Category: Democrats

Last Year’s SOTU Response: Jim Webb

Speaking of Kathleen Sebelius giving this year’s State of the Union response, it’s worth highlighting Jim Webb’s response last year. Webb’s speech was infinitely better than Bush’s that night, a rare feat even in the mediocrity of the Bush administration. It was arguably the best speech I’ve seen a Democrat give on the national stage since Barack Obama’s keynote at the DNC in 2004. Webb was especially strong when he was hitting on populist economic themes and offering a devastating critique of Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq.

The text of Webb’s speech can be read here.

PS — Webb/Tester or Tester/Webb 2012 (or 2016)!

Kathleen Sebelius

Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas, is giving the Democratic response to Bush’s State of the Union address. As most people probably don’t know who she is or the fact that a lot of smart people are putting her as a likely person for Barack Obama’s short list of vice presidential choices, I thought I’d post some of her ads to give you a bit of flavor for her campaign.  I saw her speak last year at the DNC Winter meeting and I was very impressed. She’s dynamic and emotive, while conveying the sort of confidence that you see in a lot of successful governors.

The first ad is far and away one of the most powerful positive ads I can recall from the 2006 cycle. The second, third and fifth ads highlight a similar leadership/forward/progress theme that would certainly be a major part of her upside as a vice presidential nominee on anyone’s ticket.

What Clinton and Obama Can Do Now

Now that we know both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will be in the Senate to vote against cloture on the Intelligence Committee bill, you might be wondering what else they can do, besides show up to cast the right vote. Ari Melber of The Nation has an answer handy:

1. Use their influence and political capital to recruit two more votes for the Leahy bill. That’s all Leahy, Feingold and Dodd need to keep their fight alive under the current rules. Obama and Clinton were endorsed by a total of seven senators who voted the wrong way last week. As DFA explains, “if these presidential hopefuls bring along the support of these senators, they can sustain a planned filibuster [and] defeat any cloture vote.”

2. Use their influence and political capital to press Reid to run the floor for the Leahy bill, instead of the Bush-Rockefeller bill. This is is tough for several reasons, but there’s an opening now that Bush has essentially slapped Reid around and drawn some rhetorical pushback.

3. Rally the Democratic Congress to confront Bush’s veto threat. Send the one-month bill to his desk and let this unpopular president remind the entire country of his irresponsible, cynical approach to governing. Maybe his approval ratings will drop into the teens like his Vice President. (I personally favor this third option the least, since it involves gamesmanship instead of a long-term policy, which Leahy’s bill offers.)

Howie Klein points out who each presidential candidate should be responsible for:

Hillary could prove she’s a leader by bringing in Evan Bayh, Daniel Inouye, Bill Nelson, Barbara Mikulski and Mark Pryor, and Obama could do likewise with Tim Johnson, Claire McCaskill and Ben Nelson.

We will see what, if anything, Clinton and Obama do to turn their two “no” votes into more votes in the Senate. Without question, though, their presence will make victory more likely and show the rest of the caucus that this remains an issue deserving of the highest levels of attention in the national debate. The more we can get this fight to be treated with the gravity that it possesses, the more likely it is that senators will continue to be drawn to the side of the rule law and will be present to fight with us to defend the Constitution.

What is so remarkable about this turn of events is how we can directly tie the actions taken by the top two Democratic presidential candidates to the passionate, consistent advocacy by people online and offline around the country. From emails to faxes to photos and advertisements, Senators Clinton and Obama have been subjected to a monumental amount of pressure. This advocacy helped to show them that there was support for them to do the right thing. Criticism may well be directed at them from the Republican Party or conservative pundits for this vote, but they should rest assured that there are countless Americans who will look at their actions and say, “They’re doing the right thing.”

We can stop a bad bill today and get past Republican obstructionism. Keep up the pressure through the CREDO email action page and make sure the Senate hears from the American people today!

Cross posted at the CREDO Blog.

Future Majority

In a post titled, “Souther Carolina: Youth Turnout Triples. Again.” young voter guru Mike Connery has a great break down of how the youth vote turned out in South Carolina.

Turnout in the Democratic Primary in South Carolina almost tripled yesterday. According to CIRCLE, 74,245 young voters went to the polls, 19 percent of eligible young voters. In 2004, only 26,181 voters aged 18 to 29 participated. As a share of the electorate, young voters made up 14 percent of the electorate, an increase of 5 percent over the previous cycle.

This is great news for Democrats, both in the short term and long term. Young voters are one of the few demographics that we can look at and see room for major growth of Democratic voters. What makes this cycle so special is that we are growing in that demographic in huge numbers. The sooner people start voting Democratic in their life, the more likely it is that they will become life-long Democratic voters.

Plus Connery, citing a Maureen Dowd comment, notes that the press is noticing the huge Democratic gains in the youth segment. “As youth turnout has continued to rise in each contest, the pundits are sitting up and taking notice, and something of a new conventional wisdom seems to be forming.”

A narrative developing that says this is an election where young people are turning out in huge numbers has the potential to be self-fulfilling. Voting validates voting and I can think of few pieces of conventional wisdom that would be more beneficial for Democratic prospects than the story line that this will be an election where young voters have a huge impact.

Petitioning When You Should Be Leading

Asshattery Cat

I think it would have been much easier for Harry Reid to use his powers as Majority Leader to stop bad FISA legislation from having a shot at passing than asking Democratic supporters to petition the caucus on to do the right thing on our own.

Joshua Wyeth at Lead or Get Out of the Way has much more righteous indignation than I’m going to muster now on the eve of a FISA vote where a degree of unity is needed. But I absolutely feel his outrage on this.

How to Respond to Republican Obstructionism

Senator Russ Feingold put out this blistering statement in response to yesterday’s Republican obstructionism on FISA legislation:

“The conduct of Senate Republicans yesterday was shameless. After weeks of insisting that it is absolutely critical to finish the FISA legislation by February 1, even going so far as to object to a one-month extension of the Protect America Act, they obstructed all efforts to actually work on the bill. Now they want to simply ram the deeply flawed Intelligence Committee bill through the Senate. They refused to allow amendments to be offered or voted on, including my straight-forward amendment to require that the government provide copies of FISA Court orders and pleadings for review in a classified setting, so that Members of Congress can understand how FISA has been interpreted and is being applied. If the Republicans succeed in cutting off debate on Monday, the Senate won’t even get to vote on the amendment Senator Dodd and I want to offer to deny retroactive immunity to telecom companies that allegedly cooperated with the administration’s illegal wiretapping program.

“Democrats should not allow the Republicans to ram this bill through the Senate without amendments. Monday’s cloture vote will be a test of whether the majority is willing to stand up to the administration and stand up for our rights.”

Marcy Wheeler has a phenomenal set of talking points to help clarify what the Republicans are trying to do and how we should respond by stopping cloture on the bad FISA bill.

  • The Republicans’ obstruction is preventing their colleagues’ amendments from getting a fair hearing.
  • The SSCI bill gives Bush and Cheney immunity for breaking the law.
  • The amendments will improve on the SSCI bill, produce a bill that the House will pass, and still ensure the Administration gets what it says it needs: no limitations on wiretapping of foreigners in other countries.
  • Jay Rockefeller is putting his donors’ interests over the Constitution and the privacy of American citizens.
  • The Republicans are trying to prevent any real oversight over minimization–the process by which the the Administration ensures that it does not collect or keep information on Americans incidentally.
  • The Republicans are trying to prevent Congress from specifying that FISA as the exclusive means to conduct electronic surveillance–which is the only way to ensure the President follows this law.
  • The Republicans are trying to make it easy for the government to wiretap you while you’re overseas.
  • The Republicans are trying to make it easy for the government to use data mining and bulk wiretap techniques that don’t require the government to select real suspects for their wiretapping.
  • The Republicans want to give the telecoms immunity for breaking the law in 2004, when they continued to wiretap Americans for a period with only the authorization of the White House Counsel, and not the Attorney General.
  • The Republicans’ obstruction risks leaving us with limited surveillance when the Protect America Act expires in February.

Simply put, the GOP is doing everything they can to make any part of the Intelligence Committee’s bill better. They won’t let retroactive immunity be removed. They don’t want there to be the slightest hint of compromise. They just want to protect the Bush administration and their buddies in Big Telecom from any hint of oversight or investigation for warrantless wiretapping and illegal domestic surveillance.

Cross posted at the CREDO Blog.

Born Yesterday

Abijah Adams at Lead or Get Out of the Way absolutely destroys Dianne Feinstein and her “good faith” FISA amendment:

All it takes is “good faith” and Bush can granted sweeping spy powers. The FISA court merely needs to grant that the Bush Administration acted in “good faith,” for them and their telecom companies to be granted retroactive immunity.

What? Why?
What. In. The. World… What the fuck makes Dianne think that she can trust the Bush Administration AT ALL?

Good faith? Jesus God, are you serious, lady? Oh, I didn’t notice that you were born just minutes ago and have yet to open your eyes, let alone meet the Bush Administration. So you have no idea what’s been happening the last 8 years, obviously, yes?

Read the whole thing, it’s devastating.

Republican Obstructionism Slows FISA Debate

OK, so here’s my understanding of where we stand in the Senate.

The GOP has been delaying and trying to stop debate on amendments to the underlying bill, the Intelligence Committee bill, since they successfully tabled the SJC amendment.

Republican Minority leader Mitch McConnell filed for cloture on the Intel bill and has objected to having any amendments that would make the bill better. He wants to keep it in a state that he knows will please George Bush and Dick Cheney.

The cloture vote will be on Monday at 4:30PM Eastern.

Democrats will need to muster 41 votes to block cloture. We got 36 votes today on the Judiciary amendment.

We have three and a half days to generate the most pressure possible to make sure the Democrats vote as a block to oppose cloture.

One way forward would be if Senators Clinton and Obama each showed up and voted against cloture, while getting three of the senators who have endorsed them for President but voted to table the Judiciary amendment, we would win. Evan Bayh has endorsed Hillary Clinton while Ben Nelson and Claire McCaskill have endorsed Barack Obama.

Marcy Wheeler makes a convincing case for how the Democrats can win this fight.

We’re getting a bit more time to organize, but we have to use it.

Take action now and ask your senators to vote to against retroactive immunity.

Update: Tim Tagaris has more scheduling notes and what it means at Open Left.

 

Cross posted at the CREDO Blog.

Russ Feingold Steps Up

Senator Russ Feingold, long an ally, is stepping up in the FISA fight with a raft of amendments that aim to protect Americans’ civil liberties, stop warrantless wiretaps, ensure that the government is minimizing the number of people accidentally spied on, and gives Congress adequate tools to oversee surveillance activities. Here are the details, from Senator Feingold’s website.

Dodd-Feingold Amendment Stripping Retroactive Immunity

Along with Senator Chris Dodd, Senator Feingold will offer an amendment to strike Title II of the Intelligence Committee bill, which provides immunity to telecommunications companies that allegedly cooperated with the President’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program.

Feingold-Webb-Tester Amendment to Provide Protections for Americans

Senator Feingold intends to offer an amendment along with Senators Jim Webb and Jon Tester to allow the government to get the information it needs about terrorists and purely foreign communications, while providing additional checks and balances for communications involving Americans. Under the Intelligence Committee bill, many law-abiding Americans who communicate with completely innocent people overseas will have their communications swept up, with virtually no judicial involvement or oversight.

Use Limits Amendment

This amendment, which was part of the Senate Judiciary Committee version of the FISA bill, gives the FISA Court discretion to impose restrictions on the use of information about Americans that is acquired through procedures later determined to be illegal by the FISA court. This enforcement mechanism is needed because the government can implement its procedures before it has to submit them to the FISA Court for review to determine whether they are reasonably designed to target people overseas rather in the United States.

Prohibiting “Reverse Targeting”

Senator Feingold successfully offered this amendment in the Judiciary Committee to add a meaningful prohibition on “reverse targeting,” a practice by which the government gets around FISA’s court order requirement by wiretapping an individual overseas when it is really interested in a person in the U.S. with whom that supposed foreign target is communicating. The Director of National Intelligence has agreed that “reverse targeting” is unconstitutional. Senator Feingold’s amendment requires the government to obtain a court order whenever a significant purpose of the surveillance is to acquire the communications of an American.

Prohibiting “Bulk Collection”

Senator Feingold successfully offered this amendment in the Senate Judiciary Committee to prohibit “bulk collection” — the collection of all international communications into and out of the U.S to a whole continent, or even the entire world. Such collection without a foreign intelligence purpose would be constitutionally suspect and would go well beyond what the government has says it needs to protect the American people. Yet, the Director of National Intelligence testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the Protect America Act – which was enacted last year — permits “bulk collection.” The amendment makes clear that bulk collection is not authorized by requiring the government to certify that it is collecting the communications of foreign targets from whom it expects to obtain foreign intelligence information.

Giving Congress Access to FISA Court Materials

This amendment assists Congress in its legislative and oversight functions by requiring that Congress be provided timely access to FISA court pleadings related to significant interpretations of law, which may be necessary to understand the court’s rulings, as well as past FISA court orders containing such interpretations. The amendment was part of the bill reported by the Judiciary Committee and is based on language approved on a bipartisan basis by the Intelligence Committee when Senator Feingold offered it as an amendment to the intelligence authorization bill.

We should expect these amendments to be brought to the floor this afternoon, or depending on how long the debate goes, tomorrow.

Also you can watch Senator Feingold’s speech from this morning on the Leahy Amendment here and read the transcript of it here.

Cross posted at the CREDO blog.