A Progressive Win

Above: Epic Fail 

Last night progressive challenger Donna Edwards defeated corrupt Dem Al Wynn in Maryland’s 4th Congressional district. This is a huge win for the netroots and a great sign of the willingness of new voters who are coming to take part in the presidential primary to embrace progressive candidates.

The good news is that it looks like Al Wynn has more class and principle than Joe Lieberman:

“The deed is done,” Wynn told reporters at a Lanham union hall where his supporters had gathered after the polls closed. “I think the only thing that remains is to support the winner.”

Markos makes a great point about the value of this victory for the netroots.

…we don’t have the money to buy off our politicians, and the bad Democrats know we’re not about to start voting for Republicans. So the only way we can hold our caucus accountable is to send notice that we will primary them. And sure, they may survive such primaries. But sometimes they won’t.

We’ll be working this fall for “more” Democrats, but today we struck a blow on behalf of better Democrats.

Congrats to the folks at Open Left, FireDogLake, Daily Kos and elsewhere who have long championed Edwards’ campaign.

Review: Still Broken

AJ Rossmiller of AmericaBlog has a great new book out today, Still Broken: A Recruit’s Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, from Baghdad to the Pentagon. There have been a few posts giving it strong praise so far: Matt Yglesias, Jill at Feministe, and I expect there to be many more as people pick it from book stores. AJ himself has a great statement of why books matter at AmericaBlog.

Still Broken is an account of Rossmiller’s desire to serve America following the September 11th attacks. He ends up working at the Defense Intelligence Agency, as a civilian analyst doing critical work for one of the key agencies in our intelligence community, particularly given the ongoing war in Iraq. Rossmiller volunteered to serve in Iraq, spending six months doing strategic and tactical analysis in Baghdad and earning high praise for his work. He returned to the Pentagon following his deployment and continued to analysis intelligence from Iraq, primarily on politics in Iraq. After almost two years in the DIA, Rossmiller left because of problems internal to the intelligence community, from structural incompetence to the pressures of policy having influence on factual analysis.

Still Broken is a frightening book. Throughout his tenure at the DIA, but most particularly in his time at the Pentagon, Rossmiller feels the pressure of people higher up the chain in command to confirm his analysis to the policy desires of the administration. In the book he frequently relates stories of he and his analyst colleagues watching in horror as higher-ups with no expertise in Iraq change their findings without basis. Their work is second-guessed as “too pessimistic.” Yet time and again, the superiors are proved wrong, while the analysts are proven right.

What makes Still Broken so scary isn’t that analysts butt heads with their superiors, but rather that their superiors never look retrospectively at their own judgments and edits of intelligence. Not only is work shifted towards the administration assessment that things are getting better, that the positive isn’t being reported, and the intelligence should optimistically reflect that, but the editorial pressure on the analysts never changes.

In her review of the book, Jill at Feministe describes a Rossmiller’s narrative style particularly well.

AJ is skilled at never assigning motives to people, and never drawing hard and fast conclusions as to why things are going the way they are. He writes like an analyst: He observes what’s happening, and then follows it up by giving several reasonable explanations as to why those things could be happening. The dozens of anecdotes he tells certainly lead a halfway astute reader to understand exactly why certain events are occurring and why particular decisions are being made, but AJ has enough respect for his audience to simply present the facts as he sees them, rather than force a particular conclusion.

I think this is a very fitting description of how Rossmiller writes a narrative that reflects his experience while demonstrating his competence at presenting information factually, without obvious ideological bent. That is, in many regards his book shows his skill as an analyst. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t know what intelligence findings on Iraq from the DIA normally read like, but this book is fast paced and exciting.

Separate from the insight Rossmiller provides to the DIA’s dysfunctional structure for handling intelligence and the challenges facing us in Iraq, Still Broken is a story of patriotism. Rossmiller serves his country with distinction, doing good work that he deserves to be proud of for the rest of his life. We’re lucky to have him as a story-teller documenting the problems facing our intelligence community. But beyond that, we’re lucky to have his experience, expertise, and sharp analytical prowess working in the progressive political community, fighting for a better America.

I hope that this isn’t the most in-depth review of Still Broken that you read, but for whatever it’s worth, I highly recommend you pick up a copy and give it a read.

Check out the StillBroken.com for more updates on the book.

It’s Over. People Are Pissed.

With the colossal collapse of the Senate Democratic caucus today over FISA and retroactive immunity, people are seriously pissed off at the caucus.

