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Headlines : GovernmentGOP Chairman Walks Out of Meeting
Not liking what was being said, the meeting was abruptly closed by Republican chairman Sensenbrenner. Republicans walked out in the middle of testimonies and the microphones were cut off. Sensenbrenner was one of the authors of the Patriot Act.
This is NOT what a democracy is about. It’s what one would expect from a fascist or totalitarian government, but not America’s democracy. The Republican controlled committee has not only shown a complete disregard for the rule of law, but also a complete disregard for democracy.
[Posted By bravo411]Republished from Yahoo News
WASHINGTON – The Republican chairman walked off with the gavel, leaving Democrats shouting into turned-off microphones at a raucous hearing Friday on the Patriot Act.
The House Judiciary Committee hearing, with the two sides accusing each other of being irresponsible and undemocratic, came as President Bush was urging Congress to renew those sections of the post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism law set to expire in September.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the panel, abruptly gaveled the meeting to an end and walked out, followed by other Republicans. Sensenbrenner declared that much of the testimony, which veered into debate over the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, was irrelevant.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., protested, raising his voice as his microphone went off, came back on, and went off again.
“We are not besmirching the honor of the United States, we are trying to uphold it,” he said.
Democrats asked for the hearing, the 11th the committee has held on the act since April, saying past hearings had been too slanted toward witnesses who supported the law. The four witnesses were from groups, including Amnesty International USA and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, that have questioned the constitutionality of some aspects of the act, which allows…
Posted by bravo411
absolutely disgusting, the arrogance that leads them to believe that their word and work is absolute… it seems they’ve completely forgotten the concept of democracy.
Patriot Act and Homeland Security have nothing to do with democracy, hell even the ancient Greeks said democracy was a bad idea and revamped it and moved on.
who is actually controlling all these weapons?
Tempers flared when Rep. Mike Pence (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind., accused Amnesty International of endangering the lives of Americans in uniform by referring to the prison at Guantanamo Bay as a “gulag.” Sensenbrenner didn’t allow the Amnesty representative, Chip Pitts, to respond until Nadler raised a “point of decency.
Well that endangers the lives of American troops far more then sending them into foreign countries on false pretenses and then telling anyone that would attack them to “bring it on” .
worse yet juice, is the idea that america is so noble as to be above the geneva conventions… long live the homeland!
how many aggressions, how many dead?
now they want the american people to believe they are acting in the ‘peoples best interest’?
lord, even for a large gorilla, i feel stupid saying it
a couple of things wrong with this headline after just watching the video. First It was not raucous untill after Sensenbrenner began to gavel the meeting to an end. Second tempers did not flare when Rep Pence accused amnesty international. Nor did it address Sensebrenner’s attempt to narrow the meetings purpose to just the sunseted provisions of the patriot act when the democrats who called the hearing clearly meant from their request to him that it’s scope also was about civil rights abuses in general. Also the fact that the hearing only allowed each member 5 minutes seems not very standard to me(though i am not sure as I haven’t watched many of these). Sensebrenner also started the hearing by decry the democrats who signed the request for the meeting but could not make it because they could not change their plans on such short notices, one of the people he mentioned had actually already showed up and 2 more showed up a little late. Also I would like to say that rep Lee is patently stupid for A speaking about the minute man as somehow being connected with the patriot act as a consequence and for showing her blinding ignorance in her statement to some muslim women watching the hearing while trying to reiterate Zogby’s earlyer point about americans conflating arabs as muslims(in addition to muslims as terrorists). These women were clearly wearing muslim clothes and she said “I would not suggest that you are muslims or not” which while not obvious seemed to imply that there is something bad about being charged to be a muslim.
Though seriously if someone know’s more about hearings could tell me how common this limiting time to only 5 minutes is.
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Sensenbrenner_ends_Comittee.wmv
your fucking point, mess?
Geneva conventions = quaint
outdated fuckwad european dream
my point was that the article missed some of the key points of what happened dealing mostly with Sensebrenners complete disdain for the whole idea of a commitee hearing on the patriot act infringements on civil rights and civil rights infringements in general, He only allowed the media because he had to accomidate the dems due to an obscure house rule and then tried to limit the discussion to just patriot act as well as demeaning the whole meeting as a whole especially where he listed the dems who couldn’t make it and talking about the number of hearings on the patriot act(which this hearing was not solel about despite his attempts to characterize as such) in order to trivalise the meeting. The article instead makes it seem like he ended the meeting by graveling after it had become “raucous” where “tempers flared” despite the fact that this was not really true. Also I mentioned rep Lee being stupid because well, her stupidity pissed me off.
Reading my old post I see i didn’t make this clear so I owe thanks to the giant skyskraper climbing gorrila.
Also, seriously does anyone know about that 5 minute thing and how standard it and how it was applyed was.
I’ve yet to find the entire video of the conference and have only seen the short clip, so I’m not sure how raucous the meeting had been before, but that really doesn’t matter.
The BIG issue is the total disregard for the “rule of order.” Just because Sensenbrenner is the head chairman doesn’t mean he can dictate what is going to happen and when. Nobody motioned to adjourn the meeting and nobody voted to adjourn the meeting. A “point of order” had even been called, which he ignored as he walked out. This is NOT how government is suppose to function. Regardless of whether testimony was relevant or not, there are set rules which must be followed to ensure that there is order and not chaos.
Sensenbrenner choose the later. I’m not sure, but I believe that technically the hearings are not over just because he says they are. There was NO vote to adjourn so I’m not even sure that a congressional vote on extending the Patriot Act can even take place until the hearing is officially closed.
“Nobody motioned to adjourn the meeting and nobody voted to adjourn the meeting. A “point of order” had even been called, which he ignored as he walked out.”
exactly and the article you posted fails to mention any of that.
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also i previously linked the enitre hearing(however it use RealPlayer which i keep solely for instances where i have to use it like this one.)