Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Come on, man.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Petty moves from a petty man.

This fight is for everything.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Let there be snark.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / Sundowning the PATRIOT Act: Come to the Circus

Sundowning the PATRIOT Act: Come to the Circus

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In violation of best storytelling principles, I’ll give you the results first. From the Guardian, “Patriot Act powers to lapse at midnight as Senate fails to agree on NSA reform“:

Republican senator Rand Paul forced at least a temporary shutdown of sweeping US surveillance powers on Sunday night after refusing to allow an accelerated vote on compromise legislation designed to more narrowly restrain the National Security Agency.

In a double blow for Washington security hawks, represented by embattled Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, it now looks likely that Congress will have to wait several days before passing that bill, the USA Freedom Act.

The reform legislation, which bans the NSA from collecting Americans’ telephone records in bulk, was initially opposed by McConnell. But with the clock ticking down toward the midnight expiration of broader powers initially granted after 9/11 under the Patriot Act, Republican leaders had few options but to get behind the bill as the best way of preserving other surveillance authority.

“This is now the only realistic way forward,” said McConnell as he conceded there was no longer time to seek alternatives to a version of the USA Freedom Act that was previously passed by the House of Representatives. Instead, the Senate majority leader is reluctantly embracing the House-passed bill to which he previously objected, only with the addition of what he called “a few modest amendments”.

McConnell’s concession was a tacit acknowledgement that the bulk collection of US phone records exposed in June 2013 by the Guardian, thanks to leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden, will end.

The Senate voted 77 to 17 to proceed to debate on the USA Freedom Act. Even Paul, after the procedural vote, conceded that the bill will ultimately pass. “Tonight begins the process of ending bulk collection,” he said…

I very much doubt that any of the three-letter agencies consider this more than an annoying temporary glitch, but the Guardian earned their victory lap. And, as a Democratic partisan, it’s cheering to note that a bunch of Republican senators now have new grievances with each other, which is always fun to watch from a safe distance.

I’ve collected a bunch of the more entertaining tweets from earlier today, which I’ll put below the fold for those who find such quick hits confusing or annoying…

Reader Interactions

97Comments

  1. 1.

    Dr. Bollixed

    It can’t be a bad thing. And an interview I saw said it wouldn’t much change a thing. Except they (Gov.) might have to follow the law, the real law. At least for a couple days. Oh noes…..

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Rand Paul, neo-feudalist scum, is fooling no one but the cretins that are the dudebros with his stance here.

    He’s as much in need of a tumbrel ride as McConnell, McCain, or Huckleberry.

  5. 5.

    jl

    So, Paul did a symbolic filibuster that he knew would fail ultimately, so we could have good and bad of Patriot Act come to full stop in a confused mess? McConnell has given into the House bill?

    Is the House bill any good?

    I haven’t had time to follow any of this.

    Are there any Rand Paul filibuster starter kits left? Maybe I can buy them in bulk if they go to remainder bin and resell them to Paul acolytes at the truly massive and historic first Fox News GOP primary debate this summer.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    Repeating from below.

    From EFF (good guys ‘n’ gals, they), re: USA Freedom act:

    The bill is far from ideal. But it does shift the status quo towards more privacy and, if passed, will be the first time since 1978 that the NSA has had its activities scaled back by Congress. It substantially limits the scope of collection by the government for tangible things under three different laws, and it offers small but real institutional reform to the FISA Court that only Congress can create.
     
    We’ve been clear that we must end mass surveillance under all surveillance authorities. We’re disappointed that this bill does not do more toward that end, but the new USA Freedom Act serves as a welcome first step and should be seen as such. Source

  9. 9.

    Myiq2xu

    @jl:

    I haven’t had time to follow any of this.

    Apparently nobody except Marcy Wheeler has had time to cover this. None of the FPers here at BJ has taken a stand on the issue.

    Partisanship aside, is this good or bad? I’m kinda extremist on civil liberties, so I see this as a good thing. Back when Bush was in office that was the consensus opinion around here. Then Obama flip-flopped on the FISA revision and suddenly nobody cared about domestic spying anymore.

