Today, only a slim majority of House Democrats, 53%, voted for the amendment to end the war in Afghanistan. 42% joined the House Republicans to keep the Afghanistan war going on even longer.
The truth is that there is increasing distrust in the idea of God in the United States, and increasing disagreement on religious issues. If Congress passes any resolution on the subject, it should be to reaffirm that the government should simply stay out of religious affairs, and neither promote nor oppose any religious beliefs. The U.S. House of Representatives couldn’t help itself yesterday, though, and so it voted overwhelmingly to pass H. Con. Res. 13.
H.R. 1981 would require the linkage of all our online activities to our names and other personal information. This, in turn, would enable government intelligence agents to search through its massive databases of online activities, collected under the FISA Amendments Act, by citizen name, address or telephone number.
Yesterday’s markup was an opportunity for reform of the abusive law, with amendments that could have brought the Patriot Act closer to compliance with the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment guarantee of protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Yet, every single reform that was offer was rejected by the House Judiciary Committee.
Unlike many of the Christian members of Congress, who loudly declare their religion to be at the core of their political identities, Representatives Hirono and Johnson keep their Buddhist religious identities a private matter separate from their public service.
Hank Johnson is trying to convince people that the Obama economic policy is not voodoo economics, but I have trouble understanding how the Wall Street bailouts are not supposed to be trickle down economics. After all, we the American people aren’t receiving much of the money directly.
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