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I hate responding to a troll, but:
1) Step on our civil liberties? Seems as though your beloved Kerry voted for the PATRIOT act as well.
2) Drive it downward? You think Clinton was driving it up, when they stopped the MS anti-trust legislation, as well as just riding the speculation on the dot-com bubble? And isn't the point of a company to make money?
3) Yes. So the solution is... more taxes and more government meddling? The democrats keep expanding federal gov't, and just throwing the money at civil service projects with dubious returns.
4) Lie to the public. Like that hasn't ever happened before in politics. Welcome to never.
5) Get a clue.
Thanks for playing this round of "You're a fucking dumbass, but at least you have free speech". Better luck next time.

At least we now have a chance of seeing Clinton 2008.


-Colin

Has this act influenced your Presidential vote?

This is simple. Why I voted for Kerry:

You do realize that Kerry voted for the Patriot Act don't you?

Not American scientists - Not even all American politicians. Just the Bush administration and a few other representatives in the house and senate. Hell, even McCain thinks it's happening. And the Bush administration actually recently admitted that it poses a threat. So, yeah. Way off.

Has anyone caught on the Kerry does not really seem to understand the job of President of the United States? Listening to his speeches makes me choke, he talks about going into Russia and finding their nuclear waste... What authority does he have to do that?

I'd like to see his voting record brought out on intelligence issues

Then look at it. Senate.gov has a record of all votes since at least 1989, which should give you a good idea what he does.

I in no way claim to be intelligent, but one reason I have for supporting Bush (ignoring guns & abortion, which are big issues for me) is that he recognizes that the War on Terror is not like the War on Drugs.

Bush has also answered questions many times, while Kerry has refused to answer questions from a reporter that many consider to be left-leaning!

Bush has also had the balls to say that Social Security is in danger, and will need to be revamped. Kerry's response was, "It'll work long enough." I was pleasantly suprised to find that I actually agreed with Bush's domestic policy.

Perhaps the main reason is that Bush's reelection is going to be 4 more years of the same, which (for me and my friends) has not been too bad. But Kerry's election would be (potentially) 8 years of who knows what. I have no real hope that either party will work to fix the DMCA, as both parties supported it whole-heartedly, but perhaps we can at least keep Congress involved with howling about Iraq and not passing any more extensions.

The PATRIOT act is troubling, but Kerry just says he wants to "review" it. If Kerry says that he passed it without reading it, then he is admitting that he didn't do his job as a Senator. That is frightening. At least Bush seems to know (and do) what his job entails.

And furthermore, we need a decisive electoral victory for Bush, to show Iraq and Afghanistan that we really are going to support them, not dump them like a hot potato the moment it becomes convenient. That was the biggest mistakes we've made as a country recently - pulling up short of Baghdad in 1991, which resulted in many Iraqis who thought we were going to help them overthrow Saddam dying, and ignoring Afghanistan after the Soviet Union fell, which resulted in the Taliban taking control.

Also, I do not believe that an administration that supports the Clinton view of the Second Amendment is good for the long-term freedom in America.

Those are some of my reasons.

Things I disagree with Bush on:

1. Outsourcing. It needs control, but I don't care if an Indian has my job if I'm been blown up by a terrorist, so priorities.
2. Education. I think that education should either be controlled by local politics (cities & counties) or not by the government at all.

In fact, I am more in agreement with the Constitutional Party than with the Republicans in many ways, but I feel that especially after the 2000 election, we need to have a decisive victory. Otherwise every election from now on will be decided in courts by lawyers. This is unacceptable.

Here is a link to a blog that explains some of the reasons behind my thinking.

Other, more personal reasons I don't like Kerry:

1. He attacks Bush about this "Draft," yet the draft bills were introduced by Democrats, defeated 402 to 2, and John Kerry himself supported "National Service" as very recently. This is not just politics, but downright shameful. Also, given that many military personell have said they won't reenlist if Kerry wins, the only way he can keep his 40,000 more troops promise would be to instate a draft. Note that the link is to the archive.org's copy of the John Kerry website; this draft stuff has been modified in his current platform. Even Rumsfeld doesn't want a draft.

