This is legislation that puts our own Justice Department above the law. When National Security Letters are issued, they allow federal agents to conduct any search on any American, no matter how extensive or wide-ranging, without ever going before a judge to prove that the search is necessary.
Yesterday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to renew three expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, after the Senate abandoned the PATRIOT reform effort and approved the extension by a voice vote on Wednesday night.4th Amendment anyone? Democrats, Republicans, McFly, anyone?
Disappointingly, the government's dangerously broad authority to conduct roving wiretaps of unspecified or "John Doe" targets, to secretly wiretap of persons without any connection to terrorists or spies under the so-called "lone wolf" provision, and to secretly access a wide range of private business records without warrants under PATRIOT Section 215 were all renewed without any new checks and balances to prevent abuse. Despite months of vigorous debate, when PATRIOT renewal bills providing for greater oversight and accountability were approved by the Judiciary Committees of both the House and the Senate, Democratic leaders' push for reform fizzled in the face of staunch Republican opposition buoyed by recent hot-button events such as the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day and the shooting at Fort Hood.
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.
The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning -- on the order of 6 to 11 points -- and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people's behaviors come to be.
The reasoning is that sexual exclusivity in men, liberalism and atheism all go against what would be expected given humans' evolutionary past. In other words, none of these traits would have benefited our early human ancestors, but higher intelligence may be associated with them.
It all started with documentary filmmaker Annabel Park venting her frustrations on her Facebook page about media coverage that made it seem that the Tea Parties were representative of the “real America.” She vehemently disagreed and her comments on Facebook got a lot of feedback from people who similarly felt pent-up and frustrated.(Coffee Party USA)
Their name the “Coffee Party” directly references the Tea Party movement and presents itself as an alternative. Park argues elected officials who represent us should work towards positive solutions to the problems the country faces instead of adopting obstructionist political tactics that play on peoples’ fears and which are driven by deliberate misinformation.
The Coffee Party is currently organizing nationwide. It is stressing the message that its members are voters who intend to hold elected officials accountable to holding up progress. Its members will participate and be engaged in the political process.
In addition, the Coffee Party values diversity, is, itself, diverse and completely comfortable with the changing ethnic demographics of the US. Park argues that politicians are exploiting the anxieties people feel regarding these changing demographics for political gain and that it is wrong.
