Lantos on the Patriot Act
Despite the fact that his district overwhelmingly opposes the "Patriot Act," Congressman Lantos was one of the key Democrats pushing the Act through Congress. His two opponents, Ro Khanna and Maad Abu-Ghazalah, support the repeal of the Act.
In this clip, the Patriot Act is discussed. A short clip from Maad (who was great and funny but a bit wild in his views), then Lantos, and then Ro, and then Lantos getting angry. The audience was not happy, and Ro showed he had grown tired of the personal attacks by this incumbent.
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Comments (8)
Interesting that Lantos would be campaigning on a platform which includes legislation he must very well know his constituents oppose. In a rational system that would be a way to guarantee failure... why does our electoral system encourage such behavior? Why is there even a chance that he will still be elected? Food for thought...
One of these things is not like the other. Lantos and Kerry both voted for the USA PATRIOT Act. Lessig tells you to support Kerry (anyone but Bush) and reject Lantos. Democratic Party supporters will bring up the USA PATRIOT Act to Lantos to make him angry, but they don't talk that way to Kerry. And they sure won't support someone who stands in clear opposition to Bush on USA PATRIOT or signing a blank check for war which leads to our illegal and unethical invasion of Iraq based on bad evidence millions in the street knew was bad information at the time.
This sounds confusing to me. With logic like this, it also sounds like the Democrats are in fine form to do as well in November as they did in 2002.
Lantos rocks; he supports the Patriot Act despite his district's views because he is a principled man, not an opportunist. Good for him.
Real Smart Lawyer: actually, the reason Lantos supports the Patriot Act is because he's a Jew who's been through a concentration camp and is an unshakable supporter of anything that'll keep the world a safe place for Israel. Witness his irrational support of Sharon's actions and literal inability to see the Palestinian point of view.
Normally, views on foreign items dont' matter that much, but in this case the War on Terror is having an incredibly corrosive effect on the domestic scene. It's time to throw out people whose loyalty to another nation causes them to disregard the views of the people who elected him
Listening to KPFA, it sounds like Lantos won. Lynn Weil, who works on Lantos' campaign, cited his support for the war in Iraq as part of the reason for his victory. She did not mention that Lantos outraised Khanna a little over 7 times and outspent a little over 4 times as much as Khanna. This race wasn't even close: Lantos got 71% of the vote, Khanna 23% (these numbers will probably change with 100% of the precincts in). It's hard to say from these results that people are taking the strong stand on the USA PATRIOT Act or the invasion of Iraq that liberals would like (KPFA was sure to mention Lantos' support for these bills, but that came off to me as spin with figures as different as 70-20).
Despite the record number of people voting with electronic voting machines (a number of which are physically unsecured and available for tampering), nobody seems to have raised the objection that this or any other election was adversely affected by the machines. How people would know things went right, I don't know--the California machines KPFA talked about are inauditable and thus inherently untrustworthy. I question whether people actually know who they voted for; they know who they intended to vote for, but who they actually voted for remains a mystery that can never be solved because the evidence may have been thrown out by the voting machine program at voting time.
So, I think it looks like we should all get ready for 4 more years of Bush because either the election will be unknowable and merely declared in Bush's favor (Diebold CEO already announced his favor) or because President Bush has dramatically out-raised Dean (Dean is still the top money raiser of the Democrats despite his declaration that he's no longer actively campaigning--perhaps this is telling us how much faith Democrats have in their candidate and how strong the "anybody but Bush" philosophy is failing to sweep the country). It looks like Bush will likely vastly out-spend any Democrat. On top of that, it's unlikely that Nader will get serious TV time so we'll have yet another cycle where Democrats can afford to offer little real difference from the Republicans (remember that in 2000's TV debates, the moderator asked Bush and Gore to give voters some indication on where they differed. The two candidates refused to do so.). Maybe this time Bush will actually earn enough votes to be elected President, rather than appointed. It doesn't really matter though, he gets the same power either way.
Can anyone understand what Latos says that gets the crowd to boo? Sounds like: "I've been talking about ensmoking or removing this district."
Aaron: I hear it as "I've been talking about [modifying] it since long before you moved to this district"
I think that the Patriot Act, is the worst bill that was ever
sent through the house and the senate. Hitlier would love the
way this countray is being run. The founding father's would
turn in their graves.