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October 9th, 2007

As usual, FireDogLake gives us some common sense ideas, along with phone numbers — you’ll also find a link to the “restore act” the Dem’s are considering [and which may be swatted back with a Dubby veto, if they can even get a consensus to start with] along with a primer on how to make phone calls to talk radio — and an excellent piece on how to write a letter to the editor [this last is Very Important ... give it a shot!] Lots of link for exploring, here.

Op/ed at the bottom by Rick Perlstein on todays doin’s — and alert to another Dem cave-in that just makes no damned sense.

Jude

FISA: The Constitution Needs Your Calls Today
Christy Hardin Smith, FireDogLake
Tue Oct 9, 2007 at 08:29 am

ThinkProgress has some preliminary summary information on the FISA bill up for the reading. It was put out today in a joint release from Reps. Conyers and Reyes.

Huge thanks needs to go out to the Progressive Caucus in the House – who collectively issued a joint statement earlier in the process standing up for civil liberties over fear tactics. If any of these members are your representatives, please give them a hearty thank you for fighting the good fight on this. Major kudos. It is also my understanding that members of the Progressive Caucus plan on offering improving amendments to various parts of the bill as the legislation moves forward — so they need to know we have their backs on this. Please send them thanks for doing the hard work today.

As Glenn says, in response to the spinfest from the NYTimes, there has been a lot of action on this bill that would have been marginalized even a year ago. Via Glenn:

…To begin with, the bill to be proposed today by the House Democratic leadership actually contains some surprisingly good and important provisions.

That bill would compel the administration “to reveal to Congress the details of all electronic surveillance conducted without court orders since Sept. 11, 2001, including the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program.” It would also require the maintenance of a data base to record the identities of all Americans whose conversations are surveilled. And it provides nothing at all in the way of amnesty or immunity for lawbreaking telecoms or administration officials. The bill introduced by House leadership is a bill the White House will never accept and would certainly veto, and it is vastly better — in important ways — than the atrocity they enacted in August.

It is important here to recall that there is actually an amendment to FISA that is at least arguably justifiable. Even the original FISA law never required warrants in order to eavesdrop on (a) foreign-to-foreign calls or (b) calls involving a U.S. citizen where the target was a non-citizen outside the U.S. (who just happened to call into the U.S.). But recently, technological developments resulted in such calls, even foreign-foreign calls, being routed through the U.S. via fiber optics, and a FISA court ruled this year that the language of FISA requires warrants for such calls. That was never the original intent of FISA….

It is definitely possible that this is all just deceit, that House leaders introduced this bill strictly to placate their Progressive Caucus and their base and that they have no real intention of fighting for these provisions, but instead will give Bush what he wants once Mike McConnell starts accusing them of Helping the Terrorists and they begin negotiating in secret again. But it seems that there are important House Democrats really ready to fight on these issues, to prevent Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel (who unfortunately seem to be the real Speakers of the House) from conniving like they did in August to manipulate their caucus into supporting something far worse….

What is needed is lots of calls, faxes and other contact with legislators asking them to stand up for constitutional principles and the rule of law — American values that ought to be valued by all of us. Please make calls today to all of your elected representatives in the House and Senate and tell them this is important to you — and that it is important that they get this right. That means no retroactive immunity for telecom companies that may have already broken the law. No bypassing the FISA court where jurisdiction is appropriate for US citizen surveillance. And serious checks and balances for any so-called “umbrella warrants” need to be built in, if not those types of warrants removed altogether. The ACLU has more on the FISA issues involved.

Am still digging on the details on this, gang, and will get back to you on this as I get information for you.

You can find direct dial information for your House member here. And for your Senator here. And katymine found some great toll-free numbers through the Capitol switchboard as well:

1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

PS — Thanks to everyone who donated to the Blue America PAC yesterday. Every little bit helps — and primary threats for Bush Dogs and others who don’t stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law is a very real way of moving the ball forward in the best direction for all of us. If you can help out with a donation to the Blue America PAC, we sure would appreciate it.

A List of To Do’s snipped from another Christy Hardin Smith post:

Writing letters to the editor, to your elected officials, calling local talk radio, making phone calls, showing up in person in front of these folks’ various offices, making an appointment to sit down and talk with your elected officials and their staff, showing up at scheduled public events and speaking your mind, videotaping public events and asking questions there and then sending that tape around for others to see…it all adds up.

Mike Stark’s Tips For Calling Talk Radio

Correspondence School: Letter To The Editor Basics
Christy Hardin Smith, FireDogLake
Monday, October 8th, 2007
[open for additional links]

It is Columbus Day, a federal holiday, and thus calling Congressional offices would likely be an exercise in futility for a whole lot of us. What’s an activist to do? Spend that time productively on a letter to the editor.

Today is Correspondence School: Letter To The Editor Basics. (Following up on Correspondence School: Congressional Contacts.)

Why bother writing a LTE in your local newspaper? Two big reasons: (1) congressional staffers scan these LTEs to gauge how much attention they should pay to particular issues and votes; and (2) editorial staffs keep a watch to gauge which issues deserve more news coverage. A well written letter to the editor can sometimes sway local public opinion, or at least spark some debate and that is well worth the price of a stamp. Additionally, a lot of local talk radio folks pull commentary ideas from LTE topics.

