Entries Tagged with Russ Feingold
April 5th, 2006
“Gay and lesbian couples should be able to marry and have access to the same rights, privileges and benefits that straight couples currently enjoy.” Feingold went on to add, “[This] kind of discrimination … has no place in our laws, especially in a progressive state like Wisconsin. The time has come to end this discrimination and the politics of divisiveness that has become part of this issue.”
– Russ Feingold [“Feingold announces support for full gay marriage rights” (The Raw Story)]
Tags: Quote of the Day, Gay Rights, Russ Feingold
March 24th, 2006
This Week the Republicans released a new radio ad in Wisconsin:
RNC AD: “Censure”
Announcer: September 11th changed our country. And it changed how America responds to terrorists. President Bush is working to keep American families safe. Passing the PATRIOT Act which has disrupted over one hundred and fifty terrorist threats and cells making sure the US is monitoring terrorist communications. But some Democrats are working against these efforts to secure our country, opposing the PATRIOT Act and terrorist surveillance program. Their leader is Russ Feingold. Now Feingold and other Democrats want to censure the President. Publicly reprimanding President Bush for pursuing suspected members of al Qaeda. Some Democrats are even calling for President Bush’s impeachment.
Is this how Democrats plan to win the War on Terror? Call Russ Feingold and ask him why he’s more interested in censuring the President than protecting our freedom. Paid for by the Republican National Committee not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee www.gop.com. The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.
FactCheck.org does a nice analysis of the inaccuracies and mischaracterizations of Feingold’s Censure Resolution in the Repulican’s ad. I’d like to review some of that here, but I want to be fair and point out that these kinds of commercials are a personal pet peeve of mine as they come from both sides. They were particularly aggrevating during the 2004 election and after awhile they sound less like spin and more like lies and after awhile I’m just offended by both sides.
Now Feingold and other Democrats want to censure the President. Publicly reprimanding President Bush for pursuing suspected members of al Qaeda.
This must be more of that “if they aren’t with us, then they’re against us” mentality. Feingold nor any Democrat has ever reprimanded President Bush or anyone for pursuing suspected terrorists. In fact, Feingold has repeatedly, publically said that we should be wiretapping terrorists and suspected terrorists; that isn’t the issue — the issue is the wiretapping of Americans on American soil without obtaining court orders as well as a failure to disclose what he was doing to the appropriate Congressional committees.
Some Democrats are even calling for President Bush’s impeachment.
But not Russ Feingold. John Conyers in the House, yes, but he isn’t even calling really for an impeachment so much as an investigation that could lead to an impeachment. The implication is that the Democratic agenda is to impeach President Bush, which I find hilarious because if they were paying attention, they’d know that the Democrats are too scared to do any such thing.
It’s really all about the spin. Scare Americans into thinking that only Republicans can keep them safe. God knows that the terrorists are going to attack Wisconsin any day now. You aren’t a patriot if you vote Democrat.
Tags: Terrorists, Patriot Act, Russ Feingold, Republicans, Democrats, George W. Bush, factcheck.org, Censure, 2004 election, Impeach
March 15th, 2006
With everything going on in the blogsphere, in national politics, in women’s rights, in the Middle East, in Iraq in particular, in the world in general, I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed the last few days. Politics in particular has made me particularly restless the last three or four days. I’ve been debating a personal rebellion, a political mutiny. However, what I’ve come to realize is that it’s hard to defect from a party when you don’t belong to one. You just can’t up and flounce out of the room with a dramatic slam of the door behind you if you weren’t in there in the first place.
More
Tags: Congress, George W. Bush, Russ Feingold, politics, Bill Clinton, 9/11, Democrats, Republicans, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan
March 13th, 2006
Susie @ Suburban Guerrilla has a link today to firedoglake where they’re organizing support for Senator Russ Feingold’s censure yesterday. They want everyone to call their senators, Republican or Democrat, and ask them where they stand on the matter. The idea is two fold: First of all, it lets the Senate know just how many people care and support this resolution even if their representative is a line-stepping Republican (like here in Maine) and it gives those of us out here in America an idea of what the intial reaction in the Senate looks like.
This really isn’t a lot to ask. Russ Feingold is putting a lot on the line for us and we need to back him up now. We need to show our support and we need to show Washington that we are tired of the complacency and the incompetency and the line-stepping. We want answers.
You can contact the US Senate via the switchboard at (202) 224-3121, and they will connect you with any Senator’s office. Or you can find your particular Senator’s direct dial here.
I’ve already contacted Senators Snowe and Collins; how about you?
Tags: Russ Feingold, Censure, George W. Bush, Impeach, Senate, Republicans, Democrats, politics
March 12th, 2006
Senator Russ Feingold, one of the few Democrats in Washington who actually does what he says and stands for something anymore, appeared on ABC’s This Week today and announced that tomorrow he’s introducing a very special resolution to the Senate. The resolution would censure President Bush for authorizing an illegal warrantless domestic surveillance program, something many Americans on both sides of the political fence have considered within impeachment territory. Certainly, it brings up some unanswered questions and it displays once again President Bush’s nose-thumbing at the U.S. Constitution and the laws he’s supposed to uphold as our top-most leader. I think we all deserve some answers, and if Bush is well within his rights, then fine, but let’s do this right.
If you want to see the video, go here.
But if you’re lazy, here’s the transcript:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Tomorrow in the Senate you’ll introduce a resolution to censure George W. Bush. Let me show it to our viewers. It says, “Resolved: that the United States Senate does hereby censure George W. Bush, President of the United States, and does condemn his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans.” That is a big step. Why are you taking it now?
