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Archive for February 14th, 2008

Now … WHY do we have a Congress, again??

What are they good for? We don’t need these people — the laws they write are not only pre-written for them and given over to the prevailing president as his due, but circumvented by his signing statements when he doesn’t like their particulars. I don’t know how they can lift their heads, these folks — they get no respect from the boss’s they serve and they earn no respect from the public. Blue deer-in-the-headlights are no better than Red ones.

Here are the Senators that are too scared [of lifting the tide, of not keeping their jobs, whatever] to serve the Constitution; if one of them is yours, as one is mine, we need to get them replaced. After the first set of articles here on the FISA fiasco and activists ops, you’ll find articles on Donna Edwards of Maryland, the fiery new progressive that just unseated a Dem implant; that’s what we need to do with the following nay-sayers:

Bayh (D-IN), Nay
Brownback (R-KS), Nay
Bunning (R-KY), Nay
Burr (R-NC), Nay
Carper (D-DE), Nay
Clinton (D-NY), Not Voting
Conrad (D-ND), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Nay
Inouye (D-HI), Nay
Johnson (D-SD), Nay
Kohl (D-WI), Nay
Landrieu (D-LA), Nay
Lieberman (ID-CT), Nay
Lincoln (D-AR), Nay
McCaskill (D-MO), Nay
Mikulski (D-MD), Nay
Nelson (D-FL), Nay
Nelson (D-NE), Nay
Pryor (D-AR), Nay
Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay
Salazar (D-CO), Nay
Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Webb (D-VA), Nay

You should also note a Very Conspicuous name in there, listed in the “C”s … and that Webb, last, has had his name brought up as a 2nd man for Obama.

Conservative = backwards movement.
Progressive = forwards movement.
Moderate = spinning yer wheels in the same spot.

When you’re spinning your wheels and trying to hold back the tide, I guess “immunity” sounds pretty good — give some, maybe you’ll get some? Yeah??

Not if I can help it! The House is still up for grabs — exert pressure wherever you can; names and numbers, below.

You’ll find articles here from FireDogLake and Hullabaloo — they are originators of Blue America, online organizing for progressive candidates, and a proponent of Donna Edwards. It’s good to bookmark these sites and keep tabs on their selections — they do the heavy lifting to vet real Liberals.

Jude

A showdown on spying
SF Chronicle Editorial
Thursday, February 14, 2008

First torture and now wiretaps. The White House followed last week’s refusal to rule out waterboarding by bullying the Senate into widening a wiretap program and granting immunity to telecommunications companies that went along with the warrantless surveillance.

Both are dark chapters in annals of civil liberties and due process. But it’s not over yet: The House - and specifically Speaker Nancy Pelosi - must hold the line by refusing to sign off on the Senate-approved wiretap rules.

To its credit, the House has taken a firm stand. It favors updating surveillance laws to reflect changes in technology and spy-catching, but it won’t budge on exempting telecoms from explaining their wholesale violations of privacy laws in court. This impasse calls out for further negotiating, but President Bush blusters that he won’t allow it.

The dispute plays to one of the president’s remaining political strengths: His resolve and image as a terrorist fighter. But on the issue of telecom eavesdropping, he’s gone too far. He brushes off protests by suggesting that his critics are weaklings on security whose actions boost chances of a terrorist attack.

His pressure tactics have brought on a showdown with the House and Pelosi, who shouldn’t permit the president to bend established law in the name of national security.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks the White House pulled an end-around on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by demanding access to phone and e-mail lines to track suspect communications. This path ignored an established and workable process that called for warrants issued by a secret court.

When word of the White House’s tactic got out last year and an uproar ensued, Bush sought to make it all legal. A six-month bill, the Protect America Act, was approved last August, meaning the law is now up for renewal but with major complications.

Bush wants to exempt the telecom companies from some 40 lawsuits charging the firms with violating privacy rights by widespread disclosures of records to security agencies. He also wants the right to skip court approval for future surveillance, giving him unprecedented power to listen in. No courts, no warrants, no oversight needed - just trust the White House to do the right thing.

The wholesale eavesdropping the Bush team has pushed for more than six years is a step too far. The House should stand firm by insisting the White House stick to established law and not erase it. ++

FISA Fight: House Blue Dogs enabling the GOP
mcjoan, DailyKos
Wed Feb 13, 2008

CQ is reporting (no link yet link here) that the House Republicans will try to derail the effort to pass a 21 day extension of the existing surveillance law and force a vote on the Senate bill:

House Republicans engineered a series of procedural votes Wednesday in a bid to derail the Democrats’ prooposed extension, which President Bush said Wednesday he would veto. They argued that the House should simply take up and send to the White House a surveillance overhaul bill (HR 3773) that the Senate passed by 68-29 Tuesday.

