GOODBYE AMERICA

Well they finally did it.

Years of planning and hatred and deceit finally paid off today and the Senate -the Democratic Senate- voted to give the telecom companies who enabled the White House to illegally spy on you complete immunity from any and all prosecution, removing the last tool to investigate and discover just how deeply the illegal activity and corruption went here.

What's more and particularly sickening is that they actually voted against Feinsteins amendment which basically declared that "OK this is now the law" voting instead to allow the President to decide to reject it if he feels like it.

You no longer live in the country where you thought you resided. This isn't America anymore. The law used to mean something, and it was the only thing that separated America from despotic and repressive nations where only the rich and powerful were protected from their government.

Look, I'm not naive -I know that in reality even in this country the rich and powerful have always held a huge advantage because they could afford to use the law to their advantage -but somehow through all of that our law itself -the Constitution- still protected the rights of everyone. It still mattered. It still meant that, at least in theory, you were protected from unreasonable repressive and unjust actions prepetrated on you by the government or those acting "on its behalf".

This vote means that the fourth amendment protection against search and seizure can be completely disregarded by the executive branch if they feel like it. No warrant is necessary to listen to conversations between US citizens and non as long as there is an alleged national security interest as provided by executive order. This essentially means that executive orders trump the Constitution.

The long and the short of it: dont talk on the phone with anyone with a foreign sounding name.

Now the House is taking up the resolution, and they're a little less friendly to it, but don't hold your breath.

We had a beautiful idea, but we let assholes ruin it in just over 200 years.

MY NEW FAVORITE QUOTE

This is brilliant:

"If the Goverment is a car setting out to give every one a ride to work, then for 40 years the Republicans have been puncturing the tires, pouring sand in the gas tank, stealing the distributer cap, and, whenever they can get their hands on the wheel, driving it straight into the nearest ditch and then, pointing to the wreckage as the tow truck backs up to it, saying, 'See, this proves that people were meant to walk'.

And they do this so that they don't have to chip in on gas."