  12. 12.

    Botsplainer

    Thomas Fucking Massie (R-Koch), the guy who does utterly nothing for his sprawling district, knows nobody, yet he’s got so much national agenda Koch and dude to splooge on his pimply babyface chin that it has set up a rash.

    Fuck him, and fuck Rand Paul.

  14. 14.

    Tree With Water

    “As a reminder, the Senate once debated extending the #PatriotAct for about 20 seconds”.

    That one’s my favorite.

  15. 15.

    ruemara

    This whole farce is cracking me up. Good on them. Their utter incompetence as legislators has finally done some good. We’ll see if it does major harm later on.

  18. 18.

    Anne Laurie

    @Myiq2xu:

    Partisanship aside, is this good or bad? I’m kinda extremist on civil liberties, so I see this as a good thing.

    That’s a pretty generous “aside”, though. I’d like to see the Patriot Act expire and not be replaced, but I’d also like to lose weight without changing my eating or exercising habits, and that ain’t happening neither.

    Until it appears there’s a genuine chance that agitation on a blog might move anyone’s opinions, then as a Democratic partisan I don’t see much point in re-re-stating my objections just to start another flame war. It’s the obverse of my taking mean delight in the spectacle of Rand Paul showboating for money, and annoying McCain & McConnell.

  22. 22.

    Mandalay

    @Anne Laurie:

    It’s the obverse of my taking mean delight in the spectacle of Rand Paul showboating for money…

    You know for sure that he doesn’t truly care about the legislation or principles involved in the slightest, and he is just showboating for money? And is Bernie Sanders also “showboating for money” on this issue?

  23. 23.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus: Me too aussi. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the spectacle of the Repubs hoist upon their own petards — using that word to mean both “incendiary device” and “fart”…

  27. 27.

    Valdivia

    I haz a confused. So what happens next? Will the improved version endorsed by the EFF that @NotMax: mentioned above pass are we stuck with the old one? Or nothing?

    @efgoldman: If only they did. I wonder if they thought actually governing was the same as saying no to everything.

  30. 30.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mandalay:

    You know for sure that he doesn’t truly care about the legislation or principles involved in the slightest, and he is just showboating for money? And is Bernie Sanders also “showboating for money” on this issue?

    If you can’t tell the difference between Prince Rand’s negotiable “principles” and Bernie’s, you just haven’t been paying attention.

    Start with the fact that Rand didn’t run as a Libertarian, but as a Republican — just like his old man. Sanders has always called himself a Democratic Socialist, even when he (mostly) caucused with the Democrats.

  31. 31.

    jl

    @Gin & Tonic: Thanks. I like the way he does the ‘bass line’ on the celeste, if you can call it that.

    I wonder if there is any gamelon boogie?

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Valdivia: The present act ends tonight. The one that NotMax talked about will probably replace it. Terrists have a day or so of free rein. The lucky bastids.

  33. 33.

    sukabi

    @rikyrah: they might lose the right to spy….doesn’t mean they’ll stop… seem to recall another program that was ordered to cease, was moved off site and continued.

  34. 34.

    srv

    I can’t find a reason to support this program, but I’d rather focus my energies on calling Rand a pootie head.

  37. 37.

    Valdivia

    @jl: And here I am being the ultimate 80’s girl when your musical offerings are so not that. hhis.

    @efgoldman: I think they don’t even know the difference anymore between posturing and what it actually takes to govern, which is why they’re always in a pickle when it comes time to pass bills.

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Valdivia: Pretty much. And every supermodel of the day managed to shoehorn into that video.

    BTW: The Aquinas convo continues in its sad, sad form in the thread below.

  39. 39.

    KG

    @efgoldman:

    And of course things are made that much worse in the Senate now, since about 90 of them are running for preznit, sort of.

    It has been said that there are two types of Senators: those who think they will one day be president and those who have lost a presidential primary. I’ve found that those two classifications typically hold up, with only a few exceptions.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman:

    Somewhere Sam Rayburn weeps.

    Whatever else he was, Sam was a partisan Democrat. He’d be giggling his ass off.