Because 21 conservative Blue Dog Democrats have endorsed the Senate-passed bill, Republicans might be able to win approval of the Senate bill through a motion to recommit the extension with instructions to amend it with the text of the Senate bill.

The Blue Dogs that have endorsed the Senate passed bill wrote to Pelosi last week.

Some House Democrats were prepared to support immunity, regardless. In a Jan. 28 letter, 21 Democrats in the conservative Blue Dog Coalition sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., supporting immunity and listing other provisions that they believed were needed in a FISA bill.

They wrote that the Senate bill “contains satisfactory language addressing all these issues, and we would fully support that measure should it reach the House floor without substantial change.”

Here are those Blue Dogs:

If this bad bill is jammed through the House of Representatives, it will be their fault. Call them and tell them to support the RESTORE Act without modification, and to support the 21 day extension of the current law. Tell them to stop enabling the Republicans and Bush in taking away our civil liberties. ++

Fear Rules the Day
Snipped from Dan Froomkin, WaPo
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Democrats on the stump like to talk about hope and change, but on the Senate floor yesterday they once again succumbed to fear.

Eric Lichtblau writes in the New York Times:

“The outcome in the Senate amounted, in effect, to a broader proxy vote in support of Mr. Bush’s wiretapping program. . . .

“Republicans hailed the reworking of the surveillance law as essential to protecting national security, but some Democrats and many liberal advocacy groups saw the outcome as another example of the Democrats’ fears of being branded weak on terrorism.

“‘Some people around here get cold feet when threatened by the administration,’ said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who leads the Judiciary Committee and who had unsuccessfully pushed a much more restrictive set of surveillance measures. . . .

“[W]ith Democrats splintered, [Sen. Chris] Dodd acknowledged that the national security argument had won the day. ‘Unfortunately, those who are advocating this notion that you have to give up liberties to be more secure are apparently prevailing,’ he said. ‘They’re convincing people that we’re at risk either politically, or at risk as a nation.’”

Here are the two key votes: 18 Democrats joined with a united Republican voting bloc to reject an amendment that would have stripped the immunity provision from the bill; then 19 Democrats joined the Republicans to pass the bill.

James Rowley writes for Bloomberg about how Bush is heading to another

“‘Holding all the Democrats together on this, we’ve learned a long time ago, is not something that’s doable,’ Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters.”

Paul Kane writes in The Washington Post that

The “Senate Democrats’ split on immunity echoes past party divisions over national security issues, including how strongly to confront Bush on the tools the administration uses to target suspected terrorists and their allies.”

The bill isn’t home-free quite yet.

Kane writes:

“House leaders vowed again yesterday to oppose the telecom immunity provision until the White House releases more information about the controversial warrantless surveillance program it initiated shortly after the terrorist attacks.”

In a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers took a tough line:

“Although some of the requested materials have been provided to some Judiciary Committee members, much of the information has not, and it is crucial that this material be produced as promptly as possible so that Congress may fulfill its legislative and oversight responsibilities. Indeed, review and consideration of the documents and briefings provided so far leads me to conclude that there is no basis for the broad telecommunications company amnesty provisions advocated by the Administration and contained in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) bill being considered today in the Senate, and that these materials raise more questions than they answer on the issue of amnesty for telecommunications providers. In order to more fully understand and react to the Administration’s request for broad-based and retroactive amnesty for telecommunications firms, who may be in a position to divulge information concerning misconduct by Administration officials, it is imperative that your provide this information to us as promptly as possible, as we have been asking for many months on numerous occasions.”

But just how seriously does the Bush White House have to take such a demand from the Democratic Congress? History suggests: Not very seriously.

As Greg Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times:

“Senior congressional aides said there was no clear path to a compromise on the issue. But a series of recent defections by moderate Democrats in the House raises prospects that the White House position — or something close to it — eventually may prevail.”

The Boston Globe’s Charlie Savage explains why the immunity provision is so significant.

“Although news of the program initially prompted a bipartisan uproar, congressional attempts to investigate it largely petered out. Then, in August 2007, with little prior debate, Congress hastily enacted the Protect America Act, which essentially legalized a form of the warrantless surveillance. . . .

“[P]rivacy advocates and critics of the administration’s expansive theories of presidential power . . . have pushed the lawsuits against the telecoms in hope of winning a definitive ruling that the program was illegal, thereby keeping it from becoming a precedent for the future.

“‘When an over-reaching executive wants to conduct illegal spying in secret, those companies are the only ones in a position to say “no” and ensure that the law is followed,’ said Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Freedom Foundation. . . .

