US Senate Fails to Extend Patriot Act

Contrary to the prognostication of this author, the Patriot Act will be allowed to lapse, at least for a few days.  Three key provisions of the patriot act were not extended because the Senate was unable to get their act together.  Bulk collection of telephone data will expire at midnight tonight.  The 'lone wolf" provision of the bill will expire meaning -  - those individuals not connected with another country will have an easier time eluding the law.  And also targeted phone conversations- - like conversations held on disposable cell phones, will now be harder to track.  If you are against the Patriot Act in general you will find any reason to celebrate.  Here is other commentary from a few hours ago before all the facts were apparent.  The 77-to-17 vote on the "Freedom Act" passed by the house last week - - was a remarkable turnabout — grudgingly approved by the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, a fellow Kentucky Republican — just a week after the Senate narrowly turned the bill away at his behest. Mr. McConnell, in a desperate attempt to keep the surveillance program going, encouraged senators to vote for a House bill that he still found deficient.  The US Senate is convening to debate about extending the Patriot Act.  It’s an odd “eleventh hour” time to be meeting.  Mitch Mc Connell is not the one presiding.  But he is setting the conversational agenda.  He wants the “roaving wiretap” and the “lone wolf” provisions passed for another two weeks.  Rand Paul was gaveled down as he attempted to turn the thing into a filibuster.  Mitch Mc Connel says there has not been “one incident of abuse” since the data collection provision has been in force.  Senator Mc Connell also stressed that “who who say more than just the meta-data is collected- - are telling you a lie”.  The “freedom act” isn’t even being discussed now.  People are saying that they don’t “trust” the phone companies to hang on to the data the government knows they’ll need.  Senator Mc Connel states “Clearly the way the House passed this bill, these corporations are not required to do that.”  I’ve heard that it’s a lie that the government only has the “meta data” and rather I’ve heard they have the means to store virtually every conversation that’s ever existed in their giant computers.  And I’ve also heard that the government doesn’t even “need” the patriot act to do their secret surveillance anyhow.  They have “secret interperetations” and sometimes even “secret laws” whatever that means.  This implies there are non public votes on laws that the US Citizens know nothing about.   Hopefully people like Rand Paul will be doing a lot of speaking today.  The funny thing of course is most any time you tune into C-Span they are never showing congress in action, but it’s more than ninety percent “filler material”, which wouldn’t even work for pet food these days.  I would like to turn President Obama’s words around and say that the world WON’T come to an end if we let the Patriot Act laps.  Somehow this country went over two hundred years without the Patriot act just fine.   Clearly when the act was written it was intended as an “emergency law” with sunset provisions, just as the Bush tax cuts were temporary provisions.  I think we just need to let nature take its course and allow the Patriot Act to sunset.  We can wave good-by fondly to it if we want to, as we watch it sink below the horizon.  The bottom line is- - the Senate voted to keep the debate thing going with the already House passed bill, which is an accomplishment.

“If You Are Scared, [the Terrorists]  Win. If You Refuse To Be Scared, They Lose”   This makes a nice slogan but it's not entirely true.  President Obama had no fear whatsoever he'd be known as a failure as a President, and because President Obama did not have this fear- - We All Lose.

Bob Sheefer did this real puff piece on Jeb Bush for about seventeen minutes of a one on one interview.  It was all “room service” softball questions tailor made to the sort of responses Jeb wanted to give.  It made it seem just “logical and natural” that Jeb Bush would take the hard right line on national security and the Iraq War and sending troops back to Iraq, and how heroic his brother was in the dark days after 9 – 11.  Jeb Bush claims not to be sure at this date if he’s even going to run or not, but when Sheefer asked for clarification, he got none.   On the democratic side, to learn from the Sports analogy “When you play not to lose- - that’s just what you’ll end up doing”.  Hillary Clinton is playing as if she’s so far ahead all she has to do is run out the clock.  She takes no questions and offers no hard opinions on controversial issues.  It seems even this O Mally guy is attacking both Hillary and Obama on the big money and Wall Street and Trade issues- - though from what I heard of O Mally myself he seemed a little trite and dry.  Hillary now says she’s going to “make a statement” on June 13^th.  She’s as bad as Steve Jobs.  They get us all primed for these big announcements, and it’s a big bunch of nothing.