2. Why the hell does he try to pret

OTOH, Kerry worked to change the reviled CDA, to keep taxes off Internet business, to require telemarketers to divulge their location at the start of a call, and to promote broadband deployment (all cited in that same McCullagh article. Kerry's Congressional career has been mostly during the Gingrichian Republican majority. He has engaged in the tricky minority politics that require going along with popular bills, then changing them in subsequent legislation, after the Republican "loyalty machine" has moved on, and some sense can be talked across the aisle.

Kerry isn't a tech champion; his priorities lead him into some conflicts with some sensible tech agendas. Especially, it seems, when promoting police access to information for law enforcement: he was a successful prosecutor. But with so many heinous laws passed under Bush, we need someone who knows how to undo the damage. And that's our choice NEXT WEEK: Kerry - who knows what he's doing, who has at least a balanced tech agenda, or Bush - who doesn't understand tech or techies, who has a solely corporate agenda, when his agenda is actually in control of any situation rather than incompetence and chaos.

Others in this thread have pointed out that the DMCA isn't as important in voting as Iraq, healthcare, the Patriot Act. Of course, it all gets factored in. Kerry isn't as tech friendly as, say, *I* would be, but you can't vote me into the White House. If you vote Bush back, more of the same of his antiscience, antihuman, antiAmerican agenda will be an unacceptable alternative to Kerry, who can at least understand his own agenda.

So here's how it boils down: If you want a government that continues to restrict consumer rights in favor of large corporations, vote for Bush; if you want a government that continues to restrict consumer rights in favor of Hollywood corporations, vote for Kerry. It's that simple.

Correct, because no one voted against it. And this is under Clinton!

If there was so much support for it then, why do you think anyone would vote differently today?

Based on the vote totals, he couldn't even get support in a Democratic Congress. This is understandable, when you look at who Hollywood donates much campain money to.

Seems to me to be an open and shut case of both parties being the same, just as the PATRIOT ACT.

From http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_li sts/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=2& vote=00137/

On Passage of the Bill (S.2037 as amended )

[snip]

Number: S. 2037 (Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 )

[snip]

Kerry (D-MA), Yea

In other news, here's a rollcall for the PATRIOT Act. It's a dead horse, but I just noticed that Sen. Sensenbrenner ( R-WI ) sponsored this beast and Sen. Feingold ( D-WI ) cast the only dissenting vote. It's amazing to me that no one voted against the DMCA.
I know this has been a bit offtopic, but it was interesting news to me being an ignorant Wisconsonite.
*shrug*
I guess I'll go back to my chronic Googling now...

According to the official Roll Call, Kerry voted Yea on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, as did 98 of his peers.

He voted for it, of course.

Not trying to be partisan here (although I am a Republican who's already voted for Bush), but take a look at the official Senate roll call vote for the DMCA (S.2037, 1998):

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_li sts/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=2& vote=00137

All but one senator voted YEA for the DMCA... including one Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.). Now you can put his remarks into the proper context.

How serious is the Senator from Massachusetts?

The vote in the "Republican Senate" was 99-0 (with one absent). Everyone voted for it.

As for the House, it appears they did a voice vote only, so not to record who voted for/against it.

Wait. Are you saying he's for anything that might get him a vote, but he's for getting the votes before he turns against it? Or is he not for it so much as to piss the people off who'd be against it, as long as he voted against it after he voted for it? In Soviet Russia, I hear they vote aga*WHAM WHAM WHAM*

My head hurts. Politics is so confusing these days.

So Kerry's (and everyone but one absentee's) vote in the Senate for the DMCA is... unreliable? You sound like Senator Kerry himself. Maybe this one of the bills that Kerry wrote, but didn't have his name on?

On the final version of the bill, Kerry voted "Yea".

Of course he's for it. He's for anything that might get him a vote, but not so much that might piss the people off would be against it.

Like the Patriot Act,Kerry also voted for the DMCA.

You can. Call or write your Senators, tell them you're a constituent (and a voter, if applicable), and express your approval or disapproval of bills you like or dislike. Enough noise from the unwashed can get a bill killed, just like Uma Thurman did.