“‘Therefore,’ Bankston added, ‘it’s critical that when they fail to follow the law, they need to be held accountable — to ensure that next time the government attempts to engage in illegal spying, those companies will say “come back with a warrant.”‘”

Siobhan Gorman writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required):

“If the White House prevails in the final negotiations, it will hand Republicans a potent weapon for their 2008 campaign arsenal by showing that their party, even in its weakened state, can still beat Democrats on national-security issues.”

Bush, not surprisingly, is keeping the pressure on. Yesterday, he released a written statement, praising the Senate for “a strong, bipartisan vote.”

This morning came the hard sell, in an Oval Office appearance:

“The lives of countless Americans depend on our ability to monitor these communications. Our intelligence professionals must be able to find out who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying, and what they’re planning.”

Rejecting a Democratic proposal for another extension to attempt some reconciliation between the House and the Senate, Bush demanded that the House pass the Senate bill immediately.

And he specifically addressed the immunity issue:

“In order to be able to discover enemy — the enemy’s plans, we need the cooperation of telecommunication companies. If these companies are subjected to lawsuits that could cost them billions of dollars, they won’t participate; they won’t help us; they won’t help protect America. Liability protection is critical to securing the private sector’s cooperation with our intelligence efforts.”

But is Bush really saying that without immunity, telecom companies will reject lawful orders in the future? That presented with a warrant or certification stating that certain basic legal requirements have been met, they would refuse to “help protect America”? That’s either over-the-top rhetoric — or he holds the telecom companies in pretty low regard.

Reid (whose procedural calls as Senate leader made the passage of the bill nearly inevitable) responded with the following statement:

“Due to months of White House foot-dragging, the relevant House committees have only just gotten important documents related to whether the Bush Administration followed the law and the Constitution. They need some time to review and analyze them. We must not let this critical issue be resolved by White House bullying.

“Congress is prepared to extend current law — the Protect America Act — by any length in order for Congress to complete the in-depth analysis and negotiations necessary for a long-term law broadly supported by the American people. If the President chooses to veto a short-term extension — as he said he would this morning — the responsibility for any ensuing intelligence collection gap lies on his shoulders and his alone.”

Scott Horton blogs for Harpers:

“On the key vote, the Republicans in the Senate continued to function in lock-step, as they have on almost all significant issues for the last seven years, while the Democrats fragmented. Their vote summed up everything that’s wrong with Washington politics today. Fear and hard campaign cash rule the roost, and the Constitution is regarded as a meaningless scrap of parchment, indeed, a nuisance. . . .

“The Constitution was defeated yesterday, and it was defeated by a fateful coalition between brain-numbing fear tactics and money and the resources that money buys.” [...] ++

FISA: Getting Priorities Straight
Christy Hardin Smith
Wednesday February 13, 2008

[open link for Youtube]

Rep. Rush Holt on the importance of upholding civil liberties and the rule of law while we protect our national security. And why the two concepts ought not be mutually exclusive. The House is currently debating a potential 21-day extension of the FISA law to allow for more debate on C-Span1. (H.R. 5349)

We live in some sort of tumbled-up universe at the moment, don’t we? Where all things football have more importance than all things rule of law within the halls of Congress. Bread and circuses and screw the Constitution, I suppose. Via BalloonJuice:

There is a very real and perverse possibility that the NFL will face tougher sanctions for spying on practice squads and covering it up than the telecoms and this President will face for spying on the citizenry and lying about it.

Good to know we have those priorities in line, isn’t it? Especially with the Clemens fiasco in town as well. Pardon me if I’m feeling less than cheery about any of this. And yet, we still have work to do.

It isn’t over. We are pushing members of the House to stand firm against telecom immunity — please take a little time to sign the petition here. Have you called your Representative today?

The ACLU is asking its membership to call their member of the House. You can find contact information for the House here.

Talking points are:

2. Vote NO on any spying that allows the government to spy on Americans without getting a warrant. America doesn’t need a bill that needlessly expands the President’s ability to spy on innocent Americans without a warrant.

3. Don’t let the Senate or President Bush steamroll the House of Representatives. Any bill to regulate spying on Americans must respect the Constitution and must not let phone companies off the hook for warrantless spying.

As Scott Horton says today:

If things proceed on the course now set by the Bush Administration and its shortsighted collaborators, and the national surveillance state is achieved in short order, then future generations looking back and tracing the destruction of the grand design of our Constitution may settle on yesterday, February 12, 2008, as the date of the decisive breach. It hardly got a mention in the media, obsessed as it was with reports on the primary elections, the use of drugs in sporting events, and that unfailing topic, the weather. Yesterday the Senate voted down the resolution offered by Senator Dodd to block retroactive immunity for the telecoms and it voted for a measure which guts the Constitution’s ban on warrantless searches by extending blanket authority to the Executive to snoop on the nation’s citizens in a wide variety of circumstances, subject to no independent checks. On the key vote, the Republicans in the Senate continued to function in lock-step, as they have on almost all significant issues for the last seven years, while the Democrats fragmented. Their vote summed up everything that’s wrong with Washington politics today.