 It was Meet the Press.  First up was Senator Bernie Sanders discussing some pornographic novel he wrote in 1972 about a sex fantasy of a woman being raped by three men.  None of the three candidates had a lot of time but Sanders was especially pressed for times trying to get his main economic agenda out there.  Then it was Santorum, who is more progressive on labor issues than the other candidates in the clown car.  Santorum at least acted as if he cared.  Then there is John Kasich- - - who is important because he is ‘a Midwestern governor”.  Rand Paul does not even place in the top five candidates these days.  Walker places first in the Iowa caucus.  I continue to think Scott Walker is the odds on candidate the Republicans will decide on.  He seems to have all of those anti democratic and anti union credentials the republicans consider so important.  As far as foreign policy goes, Scott Walker will vote however the Koch Brothers tell him to vote.   Neither Kasich nor Walker nor Bush have even officially entered the race, but when they do they’ll dominate it, I fear.  At that point Rand Paul will have a decision to make on whether to go Independent.

The Chicago Blackhawks defeated the Anaheim Ducks in Anaheim, to get into the Stanley Cup finals.  The Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the New York Rangers to be the team they play.   The Cleveland Cavileers will be playing the Golden State Warriers in a game I thought started today, but apparently doesn’t.  Once again they had the Detroit Grand Prix on Belle Island and once again it was alternate rain and dry times and deciding which tires to use.  Today is Sunday May 31, 2015 and there are a number of “lasts” lately.  Bob Sheefer’s last day of Face the Nation is today.  You it was Tom Vergeron’s last Sunday on AFV a couple of weeks ago.  And David Letterman is retiring.  Bo Byden, son of Joe Byden- -  is dead of a resurgent brain tumor the doctors thought they had under control.  Joe Byden lost his first wife and daughter tragically as you know decades ago.   In general it seems as if there have been an inordinate number of major chances in the late night TV hosts line up in the past few years.

It was a very “dystopian” piece I posted last night, but I don’t think unduly so.  I think you’ve been shown to be safe if you predict a steadily gloomier scenario for all things liberal and progressive.  Everybody has twenty - twenty hindsight but much fewer have the foresight to make the right decisions in time.  Here's a random thought.  The Rev Fred Price used to have a closing slogan of "We walk by faith and not by sight".  I have a vivid imagination.  Imagine all those thousands of people driving to the Faith Done in their cars with blindfolds on.  And all they have to guide them is their kids shouting out scripture at them all at once, kind of like your brain works when you're trying to "weigh" scripture.  It dawned on me it's one thing to believe God is speaking to you.  How much better to KNOW whether or not it's God speaking to you.  Even Fred Price says that "Knowing" is a whole lot surer class of "knowledge" than is mere Belief.  (Selah)  But to generalize the principle- how much better to "see where you are going" rather than be buffeted to and fro by every wind of scriptural quotation out of context.  I put my own credibility on the line with a predicted sharp stock market dip.  Some of you long time readers may have Deja Vu of mid 2007 when I began accurately predicting dips in the stock market.  Breakfast with the Beatles started off with Sergeant Pepper’s in mono.  I prefer the mono for “Lucy in the Sky” but I prefer the stereo for “Being for the Benefit”.   “I Found Out” by John Lennon may have been replicated in “You Shook Me Cold” by David Bowie, or maybe the cross polinization went the other way. And also it was copied in the end part of “Cheap Sun Glasses” by ZZ Top.  Chris Carter doesn’t like “Temporary Secretary” so today is the first time that track has been played in years.  I got coffee in the courtyard for the next to the last time in the morning.  At two I got two cups of coffee from Rico for the last time- - at least for the foreseeable future.  It’s only a half a day till ATM withdrawal.