HomeSec In the News

The U.S. Homeland Security bill is steamrolling through Congress, on target to be passed within a couple of days. Since its passage is guaranteed, in whatever form it finally ends up, lawmakers are attempting to tack on their own pet projects to the bill so they can ride its coattails. A CNet article mentions that a version of the Cyberspace Security Enhancement Act has been appended to the HomeSec bill. William Safire blasts the addition in the New York Times. The Times has another story on the bill that notes some of the corporate pork that is also being added to the bill.

Comments

Re:The solution to problems like this...

[SuiteSisterMary]

Just to put it into more context...

Lets say that a bill is going through Congress to put better controls on Ketchup manufacturing, because some people got e.coli from ketchup. This is going to sail right through; think of the children! So they start tacking on little bits that have nothing to do, really, with the problem at hand. "100 million to the FDA for improved Ketchup testing. And 500 Million to NASA. For, umm...space..ketchup...testing."

Now, the President has the ability to only say 'yes' or 'no' to the entire law, as presented to him. This is, I think, how it should be; y'all need to attack the root problem of fucked up laws going through Congress. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; America's political system would work far better if y'all used it as intended, and abolished the concept of the 'career politician.'

Smaller gov't

[Camel Pilot]

One time i voted republican because I was for less gov't and fiscal responsibility and now they stand for the opposite. Bush's solution to all problems is spend more. I was a rich kid and never had to budget for anything. In fact in the business world he was a disaster!

Lets see in the US gov't we have the following agencies to "protect" the citizens

CIA

NSA

FBI

ATF

DEA

And probably a few others. All of these agencies are empires in their own right and the interface between them is largely opaque and there is lots of redundancies and external friction.

Why do we need another empire!

BTW, Canada has one the RCMP.

Re:Liberal as insult

[sg3000]

> When did the word Liberal become an epithet

Newt Gingrich started the game back in 1994 when Bush Sr. lost the 1992 election. They put together a plan to make the world "Liberal" worse than "Communist" and basically wage the same war on the Democratic party that they waged on Communists before that. For more enlightenment, read David Brock's Blinded by the Right .

It doesn't go both ways though. I have never met a Democrat or Liberal that responds to the other side with the same visceral reaction as a conservative when you say, "Liberal"

Conservatives have learned since 1992 that if you say something enough times people will take it as conventional wisdom. For example, despite the fact that the media in general has been giving G.W. Bush a free ride since Sept 11, 2001, they still claim there's a "Liberal bias" to the media.

In other news...

[Cervantes]

The bill also tacks on loosely worded research funding for Texas A&M. It also lets the White House decide who gets hired and fired, bypassing employment standards regulations (who's gonna be suprised when it's 99% white?). The government can now slap wiretaps whereever they think appropriate, and ISPs can divulge information without fear of reprisal. The nice people who make the smallpox vaccine are now protected from litigation, as are the nice people who make metal detectors, and the nice security guards who man them. So when the big bad man carries his briefcase of smallpox through JFK International, you won't be able to sue anyone for reading Archie Digest when he was supposed to be watching the screen, and when it turns out your smallpox vaccine was in fact a dose of really, really dilluted cherry Kool-Aid, well, sucks to be you.

In other news that undoubtedly went unreported, your faithful representatives have bitten the bullet, and given themselves another pay raise. Now your Reps, Senators, VP, and about 1000 other people (literally) make over $154,000 a year, not including kickbacks, expense budgets, under-the-table exchanges, contributions to their re-election fund...

God Bless America.

(I'm legally required to say that, now that Bush signed a bill re-emphasizing the importance of "God" in the pledge of alleigence, as well as "In god we trust" as your national motto. So much for separation of church and state, eh?)

(And before your left-wingers start running your mouth off, I'll point out that the Democrats didn't oppose any of these bills, admitting that the soon-to-be Republican majority would make the effort useless. So much for standing up for what you believe in.)