Glenn Greenwald notes ironically the frequency with which Senate Dems hand the Bush administration victories:

To conserve resources, newspapers should just create a macro of that phrase — “the Senate handed the White House a major victory today” — and then just program it to be automatically inserted into every article reporting on anything done by the Senate. That system would be foolproof.

Thomas Paine at Lead or Get Out of the Way writes about the system-crippling failure:

I’m too enraged to write anything thought provoking or witty. The leadership of the Democratic party is a bunch of spineless, cowardly, weak, feckless, cowardly asshats, who all need to be primaried until they die. When they retire from the Senate, we need to primary their retirements. When they die and go to Purgatory (they are too milquetoast, feckless, traitorous and weak to justify their special place in hell, and they sure as shit aren’t getting into heaven), I want to primary them there too. Make their lives miserable for all eternity. Seriously, this is beyond pathetic.

How many people failed? The little field where I select who is in the way on my blog form ran out of room before I could add everyone. That’s how spectacularly our leadership has failed.

Paine’s co-blogger Joshua Wyeth targets his ire more specifically towards Harry Reid and his press release announcing he’d vote against the SSCI bill:

[Reid] probably think that is a statement of leadership, that he is calling his caucus to stand with him. Via press release. This is some profoundly weak tea. To borrow the word’s of Jesse Lacey, I’ve seen more spine on jelly fish and I’ve seen more guts in eleven year old kids.

To which I offer:

Kevin at Life has taught us writes:

Not only has the Senate legalized Ol’ GW’s “end run” around the Constitution, but, the telecommunications lobby has shown that our government works for the highest bidder. It doesn’t matter to which party you belong in Washington, D.C. It is the “Party of the Dollar” that will always come out victorious.

As Senator Dodd said earlier today, the telecom lobbying is “having an impact.” I don’t think telecom contributions are a sufficient reason for Democratic cowardice, but they certainly make it easier for some of our weak-kneed Senators to remain wobbly.

Oh and one more thing. Today’s FISA disaster was an awful birthday present for D-Day.

Truly this is the perfect crime: the President decides to break the law, he employs industry to help him do so, then when he’s called on it, he enacts the state secrets privilege to evade oversight from the Congress and the courts, and then demands immunity to let industry evade responsibility because they can’t defend themselves, restricting any peek into the scope of the lawbreaking.

Thanks for making me sick on my birthday!

I guess Harry Reid doesn’t know that it’s not collegial to add insult to injury.

Final Passage

The Senate just passed S.2248, the Intelligence Committee’s FISA reform legislation, including approval to massive new surveillance powers for the executive branch and retroactive immunity for telecom companies who helped the Bush administration spy on Americans without warrant.

The vote was 68-29.

The nineteen Democrats voting for the bill were:

Conrad, Rockefeller, Baucus, Webb, Kohl, Whitehouse, Bayh, Johnson, Bill Nelson, Mikulski, McCaskill, Lincoln, Casey, Salazar, Inouye, Ben Nelson, Pryor, Carper, and Landrieu.

Joe Lieberman also voted with 49 Republicans in favor of final passage.

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did not vote on final passage.

The only other change from the earlier cloture vote on the SSCI bill is that Senator Diane Feinstein voted against final passage, after voting for cloture.

As commenter Halle Burton put it, “The terrorists won.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is a very sad day for our nation.

Dodd: We Just Sanctioned the Single Largest Invasion of Privacy in the History of the Country

I was on a blogger and reporter conference call with Senator Chris Dodd this afternoon. David Isenberg, McJoan at Daily Kos and Jason Rosenbaum of The Seminal have already posted on it.

Dodd announced that because the will of the Senate is so clearly in favor of retroactive immunity and the House legislation is so much better, he won’t be speaking for the full four hours available to him this afternoon. Instead, he thinks the best bet is to get the bill to the House as soon as possible and stop harboring any hope that the Senate will produce a good bill. He will use less of his time so as to allow the Senate vote to take place and the conference committee between the House and Senate FISA bills could proceed.

Dodd started by recognizing that his opponents had the upper hand in this fight.

“Unfortunately those that are advocating this notion that you have to give up liberties to be more secure are apparently prevailing. They seem to be convincing people that you’re at risk politically or we’re at risk as a nation if we don’t give up rights…. We lost every single battle we had on this bill. The question now is can we do better with the House.” [Emphasis added]

Dodd went on and noted that if the conference report doesn’t produce a good bill, “I will use all the tools available to me as a single senator to delay this issue.” Asked if that would include a filibuster, Dodd said, “I will use whatever vehicles I can.”