I am not content to let things just stand. And I doubt that many of you are, either. Let’s get to work… ++

Maryland Gives Country Big Wet Progressive Kiss
Glenn Hurowitz, HuffPo
February 12, 2008

Last night’s presidential results were clear: one progressive bested another. But perhaps even more important for the future of the Democratic Party were the results in Maryland’s Fourth Congressional District where progressive champion Donna Edwards went up against entrenched (Democratic) defender of the Republican culture of corruption Al Wynn.

The progressive won.

It’s really an extraordinary result. Wynn has been office since 1992 and has cozied up to just about every special interest out there, taking hundreds of thousands from polluters, banks, and drug companies and repaying them with his votes for Bush’s ultra-polluting 2005 energy bill, Bush’s 2005 bankruptcy bill (that made it harder for working people to get out of debt), Bush’s Iraq War, and Bush’s efforts to keep big money in politics.

He was the Wynn in the Wynn-Ney Bill meant designed to gut soft money limits (the Ney was Bob Ney, who has since been convicted of corruption charges related to the Jack Abramoff scandal). Then, he went on to become the lead sponsor of the phony “527 Fairness Act” that would actually allow individuals to contribute millions to the political parties and candidates.

As if this wasn’t skuzzy enough, Wynn actually attacked Donna Edwards during the campaign for being poor — not paying her taxes on time when she was a single mom without health care. I think few people would blame a mom for putting children’s well-being before the bills.

I hoped that voters would see through these clumsy, mean-spirited attacks to the Donna Edwards I’ve seen personally. I first met her because she sat on the board of Green Corps, which trains young environmentalists (including me) to be future environmental leaders — and I could tell she was a real progressive fighter and a sincere person. In addition to her environmental work, she headed the Arca Foundation, which supports a living wage, a fair judiciary, Social Security, and labor rights, planting seeds of good around the country and the world.

For that reason, Edwards could count on the support of progressive organizations like MoveOn.org, SEIU, Sierra Club, and the PAC I direct, Democratic Courage. Ironically, given his role in defending big money in politics, Wynn attacked Edwards for these “outside groups’” support for her. It was a cynical ploy — he was hoping his constituents couldn’t tell the difference between the labor unions and environmental groups funding Edwards and the pharmaceutical companies funding Wynn.

But he was wrong.

That means we’ll have another progressive hero in Congress, which is great news. But I think this race will send a more powerful message to the cautious corporate Democrats standing in the way of a progressive agenda: cozy up to big money and sleazy politics — and run away from progressive champions like MoveOn.org — at your peril.

The smart ones will change their tunes before they get into a tough primary. And the stupid, stubborn, or just plain ornery? Well, I’m sure Al Wynn will have a cozy job waiting for them during what I imagine will be his next job as a corporate lobbyist. ++

A Nicer Birthday Present
dday, Hullabaloo
Tuesday, February 12, 2008

With all the sturm und drang I’ve brought here the last couple days, I have to at least try and change the tone and inject a little optimism. Voters in Maryland’s 4th Congressional district have rejected a corporate Bush Dog Democrat, and that’s a very meaningful victory:

With every precinct coming in with at least a 10% improvement for (Donna) Edwards over 2006, let me reiterate this point: the new primary voters who are coming out for Barack Obama are also going to result in the first progressive displacement of a centrist, corporate, congressional Democrat via a primary in years. This it it. This is what we have been working for and building for. This is our emerging majority. We finally have the organization, and the voters, and the whole ball of wax. The movement has thoroughly come of age.

Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and the whole gang fought hard to keep Al Wynn in power, They held fundraisers and made sure he was soaked with corporate cash. Donna Edwards had nobody but the people. And the people were enough.

This was a heavily pro-Obama district tonight, with tons of new voters. And they went for Edwards. Barack Obama’s going to wake up one day soon and figure out that the movement he’s inspiring is a whole lot more progressive than he is, and hopefully that will factor into his potential agenda.

Donna Edwards will not only be a Congresswoman whose vote we can count on, but a real progressive leader in the House. And Al Wynn will be just another lobbyist, with a fat salary so don’t weep for him.

Don’t mess with the progressive movement. ++

Donna Edwards — W00t!!!
Christy Hardin Smith, FireDogLake

“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

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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Now … WHY do we have a Congress, again??

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