GOP/FISA Stupidity Reaches New Heights

Yesterday I brought up the new, completely false narrative Republicans are using to attack Democrats on FISA. They’re accusing Democrats who’ve defended the rule of law as being in the pocket of trial lawyers (!!). This is wrong, as the cases being brought against the telecom companies are being litigated by lawyers for two not-for-profit organizations, the ACLU and the EFF. The lawyers working the case make only a fraction of what the lawyers defending the big telecom companies like Verizon and AT&T make.

Connecticut Republican Party Chair Chris Healy released a breathless attack on the Democratic delegation yesterday for their votes in defense of the Constitution. Healy, last seen doing a Dean Wormer impersonation, charged CT’s Democrats with being not merely in the pockets of “trial lawyers” lobbying Congress against retroactive immunity, but with having received donations from law firms throughout their career.

“It is easy to see why the Democrats oppose this reasonable tool to prevent attacks on America – special interest money from trial lawyers,” said Healy. “As they say ‘follow the money’ and the truth will be revealed.”

The following are records of the total amount each Connecticut Democrat has received in campaign contributions to date:

Larson : $329,000 in career receipts from law firms http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allindus.asp?CID=N00000575

DeLauro: $404,000 in career receipts from law firms http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allindus.asp?CID=N00000575http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allsector.asp?CID=N00000615

Murphy: $283,000. in career receipts from law firms http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.asp?id=CT05&cycle=2006 http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/sector.asp?CID=N00027566&cycle=2008

Courtney: $250,000 in career receipts from law firms: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/sector.asp?CID=N00024842&cycle=2008 http://www.opensecrets.org/races/sector.asp?ID=CT02&cycle=2006&special=N http://www.opensecrets.org/races/sector.asp?ID=CT02&cycle=2002&special=N

“In case Democrats don’t know it, we are at world with an enemy that knows how to use modern technology to communicate,” said Healy. “The failure of Congressmen Larson, DeLauro, Murphy and Courtney to see it and act should give every Connecticut reason to be outraged.” [Emphasis & shoddy formatting in the original]

Healy’s claiming that law firms, not just lobbyists or lawyers currently working cases against the big telecoms, are the cause of the Democratic opposition to retroactive immunity. Sheesh. It’s almost as if Healy thinks the telecoms are sending their customer support technicians to represent themselves in court, not polished and expensive corporate lawyers.

A number of things stand out with Healy’s statement. First, rather than actually trying to make a specific charge correlating lobbyist contributions to Connecticut’s Democrats to their retroactive immunity stance, he just goes into Open Secrets and starts posting by industry. We already know that the trial lawyers aren’t lobbying Congress on retroactive immunity. Healy’s rhetoric is evidence of the lack of causation between the lobbying patterns and the Democratic legislative stance.

Second, Healy repeats another tired Republican FISA talking point – that FISA hasn’t been updated to reflect changes in modern technology. This is also patently false. FISA has been modernized many times since 1978, including post-9/11 to include changes in email and cell phone technology. To wit, in October 2001, following a FISA modernization passed by Congress, President Bush himself said:

This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones. As of today, we’ll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology.

But Healy, like the rest of the anti-Constitution GOP, won’t let the facts get in the way of a fear-based argument.

The Republicans cannot win the retroactive immunity debate on the merits of the behavior of the telecoms and the Bush administration. They cannot justify their lawlessness or their requests for help from the telecom companies. All they can do is stomp around, making noise, and peddling in fear. Their arguments hold no water and their message is as unserious as can be.  Healy is just the latest incarnation of the moral and political failures of the Republican Party to uphold the rule of law and talk to the American public respectfully and with the regard our citizenry deserves.

Light Posting

As you can probably tell, posting has been light the last three days. I’m came out to California for meetings Sunday through Tuesday. I’m heading back to NY tonight and should resume a better posting pace tomorrow.

If you’re looking for good stuff to read, try some blogs in my blog roll.

Dodd on Castro

Senator Dodd issued the following statement on Fidel Castro’s decision to step aside:

“The United States’ embargo on Cuba is one of the most backward and ineffective foreign policies in history. Today, America has an opportunity to finally turn a new page. We must begin the process of opening up diplomatic and commercial relations with Havana, and help Cuba and the United States transition to a new era and relationship – one of freedom, democracy, and prosperity for the Cuban people, and one of mutual respect between our two nations.”

