Senator Al Franken?

"treasonous clown" . . .This is really off-topic but, . . .The term 'treasonous clown' reminds me of the court jester in fuedal times who was allowed to speak true but treasonous words as long as they were couched in metaphor or told thru songs or jokes. I think John Stewart might be today's modern court jester, as he is one of the only corporate media's allowable ways to gain true insight into modern politics.But I would use a different definition of 'treasonous clown' when Franken is being referenced.

Why not? Can't you maintain your home and repair it at the same time? Since when is maintenance different from maintenance? So changes that you agree with are good and changes that you disgree with are treason? The Constitution gives you the brakes - and the accelerator that got you into trouble in the first place. You'd better make up your mind whether the Constitution should be "supported" as is or needs to be changed. You tell me.

Personally, I don't find John Stewart the least bit funny.

You cannot destroy your home while simultaneously maintaining it. As I wrote before, this is Crashfrog's 'relative' counterargument. If you are Adolf Hitler you would be in favor of the things I find repugnant. I get it. If most people prefer to live in nazi Germany, then I guess I need to get used to wearing brownshirts. However, i also believe, for a number of reasons, people fully support things that are against their best interests. That leaves me flatfooted. My limited response is early education in the areas of critical thinking (remember our debate a long time ago?), conflict and anger management, early science classes, global society comparison, religion/fantasy comparison, etc. But it probably wouldn't help for several generations so maybe we are all doomed.

Do you find him more truthful/insightful than Faux News?

Sure you can. You can gut the spare bedroom to put in an ensuite bathroom. My views are probably closer to yours than to Hitler's and possibly than Franken's too. I'm not defending either Hitler's views or Franken's. I'm just pointing out how ludicrously over-the-top your criticism is.It's a democracy. He's allowed to have views different from yours. People are allowed to vote for him. People are allowed to be wrong, for that matter.Being flatfooted doesn't do you or anybody else any good.

I find all American politics incredibly boring. It's no wonder nobody votes.

It is entirely possible to support the Constitution as a symbol of the rule of law and many of the principles it attempts to legislate, while simultaneously attacking provisions that are seen as unjust.For example, it would have been entirely possible in 1800 to vehemently attack the 3/5s rule while still supporting the Constitution as a whole. Or to argue against the exclusion of women from voting as a contradiction with the guarantee of equal protection under the law.After all, the Constitution is intended to be a living document, being amended as needed by future generations. That's why we no longer have slaves. That's why it was legal to buy alcohol, then illegal, then legal again. That's why women can vote. I imagine we'll amend that document more before we're done with it. The amendment process will require "attacks" from people who still support the Constitution as a whole, and who still support the rule of law.The most frightening problems today are not about threats to change the Constitution, or attacks against it. Rather, the most frightening precedents are those cases in which the Constitution is simply ignored, rather than attacked or changed.

You cannot destroy your home while simultaneously maintaining it. Ringo, your flippant arguments are revealing. I didn't write "bedroom." I wrote 'home." As in 'entire house.' You are attempting to marginalize what Franken is doing, like repainting a closet in your home example. Franken is attacking the constitution, not merely re-window dressing it. Attacking is not the same as supporting the constituion as he took an oath to do. BTW, did I write that Franken took an oath to support the constitution? "Probably"? The only way you could possibly show I am over-the-top in supporting basic rights and liberties is by defending Hitler. "Democracy"??? Do you even know what the constitution and its amendments and my argument is all about? . . .

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It is a fundamental principle of American democracy that laws should not be public only when it is convenient for government officials to make them public. They should be public all the time, open to review by adversarial courts, and subject to change by an accountable legislature guided by an informed public. If Americans are not able to learn how their government is interpreting and executing the law then we have effectively eliminated the most important bulwark of our democracy.

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No. he made an oath to support the constitution. He is not allowed to change that part. Do you know what an oath is? Are you saying you are okay with Hitler being merely wrong? No kidding. I concur.Edited by dronester, : Added Wyden's quote

Do you find him more truthful/insightful than Faux News? Do you find him more truthful/insightful than Faux News?

The OP is about Franken. I have brought up his recent vote to attack the 4th amendment. Franken voted AGAINST the Amash NSA Amendment (ends the indiscriminate collection of phone and email records) last Wednesday.Are you arguing this recent specific vote is against a provision of the constitution which is unfair?

Dem Senator Ron Wyden's article (below) is a must read for anybody who supports liberties and rights. The american people have been and are continuing to be deceived by the government. When the Bush Jr administration did this, liberals were all angry. Now where is everyone when Obama does it? Just the sounds of crickets?

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The combination of increasingly advanced technology with a breakdown in the checks and balances that limit government action could lead us to a surveillance state that cannot be reversed.

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Ron, how can the law be secret? When you guys pass laws that’s a public deal. I’m going to look them up online. In response, I tell Oregonians that there are effectively two Patriot Acts the first is the one that they can read on their laptop in Medford or Portland, analyze and understand. Then there’s the real Patriot Actthe secret interpretation of the law that the government is actually relying upon. The secret rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have interpreted the Patriot Act, as well as section 702 of the FISA statute, in some surprising ways, and these rulings are kept entirely secret from the public. These rulings can be astoundingly broad.

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It is a fundamental principle of American democracy that laws should not be public only when it is convenient for government officials to make them public. They should be public all the time, open to review by adversarial courts, and subject to change by an accountable legislature guided by an informed public. If Americans are not able to learn how their government is interpreting and executing the law then we have effectively eliminated the most important bulwark of our democracy.

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Outside the names of the FISA court judges, virtually everything else is secret about the court. Their rulings are secret, which makes challenging them in an appeals court almost impossible. Their proceedings are secret too, but I can tell you that they are almost always onesided.

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. . . not only were the existence of and the legal justification for these programs kept completely secret from the American people, senior officials from across the government were making statements to the public about domestic surveillance that were clearly misleading and at times simply false.

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Not at all. In fact I wrote a lengthy appeal to my own congresswoman in favor of the amendment to de-fund the program. Incidentally, she did in fact vote for the amendment.I'm simply pointing out that your absolutist argument that it is impossible to simultaneously support and attack the Constitution is invalid. Nothing more.As is often the case, you and I agree on the larger issue and might disagree on specific arguments to arrive at similar conclusions.

But it seems only when using a quantifier, "when the constitution has some provision which is unfair," can you demonstrate my argument is possibly invalid.Since Franken's vote against the constitution does NOT have a provision which is unfair, I have demonstrated in this specific case, that he cannot support and attack the constitution at the same time.PS, congrats to having an ethical congresswoman. Most americans should be envious.

Are you being deliberately disingenuous? You know very well that you can renovate your home by "destroying" one room at a time. And Franken isn't even advocating destroying the whole Constitution, only a couple of bedrooms. You're implying criminal intent, yet he faces no criminal charges. It seems that your position is the unconventional one. You haven't been very clear about that.You've mentioned Snowden a couple of times, so maybe he has something to do with your point? In my opinion, he shouldn't be prosecuted (I believe I mentioned that I consider "treason" to be an obsolete idea) but other people have other opinions and they should be allowed to express them. Yes, it's an empty formality. It might be an interesting aside to discuss whether or not Hitler could have been tried for his crimes. (There's a novel called The Trial of Adolf Hitler by Phillipe van Rjndt that discusses some of the difficulties.) But more appropriate to this topic is whether or not Al Franken can be tried for his "crimes".