  41. 41.

    Valdivia

    @Omnes Omnibus: It was like an episode of Style with Elsa Klensch with moodier stylings and better music. And yet, I still can’t help but swing my hips to it.

    Grrr. How can I still be missing Aquinas even in sad form? That’s what I get for multitasking (half watching an expose on Argentinian TV about the murdered prosecutor).

  43. 43.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Valdivia: I’d be interested in knowing what the expose exposes. Among my numerous Argentinian friends I do not believe I can count a solitary Kirchner supporter.

    But at this point I’ve drank too much and think it’s time to step away from the keyboard.

  44. 44.

    Valdivia

    @Gin & Tonic: it was really very interesting and disturbing. The CSI-like video by the police in which the guys are not wearing gloves at all, and then clean the gun with toilet paper (erasing any prints and dna, etc). Also a dead guy who accessed his computer five hours after “killing himself”. This whole thing stinks, but hard to know exactly how and why. More tomorrow if you are interested. Night night.

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Valdivia: You can stop down. Dog knows that you can’t make it worse. As far as the video goes, enjoyed it. I have a weird soft spot sport for George Michael based on dancing with a really wonderful person to Careless Whisper back in ’84. She wasn’t particularly attractive, but she was one of the most decent and kind people I have ever met.

  48. 48.

    Valdivia

    @jl: :) that is its own cool kind of thing and I enjoyed it.

    @MomSense: bravo, perfect coinage right there.

    @Omnes Omnibus: same soft spot here, had my first slow dance ever to that song but mine was a bit of a cad. Still, first slow dance, makes an impression.

  49. 49.

    srv

    An oldie but goodie.

    BJ commenter Al Maviva and GG get into a debate about domestic spying, FISA et al in 2005. Commenters confused, because they thought DougJ was Al M. DougJ reveals his true inspiration.

  50. 50.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Valdivia: Actually, I was “a bit of a cad” being decent. I couldn’t let no one dance with her. My real first music thing with a girl was lipsyncing to Paradise by the Dashboard Light. She went on to be semi-famous.

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @efgoldman:

    Rand Paul is the guy who held a filibuster against drones and then said the very next day that he saw no problem with the government using drones to kill liquor store robbers. So, yeah, not much principle there other than “what do Republican voters want to hear today?”

  52. 52.

    Valdivia

    @Omnes Omnibus: Of course you were :)
    But also, a true mensch that you did that. Have to ask, if you don’t mind, were you lip syncing together or lipsynch serenading her? (that song is perfect for a duet)
    Music-things. Probably Careless Whisper wouldn’t be the first on my list, even if it was a first. Now you got me thinking.

  53. 53.

    Suzanne

    Rand Paul is a clown. I enjoyed watching him grandstand on CNN earlier today. I eagerly look forward to the shitshow that will ensue.

  54. 54.

    catclub

    I just remembered. Somewhere in an alternate universe where McCain won in 2008 & 2012, Sarah Palin is the president of the Senate.

    And how many nations besides the obligatory Iran and Ukraine are smoking ruins? How many economies?

  57. 57.

    danielx

    …it’s cheering to note that a bunch of Republican senators now have new grievances with each other, which is always fun to watch from a safe distance.

    Safe distance from these bozos? Hmmmm….Bondi Beach sounds about right, since the Republican conference in the Senate is becoming damn near as dysfunctional and rabid as its counterpart in the House. Which does not bode well for anybody since only Jeebus knows what the crazies are apt to come up with next. Their dream world is one in which Tom Cotton is Secretary of State under a yet to be named Republican president. Picture a world in which the Senate looks like the Wisconsin legislature…each Republican legislator being chaperoned by his or her own personal shoggoth with several Karl Rove faces, specially bred in a Koch-funded underground lab to smite enemies and eat the livers of those who think history didn’t stop in the 1950s….

    Clearly my imagination is on overtime this evening.

  58. 58.

    Valdivia

    @Omnes Omnibus: See that is a worthy music-thing with a girl. I would probably blush infrared if I tried singing (even lip synching). Why karaoke only happens when I am +a few. Dancing, not a problem.

