Democrats reauthorize the Patriot Act

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Why Democrats, why? So we can't have universal health care and we can't fight climate change, but gee golly we can keep spying on Americans, even if it means letting Trump keep that power:

https://newrepublic.com/article/155793/ ... atriot-act

I'm glad, though, to see that the Squad voted against it:

Jimmy Dore's got a good segment on it:

It sounds like the Dems are wanting to "Go Nuclear" to get Trump out of office.

Scary stuff.

Do people now understand why I distrust the Democrats as much as I do the Republicans? They're not the champions of human rights that they pretend to be.

The Republicans are pretty much what you see is what you get. The Democrats are wolves in sheep's clothing.

Exactly!

It's not that I like the Republicans, I despise them. But I started to despise the Democrats too the minute I figured out what their real game is.

The idea that the Democrats are “rolling over” is laughable, they are thinking we are going to win and get to use these powers and since we are smarter than conservatives will use it more effectively and use it to police thought.

Yep. Why people want a thought police system of government is beyond me. Maybe they think the same system will give them tons of free stuff, so that's why they're for it. Like a van that has "Free Candy" written on it.

But usually the candy from the van with "Free Candy" written on it actually has a higher price in the end than the same candy at a gas station with a dollar amount on it.

The Dems did that? Holy f*****g s**t balls! I cant believe it!

Yup. What can I say? Them Dems is corrupt too.

It's a one party system. Disgusting.

Most politicians, of both parties, respond to the prevailing political winds. They are not the people who make the political winds blow in the first place.

The people who make the political winds blow are (1) well-funded lobbyists, and (2) large and well-organized political activist organizations/movements rooted in large and well-organized subcultures of whatever kind.

In order to enact any political change, in any direction, what's needed is either (1) a bunch of rich people and/or corporations willing to donate money to politicians who support the desired agenda or (2) at least one (and preferably more than one) sufficiently large and sufficiently well-organized group of ordinary people making sufficiently loud noises, with sufficient influence over a larger group of voters.

There isn't, alas, a sufficiently large and sufficiently well-organized group of ordinary people expressing sufficiently loud outrage over the PATRIOT act. Nor are there enough wealthy political donors outraged about it either, apparently. Not enough, anyway, to counteract the behemoth of the many, many police departments and other law enforcement agencies that naturally dislike any and all limitations on their ability to spy on people.

If you're an activist for any political cause, left or right, it's not wise to trust either of the major political parties. Instead of trusting them, the thing to do is to build a sufficiently large organized non-party political movement to put sufficient pressure on whichever party pays greater lip service to your cause.

I think it's more likely that they just don't want to piss off the police unions, etc., too much. I don't think your average Democratic party politician is trying to "police thought." They're more interested in trying to avoid pissing off too many organized special interest groups.

See my previous post above.

This reminds a bit of how the Democrats screamed at Trump for being mentally unfit and then gave him billions more to spend on the military.

One of the guys in the video makes that point that while the media are all getting people to focus on Trump there are sinister things being done behind the scenes.