I want to first direct you to the spot-on angry letter-writing piece that TRex did for us a while back. A key point:

…To this end, one should write as if you are doing your duty to the addressee by snatching them up by the scruff of their neck and setting them straight. You are saving them from future embarrassment and error. You are doing it For Their Own Good. This is where phrases your parents used on you can come in very handy, “I’m not angry with you, I’m just very, very disappointed” or “It grieves me to have to point this out to you, but I thought it best for your reputation and career that I do it rather than someone who really, really hates you.”

The person to whom you are writing has failed in some way. The purpose of your letter is to address this failure and make certain that the recipient will think twice before making this kind of error again….

That particular aggrieved yet caring tone can be a very effective one for letters to the editor, and much more readable than angry ranting for most folks who are not so politically involved. Which leads me to the considerations for letters to the editor:

– No more than two paragraphs, max. Try to limit yourself to the 100-200 word range. As TRex said, this is no time for the Unibomber Manifesto. Be succinct and you are more likely to get published. Longer letters are more likely to be edited by someone else — you are much better off doing your edit yourself.

– Stick to a single issue.

– Mention your Representative and/or Senator by name. Their staff is much more likely to pay attention, and the editorial folks at the newspaper will as well. A lot of Congressional offices use clipping services to pull LTEs for them where the name is mentioned, so you have a much greater chance of them seeing your letter by including names.

– Highlight the local impact of the issue, this has a much more effective reach for your letter and makes a broader potential statement to readers who may not be as familiar with the subject matter.

– Do send in LTEs to your local newspapers, to newsletters in your community and other smaller publications. These have quite a reach in terms of readership, and you are more likely to be published there than in a larger national publication.

– Humor can be very helpful. So can doing a little research on the style of your local newspaper and its editorial staff.

– Avoid being shrill, name-calling, or getting personal. You want to criticize facts not beliefs. Be sure to do your homework on your subject. Use facts, figures, and expert information in the form of short quotes where it is useful.

– Always proofread. And then proof it again.

– Try to read your letter from the perspective of a reader who has no background in the subject. Will it make sense to someone who isn’t watching a lot of C-Span? Who doesn’t read blogs? This is important, because those are people you are trying to reach.

– Always include your name, address, day-time phone number, e-mail information and signature. Editors like to verify letter content before publication, so make it easy for them and you are more likely to get yours published.

Some helpful sites on this: here, here, here and here. And try here for information about local media contacts. Take a peek here (PDF) to see the sort of wingnut/congregation outreach set-up that the right wing has been doing for years, and see why we all need to get on the ball to rebut these points. Someone has to do it — why not make that someone you? Just remember the following:

–Letters to the editor should be thought of as bits of a sustained civic conversation. You are not going to change hearts and minds with a single letter. But you might have a chance with several, well-written letters offered over time. Write for the moment. Write for the one point you’re making today. Don’t write as if you expect to slam-dunk the issue for all time.

Ain’t going to happen.

As egregious says, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Give it a try today. Let’s start with SCHIP as an issue to hit nationwide. Do share some examples of what you plan to do in the comments and we can all talk about tailoring the message for different regions and helpful facts to include and such. Let’s get typing!

Surrender, Dorothy
Rick Perlstein, CommonSense via TomPaine
October 9, 2007

Quite a day for Democratic capitulations.

Early this August, recall, Democrats were asked by the administration to cooperate in passing a technical fix in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act so the NSA could listen in on foreign-to-foreign calls looped thorugh U.S. facilities. Democrats replied, “yes, of course, that’s perfectly reasonable”—which it was.

Then the Administration promptly sandbagged them by ramming through a radical bill that went far further than what had just been agreed to—”seemingly subtle changes in legislative language,” the New York Times reported, that “would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.” Even the neo-cons now running the Washington Post editorial page judged it an outrage—”strong-armed through both chambers by an administration that seized the opportunity to write its warrantless wiretapping program into law — or, more precisely, to write it out from under any real legal restrictions.”

Then, two weeks ago, we learned that they greased the skids for this madness by laundering a bogus terror threat against Capitol Hill.

Not to fear, Democratic leaders assured us. The blanket eavesdropping was authorized for a mere six months, at which time they promised to fix the outrage.

Apparently, they changed their mind.

“Democrats Seem Read to Extend Wiretap Power”, the Times today informs us—now, not in six months.

Why the rush? It turns out to be very simple. The Justice Department said “jump!” So how does a majority party that, had they resisted, would have been both politically and morally in the right respond? By replying, of course, “How high?” Because, the Times quotes some professor, “Many members continue to fear that if they don’t support whatever the president asks for, they’ll be perceived as soft on terrorism.”

How I wish these members would read Glenn Greenwald, who demonstrates that those fears are absurd.

But then, moving to our second astonishing Democratic capitulation of the day, these are the same people who can’t get through, or refuse to get through, a bill to tax the income of private-equity firm execs—billionaires!—at the ordinary rate of 35 percent, instead of the current 15 percent. The Washington Post is reporting that Harry Reid met with private-equity firms and told them not to worry: no bill on carried interest would get through this year. He claims there’s simply not enough time. And that it has nothing to do with one of the largest lobbying campaigns on record, encompassing some twenty firms and a single payment by one private-equity firm, the Blackstone Group, of $3.74 million, to its own Gucci Gulf denizens—”one of the largest recorded fees to any lobbying firm during a six month period.”

Yes, not enough time. For if the measure doesn’t pass this session, it won’t go anywhere in 2008—for, as the Post points out, recording the conventional wisdom of a city gone mad, “lawmakers and lobbyists agree that if the tax is not raised this year, its chances are not strong in 2008, either; Congress tends to be leery of tax increases in election years.”
Even tax increases on billionaires. What a world!

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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