Time is of the essence on this one, as those campaigning in tight races need something to prop up their electoral base. Somehow I find it refreshing or disturbing that for the past few weeks I've had to call in to Washington three times for poor legislation. So here's the the deal.

The bill is S. 2845, and the portion of debate here is (Information Sharing) Sec. 206, among others. Find your Senators here. Then I want you to e-mail, call, whatever. I, personally, like to call and be firm but nonetheless polite. Don't contact Sen. McCain's office unless you're from Arizona: there is no, no, no, no national politic. None. Your message will be either be forwarded to your state Senators' offices or discarded, and I don't want some aide doing tallies to think that everybody who contacted them was from every state but the one with their voters.

E-mail will also work, and hell, if you have all of ten minutes and $2, consider writing a very basic letter and overnighting it USPS. Remember: you don't have to convince them, all you need to let them know is that you are opposed to it. Paper talks.

I personally prefer both IRV and Condorcet to the current system. Between the two, condorcet is better, but until the debate enters the mainstream, my favorite term is simply the more generic Proportional Representation.

Which is why the logical states to change how they vote are non-swing states. Suddenly, they're back in the game, they're important again.

Yes, and they've also given 20-30% of their electoral votes to the opposing Presidential candidate. Imagine yourself as a Texan Republican or a Massachusett Democrat: would you seriously approve of a change to split your state's votes proportionately? It's exactly like voting for the other candidate (and this is becoming a very close election!). And since your party controls the state legislature, why would you willingly help the opposing party nationally?

And then, once that change happens- how much is the state really back in the game? The game is "importance to presidential candidates", and swing-states are valued because a few thousand votes can turn a whole 30 million state behind you. But if California goes proportional, then the most Bush can hope to gain is 2-3 electoral votes, because they're proportional to the popularity gain he makes there. Even if it was 5-6 votes, that's still not a big attraction.

While the state votes Republicion nationally, it's been Democratic locally for quite some time,

That's a rare oddity that won't last long. Georgia: Where even the Democrats can be Republicans.

So all of 98 Senators who voted for the PATROIT act are actually Republicans?

I think you are completely wrong. I'm googling to find stats. I heard my state governor (Robert Ehrlich - Maryland) say that 50% of the state school budget comes from federal funding. According to ahis article, Mississippi gets $600 million out of their $800 million budget from the federal government. That's 75%.

This and this are comments by various Maryland state senators complaining that the federal government is only paying between 11% and 18% of the special education budget. That's not even close to a full picture, but it sounds like 5% is nowhere close.

I wish it were 5%. Then the federal government couldn't use school funding to punish states.

Thats funny but in fact the people who like the patriot act just don't think like /.ers. The Washington Post put together a fair and detailed account of the developments leading up to the call for a supreme court case [for freely registered readers]. Toward the end of the report they cover Orrin Hatch's idiotic Induce Act as congress's lame industry-sponsored fix for the whole copywrong mess. But this the same who put up a bill to protect gun manufacturers and sellers from liability for what guns do. The glaring difference between the two pieces of legislature is the way one finds only the users at fault and the other blames the manufacturer of of the equipment and not its users. Where is the logic? This if totally f__ked up. Though these are supposedly the legistlative work of one mind, it is clear as desert daylight that they are simply work done at the behest of two different industries that Mr. Hatch either likes or takes money from. Lets hope the courts can do better at finding justice than Mr. Hatch. They have so far. Well, there you have it One person on whom to concentrate your hatred.

Looks like they're not (anymore) in the United States - at least on the Federal level:http://grassley.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAct ion=PressReleases.View&PressRelease_id=59

Its not going to be particularly effective writing him. If you want to do something, contact those in political positions who could be embarrassed by him, such as the Ohio senators Mike DeWine or George V. Voinovich, or representatives. It helps if you are an Ohio resident. Additionally, for those directly responsible for people like Tom, talk to state senators and representatives.

Its not going to be particularly effective writing him. If you want to do something, contact those in political positions who could be embarrassed by him, such as the Ohio senators Mike DeWine or George V. Voinovich, or representatives. It helps if you are an Ohio resident. Additionally, for those directly responsible for people like Tom, talk to state senators and representatives.

