The vote was 54-50, how the hell did the Democrats win?? The vote was almost 100% on party lines. Seems to me the Republicans have been all about this and the Democrats against it. I'm not in either party - but saying they are the same is just absurd.

Edit: Sorry, it's 50-48, even closer. Here's the list of cosponsors, not a single D. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-joint-re...

10 Repeating flawed logic to yourself does not make it true. 20 GOTO10.

You see this way too much, apathetic cynics will reply to anything political with the lazy and ignorant: "Democrats = Republicans, we all lose"

They put 0 effort into their analysis, they're just rote repeating a cynics trope that makes them feel smart and superior to the process.

It's difficult, after all, to educate yourself on the issues and respect the differences between the parties. It's difficult and complicated and messy to dig into the details and realize the differences.

Why do the work? It's far easier to be a cool hipster cynic and rote repeat out the standard script: "Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same party" "There's no differences"

Sanity check: there are only 100 senators, 2 per state.

Yeah I corrected my mistake but thanks.

While I have complaints about both parties you are being ridiculous. This was a straight party line vote, it passed with only R votes and every D voted against. Both parties have problems, but to say they are the same is delusional.

Obama admin did little about NSA domestic spying (and James Clapper perjured himself, but is amazing still considered credible by the media), so the idea that neither party cares about privacy is, indeed, correct.

The statement is true, but its reasoning is built on a disingenuous lack of nuance in the context of a pertinent privacy issue split along party lines. Saying "neither party cares about privacy" clearly fails to convey anything meaningful in this particular instance.

No, the idea the neither party cares about privacy is not entirely incorrect but it's a ridiculous oversimplification and lacks any nuance.

We are in a discussion thread talking about an instance where the US government voted to essentially remove all privacy protections for Americans, and it was completely down party lines. Every Democrat voted against it. Every single one. Nearly every single Republican voted for it except for a couple with some principles -- e.g. Paul, who most Republican politicians would love to get rid of and mostly ignore.

I don't really like Obama admin views on domestic spying either, but government spying for "national security" reasons with FISA warrants is quite far away from "free-for-all, all of your most personal and private history is now available to the highest bidder". While I disagree with both, I can see the nuance there, and so can the 48 Democratic and Independent senators.

You're right, of course. The Democrats seem more for protection in the private realm. Hopefully the motivation isn't simply to preserve the deep state's monopoly, under a national security pretext, on the power to violate the privacy of enemies of their agenda (like Trump).

Too bad the Republicans with principles couldn't muster up enough principle to actually vote no instead of abstaining.

Care to expand?