Sensenbrenner: Gaveling Democracy Off the Table

The local blog Truth, Rants and Ramblings has excellent coverage of this week's special hearing on the Patriot Act and how the U.S. government is running the "war on terror," which was called by Rep. John Conyers and the Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee. The Committee's chair, Republican Rep. John Sensenbrenner, abruptly cut off witnesses, was incredibly rude to Conyers and other Dems, limited to 5 minutes the time that each member could ask questions and receive answers and unilaterally and illegally adjourned the hearing while not letting points of order be heard.

The story includes a link to video of the complete hearing. The last 15 minutes puts the fascist flavor of recent Republican Congressional maneuvers on full display. I watched about the last 30 minutes of the hearing on CSPAN and it is a sight to behold. Remember, after all, that this administration is allegedly on a crusade (!) to spread democracy around the world. Perhaps they should start with their bullies in the Congress.

Of course many of the DLC-type Beltway Dems will probably view any criticism of Sensenbrenner's tactics as being over the top and representing views that they can't support. I mean, do we want to insult all of Sensenbrenner's swing voter supporters? Mercy. Better to keep talking about what a bad boy Howard Dean is and pretend not to notice that our democracy is going to hell in a handbasket while insider Dems ponder how they can get more face time on TV by disingenuously criticizing the Party Chair.