  62. 62.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @kc: Indeed… indeed…

    And in 11 hours (that would be ‘eleben’ to some folks) 6 people have donated $300 towards that $10MM… that’s approximately $27/hr which means that Jon will reach his goal in just al little under 42 years…

  63. 63.

    Carolinus

    @Mandalay:

    You know for sure that he doesn’t truly care about the legislation or principles involved in the slightest, and he is just showboating for money?

    He may or may not care, but he’s also not helping by filibustering everything. There never was even close to the votes for sunsetting of the expiring Patriot provisions. If you compare the Nay votes from tonight’s cloture vote you can see that there’s only 3 that also voted Nay on cloture for S. 1357, which was the clean Patriot Act provisions extension. All the rest were in the McConnell faction that was against any reform to the Section 215 programs. Those meager 3 votes speak to how vanishingly tiny the Senate constituency was for total expiration.

    It would have been tactically more effective for those Senators (including Paul) who wanted to reform Section 215 as much as possible to not filibuster the earlier EFF backed iteration of the USA Freedom Act. If that previous bill hadn’t failed by two votes last year, a version of the bill with stronger, more robust reforms would have been law for half a year already.

    Here’s EFF comparing last year’s iteration of the bill with the current one:

    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/new-usa-freedom-act-step-right-direction-more-must-be-done

    Last year, the Senate failed to advance a somewhat different, stronger USA Freedom Act by two votes. We supported the bill because it reformed the secret court overseeing the spying and ended the bulk collection of calling records. The bill introduced this week is not as robust as last year’s bill, but it still successfully accomplishes both of these goals.

    And here’s an article that notes the open amendments process for last year’s version of the bill:

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/why-did-bill-nelson-vote-against-nsa-reform-20141119

    [S]ources close to the negotiations said Paul’s staff had indicated that the Kentuckian was considering voting to allow debate on the USA Freedom Act because Majority Leader Harry Reid had made the unusual decision to allow amendments on the floor, which would have allowed Paul to try to strengthen certain provisions.

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack

    @Valdivia, @Omnes Omnibus:

    Oh, you crazy kids. Whenever I hear “Yesterday” I get a Proustian taste of hairspray as I remember dancing with Donna Winters in the basement of an Episcopalian church.

  69. 69.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Mandalay:
    You ask a very important question, and in this case the answer is ‘yes’. Rand Paul’s history of telling different groups different things is drastically clear. Relevant to this case, as @Mnemosyne (tablet) mentioned above, is when he was against Drones for about 24 hours, then was for killing gas station robbers in America with them. I remember more vividly the night he got the nomination to run for Senator in Kentucky, when he pledged to the Tea Partiers who pushed him through that he would never tack to the center. The next morning, in his first general election speech to the whole state, he said he had always been a moderate.

  70. 70.

    Louise

    I first skimmed over the first daveweigel tweet and thought that “6 young Amish guys” had stood up with Rep. Tom Massie to protest, and I thought, “how did the Amish guys get there? Are there horses and buggies parked outside Capitol Hill?”

    That would have been a good story.

  71. 71.

    fuckwit

    @jl: That’s a 60s sound, not 80s, though some bands (B-52s!) brought it back in the 80s. It’s a transistor combo organ! A Vox Continental (The Doors), or a Farfisa. Cheezysounding little plastic things. More like an electronic accordion than an organ (Farfisa was actually an accordion manufacturer before they got into transistor organs)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Continental

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farfisa

    That’s a great boogie woogie track too. Nice.

  73. 73.

    David Koch

    @Frankensteinbeck: right. this is a guy who said he would defend Israel and then flip flopped and said he would be it’s biggest supporter, then he lied about it.

    On Monday, Paul said he had never proposed phasing out Israel’s foreign aid, even though he has introduced legislation that would end all foreign aid to certain Middle East countries, including assistance to Israel.

    Then on ISIS he first said, “we should not put any U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq…. For the small group calling for boots on the ground—how can we ask our brave men and women to risk their lives for a country the Iraqis aren’t willing to fight for themselves?”

