Three days after 9/11, the U.S. Congress voted to give George W. Bush and every president after him the authority to fight a "global war on terror." The AUMF they passed is a totally open-ended, totally unaccountable blank check for war.
The vote in Congress on this bill was 518 to 1. One single person said no. One single person said that we were at risk of becoming what we hated and that we should rely on our reason and restraint rather than acting out of fear or hate or anger.
Barbara Lee (and, notably, not Ron Paul) was the only person in the entire Congress who stood up to this. It's the greatest act of legislative heroism in my life and she's never gotten the credit she deserved.
My Democrat friends like to tease me for always throwing out her name when they ask who I want to run for president, but this two minute speech, while the buildings were still in the street and the blood lust of the entire nation was pushing against her, is the reason why.