FEINGOLD: It’s an unusual step. It’s a big step, but what the President did by consciously and intentionally violating the constitutional laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered. There can be debate about whether the law should be changed. There can be debate about how best to fight terrorism. We all believe that there should be wiretapping in appropriate cases. But the idea that the President can just make up a law in violation of his oath of office has to be answered.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But as you know, the President says he was acting on his inherent authority under the Constitution, and even your resolution acknowledges that no federal court has ruled that a president does not have that authority as Commander in Chief, so aren’t you jumping the gun?
FEINGOLD: Not at all. You know, we’ve had a chance here for three months to look at whether there’s any legal basis for this, and they’re using shifting legal justifications. First they try to argue that somehow, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, they can do this. It’s pretty clear that they can’t. Then there’s the argument that somehow the military authorization for Afghanistan allowed this. This has basically been laughed out of the room in the Congress. So the last resort is to somehow say that the President has inherent authority to ignore the law of the United States of America, and that has the consequence that the President could even order the assassination of American citizens if that’s the law. So there is no sort of independent inherent authority that allows the president to override the laws passed by the Congress of the United States.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So if you’re so convinced that the President has broken the law, why not file an article of impeachment?
FEINGOLD: Well, you know, that’s an option we could look at, if somebody thought that was a really good idea. There are other options out there. In fact, this conduct is right in the strike zone — even though the Founding Fathers didn’t have strike zones, they didn’t have baseball — but it is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors. We have to consider, is it best for the country to start impeachment proceedings? Is it best for the country to consider removing the President? We’re not mandated to impeach a president who has broken the law, but I think we are required to do our job, to live up to our oath of office, and say, wait a minute, there has to be — at least as a first step — some accountability. Proper accountability is a censuring of the President, to say, “Mr. President, acknowledge you broke the law, return to the law, return to our system of government.” That’s what I think we should do. [“VIDEO: Feingold Will Introduce Resolution To Censure President Bush” (ThinkProgress.org)]
Tags: Russ Feingold, Censure, Democrats, warrantless wiretapping, The U.S. Constitution, George W. Bush, politics, Senate
December 20th, 2005
“The president does not get to pick and choose which laws he wants to follow.”
– Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat [“Bush stands by right to order spying inside US (FT.com)]
Traditionally, US law forbids the NSA and the CIA from spying inside the US. That sort of thing usually falls into the FBI’s realm of operations and then only with a court order for setting up wire taps and the like.
Yet shortly after 9/11, President Bush ordered the NSA to tap telephone conversations inside the US, supposedly targeting persons (yes, including American citizens — especially American citizens) suspected of “connections with terrorists”. Mind you, among those targeted were the ACLU, a vegan group, and Americans involved in anti-war protests — Americans exercising their freedom to disagree with the government.
Sounds a little like Nixon to me.
We all remember Nixon, right? Well, those of us who are too young to have followed it closely at the time got a full helping of it in American History classes anyway. One of the things Nixon got in trouble for was abusing his Presidential power by authorizing the illegal wiretapping of Americans. He used wiretaps on all sorts of groups, people, politicians…anyone who didn’t agree with him…
Since 1979, 19,000 requests for eavesdropping the Federal Intelligence Security Court has received from the Executive Branch since 1979, only five have ever been refused.[“A TIME TO IMPEACH”] While President Bush claimed that his authorization of wiretaps without warants was necessary because action has to be taken quickly against the “terrorists”, reportedly, the secret FISA court can grant approval for wiretaps “within hours”.
If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t our President want to do everything by the book? If FISA’s court has a tradition of handing out warants at the drop of the hat, why wouldn’t he want those wiretap on some sort of official and legal record? Why wouldn’t our President want anyone backing him up officially?
Obviously, if he’s trying to circumvent the law, he must have something to hide, right? I mean, it just seems so suspicious…and he seems awfully defensive of the whole thing. Why did he choose the NSA for this task rather than the FBI if it was all legal and proper? Who didn’t he want to know and why? If it were all on the up-and-up, why is he worried?
Tags: politics, George W. Bush, warrantless wiretapping, NSA, spying on Americans, FBI, Russ Feingold, FISA, ACLU, CIA, Conspiracy Theories
June 9th, 2005
From an address in October of 2001 on opposing the U.S. Patriot Act:
…There have been periods in our nation’s history when civil liberties have taken a back seat to what appeared at the time to be the legitimate exigencies of war. Our national consciousness still bears the stain and the scars of those events: The Alien and Sedition Acts, the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the internment of Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans during World War II, the blacklisting of supposed communist sympathizers during the McCarthy era, and the surveillance and harassment of antiwar protesters, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during the Vietnam War. We must not allow these pieces of our past to become prologue…even in our great land, wartime has sometimes brought us the greatest tests of our Bill of Rights…
…Now some may say, indeed we may hope, that we have come a long way since the those days of infringements on civil liberties. But there is ample reason for concern. I have been troubled in the past month by the potential loss of commitment to traditional civil liberties.
As it seeks to combat terrorism, the Justice Department is making extraordinary use of its power to arrest and detain individuals, jailing hundreds of people on immigration violations and arresting more than a dozen “material witnesses” not charged with any crime. Although the government has used these authorities before, it has not done so on such a broad scale. Judging from government announcements, the government has not brought any criminal charges related to the attacks with regard to the overwhelming majority of these detainees…
…Even as America addresses the demanding security challenges before us, we must strive mightily also to guard our values and basic rights. We must guard against racism and ethnic discrimination…
…And, of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists.
But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. That would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.
Preserving our freedom is the reason that we are now engaged in this new war on terrorism. We will lose that war without firing a shot if we sacrifice the liberties of the American people…
Tags: Russ Feingold, Patriot Act, Freedoms, terrorism, politics
