If you thought the comments were getting crazed here, you should check out the donnybrook over at Sadly, No.
*** Update ***
Sheesh. The comments at Sadly, No are nothing compared to the House of Representatives:
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, 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.
Silliness abounds. Not that the topic was very important- it was just about the Patriot Act.
Brad R.
I was the sane one here. Just wanted to point that out ;-)
brenda
“it was just about the Patriot Act.”
and torture, nope, not important at all.
ppgaz
It’s a perennial favorite on tv, the shots of foreign lawmakers getting into fistfights on the floor of their chambers. Yee-haw, look at them furriners cold-cocking each other!
How long before we see it right on Capitol Hill? Since the GOP has declared war on half of its own country, I say, let’s give ’em a war! I am going to urge those Dem lawmakers to just go over and punch those Republican so-and-sos right in the snoot.
You wanted a cultural war? Bring it on!
(Uh, note to censors, not all posts are serious :0 )
Libertine
I saw Rep. Lungren (R-CA) whining that there were no administration witnesses called in defense. Not like there hasn’t been about a dozen Patriot Act hearings with administration officials defending the Act already. First the SCOTUS says no way to federalism and now the House of Reps. Free Speech…optional.
KC
I heard a clip of the hearing on the radio and frankly I thought it made Sensenbrenner sound like an asshole. This doesn’t mean he didn’t have a reason to be an ass, but I just got the feeling he acted that way because he was not liking what he was hearing about a law that is coming up for review.
Far North
I saw most of the clip. Sensenbrenner, it seemed, had this kind of righteous indignation that he even had to be there to hear things that didn’t fit into his utopian view of the Patriot Act and his sanitized image of American conduct.
John Cole
Looked to me like he was pissed because the Democrats, who chose the witnesses, decided to debate Gitmo instead of the Patriot Act.
I wish they would all just grow up.
KC
If that was it, then nix my above comments about him being an ass about the Patriot Act. I was speaking from a blurb I heard on the radio.
Sojourner
I just don’t understand why the Repubs cannot seem to follow their own committee rules. Their attitude that they are above the rules is really tiresome.
Halffasthero
I went over to the “donnybrook” site – talk about hittng below the belt!! There is a new standard in “hot air and ill informed banter” and they just raised it..or lowered it, depending on how you want look at it. I may have to bookmark that site. I don’t think I am going to post though. I would be too afraid of what might come flying my way.
Pat
What’s the link?
Halffasthero
Its on the top of this topic linked at “donnybrook over at “Sadly, No” but the link is: sadlyno.com/archives/001404.html
Halffasthero
The general website address is sadlyno.com
Lots of visceral commentary over there.
Pat
Thanks much!
Wow. It makes those of us on this blog look positively genteel.
brenda
Sensenbrenner, great statesman and defender of freedom that he is, also wants to criminalize
(!!) speech ruled by the FCC as indecent.
Just another thug from the GOP.
Jimmie
Holy Christ, people. This was the eleventh commitee hearing on the damned thing since April! Eleven hearings that took God alone known how much time per-hearing in ten weeks and some of you are getting miffed because the Chair thought that enough was freaking enough?
He was absolutely right. Eleven hearings on a law that’s existed for four years and has been combed ad nauseum for that whole time is ridiculous.
Have the damned vote and stop the whining.
Sojourner
It was a Democratic-called hearing because the Repubs wouldn’t allow the Dems to invite their own witnesses.
The Repubs try to shut off the Dems and then whine when they look like assholes doing it.
The Disenfrachised Voter
“He was absolutely right. Eleven hearings on a law that’s existed for four years and has been combed ad nauseum for that whole time is ridiculous.”
Holy Christ, Jimmie. You do realize you are advocating a one party state, don’t you. Quit your whining and let’s have both parties be able to present witnesses.
Jon H
“I heard a clip of the hearing on the radio and frankly I thought it made Sensenbrenner sound like an asshole. ”
Sensenbrenner *is* an asshole.
katherine
Sensenbrenner is a HUGE asshole. He is the guy responsible for: 1) the stupid REAL ID Act, and 2) for screwing with the conference reports and pretending that Democrats were offering amendments on behalf of pedophiles. I like him less than DeLay, and that’s saying something.
Kimmitt
Also, like Michael Moore, he’s really fat.