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The Odds of Change: A Statistical Look at Our Democrat’s Voting Records
by
trupeace4all | 07.04.2008
We want change. Obama says he will deliver change, as did the Democrats in '06. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Even the statistics prove the Democrats have failed us.  According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a statistic is a “collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of masses of numerical data.” What is more interesting still is its etymology, from the German word meaning “study of political facts and figures” and the Latin “of Politics.” With that in mind, lets do a statistical study of the voting record of those who would bring about “change” – the Democrats. It is no secret that the Republicans have passed their fair share of rubber-stamped bills and ignored the collective will of the United States people, but the Democrats would have us believe that they alone have acted in a patriotic and constitutional manner. They ask us to believe that they are listening to our collective voice. They claimed that they would make change, starting with the 2006 mid-term elections and more recently with the Nomination and subsequent “election” of Barack Obama to the White House. Can they back up those claims with good old-fashioned math? Let’s look at some statistical information based on voting data collected over the past 8 years. The USA PATRIOT Act was passed in a time of national distress, and as such, was given a title that made Americans feel good about the reality of this intrusive new spy bill. In truth, this outrageous bill directly contradicted no less than five amendments contained in our U.S. Bill of Rights. Statistically, 69% of the House Democrats and 96% of Democratic Senators voted FOR the first PATRIOT Act. In contrast, 22% of House Democrats and 77% of Democratic Senators voted for the Re-Authorization. In comparison, we do see a slight improvement on behalf of the Democrat’s collective vote for this bill, but will this “shift” turn into an upward trend? The Real ID Act was hotly contested by both political aisles because it’ sought to establish a defacto-National ID Card, limiting and tracking the movement of U.S. citizens. While the Real ID Act did not pass on its own, author James Sensenbrenner (who also sponsored PATRIOT Acts 1 and 2) had it attached to an Emergency Appropriations bill (HR1268) where it passed, virtually un-debated. 80% of the House Democrats and 98% of the Senate Democrats voted FOR this bill. Compared to the votes on the USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization, that’s a collective downward shift in Constitutionally principled voting by 47%. There does seem to be a rather dramatic change in the collective voting habits of our nation’s elected Democrats. Unfortunately, this data represents is a huge shift away from the safeguards set into motion by our nation’s founding documents, NOT a return to them. Furthermore, by examining legislation passed under the 2006 Session of Congress, we will see a similar split-pattern taking shape. The John Warner Defense Act (ending Posse Comitatus) and the Military Commissions Act (removing Habeas Corpus) would be the top two bills removing more constitutional protections. Respectively, the statistical data shows that 84% of House Dems and 100% of the Senate Dems voted to end Posse Comitatus, while, 16% of the House Dems and 26% of the Senate Dems chose to support the ending of Habeas Corpus. And what of our Presidential Hopefuls? McCain voted to end both, while Obama only voted to end Posse Comitatus, making it illegal for the President of the United States to station active military troops in cities throughout the United States during any self-declared emergency. Remember, 100% of the Senate Democrats voted to end Posse Comitatus. Let’s shift our focus to the 110th congress and the much hoped for changes in government that the 2006 mid-term elections promised. Weren’t the Democrats going to fix the FISA Laws, Restore Habeas Corpus (S.185), and impeach the President of the United States for leading this country into an illegal war and for violating U.S. law by ordering the NSA and FBI to data-mine the daily communications of every person in the United States? Instead of seeing Democrats racing to the House floor to repeal such bad legislation, we would now see them racing to sponsor their own versions of bills that were far worse than the ones proposed by Republicans in the first place. Also introduced during this session is the most damning piece of legislation to ever make it’s way to the halls of Congress: the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, HR1955, and its Senate equivalent S.1959. For the first time, American citizens will be psychologically profiled and indexed based upon their religious, social, and political aspirations. This database will be used to “predict” whether or not the target may be a potential “homegrown terrorist” and indexes these results based upon the individual’s ability to persuade the mind or behavior of another person – your ability to win an argument. The House version, sponsored by California Democrat Jane Harmon, was supported by 98% of the House Democrats. The Senate version has not made it for a vote, yet. Next we have HR 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a blatant attack on our Fourth amendment right to privacy. This heinous act of government sanctioned intrusion and, among other things, retroactive immunity to the TeleComm’s for their part in the illegal wiretapping of US citizens, smacks of fascism at its core. Yet, 45% of House Democrats voted for this legislation. It has not come up for a vote in the Senate yet, but both of our Presidential hopefuls have said they support it. What happened to our precious change? It would appear that the only thing that has noticeably changed is our Democrat’s willingness to subject the American people to an ever-growing mountain of bad legislation that strips away our freedoms and expands the roll of government in our everyday lives. While the Democrats continually play the “blame-the-Republicans” game, it becomes a matter of fact versus fiction. The fiction is that Republicans alone are to blame. The fact is that 67% of our Democrats have collectively voted for legislation that removes critical components of our U.S. Bill of Rights. Democrats are as much at fault as the Republicans in the demise of our liberty, yet here we are again faced with another election where citizens are forced to vote for the lesser of two evils, if there truly is such a thing. Statistically speaking, we’ve had change in DC, just not the kind we asked for. Isn’t it time that we stand up to the bullies in D.C. and start actively seeking alternatives to the “status quo” politician. Who will those new candidates be? Where will they come from? Who will support them? We know what the status quo will bring us…the same old broken promises of the past seven years. It’s time to run for