Ten U.S. Senators stood up against a pointless expansion of secret wiretapping. Fourteen missed the vote, including several candidates for the Presidency:
The heroes:
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Dodd (D-CT)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Wyden (D-OR)
Hopefully a respect for the basic rule of law will result in retroactive immunity being dropped from the bill. There's no reason that telecoms who broke the law should be excused from their violation of the rights of innocent American citizens. It'll take more than 10 votes to make that happen, so this is one of those times that you really ought to call your congresscritters and make it clear America should not be a police state.
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If they didn't want to know, they shouldn't have asked. In 2003 Congress passed a bill creating the Citizens' Health Care Working Group. The bill was the infamous Medicare prescription drug "benefit."
A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Vanessa Veselka at The Atlantic: In the Wake of Protest: One Woman's Attempt to Unionize Amazon
Boob ogling is not the only place where male power brokering and sexual politics play out.
The Specter-Harkin Amendment passed the Senate, but this does not guarantee an increase to the NIH budged.