Congress (and the Constitution) Takes a Holiday!

In October of 2001, in the wee hours of the night; with Karl Rove and Dick Cheney concocted bogeymen hiding under every bed in America, the congress passed the USA Patriot Act. The following October the same congress voted to authorize George W. Bush to invade Iraq based on a Bush and Cheney concocted nightmare scenario that had Saddam Hussein transferring his vast stockpiles of WMD to Osama bin Laden for the purpose of attacking the United States. While these actions were taken under a Republican led congress, enough Democrats voted for these actions to lend them a level of bi-partisanship that Bush and Company have exploited ever since. When both of these actions were quickly proven to be more “assault of America” than weapons in a “war on terror” Democrats began to assert that they had been misled and had reacted out of (political) fear. In 2004 and again in 2006, Democrats all over the country ran for election and re-election proclaiming that, if there were in the majority, we could look for a repeal of both the Patriot Act and an end to the occupation of Iraq.

In November of 2006 Americans finally said, “ENOUGH!” With more than 3,000 Americans killed in Iraq (along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis); ongoing terrorist attacks occurring in places like Spain, England, and the Philippines; and increasing reports of Bush Administration violations of their civil liberties, Americans voted Democrats into the majority in both the House and the Senate.

So what of the promises to end the occupation of Iraq and reassert the protection of the 4th Amendment for the American people? The number of Americans troops in Iraq has been INCREASED by some 30,000 since January; while the congress issues “non-binding resolutions denouncing the escalation.” When the Democrats finally produce legislation that would simply BEGIN to reduce troop levels over 18 months, they capitulated to a veto by George Bush and simply continued to fund the occupation with no more oversight than before. (AGAIN: A Bush veto, if simply left on his desk, would have effectively cut off funding for the continuing occupation; leaving the final decision firmly on Bush’s desk.)

As for protecting the civil liberties of American citizens, the record is thus far just as dismal. After numerous hearings we have learned that George Bush personally authorized illegal warrentless wiretapping of Americans and that the US Justice Department has been turned into a clearing house for the political wing of the Whitehouse. We have learned that under the blind overlook of Attorney General, Alberto (the torture guy) Gonzales, the FBI has violated the limited protections left in the Patriot Act on THOUSANDS of occasions. This weekend a Democratic led congress has voted not to limit the administration's abilities to violate our civil liberties and our Constitution but, rather, to enhance those abilities by making warrentless wiretapping of Americans LEGAL and by placing the oversight for those actions into the hands of POLITICAL APPOINTEES (Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General) and out of the hands of the JUDICIAL BRANCH! Why would the Democrats allow this to happen? Fear. No, not fear of any real threat to the country (after all not one person has ever been brought to trial and convicted of any terrorist activity based on information obtained via the Patriot Act or violations of the FISA ACT). In fact Democrats in congress were afraid that if they did not capitulate to Whitehouse and Republican demands to make these dictatorial revisions to the FISA ACT they might be prevented from taking their MONTH LONG summer vacation! That’s right. George Bush actually threatened to keep Congress in session until he got what he wanted. Well, thanks to 16 Democratic Senators:

Bayh – IN; Carper – DE; Casey –PA; Conrad – ND; Feinstein – CA; Inouye – HI; Klobuchar – MN; Landrieu – LA; Lincoln – AR; McCaskill – MO; Mikulski – MD; Nelson – FL; Nelson – NE; Pryor – AR; Salazar – CO; Webb – VA

And 41 Democratic members of the House:

Altmire – PA; Barrow – GA; Bean – IL; Boren – OK; Boswell – IA; Boyd – FL; Carney – PA; Chandler – KY; Cooper – TN; Costa – CA; Cramer – AL; Cuellar – TX; Davis – AL; Davis – TN; Donnelly – IN; Edwards – TX; Ellsworth – IN; Etheridge – NC; Gordon – TN; Herseth Sandlin – SD; Higgins – NY; Hill – IN; Lampson – TX; Lipinski – IL; Marshall – GA; Matheson – UT; McIntyre – NC; Melancon – LA; Mitchell – AZ; Peterson – MN; Pomeroy – ND; Rodriguez – TX; Ross – AR; Shuler – NC; Salazar – CO; Snyder – AR; Space – OH; Tanner – TN; Taylor – MS; Walz – MN; Wilson – OH

Congress and the Constitution will take a holiday.

By the way, just to add a divine ironic twist to this latest cluster f%^&* from our new Democratic Majority, in applying pressure to the Democrats, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the following:

"Al Qaeda is not going on vacation this month and we can't either until we know we've done our duty to the American people."

Senator, Al Qaeda is still not on vacation, our Troops are not on vacation, the Iraqi people are not on vacation but, as of 1am today, the United States Congress has joined the Iraqi Parliament for a month away from the grueling work of doing your “duty to the American people.”

Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue