Month: February 2008

Dems Must Use the Upper Hand on FISA

McJoan at Daily Kos:

Now it’s not at all clear that this is legislative effort is actually happening or whether it’s a trial balloon or if it’s real. But whatever it is, it would be phenomenally stupid to try to enact. First, the House has already voted on the Senate bill, the Protect AT&T Act, and rejected it. When that happens, you go to conference. When the Republicans refuse to cooperate in conference, you do it without them or table action on the bill.

For once, real Democrats in the House have the upper hand. They don’t need to do anything on FISA. They certainly don’t need to cave the administration to Protect AT&T.

Re-reading the Congress Daily PM article, it does look like this could be a trial balloon. In that case, here’s the response to the trial: it’s a bad idea and Dems should not follow the tact of splitting the Senate bill in two. The House should not consider any solution a solution if it is based solely on the Senate-passed bill. That bill is a failure and, as McJoan notes, the Dems have the muscle to put something much better forward.

Blogged with Flock

Heh, Indeedy

Ben Smith reports on an Obama conference call:

A reporter asked whether Clinton should drop out after Ohio and Texas. Obama adviser Richard Danzig responded:

“I would encourage you on March 5 to call Sen. Clinton at 3 a.m. and ask that question.”

In that case, I’d recommend Clinton combat the snarkiness of Danzig’ss statement by answering using this phone:

Hamburger Phone

At least Clinton will have irony, delicious Juno-inspired irony, if not the Democratic nomination.

New DipDive Video

I think Hollywood has shown yet again that they are far more in tune to what is resonating with voters this year than the traditional, inside the Beltway ad makers who turned out Hillary Clinton’s fear mongering ad today.

As a friend often says, the DipDive / will.i.am work shows how far ahead the entertainment industry is from the political world when it comes to the internet. I’m glad they’re on our side.

Potential Deal Could Assure Retroactive Immunity

This is from last night’s Congress Daily PM dispatch by Chris Strohm and Christian Bourge:

To break an impasse over legislation overhauling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, House Democratic leaders are considering the option of taking up a Senate-passed FISA bill in stages, congressional sources said today. Under the plan, the House would vote separately on the first title of the bill, which authorizes surveillance activities, and then on the bill’s second title, which grants retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that aided the Bush administration’s warrantless electronic surveillance activities. The two would be recombined, assuming passage of both titles. In this way, Democratic leaders believe they can give an out to lawmakers opposed to the retroactive immunity provision. Republican leadership sources said their caucus would back such a plan because not only would it give Democratic leaders the out they need, it would provide a political win for the GOP. It remains to be seen if such a move will placate liberal Democrats who adamantly oppose giving in to the Bush administration on the immunity issue.

House Speaker Pelosi said that Democrats hope to have a solution worked out by March 8. But she also indicated that Democrats want language included in the bill that would clarify that FISA is the exclusive means under which the government can conduct electronic surveillance. The White House and some congressional Republicans have argued that the 2001 authorization of military force to launch the war on terrorism gave Bush the authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance. They also say the president has inherent constitutional authority to do what is necessary to protect the country. Senators have battled over whether to include so-called exclusivity language in their FISA bill. In the end, an amendment from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that states FISA is the exclusive means for conducting electronic surveillance failed to win a needed 60 votes in a roll call that split mainly along party lines.

This is not a good sign. If Title I and Title II of the Senate-passed Intelligence Committee bill are voted on separately in the House, the Blue Dogs have the ability to vote with the Republicans and pass the Senate bill in two parts. Title II, of course, is where retroactive immunity for big telecoms resides. And I’ll repeat – this style of voting on the Senate bill would make it more likely the retroactive immunity would pass through Blue Dog Democrats voting with the Republican caucus in the House.

I don’t know why the House leadership, who has been steadfast against the bad Senate bill, would suddenly let the Senate bill the one that is voted on to move forward. It makes no sense. The overwhelming majority of House Democrats don’t want a bill that includes retroactive immunity and bad wiretapping oversight. But the Senate bill that would be receiving votes under this deal would be just that. Clearly in the closed-door negotiations with pro-Constitution Democrats, Jay Rockefeller has refused to budge.

It’s also interesting that, in the end, the main sticking point in Title I is the Senate bill’s failure to include exclusivity. This fight remains one area where the Bush administration is most clearly seeking congressional approval for their radical theories of executive power. It would be an epic failure if the House passed legislation that did just that. FISA says it is the exclusive means for conducting electronic surveillance on Americans. That law did not change when George W. Bush took office and it did not change on September 11, 2001. Exclusivity is one of the key reasons that Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program was and is illegal. We cannot let the law be changed to legitimize Bush’s theories of a unitary executive.

While it’s still possible, we need to let the House hear from us to say we don’t want retroactive immunity. Not in the Senate passed bill. Not in any other. Use the contact tool from CREDO Action to tell your rep to oppose retroactive immunity, no matter how it’s presented to them.

Donohue on Hagee: “Biggest Anti-Catholic Bigot”

Glenn Greenwald interviews professionally outraged Catholic League President Bill Donahue. Donahue was last seen trying to get two Edwards campaign staffers fired for comments they’d authored on their blogs before being hired by Edwards. Apparently Donahue is now focusing his ire on John McCain’s new best friend, John Hagee.

In the interview, Donohue made some extraordinary statements. He compared Hagee both to Louis Farrakhan and Bob Jones, but noted: “Hagee is far more powerful than Farrakhan is today. . . . Hagee is a major player. There’s no end to his money. He has an empire down there.” Regarding the intense 2000 media controversy when then-Gov. George Bush spoke at Bob Jones University, Donohue said:

Why were they so exercised about Bob Jones? This is worse. . . . If someone said to me: who is the biggest anti-Catholic bigot in the evangelical community, I would say: hands down, John Hagee.

According to Donohue, Hagee has “made a lot of money off bashing the Catholic Church and blames Catholics for the Holocaust.” What does it say about McCain that he would embrace such a figure? “This doesn’t speak well for him. He’s tolerating an endorsement by an inveterate bigot, and it’s been brought to his attention.”

It’s good to know that there are worse anti-Catholic bigots than Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan after all. Let’s see if the media pays attention to Donohue this time around…

Democracy 21 Remixes Statement, Now on McCain’s Side

This is shameful:

Okay, I guess it was a punt. Fred Wertheimer and Democracy 21 make themselves completely irrelevant:

Democracy 21 did not say that Senator John McCain cannot withdraw from the presidential primary public financing system until the Federal Election Commission makes a decision in this case.

We said that the shut down of the FEC has “taken center stage” because there is no agency to make a legal determination of whether McCain can or cannot withdraw from the public financing system. That means that their will be no resolution of the legal question involved here until the agency is re-constituted to decide the legal issue, and if such an FEC decision is appealed, the case is decided by the courts.

Democracy 21 had no trouble interpreting Barack Obama’s statement — “If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election” — to mean that he was opting into the public financing system for the general election. They sit around and parse this stuff all day, set themselves up as judge and jury about what the law is and how it should be interpreted. And now they want to shrug their shoulders because it’s their good buddy John McCain and say that because there’s no quorum at the FEC, he can do whatever the hell he wants?

Some people just love power and the trappings of power. And Democracy 21 and il presidente Fred Wertheimer are clearly some of those people. John McCain lights his world.

Fred Wertheimer and his cow0rkers at Democracy 21 are clearly morally bankrupt. They do not care about political campaign finance law, nor do they care about the presidential matching funds system remaining in a healthy state. If they did, they would choose to defend that over their dear friend John McCain.

Keep in mind that Wertheimer and his pals are making a stink about Obama backing out of a conditional statement, while offering no condemnation when John McCain actual backs out of the matching funds system he had already entered! To them, the issue is what Obama might or might not do down in September. Obviously they’re missing the story happening right in front of them.

This may be hard to believe, but few things have made me physically more ill in my time in politics than this disgusting, immoral, apologism for John McCain’s illegal campaigning.