Poll: 75 percent disapprove of Congress’ performance

* Approval rating for all members of Congress sits at 22 percent
* Congress needs to focus on the big issues, professor says
* Overall congressional approval rating down 6 points from last October

From Sasha Johnson and Paul Steinhauser
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Americans think Congress is doing a pretty lousy job, according to a poll released Friday.

The approval rating for all members of Congress sits at a dismal 22 percent, according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll. About 75 percent of those surveyed said they disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job.

A year ago, a similar poll found the numbers to be 28 percent approval, 63 percent disapproval.

“The big issues of the day just don’t seem to be being addressed,” said Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University who studies Congress. “The issues that matter most to people — the economy, health care, the environment and the larger war in Iraq — it is so difficult for Congress to move on those issues that I believe the public looks and says, ‘Why aren’t they doing anything?’ ”

Approval of congressional Democrats stands at 43 percent, twice that of Congress in general. The flip side, however, is that Democrats who control Congress still face a disapproval rating of 51 percent, a figure that has increased 11 percentage points since March. MORE

The “Thought Crime Prevention Bill” hasn’t received much coverage in the Mainstream News Media, and that’s understandable, because as it is written, it is the most draconian assault on the Constitution ever brought-up in Congress, and it evidently enjoyed bipartisan support. Under said Bill, it should be noted that I’m more than likely committing a “crime” writing this post and commentary - as are Liberal and Progressive Bloggers throughout the United States. There’s a direct link to the article and commentary on Op-Ed News, however, this assault on our liberty and freedom must be widely circulated, because if it passes the Senate - it’s probable that Blogs that disagree with this administration, or even Democrats like Nancy Pelosi as I have done LINK, will pay the price for committing “thought crimes”, and free speech will soon be effectively muzzled in the United States.

This is some of the commentary written by ROGUEGOVERNMENT.COM - and it’s excellent as well as frightening:

House Passes Thought Crime Prevention Bill

10-25-2007
www.roguegovernment.com
Lee Rogers

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.

First let’s take a look at the definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as defined in Section 899A of the bill.

The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting any belief system that the government considers to be an extremist agenda. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government. Considering how much the government has done to destroy the Constitution they could even define Ron Paul supporters as promoting an extremist belief system. Literally, the government according to this definition can define whatever they want as an extremist belief system. Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.

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