A lot of legislation seems to be going through Congress pretty easily in regards to the terrorist attacks. Have any outrageous riders been tacked on/been proposed to any of these bills?
Dunno, but I’ll bump this from Page 2 for ya, let the Thursday morning group take a shot at it.
I don’t know about any bills being passed with rediculous legislation specifically. I have heard of both US and British politicians using the attacks as a good time to release bad news that they had been sitting on, hoping it would be lost in the shuffle. (I listened to a talk radio show about this go on for hours of examples it seemed, but do not have a specific site.)
Gary Condit is probably the only person happy with the attacks because of the heat it drew off of him. Another thing that seems to be buried in the news of the war on terrorism is the proposed additional tax cuts. Bush has talked about cutting taxes as early as this year and next, that weren’t planned to go into effect until 2004 when the original tax relief act passed. I can’t seem to find any news on this on Drudge, CNN or any other obvious places.
A cite for the UK side of what Debaser is talking about can be found here.
Basically, a government spin doctor sent out an e-mail soon after the planes had crashed into the WTC towers, advising ministers that it was a “very good day to get out anything we want to bury”. So, whilst people were dying inside burning towers, this government adviser was thinking “Oh, fantastic - excellent news. I can use this to our advantage.”
The latest news (Tories have called for the adviser to be sacked; Labour say we should be concentrating on other things) can be found here.
Has anyone seen the actual text of this anti-terrorism bill that is supposedly flying through Congress this week? All I can find out about it is that it expands law enforcement rights to search suspected terrorists’ homes and wiretap phones and stuff. No details though. I want to see what the legislation really is because the media is reporting on it and making it sound (to me at least) like it’s pushing the limits of civil liberties…
Here is where you can read the full text and status of all Sept. 11-related legislation.