Use this page to find your senators, then click your way to their homepage and fill out an "email" form with your thoughts about these bills. It's easy. It took me about three or four minutes to email both of my senators.

As seen on Transterrestrial Musings, spacepolitics.com, and RLV News:

Just got this message Jeff Greason of XCOR Aerospace that the current legislation to assist the development of the suborbital spaceflight industry has been distorted by Senate staffers into something that will instead smother the industry in the cradle:

There is a last-minute move by some staffers in the Senate to heavily amend HR 3752. The amendments would completely change the charter of the office of commercial space transportation (AST), placing the safety of the crew and passengers on equal footing with the safety of the uninvolved public. Since that is well beyond present technology, it would effectively stop development of the industry in the U.S.. It is too late to fix the bill before the session adjourns, but not too late to stop it. If you or people you know have connections to any Senator, please ask them to put a "hold" on HR 3752. That prevents it from passing by unanimous consent. We may have less than 24 hours.

If the bill is "held" there may be opportunity to fix it in a post-election session -- but if not, we would still rather the bill die than pass with these poison-pill amendments.

If your Senator is on the Commerce Committee, that's even better: http://commerce.senate.gov/about/membership.html

Personally, I'm in favor of having the AST in charge of the safety of the uninvolved public on the ground, as the bill was originally worded. However, I think that the last-minute changes to have the same agency regulate the safety of crew and passengers (and require the corresponding mountains of paperwork) would be an excellent way to kill off the budding US space tourism industry.

MSNBC has a more in-depth article on this.

Any chance that the ONE is Orin Hatch?

Okay, found a believable document. The Congressional Research Service said that in 2002, the number of US troops on peacekeeping missions was around 65000, if we include the large force in South Korea who might not be classified as peacekeepers. Here's the breakdown:

UN Peacekeeping 32

NATO Bosnia (SFOR) 1897

NATO Kosovo (KFOR) 4477

Macedonia Variable

South Korea 37000

Sinai Multilateral (MFO) 865

Near Iraq before invasion 20000

Total 64271

So if you include the large "forward presence mission" in Korea, US forces do contribute more peacekeepers than the official UN peacekeeper total (which was around 45000 in 2002), but if you don't include them, they don't.

1) The deferred compensation is cash, not options, so I think the reference to the 433,000 options is not referring to deferred compensation. All the stories I've read on both sides of the issue support this interpretation.

2) While the Guardian says that the deferred compensation is "up to 1m a year", I believe the actual figures have been around $150,000/year and *have* been disclosed by the Cheneys at least in some years. The factcheck article cited earlier shows Cheney has received $398,548 in deferred compensation so far (for 2001-2003 tax returns, with a payment coming for 2004 and one for 2005) while VP. (Here's the 2003 disclosure from the Cheneys.)

3) Even being generous and taking the critics' attacks on Cheney via the Congressional Research Service's ethics standards as "still having a financial interest" seriously, when you read the fine print in those same attacks, they are basically arguing that the financial interest is limited to the fact that if Halliburton goes bankrupt then Cheney doesn't get the 2004/2005 deferred compensation. Since Cheney has already earned $20+ million from Halliburton, I personally find it extremely dubious that he would make some decision to keep an extra few hundred thousand... especially given the microscope this stuff is under.

I call it smear, smear, smear. I'm still waiting for some credible evidence.

If people kick the shrub out, the US will stand a better chance at ratifying the Kyoto accord and remove the wasteful SUVs from the roads.

Bzzzzt. Wrong. (unless you're not referring to John Kerry being Bush's replacement)

As reported in the IHT and other news sources, John Kerry has made a point that he will not be getting the US back into Kyoto. This should come as no surprise. As a senator, he voted against allowing the department of the interior to fund implementation of the Kyoto protocols. On the campaign trail, he has made a point that he will fix the current rising gas prices. As the Kyoto protocols are widely estimated to cause a huge increase (as high as 30%) in national gas prices, implementing the protocol would while lowering gas prices, or even keeping them where they are, would be impossible.

(On a side note, though I hate to use the f-word here (flip-flop), in his 2003 document John Kerry's Comprehensive Vision for a Clean Environment, A Stronger Economy, Healthier Communities, his campaign claims "Dropping out of international implementation of the Kyoto Protocol was foolhardy then, and it is even more obviously foolhardy today.")

