Just a quick note to Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dick Leinenkugel and his campaign handlers:
If you’re going to attack Sen. Russ Feingold for opposing the PATRIOT Act, you might want to consult with Tim Michels to find out how that turned out for him in 2004.
Voting against the Patriot Act was one of the the things I respected Feingold for. It was typical legislative knee-jerk reaction – sure with a lot of good things, but more than a few that were bad or went too far and most importantly, it was rushed through so fast there obviously wasn’t any real discussion, debate or consideration for long-term effects.
I don’t think Michels did so bad at all against Feingold – considering he was largely unknown, and Feingold outspent him more than 2 to 1. Funny how money is never a problem when it’s your side that has/spends more. 🙂
But how can Russ say Patriot was an overreach, but his campaign finance law wasn’t? I guess free speech in campaigns is ok as long as it’s only coming from Russ and other incumbents and not groups that may oppose them.
How can you say Feingold’s campaign finance law was an overreach but the Patriot Act wasn’t?
So let me get this straight. Voting against the Patroit Act becasue it invades the privacy of people making international calls and emails to suspects is a GOOD idea, but voting for the Health Care Act which gives the government control of all of our medical records, our health care providers, our checking accounts, our diets, and puts all of this control in the hands of health review panels and the IRS … is a BETTER idea????
Come on, the Patriot Act is not even close to the invasion of privacy the Health Care Reform Act is going to do to all of us. And why? So the people who do not want health insurance can get free insurance from the rest of us?
I will take the little privacy I lost in the Patriot Act anyday over the massive loss of all of my privacy which the Health Care Act that Feingold PROMOTED for Wisconsin!
The Patriot Act also invaded the privacy of U.S. citizens, but I suppose that’s not really important either.
And a list of each instance of citizens harmed by the Patriot Act is where?
Yeah, that’s the beauty of the provisions within the Patriot Act that allowed for those things to be kept secret. After all, we don’t need scrutiny of warrantless wiretaps and records requests.
Surely some stories would have come out by now.
Well, that’s the thing about the law….most folks tend to follow it, lest they incur the wrath of the federal government.
I have not heard of any lawsuits brought on buy the Patriot Act. However from those who have read the Health Care Reform Act and supposedly understand it, there is way much more invasion of privacy than the authors of the Patriot Act could have wanted. In fact, I heard that the whole purpose of the Health Care Reform Act is to fully invade all of our privacy, not just those who are suspected to be terrorists.
I just heard that the Democrat senators, which at the moment are unnamed, are now pushing for the National ID card act again. This is the recently passed Arizona law on steriods! Between our new health card ID card and this National ID card, which we will be require by law to carry all of the time, how can we have any privacy?
I wonder if Senator Feingold will have the guts to vote against his party on this one? I have not seen any effort to vote against his party in the last few years. But I will be watching and voting accordingly.
So who’s restricting free speech here? Candidate Leinenkugel had his say, Zach disagreed, you disagreed with Zach, I disagree with you. Sounds like free speech is working just like it should.
That wooshing sound was the point sailing over your head. The restrictions on speech he was talking about were those resulting from McCain-Feingold & have nothing to do with people posting in a discussion thread.
I’m still not convinced that GE or Boeing should be able to spend unlimited amounts of money to buy elections, but I guess I’m kinda odd in my belief that elections should be won or lost based on the candidates and their ideas, and not simply on who can raise and spend the most money.
As long as their is full disclosure, what makes you think people are going to buy into or care what GE or Boeing has to say?
LOL! Thanks…but I don’t consider corps as having free speech rights…despite court rulings.
I don’t disagree with you on that at all – but the rights of the individual to express their political views via campaign contributions were restricted.
And we can go ’round & ’round on campaign contributions being speech or not – bottom line is that at this point, it doesn’t even matter because McCain-Feingold did nothing to take money out of politics & campaign – it just made it less transparent due to all the 527 groups.
I’ll just note that my point in posting this entry was to note that attacking Sen. Feingold for voting against the Patriot Act – whether you agree with the provisions of the Patriot Act or not – is probably not a strategy that’s going to win the election for Dick Leinenkugel, just as it didn’t work for Tim Michels, who hammered Sen. Feingold on his Patriot Act vote every change he got.
I think you’re right that criticizing Feingold for voting against the Patriot Act won’t get him anywhere for a number of reasons. But Michels the fact that did and lost is not one of them. They are very different candidates (almost from different parties) and the vote was almost a decade ago.
Seems to me, given the fact that Leinenkugel leans left on so many issues, and has been getting hammered for it, he was looking for something to make him seem more right (while making sure to still not burn any bridges with the Dems). Apparently this was the best he could come up with.
I am, like the majority of Americans, are criticizing Feingold for being a total hypocrite when it came to the Health Care Reform Act. If he stood up and voted against it based on his principles of protecting our privacy, instead of becoming a “block vote” for it, I would have had a lot of respect for him.
From his vote on the Health Care Reform Act, despite its massive attack on our free liberties and privacy, I now realize he could care less about protecting our privacy.
This is why he is falling in the polls; especially against Thomson and now Leinenkugel.
Has anyone even bothered to read the new law instead of repeating what they heard?