Why?
Take a look at his website here
Right there in the middle of his front page is the problem. There, he says "41 Days Since FISA expired." And, of course, the Democrats killed it, and so the Democrats don't want to protect you from terrorists. Lying Republican bullshit.
Either my Congressman Culberson is an idiot and can't tell the difference between what has expired and what hasn't, or he does in fact know the truth, but he chooses to LIE in order to manipulate voters into voting for him, and against the Democrats. Neither option speaks well of him. What HAS expired is the "Protect America Act (PAA) of 2007." That was originally passed in August of 2007, with a six-month sunset - and Bush railroaded the Congress into that one, but that's another story - and it gave the President and god knows who else the authority to wiretap international calls withOUT obtaining a warrant. No oversight. Period.
FISA has not expired. The PAA was an amendment TO FISA. (Some call it the "Police America Act.") FISA is still on the books. But now, without the amendments, Bush has to once again obtain a warrant before wiretapping. Oh, boo hoo! Those pesky warrants!! And, oh yeah, if it's an emergency, Bush can go ahead and wiretap anyway and THEN apply for a warrant. Around 99% of all warrants have been approved by the FISA court. But no, that's not good enough for Bush. He demands the right to wiretap WHENEVER HE WANTS, AS MUCH AS HE WANTS. And WE are not allowed to know ANYTHING ABOUT IT! But don't worry, because Bush is a trustworthy man.
On a further page at Culberson's website, he goes on to say that, not only has FISA expired, but that the "FISA Amendments Act of 2007" is not being allowed to pass by the Democrats, which is actually true. Gotta mix in SOME truth to make the lies more palatable, eh, John?
The FISA Amendments Act of 2007 is the one that grants immunity to the telecoms for...for something...we're not sure exactly WHAT they're getting immunity FOR, since THAT information is, of course, CLASSIFIED. A national security issue, a state secret. But Bush wants immunity for the telecoms, so it must be alright. Must be pretty serious or I suppose they wouldn't need immunity in the first place. And we're supposed to trust Bush, that paragon of truth and moral clarity?
I wonder how many other Republican U.S. House members across the country are likewise either lying to the voters or stupid about this issue like Culberson is? I'll bet there's probably a lot of them. And every one of them should lose their seat in Congress.
So today I went to visit John Culberson's Democratic challenger, Michael Skelly, in Skelly's campaign office.
We had a nice conversation, but I get the feeling that Michael is not all that concerned about Culberson's misleading on this issue. Skelly thinks that Culberson knows the truth, but is lying about it. He's probably right. The truth is just so inconvenient to most Republicans these days, I guess it's not that surprising that they'll lie and distort to try and keep the upper hand. They ARE Republicans, after all. More on my visit with Skelly in a later post. It was rather surprising.
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