An enlightening day...

...with most of the afternoon watching the U.S. House debate HR 1401, the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007. [What can I say - I'm a geek. :) ]

The bill passed, but that was no surprise.

What was really interesting was watching the extremist wing of the Republican Party, House chapter, in action.

There were two times when the Reps' true colors showed.

...During the consideration of the Sessions amendment to HR1401, an amendment to "prohibit funds in [the] act, except those noted in Section 108, from being used by Amtrak for any of the Top 10 worst revenue losing long-distance routes as noted by its September 2006 monthly performance report."

During the debate on the amendment, Rep. Sessions named only of the routes that his amendment targeted.

Both routes mentioned specifically were New Orleans-based routes - the Sunset Limited to California and the City of New Orleans to Chicago.

You remember, the same New Orleans that was all but destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The same predominantly black-inhabited New Orleans that was all but depopulated by residents desperately fleeing the devastation.

A place with no reason to visit it, or any people left to leave it. Little wonder that they were two of the least-profitable routes a mere year after the most destructive natural disaster in American history.

Those routes are the ones that Rep. Sessions (R-TX) wants to leave susceptible to attack.

The amendment was defeated 130 - 299. Even a number of Republicans thought it was a bad amendment and voted against it.

...Later in the day, Peter King (R-NY) introduced an amendment that would grant immunity from lawsuits to anyone "reporting suspicious activities and mitigating terrorist threats relating to transportation security."

This one was targeted at the "flying imams" who are now suing over their removal from a flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix.

Not only did this amendment take aim at a religious minority, it did so by actually protecting bigots.

I actually don't have a problem with immunizing people who report activity that they legitimately believe to be suspicious. However, 'legitimate' suspicion is not based on someone's religion.

This amendment provides blanket immunity without regard to the basis of the suspicion.

However, the worst part of the debate occured when Bennie Thompson (D-MS) was speaking about his reservations with the amendment.

The kept interrupting him, and when he tried to continue speaking, they hooted him down.

And by "they", I mean the Republicans in the chamber.

You might ask how I know it was Republicans. Immediately after this incident, the vote on the amendment was taken. (Note: actually it was a motion to recommit with instructions to add the amendment to the underlying bill, but it means the same thing.) The counter provided by CSPAN showed that well over 100 Republicans cast their votes in the first minute of voting; less than 30 or so Democrats voted during the same time period.

Their behavior was reprehensible and uncivilized, even by their admittedly low standards.

Just because they lost the election in November doesn't mean they should act like losers.

I know that their attitudes and behaviors haven't changed much since the election. They have always targeted racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, and the economically-disadvantaged for their contempt. However, when they were in the majority, they put a smiling face on it (perhaps to help keep them in the majority).

Now it seems that their anger over the loss of majority status in the House is overwhelming their ability to maintain the facade.

The amendment passed 304-121. The underlying bill passed 299 - 124.

Note: Harry Mitchell voted for the King amendment; much as I respect and like him, I have to say that he was on the wrong side on this one.

Note2: Remember the Sessions amendment that I discussed earlier? Sessions' argument was that money shouldn't be spent on protecting the lowest revenue routes, based on the September 2006 Monthly Report from Amtrak. What he didn't mention was that for the period covered by the report, and that of the reports of October 2006 and November 2006 , the two routes he mentioned were two of the fastest growing routes in the entire system in terms of revenue.

From the reports, for Sleeper Class, change over the previous year -

September 2006, City of New Orleans, ticket revenue was up 77.5%; Sunset Limited up 163.5%. Overall Long Distance revenue was up 9.4%.

October 2006, City of New Orleans up 35.7%; Sunset Limited up 221.9%. Overall up 11.7%.

November 2006, City of New Orleans up 50.9%; Sunset Limited up 143.7%. Overall up 6.9%.

It's bad enough that he and his colleagues were trying to stick it to New Orleans and its people again; they were lazy about it; if they were going to cherry-pick statistics to make their case, at least do it in a way that isn't so easily found out.

Later!