Thursday, the House was taking up what should have been a fairly routine intelligence bill (routine except that it was months late). Well, it shows up on the house floor, all ready to vote on, but with nobody apparently having read it yet. And what do we find in the bill? A provision to criminalize the intelligence service.
As told by the washington posts castoffs, the Politico:
“It’s a mystery how that language got in there,” Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) said of the controversial intelligence bill provision backed by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). “I think there are a lot of issues about the drafting of the McDermott amendment.”
A Mystery? You send a bill through the committee, where there are public hearings, and a public vote on each item in the bill. When done, the committee holds a final vote, and the bill comes to the floor of the house.
On the floor of the house, members offer up amendments, each of which are read by the clerk, debated, and voted on. After all amendments are voted on, there is a final vote on the bill.
So how could any words in the bill be "a mystery"? How could the former ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee have no idea how a clause criminalizing interrogation made it into an intelligence bill?
The answer is simple -- Under democratic rule, the house no longer works as a democratic body. Instead, backroom deals, ignoring the rules, bills written in secret and voted on without any public hearing -- that's the norm. I'm sure Pelosi would skip the whole voting thing if she could figure out whether the media would go along with it.
Hopefully, the people are getting tired of the dictatorial, elitist leadership of the house and senate. We will have to suffer for a few more months, but come November, the people can have their congress back. Our brief dark night can end, and a new day dawn.
Sure, we'll still be stuck with an incompetent socialist President, but he's pretty much demonstrated that, apart from lying, he's not really committed to anything.
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