Violent overtones disturb the peace.

Yesterday a memorial service honored 13 dead at the hands of a shooter at Fort Hood, Texas.  There were shootings at a shopping center the same day and the Washington D.C. sniper was executed.  And today Rush Limbaugh is allowed to say the most horrific and hateful things imaginable about our young president. 

Many of us have our peace deeply disturbed; we do not understand what has happened to the stability of our nation.  This kind of news repeats itself too often these days, and I worry that we will get used to it and just turn the television off permanently or numb out to the news.  Free speech is exacting a very heavy price these days.  Just where is the line of insighting to violence?  Where is the line with hate speech?

I am taken back to the sixties and I do not like these feelings of anxiety raised by the past few days and weeks.  People must come to their senses and step back from this abyss.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

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Boxer Pushes Through Climate Bill Despite GOP Boycott - Roll Call

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on Thursday pushed climate change legislation through her committee on an 11-1 vote despite a boycott of the markup by panel Republicans. The lone no vote for her bill was from Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).

via rollcall.com

11/5/09 -- Political jockeying is very complex in the Senate's efforts to start climate change legislation on its way. Not the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman coalition that announced a "parallel track" yesterday.
See also this Washington Independent story that focused on the sexual politics of the matter:

Posted via web from Southwest Postings

House Committee Considers PATRIOT Reform | Electronic Frontier Foundation

The House Judiciary Committee has recessed its meeting to "mark-up" Chairman Conyers' PATRIOT renewal and reform bill, the USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 (HR 3845), so that the committee members can attend a vote on the House floor. We don't know when they'll be back — we'll try to tweet via @EFF if and when they do return — but in the meantime, here are the major developments that you missed if you weren't watching the live webcast. Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute also has a great blow-by-blow with characteristic snark via @Normative.

The mark-up got off to a somewhat worrisome start when Chairman Conyers introduced a "manager's amendment" making numerous changes to the bill to address concerns raised by the Obama Administration about some of the bill's reforms. We have a copy of the amendment and a description of the changes it makes to the bill. Based on a very quick review, most of the changes seem relatively minor, but they are definitely not an improvement from a civil liberties perspective. So, once again, the Obama Administration is quietly working to stop reforms to the PATRIOT Act even though Senator Obama was one of the PATRIOT Act's staunchest critics.

via eff.org

We're not out of the woods on this, by any means. Three elements of the Patriot Act were due to sunset. The Committee is marking up the bill this week, and their work bears close watching. The Committee reconvene's at 10:00 ET on Thursday to continue its work.

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