This is just too much

I'm pissed off right now. You can read why here, here, and here.

I don't even know where to begin ranting about this, so I'll just jump in. Fair warning: this rant went on longer than I initially anticipated.

Remind me: what are the differences between Repubs and Dems in Congress? I can't tell anymore. Do the Dems even believe the BS they tell us about standing up to Bush, protecting our civil rights, defending the Constitution? I really don't believe so anymore. At this point I am officially disillusioned. If the Dems are willing to roll over and piss on themselves any time Bush says he wants something, we might as well just have the Repubs back in control of Congress. This bill didn't just pass by a couple of Dem senators giving in; 16 Dem senators decided that our unitary executive doesn't have quite enough power in his hands, so they give him more. Feinstein was one of those voting in favor of it (see my last post), but at least our two Washington senators voted against it. Nothing like taking Bush's illegal activities and justifying them for him after the fact.

FISA is not broken and doesn't need fixing, yet the Dems gave in to Bush's scare tactics and decided to help him overhaul a program that suffered from no other problem besides holding him accountable to the law. Nice job there. It's possible that the House might grow a spine and vote this down, but I'm not holding my breath. The law would be in effect for 6 months but that's only so Senate Dems who are afraid of Bush can craft a permanent Bill. I can't believe that anyone in his or her right mind would hand someone like Gonzales practically unfettered power in the area of spying. I'm not sure why the Dems bought into the panic that something had to be done about FISA and it had to be done right away. They also don't seem to understand that as the party in control on the Congress, they can affect change by NOT doing anything. They don't need to vote for spending bills that fund the Iraq war, or that give Bush spying powers, or do anything else to help his agenda. Just let the bills die and move on. Why they feel compelled to even bring bills like this to a vote I don't understand. They have the power in these matters but seem absolutely terrified to use it.

If the Dems want to retain their control in 2008 and take the White House, they'd better realize that they are passing bills that over 70% of the population in this country don't want. They need to get their act together and start working for the people who put them in power (that would be us, not Bush).

So I guess the real difference between the Repubs and Dems is that Repubs flat out tell us that they want to take our civil liberties away and then do it while the Dems say they want to protect our civil liberties and then don't.

Update:  Nice take on things here.