Dodd’s Cuba policy received great praise on the campaign trail. You can read it here.

Steve Clemons has issued a challenge to the Democratic presidential candidates to offer a transformational vision to US-Cuba policy.  Clemons writes:

This is a huge potential pivot point in US-Cuba relations. Will Hillary Clinton step up to the plate — and will Obama move beyond the somewhat timid proposals he offered previously and go to the gold standard in US-Cuba relations articulated by Senator Chris Dodd?

It would be great to see Clinton and Obama adopt similar Cuba stance to Dodd’s.  Obama comes closer to offering a change in policy, but Clinton has essentially promised to continue our current nonsensical policy towards Cuba. At this point, neither seem sufficient for shaping what direction America should go in our relationship with Cuba.

GOP on FISA: They Make More Things Up

You know things are getting bad for the Republicans when their main line of attack on retroactive immunity becomes completely reliant on falsehood. Conservative columnist Robert Novak pens a column in today’s Washington Post that peddles the lie that Democrats are only opposed to retroactive immunity to protect the interests of the trial lawyer lobby. Novak writes:

The true reason for blocking the bill was Senate-passed retroactive immunity to protect from lawsuits private telecommunications firms asked to eavesdrop by the government. The nation’s torts bar, vigorously pursuing such suits, has spent months lobbying hard against immunity.

The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party’s most important financial base, would be more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the phone companies for giving individuals’ personal information to intelligence agencies without a warrant.

That’s a flat-out lie. First, the cases against the telecoms are being handled largely by the not-for-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU. Their lawyers are not making money on the outcome of these cases and are working in the interest of the Constitution and the rule of law. Glenn Greenwald recently interviewed Cindy Cohn of the EFF on this subject and her response serves as a top to bottom pre-buttal of these GOP talking points.

Most of the EFF lawyers worked in those big fancy firms for big fancy salaries, and took big paycuts to join us, because they wanted to do personally fulfilling work and feel like they were making the world a better place.

What I tell young lawyers who come to me and say: “I really want to work for EFF — you have such great lawyers,” I say: “Take your current paycheck, rip it in three pieces, take any third, and that’s about what you’ll get working for EFF.” The lawyers who work for EFF are making some of the biggest contributions to this organization, because they are making far less than they could on the open market in exchange for being able to work on things they believe in every day.

For Novak or any other Republican shill to say that the lawyers representing the plaintiffs against the big telecoms are in it for the money is wrong on its face and profoundly offensive.

Second, Matt Stoller of Open Left spoke with Jon Haber, CEO of the American Association of Justice. Here’s what Haber said:

No matter how much the RNC – at the bidding of telecomm CEOs – tries to deflect the real issue, we have nothing to do with illegal wiretapping since we actually believe in the rule of law.

That is, the trial lawyers aren’t lobbying Congress on retroactive immunity. Even the libertarian/conservative leaning Cato Institute describes the trial lawyers meme as “one of the biggest canards of the FISA debate.” It was hard to imagine a situation where a Republican talking point on FISA was more wrong than the “the world wil end if the Protect America Act expires” meme that was running rampant, but this may be it.

And Then There’s The Bad Side

In the last couple days I’ve been able to highlight some very good examples of Democratic candidates for Congress that make me optimistic about the ability of incoming candidates to hinge onto important progressive legislative fights now. Jim Himes and Donna Edwards have set the stage for not only what is good to hear from candidates, but also what Democrats currently in office should be saying.

Given that we’re talking about Democrats, though, it’s not shocking that we now have an example of a Democratic candidate being wrong on the issue and wrong on the message: Kay Hagan, who’s running for the North Carolina Senate nomination. Via Pam Spaulding, Kosh of BlueNC reports on Hagan’s stance on retroactive immunity:

She was asked if she would have voted for, or against, the FISA bill this week which would have granted retroactive immunity to Telcos for felony violations of the current FISA law.

Ms. Hagan explained that she was against Telcos spying on Americans, but that she would have voted FOR the bill, and granted them immunity, but that future law breaking would not be tolerated.

I don’t have text or word for word quotes of what Hagan said and Kosh doesn’t provide them, so I can’t delve too deeply into how problematic her statements are. Kosh goes on to break down why this statement is so flawed, though I’m sure it should be obvious to anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog. There’s nothing that justifies changing the law retroactively to give telecommunications companies a Get Out of Jail Free card. They knew the law and they broke it – and worse, they helped the Bush administration break the law in an area that there is simply no evidence it needed breaking.