There is a popular feeling that goes something like "Bush single handedly killed Kyoto." This is absurd. Clinton couldn't get it ratified in 1997 because everyone in congress, including people from his own party (yes, even John Kerry), refused to even consider voting for it. In fact, it was only signed because Al Gore disregarded the resolution of the senate he was supposed to be in charge of. Bush's decision to not re-submit the treaty to congress for ratification was, frankly, a formality; there is no way he could have gotten congress to ratify it, even if he supported it (and he clearly doesn't).

Though I would love to see green house gas emissions get lower, the fact remains that the Kyoto protocol, as it stands, would be economic suicide for the United States, and odds are essentially zero we'll ever see it ratified

• The text of the Iraq war resolution
  
• The roll call vote in the house
  
• The roll call vote in the senate
  

Large portions of the patriot act were written by people that had a D beside their name.

Well, according to this, "Assistant attorney general, Viet D. Dinh, was the chief architect of the act." While he might count, I think you intended to imply party affiliation, not middle initial. :-)

The bill was introduced first in the House. The sponsor was Sensenbrenner, and the only cosponsor Oxley, both Republicans. Note that this 342 page bill was introduced on 10/23/2001, and passed by the House at 11:03 AM the next day.

It was received in the Senate that same day (the 24th) and passed without amendment the next day. I listed the wrong roll-call vote in another post... the UPA passed 98-1 with Feingold (D-WI) dissenting and Landrieu (D-LA) not voting. (Note that the Senate office building was attacked by anthrax on 10/15/2001, only 10 days before this vote.)

It was signed the next day, 10/26/2001, by the President and became law.

It seems to me that, although the list of Senatorial co-sponsors included many Democrats, none of the Senatorial co-sponsors appear to have had any effect whatsoever on the language of the bill. The House sponsor and cosponsor, neither of which are Democrats, are presumably the ones ultimately responsible for the bill's language.

So... which guys with a "D" next to their name helped write it, exactly? As I see it, most of Congress didn't have time to read it, let alone help write it.

Please remind me of all the Dems that voted against the patriot act.

See the House roll call vote here. Sixty-two Dems voted against it, as did one independent and three Republicans. Nine representatives did not vote; five GOP and 4 Dems.

Ninety-six Senators voted for it. Feingold (D-Wis) was the lone dissenter. Domenici, Helms, and Thurmond (GOP) did not vote. Note also that the three previous roll call votes were on motions tabling amendments that Feingold had offered to soften the UPA.

About 29% of Democrats in the House voted against it, while about 1% of the Republicans did the same. But when it comes to the UPA, there's plenty of blame to spread around. (Including my own rep, alas. It's a pity the guy running against her is scarier still.)

Republicans now more than ever seem to be under the belief that they could throw any dissenting american in to prison and blow up anyone voicing their dissent outside the US and are on a collission course with the stark reality that while we may never die from a terrorist attack, we will surely feel the ever tightening grip of a police state.

You had something going there until this last bit of dribble.

I hardly think you can blame Republicans when 98 senators and 337 Representatives voted for the bill. Those senators of course included your beloved John Kerry.

Apparently, lots of people do, in WVA and elsewhere in the Democratic Party. He's still the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, despite his documented racist past.

Being a democrat doesn't exempt one from being a right-wing asshole. Zell Miller.

Agreed. How about our good friend Democrat Robert Byrd, former KKK recruiter ("kleagle" if you want to get technical), who was allowed to get away with using the term "white nigger" a few years back? Just figured I'd point out that Trent Lott didn't even approach that level of direct racism and was burned at the stake, while lots of folks still take what that fossil Byrd says as gospel.

While I agree with you in that the punishment absolutely does not fit the crime, I believe it's a little narrow-minded to say that it's only "Right Wing Assholes" who are resposible for the entertainment industry's current stance on file trading, even if this one particular bill was sponsored by a Texas Democrat. Most of Hollywood and the various eMpTV voice pieces are overwhelming liberal (I'd say the term "Left Wing Assholes") applies. And BTW, does the name Fritz Hollings ring any bells?

