#congress

The point is, Congress’s decision to lift the sequester was even more self-serving than you probably imagined. After casting their votes on Friday, most members raced to the airport and went home.

Washington, D.C. – Today the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Since Rep. Zoe Lofgren was not permitted to deliver her opening statement at the hearing, it appears below in full.

In reality though, most of the large tech companies that exist today were once very small and very fragile. If SOPA was in place, those companies would have never grown up, since the two guys in a garage would have required four lawyers to survive. Dropbox is a perfect example. Created by some college students, the company provides shared online storage space for a fee. Under SOPA, the company would have been cut off from its revenues as soon as a single accusation was made that it was hosting copyrighted material. As a small company this could have been crippling. Today though, I know that Dropbox is one of the most popular tools in the movie industry, since it allows easy sharing of new daily shots, music cues, draft movie posters and more. The innovative tech companies of the future will be extinguished before they have a chance to even get out the door.

"It’s the American way that we judge people as individuals, not as groups. And by that standard we can say unequivocally that this particular wise Latina, with the richness of her experiences, would far more often than not reach a better conclusion than the individual white males she faced in that Senate hearing room. Even those viewers who watched the Sotomayor show for only a few minutes could see that her America is our future and theirs is the rapidly receding past. "

"In The Futurological Congress, Stanislaw Lem's protagonist finds himself discussing futurology with a scientist and discovers it has been superceded by futurology — the science of predicting the future by making up words and guessing what they might me

"To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service..." Repeatedly reintroduced apparently to prove a point.

"Anne Kornblut of the New York Times asked McHenry if his complaint might come across as whining. "I'm not whining," he whined."

"Republicans "have taken every one of the techniques that Democrats employed when they were in the majority, and ratcheted them up to another level," said the American Enterprise Institute scholar."

Republicans go QQ. "As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking."

"McKinney, a Democrat who drew national headlines in March when she struck a Capitol police officer, has long insisted that Bush was never legitimately elected."

"For Members of Congress, fiduciary responsibility means reading each word of every bill before they vote. But Congress has not met this duty for a long time."

"Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) ... was on Frist faster than Halliburton snaps up a no-bid contract."

"Both the search warrant for Jefferson's office and the raid to execute it were unprecedented in the 219-year history of the Constitution."

"Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?"