We know now that Clinton was not making this up, but at the time, there sure were a lot of republicans who didn't know what Bin Laden was about, and didn't care. They were busy ignoring their Constitutional duties to try and take down a sitting President. But hey, let's make sure we allow Bush and his boys to spy on Americans without having the proper warrant. Never you mind that the FISA laws already provide for this. Bush keeps saying that democrats are making American "less safe" by not passing the bill that he wants, and how he wants it. Good lord, when are democrats in Congress going to stand up to this 30 percenter and put their foot down? Apparently, never.

Look, FISA already provides for the allowance to wiretap and intercept communications for up to 72 hours before you actually need to get a warrant. There is a special secret court that can be called into session literally at any time to get warrants issued for this purpose as well. And since FISA was established the court has denied warrants I think a total of 2 or 3 times total, out of thousands that were requested. Are you trying to tell me that our government doesn't have the ability it already needs to legally pursue people? Bush talks about how they need more latitude to pursue the bad people, but of course, they can't provide examples of where some sort of immediacy has prevented anything from happening, and something that the 72 hour part of the law wouldn't have covered. And, this is the kicker. The Bush administration also wants immunity for the telecommunications companies who did these wiretaps to prevent people from suing them for infringement of their privacy, and that's the whole sticking point right now. Hello? I would imagine that these large companies would have, you know, rather large and well paid legal departments. How is it not possible that their lawyers didn't tell them that indeed, you shouldn't do wiretaps without a warrant. The laws are pretty simple that way. No warrant, no wiretap, or e-mail. I often also wonder aloud what the reaction would be of republicans currently in Congress if say, Al Gore were President and was asking for this to happen. You can be sure that they would be screaming bloody murder, and we'd have another impeachment on our hands for crimes against the Constitution, in which case, they'd be right. I don't want ANY President, or government agency to be able to wiretap AMERICAN citizens without a warrant. It flies in the face of what we're supposed to stand for. Doesn't it? How many times does this current administration have to step on our rights, and our laws before they're called out on it?

The Bush administration is smug, and sound in their reasoning that they can pretty much do whatever they want, and Congress isn't going to do a damn thing about it. Look at Congress now. As I said before, George W. Bush has little to no support within the country as a whole, and the WORLD as a whole, and yet, the democrats in both the Senate and the House keep rolling over and giving the Chimp in Chief whatever he wants. He wags his finger, calls democrats terrorist supporters and sympathizers, and then they give him exactly what he wants. What a joke. And then you have the minority party in the Senate, the republicans, who have held up literally every single piece of legislation that the republicans didn't bring themselves into that hallowed chamber, and or didn't like, and nobody calls them obstructionists, when in fact, they have obstructed, or stopped more legislation than any other Congress before them. Look, democrats, time to get tough, take a stand, and start leading, instead of letting Bush and his buddies continue to do whatever it is they want. Stop being such pansies for Christ's sake. Do something to show us that you want to actually lead, and that you actually care about this country, its laws, and its Constitution, because so far since you took back the House and the Senate, we haven't seen it.