I was having the same issues. My impression is that this is currently a Senate-only bill (or at least they're only pushing us to call Senators right now).

This is especially critical if your Senator is on the Judiciary Committee. There's a member's list at the Senate web site.

Wyden is a Senator.

pudge: Second ... two star hitters ...
I plead nolo contendere on that one! On the other hand, Bush doesn't know the name of his star Supreme Court Justice Anthony/Antonio Scalia! And I could argue that Antonin Scalia counts as at least 1.8 Supreme Court justices because Clarence Thomas votes with him over 80% of the time! Which would you rather have, a President who didn't know his hometown baseball stars, or a President who didn't know who was on the Supreme Court? (Yeah, I know, Bush just misspoke. Lighten up, will ya!)

pudge: Third, you can't be serious about the forgeries. ...
I seriously think there's not enough information to draw a firm conclusion, and that's what I wrote. Look, all CBS ever had, all anybody's ever seen, are faxes from Burkett. Fax resolution is 150 DPI, which, for purposes of document forensics, is piss poor. As I type I'm looking at a blowup of a CBS doc that says "Report to the 111th" (with superscript). The 'o' in "Report" is exactly 9 pixels tall. The 'o' in 'to' is 10 pixels tall. the '1's in "111" are 7 pixels wide. My point is that no reputable expert is going to swear beyond the shadow of a doubt based solely on 150 DPI faxes. Sure, the preponderance of the evidence says they're forgeries, but the standard in a criminal trial is beyond the shadow of a doubt. You want a little doubt? It looks to me like some of the instances of the same glyph are higher or lower than others. Typewriters; especially worn ones, strike at varying heights. MSWord doesn't. I'm not claiming that proves the docs are valid; I just think there's still signifcant uncertainty about them. From what I know now, on a 50/50 bet I'd bet against them. But on a 20:1 bet, I'd put up $10 to say they're valid against your $200 claiming they're false. Would you take that bet? How about 100:1? See what I mean? There's still uncertainty about them.

pudge: Fourth ... he hasn't done anything..
Flat out false. here's a small summary from Kerry's Senate career awards. Here's another, comparing Kerry's legislative accomplishments with Cheney's. Read here and here about the BCCI affair.

A word of advice here. You've clearly been getting most of your information from anti- Kerry sources. It's a free country, you're welcome to do that, but my advice is: don't take all that stuff as the full and complete story on Kerry. Taking that stuff as gospel and ignoring the counter arguments makes you look, well, ignorant. I'm not saying you are ignorant; just that some of the things you say leave an unfortunate impression. Case in point:

pudge: Further, I don't know how you can consider what Bush has done in Iraq a substantive issue, ...
Most observers consider Iraq to be the most substantive issue of the campaign.

pudge: ... Kerry has completely reversed his position on Iraq ...
False. Read this analysis from the SF Chronicle's Marc Sandalow. Yeah, I know, you think you can safely igore it because the paper's probably liberal. But I'm telling you, that's the kind of ignoring that can lead to ignorance! By the way, Kerry didn't say 'the invasion was "the right decision,"' he

It was close to this, with one nea and one abstain. Finally, something to make me proud of Wisconsin senators, what with us historically having a history of senators who kinda go against the whole freedom thing.

Quit saying you can't vote for whatever candidate that you want, and just do it.

The issue isn't whether or not it's physically possible to mark a ballot for a third party. Such thinking is a deceitful red herring.

For chrissakes, fifty years ago Maurice Duverger showed that elections conducted by"first-past-the-post" principles tend -- by their very mechanics -- toward a political system that's perpetually dominated by two political parties.

Alternatives exist, to be sure. But it's more than disingenuous to suggest that malcontent against an artificial two-party state is somehow attributable purely to apathy and not also to what's nearly a mathematical certainty.

The system is rigged. (And not just for this reason and in this way.) What motivation have the present set of players to change it of their own volution?

Senator Kerry, we all know that George W. Bush (43) looks just like George H. W. Bush (41) for obvious reasons, but can you explain your own peculiar resemblance to Andrew Jackson ?

This was first suggested by Senator Orrin Hatch - R who has Qualcomm as a major financier.