    Then he flip flopped issuing a declaration of war on ISIS:

    Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) unveiled a formal declaration of war against the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) on Monday morning.

    So Baby Doc was against Israel before he was for it, denying he was ever against it and then he was against fighting ISIS before personally declaring war on ISIS.

  74. 74.

    Tree With Water

    Does anyone actually believe the NSA (et.al.) feel bound by U.S. law?

  75. 75.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Valdivia: For me, dancing pretty much never happens. I’ve taken dance classes and I simply cannot get my feet to move the way I want them to. I suppose I could if I really dedicated a lot of time to it, but “a lot” would be months of classes multiple times a week. Austistic bodies just don’t move in coordinated fashions.

    Karakoe I’ll do in the right company. I had a blast going out to karakoe clubs in Xi’an with my students a couple of years ago. Karakoe in China does not in any way resemble karakoe in any place I’ve seen it here in the States, where it’s a whole bar going at it, rather than parties going on in smaller rooms.

    Given the incredibly upper middle class, unaware of the proles makeup of my students, I really wanted do some real punk, even though I’m not much of a fan of the genre. (Sorry, Omnes.) I was really hoping to drop “Guns of Brixton” on them, but, unsurprisingly, the only Clash song on any of the machines I saw was “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” No, thanks. So I stuck with Queen and Dire Straits, mostly.

  77. 77.

    ruemara

    @Carolinus: funny how Rand is getting credit for protecting our metadata freedumbs and yet is doing the farthest thing from it.

  78. 78.

    Tree With Water

    Juan Cole at Informed Comment.com notes this:

    “Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has vowed to force the expiration of the so-called PATRIOT Act on Sunday. Paul is right that it is unconstitutional and in this regard he is a better constitutional scholar than Barack Obama, whose stance on this issue is, to say the least, disappointing.
    Obama is not interested in the Fourth Amendment. PBS Frontline says that the National Security Agency didn’t even bother to read him into its massive domestic surveillance program until 2010, two years into his first term, and that when they did, he just sat there and nodded approval. You have to wonder if they are blackmailing him in some way, though there isn’t any reason think that. This kind of surveillance is corrosive of democracy, because we can never trust elected politicians on whom the super-spies might have dirt.
    The so-called PATRIOT Act was pushed as an anti-terrorism measure after 9/11, but it was never about terrorism. The bureaucrats and the GOP had clearly had such an assault on civil liberties and the US Constitution prepared in the 1990s. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) once told me the story of how this 1100 page bill was dropped on all the congressmen and women late one afternoon and then they were expected to vote on it the next day. He doubted that anyone even read it. But the point is that the bill was off the shelf and ready to go. It was a preexisting conspiracy…”.

  79. 79.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Tree With Water: I suspect that Barack Obama has a much more informed view on the constitutionality of the PATRIOT Act than Juan Cole does. Where did Cole get his JD and which law school faculty was he on as a scholar on constitutional law?

    That not dispositive, but it is a real hurdle to overcome. By my non-expert reading of the court precedents, Obama has the better of the argument. That may mean that the courts have a lousy opinion about the subject, but in terms of the rest of us trying to decide what is and isn’t constitutional, it is an even higher hurdle. Those arguing that the PATRIOT Act is unconstitutional are trying to change the legally established interpretation of the constitution.

    ETA: I should say that I wish them luck in this attempt to redefine the constitution, but that is what they are trying to do. And I think that position requires a different emphasis.

  80. 80.

    fuckwit

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Juan Cole is a middle east expert. He knows a shit-ton about politics and history in the region and Islamic law and history. He’s a go-to guy on issues associated with the middle east. Always appreciate his perspective and he knows the nuances and details of the various groups involved in conflicts there.

    But American constiutional law? Meh. Not his area of expertise. Obama certainly has better credentials on that.

  81. 81.

    Tree With Water

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I wish us all luck, because ours is a republic where faith in institutions of power is essential to governance. I daresay like most Americans, I don’t trust any of the bastards any farther than I can spit- and no amount of constitutional sounding mumbo jumbo is going to change that fact, either.