I’m not going to speculate on why Hagan is so wrong on this. Hopefully it was a product of not knowing enough about the FISA fight, which is entirely likely for a challenger candidate who’s never served in national office. But it may also be a reflection of Hagan’s politics. For what it’s worth, Kosh reports this on Hagan’s opponent: “For the record, Jim Neal was completely opposed to immunity and would have voted NO on the bill.”

McCain in Campaign Finance Trouble

Some thing’s fishy in the McCain campaign. Washington Post:

McCain had already taken a $3 million bank loan in November to keep his campaign afloat, and he sought from the same bank $1 million more shortly before this month’s Super Tuesday contests, this time pledging incoming but unprocessed contributions as collateral. He never used the funds of the most recent loan, because his win in the South Carolina primary helped him raise enough money to compete in Florida, his campaign aides said last night.

The loans, revealed yesterday in documents a McCain attorney filed with the Federal Election Commission, offer fresh details about how the Republican senator from Arizona scrambled to secure money as his shoestring campaign navigated a rapid-fire succession of primary contests.

The unorthodox lending terms also raised fresh questions from McCain’s critics about his ability to repeatedly draw money from the Maryland-based Fidelity & Trust Bank. Campaign finance lawyers speculated whether McCain may have inadvertently committed himself to entering the public financing system for the remainder of the primary season by holding out the prospect of taking public matching funds in exchange for the $1 million loan in December.
…
Under FEC rules, a candidate who uses a certification for federal funds as collateral for a loan is obligated to remain within the public financing system. “We very carefully did not do that,” Potter said.

Cleta Mitchell, a veteran campaign finance lawyer and a McCain critic, said she has never encountered a similar agreement.

“They’ve clearly got a sweetheart deal with this bank,” Mitchell said. “This bank is just a cash register for them.”

I guess being a “maverick” means you don’t have to follow normal procedures to get loans or live up to requires to take federal matching funs when you’re running for President. Whatever happened with this loan, you can be sure that McCain signed off on how it moved forward.

Let’s not forget that McCain is already in political hot water over campaign finance. Despite the fact that his campaign is attacking the Obama campaign over public financing, McCain is backing away from his pledge to take public financing if he’s the nominee. Steve Benen reminds us:

McCain apparently hopes we’re not paying attention to what his campaign said as recently as a few days ago: “Mr. McCain’s advisers said that the candidate, despite his signature legislative efforts to restrict the money spent on political campaigns, would not accept public financing and spending limits for this year’s general campaign.” Indeed, for those keeping score at home, McCain has been for and against public primary funds, and for and against public general-election funds — all within the span of a single year.

It’s been clear for a long time that McCain will say and do anything to win this election. Earlier this week se sold what little principles he had down the river to appeal to the rapid, pro-torture Republican base. Expect similar actions aimed to keep him in lock-step with the Republican Party throughout the campaign. And dodgy campaign finance work is no different.

Jim Himes on the Protect America Act

This is a great statement from Jim Himes, challenger in the CT-04 race against Chris Shays. Via email:

“I am very proud of the leadership shown by Democrats yesterday in opposing retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies who may have illegally spied on American citizens without a warrant at the Bush Administration’s request. No person or corporation should ever be above the law. Whether these companies broke the law is a matter for the courts to decide, not for Congress, and certainly not for President Bush.

“I’ve never been more proud to be a constituent of Chris Dodd, who has led on this important fight for months in the Senate. I am also proud of so many of our party’s leaders – including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Democratic Caucus Vice Chair John Larson – who stood up for the Constitution yesterday.

“Congress needs to focus on protecting our nation from the serious threats that exist by passing a modernized FISA law that will give our intelligence professionals all the tools they need to effectively fight terrorism. Members of both parties in the House must refuse to play along with the same tired politics of fear and false choices that are still being offered by this president and his allies like Chris Shays.” [Emphasis added]

Himes shows that he has a crystal-clear understanding of why Congress must stand up for the rule of law in this fight. He also is showing that he knows where the fight is and what the terms of the fight are. This is reassuring on the one hand – he’s not a politician and he’s showing real aptitude. On the other hand, it’s depressing that there weren’t more Democrats in the Senate demonstrating this level of moral and political acumen.