Between the SOPA bill and Defense Authorization Act…I have lost all faith in Congress.
I don’t want either of these bills to be something we look at after it’s passed, only to realize how horrible they are…
But I honestly don’t know what to do…
-XIII
Remember when Dennis Kucinich presented 35 articles of impeachment against George Bush, partially for the Patriot Act and other infringements upon very basic civil liberties? The Patriot Act wishes it was NDAA ‘12 and SOPA. Dennis didn’t get anywhere with his impeachment because he brought it to the House much too late and let’s be honest, Bush wasn’t going to get impeached. However, there is a very decent discussion to be had about whether the acts in question were indeed impeachable offenses. The discussions I’ve seen amongst constitutional law scholars weren’t centered around if the infringements upon civil liberties were impeachable but if an impeachment was likely to be successful.
In my opinion, the proposals set forth in these two bills present such grave violations of our most basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution that each individual who voted in favor of them or will eventually vote in favor of them should be thrown out of office immediately. Since that’s not going to happen, we can only hope that our courts can get it right and strike down the horrific provisions set forth in these bills. Even though our upper level courts tend to be a bit more conservative, I don’t see the contestable portions of these bills holding up upon review. No. Way.
HOUSE GOP’S DEAL TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN INCLUDES BAN ON DC FROM FUNDING ABORTION SERVICES
In what is becoming standard practice, House Republicans are forcing a ban on funding for abortion services in the District of Columbia to avoid a government shutdown. D.C. is unique in that, not only does it not have a voting representative, but its budget is controlled by Congress. The anti-abortion policy rider attached to the GOP’s omnibus spending bill thus prohibits D.C. from providing any funding — even it’s own local taxes — to pay for abortions. The rider puts the ban in place through fiscal 2012 and is the GOP’s third effort to re-enact the 13-year-long ban on abortion-fudning in D.C. that President Obama overturned in 2009.
Ugh.
2012 is coming.
Now a particularly ironic fact has come to light — it appears that IP addresses belonging to the offices of members of Congress have been downloading content illegally via BitTorrent. TorrentFreak used Hurricane Electric’s handy list of assigned IP blocks (found here) to track down which IP addresses belong to the offices of members of Congress. And lo and behold, when those addresses were compared to results on YouHaveDownloaded, a torrent tracking site, they yielded over 800 hits. Now to put this in context YouHaveDownloaded tracks only a tiny portion of torrent traffic, so it appears that Congress — even as they look to punish lesser mortals for file sharing — are themselves gleefully committing a “smash and grab” as Vice President Joe Biden (D) once put it.
DailyTech - Congress Plugs Anti-Piracy Legislation By Day, Pirates Porn by Night (via robot-heart-politics)
Filed under: Another revelation about congressional corruption that shocks and surprises no one at all.
Really? ‘Nerds’? You know, actually, I think the word you’re looking for is ‘experts,’ to enlighten you so your laws won’t backfire and break the Internet.
JON STEWART, on members of Congress considering the SOPA and PIPA bills exasperatedly calling for “nerds” to help them understand SOPA and PIPA, on The Daily Show.
Why does Congress bother convening at all?
(via inothernews)
“Yes we are!” said an unapologetic Congress.
@LizzWinstead tweeted this photo of herself holding an aspirin between her knees with the simple question:
Um. Now what?
In response to this garbage, which we can AT LEAST all be thankful was NOT said in a congressional hearing on birth control today. The fact that we have to be thankful for that says a lot about the bullshit going down these days.
*sings* “I’m just a pill. Yes, I’m only a pill. And I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill…”
Not soon enough.