office, it’s time to vote in mass, and it’s time to support candidates who are your neighbors, friends, and colleagues. It is time for new blood in Washington. It’s time for representation that we can be proud of. Want to see some of these elected representatives “duke it out” on civil liberties? http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=Rkv2E1YPqsM Want a game plan for replacing most of our House of Representatives? End Notes: Statistics Defined http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/statistics Pelosi: Bush Impeachment “Off the Table” http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/11/08/cq_1916.html Rep Dennis Kucinich Articles of Impeachment http://kucinich.house.gov/spotlightissues/documents.htm All of the votes for bills presented can be found by searching www.house.gov and www.senate.gov, or the convenient www.govtrack.us. HR 3162 (107) USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 HR 3199 (109) USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 HR 418 died, but attached to HR 1268 (109) Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief Act of 2005 HR 5122 (109) John Warner Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal year 2007 S 3930 (109) Military Commissions Act of 2006 HR 2863 (109) Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2006 – Containing the Detainee Treatment Act (protecting torture) HJ RES 114 (107) Authorization for use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution for 2002 HR 4939 (109) Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, The Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Relief HR 1955 (110) Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (Related to S 1959 Bill of the Same Title) HR 6304 (110) FISA Amendments Act of 2008 House Passes Spy Bill; Senate Expected to Follow http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062000986.html?hpid=topnews Al Gore Speech, Video and Text A Blueprint For True Change in DC http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=Rkv2E1YPqsM
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Comentarios
Written one day after the 4th of July
Submitted by Navy-Vet (no verificado) on Sáb, 07/05/2008 - 12:22pmI went to an antiwar "honk for peace" rally yesterday. Most of the passing drivers honked. Will more than a handful in Washington care? No. There are very few Dennis Kuciniches, Barbara Lees and Chuck Hagels in either party.
What about those who didn't honk for peace? The founders would weep to see our hypnotized sheep-like population, not just the ill-informed who support or don't notice our foreign wars, but well-meaning optimists, mostly Democrats and Greens, who yearn passionately to be reformers and end up supporting parties and candidates who promise hope but deceive and cheat.
I've been there, done that, but we can no longer afford the old Trumanesque imperialist and anti-worker propaganda that's prevailed since undereducated, unprepared Harry Truman assumed the Atomic Age, oil-slicked throne. All subsequent wannabe-liberal presidents, Republican AND Democrat, have followed the late forties' hopeless program of imperialism abroad and domestic suppression of dissent. Ike, LBJ and Carter tried to knuckle down and make some decent changes, but for various reasons they too got sucked in. It's the nature of the real Truman Doctrine--imperialism.
Always a concerned citizen, I began voting at age 21 in 1957. I've campaigned for many who promised liberal change and voted for them only because they were "not as bad as the opponent". Very likely that was true, at least marginally. Things have gotten worse anyhow--plungingly worse since Nixon and especially Reagan. (A dear friend said in the mid-1980s that America had become a "surrealist's nightmare." True then, hellish now!)
I'll vote for Obama because the alternative is disaster, but won't lift a finger to campaign for him unless he chooses to abide by the Constitution rather than anticipate his own Imperial fiats. Surely he must realize that the nation's and the world's problems are overwhelming, and that even in Utopia--which no country on earth has ever been close to becoming--change is always inevitable. The reasonable alternative is to change in the direction of the greatest good. To evolve, not devolve.
The Democratic leaders for years have been blinded and deafened by the money and cash-drawer noise from their Beltway lobbyists. This campaign season would be laughable, if not so tragic. Once again the Democrats been manipulated into ending up with front runners like Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama, the LEAST likely 2008 candidates to appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, and a winner, Obama, who puts forward few ideas except treading the Imperialist gristmill and playing to the healthcare industry, the "Market", and now NAFTA.
Meanwhile the GOP is even more hagridden by special interests, not just the rich and powerful but a rabbit-warren of kooks. The Republican leaders encouraged their own goofuses and idiots into the public arena until the screaming extremism caused their flaming wreckage on the altar of the Wall Street-mouthpiece mass media. That was how the real Wall Street candidate, lobbyist-lover McPain / McSuperRichGain, could take over and pretend to be a "moderate" just as Dubya did, with the help of the eager Right-Wing media. The Rovites are smart like Machiavelli, but people like Machiavelli are the creatures of demons. America can't exist being run by demons, or even by Machiavelli's crackpot realist Princes.
I've been a hopeful, if pessimistic, realist, but the land I grew up in, the nation I served as a Naval officer, energy conservationist and historian of dissent for more than 30 years, does not exist any more. I now seriously doubt it can be restored. I hope otherwise, but fear the Great Experiment has run its course.
Others will do as they choose, but unless there are major improvements I won't campaign. I'm tired of being Cassandra and Jeremiah, watching the high hopes of the 60s die in Vietnam, screaming loudly when Equal Time was replaced by Media Monopoly and public interest by privateering greed, seeing 40 years of pessimistic predictions gradually, sneakily, greedily come true in every administration despite a few temporary resuscitations of democracy like the Watergate Congress. I'm exhausted from the time and effort I've put in to hold back a flood that now drowns us.
Information--or, rather, lack of truthful information and an inundation of falsehood--controls America. As long as the mass media is owned lock-stock-and-barrel by the Far Right, as long as they are permitted to lie without challenge, then truth, ethics and democracy have no chance. Even if honest dialogue can be restored publicly, we've arrived at one minute to midnight and the chances of turnaround are slim. I recall some of Robert Heinlein's words, which went something like this: "Human beings are rationalizing, not rational, animals."
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