Feingold stands up for the Constitution

I teased some of my colleagues and said we can celebrate the Constitution on July 4th and maybe when we come back you'll decide not to tear it up. -Russ Feingold on FISA

I didn't write when the House passed their unthinkable FISA capitulation to Bush and the telecoms - so unthinkable that even my own Blue Dog Congressman opposed it:

On June 20, 2008, the House voted on the FISA Amendments Act. This bill passed the House by a recorded vote of 293 - 129. I voted against this bill, as it contains provisions that would allow for retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies and allow the President to declare what is lawful and what is not. I have strong reservations against removing the checks and balances currently in our government by effectively removing the judicial branch from the decision as to whether or not the warrantless surveillance program was lawful.

- Baron Hill, in a letter to concerned constituents

I didn't write about this Constitutional horror when it passed the Senate - even as Feingold and Chris Dodd tried to block it with a filibuster.

I have come to the conclusion now, that it is really useless to write. They own us, guys.

We are now owned - lock, stock and barrel - by corporate America. The Constitution, as King George himself was purported to have said, is "just a piece of paper."

While our troops are supposedly fighting for 'freedom' and 'democracy' overseas in Iraq - and Iraqis call it an occupation - no one is defending our own freedom and democracy here at home. From tyranny.

Well, no one save a few: Kucinich, Feingold and Dodd.

Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer have sold out. It appears a great majority of the Democrats in power have sold out.

They have sold out to the thousands of lobbyists now working right next to them in D.C., and with much more access and money than we will ever know. These days, representation costs money. We apparently don't have it, so we are of no consequence and the looting of our public coffers will continue - along with this war, the spying, and the corruption - unabated.

This administration's crimes are already much worse than Watergate - everybody knows it, and no one will touch it. The newspapers won't even write about it. Is that a democracy?

The Government of the People, by the People and for the People has perished from the Earth.

The only questions now before us are how the whole thing is going to cave in around us... and when?