5/10/2005

Listening to: Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Magnolia Mountain

Those of you that know me know that I am hardly an alarmist of any kind. Except when it comes to really cool concerts and new releases by my favorite artists. I can get excited about those. But I saw this today, and I couldn't help but wonder what is going on:

REAL ID
REAL ID and judicial review
Special bonus tinfoil hat thread for TotalFarkers

So what this means is that a bill establishing a national ID card for the U.S. was passed unanimously by the Senate without any debate whatsoever - simply because it was added on to an appropriations bill to fund military actions in Iraq. (Don't forget about the delicious restrictions on judicial review that were also tacked on.)

I really don't care what it is; anything that passes the Senate unanimously worries me. Unless it's a motion to establish Ronald Reagan's birthday as a national holiday.

Where are the crazy liberals and/or libertarians when you need them?

# posted by Brandon at 8:08 PM 2 comments Home

2 Comments:

Anonymous Rachel said...

Not to deny the heniousness of the REAL ID provision, but to explain at least in part why the bill passed unanimously...we finally got in some appropriations to take care of soldiers' families and veterans. The max life insurance benefit for service members almost doubled, the death benefit increased ten-fold, and we finally have a pay-off in place for service members who suffer traumatic injuries in battle.

So at least the robbing us of our civil liberties came hand in hand with finally doing something for the people who have been shat on for the last 3 years, rather than just kicking a few more billion back to Halliburton.

9:51 PM  
Blogger Brandon said...

From CNN:

Kennedy said "the so-called Real ID immigration provisions" are "highly controversial, harmful and unnecessary."

But the legislation still passed with a 100-0 vote.

I dunno. That really makes me mad. It seems like an incredible abuse of the system.

3:13 AM  

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