Hartmann: WORST DAY IN US HISTORY SINCE ALIEN/SEDITION ACTS OF 1789

[redacted]

Hear Thom now at http://www.quakeradio.com/main.html

[Stu DeBeouf]

1. Thom knows his shit...

There are few options left in this matter....

[Ameritopia]

2. Worst day EVER!!!!!!!!

[redacted]

4. Ameritopia, you're probably right.

Just got home and heard the news and the more I learn about today's events and debate, the worse it looks for Democracy.

[peace13]

3. Worst day ever.. and 99.99% of the population

has no idea! AAkkkk, this is bad.

[redacted]

5. No coverage of this at all on tonight's network news?

Haven't seen TV yet tonight.

[peace13]

7. Yes, no coverage tonight

but so many have been complacent for so long it is really not an excuse. Today was bad because I came upon people in my daily world that had no idea what was going on in DC today. All they could mutter was how bad it would be if Hillary C runs "next time", I am telling you it was more than I could bare. Peace, Kim

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. he's going off!

President, Senate, Congress are sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States...

"it's being riddled with bullet holes, raped, set on fire, and SPIT UPON on the floor of the Senate right now!"

[Poll_Blind]

8. On good men doing nothing.

  Edmund Burke said "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing."

  For most of my life and certainly all of my adult life I have confronted various evils, intentionally or otherwise. Sometimes you go looking for that monster and sometimes it comes looking for you. Regardless, the eventual confrontation is a trial. Winning or losing in a battle against evil is a moot point to judge a man or woman.

  It is whether one flees from the battle or enjoins it that is relevant in my opinion. That is a point to judge on.

  There is also the matter of how thoroughly that evil is confronted. As Americans, we are taught that some evils are so highly-appointed in the infernal hierarchy that they require we lay our lives down to stop them. Again, it is of little importance whether we win or lose that battle, but what pains were taken to stop it.

  To many here, is is high Truth that this battle today required more effort than was given by those we have appointed to defend us. It will be marked down, and it should be, that the battle might not have been winnable. That is ultimately irrelevant. What will also be noted, and of much greater importance, is that this battle should have been fought with the kind of vigor appropriate to the menace of that evil which was confronted.

  Which it was not.

  This was not a legislative kerfuffle over the subsidizing the price of corn or choosing a design for the face of a coin. Nor was it merely, and I use that word correctly, merely how we confront the evils which threaten America.

  This was something greater than that. Today's battle was a question about how we confront evil in ourselves, and how we define our national character.

  And the choice has been made. The President will lower his gallows-pen and the scratches it makes on paper will become a pale reflection of the gallows-blade which hangs heavily over our Liberties' neck.

  The good men and women who represent us in Congress have not done nothing. But they have certainly not done what was necessary when confronting an evil of this magnitude. I did not expect our representatives to lay down their life for us, today. But I sorely wish that I would have known that they would lay down so little when the stakes were so great.

  Freedom is a prologue to that which we will live with from this day forward. But Freedom is not the father or mother of it.

PB

[Disturbed]

9. Will this be the next travesty foisted upon America?

Alien and Sedition Acts: West's Encyclopedia of American Law
In 1798, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed four acts to empower the ... Also an act passed by Congress in 1918 during WORLD WAR I that made it a ...
http://www.law.enotes.com/wests-law-encyclopedia/alien-sedition-acts

Of course it will be framed as a friendly protection against Terror.

[Poll_Blind]

10. You know, I looked up the definition of the word "foist" and...

...the definition is as follows- which had a more specific meaning than I was familiar with:

to force another to accept especially by stealth or deceit

  If it was foisted on us I might be able to sleep tonight. That legislation was a ship that flew Tyranny's colors as it came into port, and no others. That it was allowed to dock and deboard it's filth was maybe inevitable. I had just hoped more who were clearly aware of it's cargo would have done a little more to prevent it.

PB

[Bozita]

11. Here's the screaming NYT editorial that Thom referred to

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Editorial
Rushing Off a Cliff

Published: September 28, 2006

Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That’s pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.

It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush’s shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.

Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.

These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:

more...