  82. 82.

    Carolinus

    @Tree With Water:

    Juan Cole: “… and that when they did, he just sat there and nodded approval. You have to wonder if they are blackmailing him in some way…”

    The Obama administration actually terminated the one of the more objectionable parts of Bush era Section 215 collection after lobbying by Sen. Wyden & Udall. That was the bulk e-mail header metadata side of the program, and it was mothballed back in 2011 (years prior to the Snowden leaks). See:

    http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-udall-statement-on-the-disclosure-of-bulk-email-records-collection-program

  84. 84.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Tree With Water: You just expressed the broader attitude of the American people that liberals tend not to understand and that is, in fact, quite destructive. Liberals look at some of the polls and see that Americans express agreement with them on specific policy questions. They then fail to look at other polls that show that Americans absolutely do not trust government to implement those policies and that any attempt to give government power will be abused.

    Your attitude that you don’t trust anyone of them farther than you can spit is only death to the progressive movement. Following that attitude will not ever take you in the directions you claim to want to go. It will only lead to Americans to refuse to give government any power except that which they are scared as hell not to give it. Which means that you’ll get more of the PATRIOT Act and less economic redistribution.

    Spend time figuring out where you can trust them and frame your arguments in ways other than just not trusting government. If you refuse to trust any of them, do us all a favor and shut up and go home, because you’re hurting us.

  88. 88.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Myiq2xu: If the Patriot Act ends up lapsing, I’d assume that would be a good thing. There must be a less intrusive way to monitor the conversations of pro-ISIS/terrorist Americans. The Patriot Act appears to give the government too much surveillance power over ordinary citizens.

  89. 89.

    Another Holocene Human

    Love twitter, where Paulheads are leghumping Paul for Massie’s car. Anyone else find it funny, not funny ha ha, how the Rep from King Coal drives an electric car?

    (a: coal is sold to power plants, b: coal is sold to factories, c: the wealthy want to opt out from the high energy prices and energy shocks coming from peak oil–someone on twitter is claiming Massie charges the car with solar, d: leg-humpers are slobbering about how it’s so green, take that Dems, e: ahem, Joe Biden rode THE FUCKING AMTRAK powered by hydro, on reusable mass transit equipment SHOVE UP YOUR ASSES, HUMPERS)

  90. 90.

    Another Holocene Human

    Patriot Act to expire at midnight, making patriotism officially illegal in America.

    — Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) May 31, 2015

    Oh, sweet. That got a belly laugh from me.

  92. 92.

    BruceFromOhio

    In middle of serious McConnell speech, Pat Roberts’ cell phone goes off with the ringer to the “Frozen” song “Let it go”

    Yet another measure of the end of civilization as we know it.

  94. 94.

    Valdivia

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: See for me singing does not come very naturally, which dancing seems to do. There quite a few karaoke places in downtown nyc (mostly chinatown) that are the way you describe: the whole room does it, not separate rooms. The last time I went to do karaoke was in Helsinki, the bar was located at what had been the restroom of the dockworkers who built the port, and it was mostly Russians there. Everyone was singing Eurovision pop, I sang Son of a Preacherman which was the only song I knew from what they had to offer :)

  95. 95.

    Anne Laurie

    @Myiq2xu:

    So you admit your principles are secondary to partisanship.

    No, I admit that “partisanship” is one of my principles. As it is for you, but you’re dishonest.

  96. 96.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    @Mandalay:

    Ah. You’re an aPaulogist. That explains your idiocy.

    Did sanders ever qualify “drones are bad” with “unless somebody is looting a liquor store”? (paraphrased, because I’m not going to research paul’s actual mewelings.)

  97. 97.

    Chris

    @David Koch:

    Then on ISIS he first said, “we should not put any U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq…. For the small group calling for boots on the ground—how can we ask our brave men and women to risk their lives for a country the Iraqis aren’t willing to fight for themselves?”

    Good God, I hate that meme.

    Small wonder that it would be Ayn Rand Paul’s cup of tea.

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