Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave Westlake and I don’t agree on much, but we’re in total agreement that the PATRIOT Act is ineffective and should be scrapped:
Underdog U.S. Senate candidate Dave Westlake, making a bid to outflank fellow Republican Ron Johnson among tea-party activists, called Thursday for scrapping the Patriot Act.
The decorated Army officer said the act has proven ineffective for fighting terrorism, erodes civil liberties through overly broad wiretapping and should have been replaced within a few years of the 9-11 attacks.
Johnson has backed the continued need for the law, which expanded the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate individuals. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold was the lone vote against the act in 2001, citing a lack of constitutional protections.
Westlake spoke a day after serving as a last-minute replacement at a tea-party candidate forum in Madison that Johnson missed Wednesday night. Johnson, who cited a personal scheduling conflict, last week told another tea-party group that he was still sketching out specific positions on constitutional questions.
It’s worth noting Westlake also said it was “weak” for Johnson to say he needs more time to decide positions on key campaign issues, another point that I’m in complete agreement with Westlake on. Ron Johnson has had plenty of time to figure out what he believes in, and the fact that he’s still having trouble articulating what he actually believes in bodes ill for his candidacy.
Decorated? Do we have a validated combat record to base that on? I hold two Army Commendation and three Army Achievement medals, but I don’t refer to myself as decorated, especially as I never saw combat.
I know this is JS reporting, so I am very curious about how they determined that he is “decorated”. And they should very well know that people pay attention to those kinds of things. I can’t find anything in his biography on his own website, but then again his biography is rather thin all around.
Yeah, I can’t speak to Westlake’s military record, but I can say I don’t recall him ever mentioning having been “decorated.”
I’ll try to get some clarification on this for you.
Not just that, but it would be in Mr. Westlake’s best interest to seek clarification as well. Before I posted my first comment, I had done a cursory google search and could find no other citations, so I’m putting this one down to sloppy journalism.
*gurgle*
while looking at WEstlake’s Facebook page I saw a wee video in which he talks about attending a Drinking Liberally after having been invited by a Zack Wisniewski which I thought (though I don’t see your name here) must be you, while Googling around to verify/check spelling since I have known Wisniewskis and just wondered..
well I ran across this (below) on some Righty’s blog and wow. I hoped this wasn’t true, and that you hadn’t said that. But it is, and you did. shit.
“Zachary says:
September 24th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Oh, and as for those folks in the private sector who have pay freezes, I’ll just say that’s the chance you take working in the private sector”
and then from your own blog for sure –
“So before you cheer the governor’s plan to lay off some state employees and cut pay for others, just remember how you’d feel if you were in the same situation. ”
2 percent and then another 2 percent? we would feel happy in that same situation.
Since Bush first took office erosion of pay has been way more than 2 percent, building one year upon the next. Compounded by health coverage spiraling downward, deductibles rising, retirements crashing, serious downsizing, Bosses who are passionate about the Tea Party and trying to force you to attend meetings which is probably illegal but no one is going to stop them. So you have to hide your political beliefs, so you aren’t the first to “go”, AS WELL AS mandatory days off without pay.
All this on top of the fact that there is no ‘warning” required, when staff cuts are made you can go in to work one morning not knowing it will be your last. 3 kids and a baby on the way? (real people, not made up) who cares. One income family? who cares. Goodbye.
and during these same years grocery prices have gone thru the roof.
As if those are not also “good hardworking people”. people who work physical jobs (this means you are putting your own health on the line to support your family) THye are not “less than” people, some are stupid but so are those in management often stupid. College professors and Surgeons can be absolute morons. Stupid is spread equally thru ALL economic classes, and so is “Smart”.
So there is that element of physical risk too in many of the lives of “working class people”. I suspect you do not have a guy who silently pushes a broom around your own workplace because his brain got fried by a chemical and that is all he can do now. But it’s “immoral” and politically costly to put too much regulation on BUSINESS. Policy makers never get around guys like that, it’s just a sad TV show plot but not too ‘real”.
The world class insensitivity of “the sensitive people” regularly makes me want to string myself up. This is exactly the kind of “fighting for the middle class so the working class can be protected once they make it” which is 100% the illogical sugar-coated cluelessness that I fear seeing each time I go back to looking at political blogs.
People really do not get it. What could be scarier than the people who are “on the side of the little guy” (or the SMALL PEOPLE) not getting it? not much.
If protecting the middle class and making sure Government (or Teacher’s Union) Workers are shielded from what everyone else but the super wealthy upper echelons are feeling is all we can hope for – we are not going to make it. That is not enough.
Saving the First Class passengers on a ship where the lower decks are flooded is not enough. Yet throughout history that has so often been the response.
“Sorry, this is the best we can do at this time. Conditions are not right, we can’t possibly ask for more and risk loosing the small gains we have made. Maybe next time.”
so then I kinda forgot about whether or not you might be one of “those Wisniewskis”, and now I’m going to go out and play on the Highway, or stick my tongue out at a cop hoping to piss him off and die in a hail of gunfire, why not, since we’re all about taking those crazy chances. O_o
To confirm, I’m the same Zach W. that helped get Westlake to Drinking Liberally.
As to the comment I made about working in the private sector, to be sure it wasn’t one of the smartest things I’ve ever said. The point I was trying to make (obviously rather inarticulately) was that the possibility of pay cuts, layoffs, etc. are the risks associated with working in the private sector as opposed to the public sector, but the reward is higher pay than one would make in the public sector. That being said, I took my pay cut this year without complaint, because I know times are tough right now, and I fully expect that I can expect a similar pay cut next year, as well as higher health insurance premiums and a bigger contribution on my part towards my pension, and to be honest, I’m okay with that.
So yeah, we all say stupid things, and you can chalk that up to me saying something really stupid.