Dodd was asked if he thought lobbying by the telecom industry was having an impact on the outcome of events in the Senate. Dodd said, “Well, I haven’t heard from them. But it’s having an impact.”

What stood out more than anything else, for me, was Dodd’s assessment of what happened today on the floor of the Senate:

This warrentless wiretapping program was the single largest invasion of privacy in the history of the country and we just sanctioned it by granting retroactive immunity.

Could one Senator utter a more damning assessment of his colleagues work than this? It appears that Dodd shares similar opinions to Kagro X, who earlier described the Senate’s actions today as suicide.

Cross posted at the CREDO Blog.

Dodd’s Speech Last Night

Last night Senator Dodd took to the Senate floor to speak for nearly three hours into the night. At this point, Dodd has spent over twenty hours speaking on the floor of the Senate against retroactive immunity. Sadly, it has not succeeded in convincing his colleagues to stand up with the same degree of spine as he posses.

Below the fold is the full text of Dodd’s remarks last night.

Continue reading “Dodd’s Speech Last Night” →

Whoop-De-Doo

Via McJoan at Daily Kos, Senator Harry Reid shows what must pass for spine in his office:

If, as appears likely, none of the amendments to strike or modify the provisions of the bill concerning retroactive immunity are adopted, we expect Sen. Reid to oppose cloture and oppose final passage of the bill.

Reid did vote against cloture – almost twenty members of his caucus voted for cloture. Apparently Mr. Reid’s stated position on this issue has no bearing on the people that he ostensibly leads. Let’s see if this thundering commandment holds enough Dems together to stop the bill on final passage. I’m not about to bet my savings on it…

Presidential Politics and FISA

I want to take a moment to note that Senator Barack Obama was present and voting in favor of every amendment a majority of Democrats supported today. He did vote for the Specter-Whitehouse substitution amendment and the Feinstein “good faith” decision by the FISC, two amendments that arguably should have been opposed for their damage to the rule of law, but in the grand scheme of things his vote is acceptable.

Senator McCain was present and voting in lock-step with the Republican Party to defeat every amendment that would have improved the bill.

Senator Clinton was not present and did not vote on any amendments, nor cloture.

Today there are primary elections in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC. Senators Obama and McCain left the trail to vote in the Senate today. While I would have been happy if Mr. McCain had decided to continue to campaign, Senator Obama should be praised for coming to the Senate and vote on FISA legislation.

It would have been great to have Senator Obama use his microphone as a presidential candidate to bring attention to the legislative fight. He was not an outspoken critic of the FISA legislation, but he took time to vote the right way on a major primary election day. Good for him.

Update:

It should be noted that Senator Obama’s vote was, in the end, not critical to passing or stopping any of these amendments, as none of the amendments we wanted to pass passed and cloture was not stopped.

Update II:

Here’s Senator Obama’s statement on FISA today, via email.

“I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty. There is no reason why telephone companies should be given blanket immunity to cover violations of the rights of the American people – we must reaffirm that no one in this country is above the law.

We can give our intelligence and law enforcement community the powers they need to track down and take out terrorists without undermining our commitment to the rule of law, or our basic rights and liberties. That is why I am proud to cosponsor several amendments that protect our privacy while making sure we have the power to track down and take out terrorists.

This Administration continues to use a politics of fear to advance a political agenda. It is time for this politics of fear to end. We are trying to protect the American people, not special interests like the telecommunications industry. We are trying to ensure that we don’t sacrifice our liberty in pursuit of security, and it is past time for the Administration to join us in that effort.”

Fair enough. Again it was great to have Obama voting today, but it would have been better to have him as a vocal partner in the fight over the last four and a half months.

Update III:

It’s worth noting that Obama voted against cloture on the SSCI bill, but skipped the vote on final passage. The bill passed handily and the presence of both Clinton and Obama to vote on final passage would not have changed the outcome.

FISA Vote Tallies: Part II

The Dodd/Feingold Amendment 3907 to strip retroactive immunity from the underlying SSCI bill just failed, 31-67. 51 votes were needed to pass.

Voting with the Republicans were the following eighteen Democrats (again, rough count):

Bayh, Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Stabenow, Feinstein, Kohl, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Carper, Mikulski, Conrad, Webb, and Lincoln. Joe Lieberman also voted against stripping retroactive immunity.

Not present and voting was Senator Hillary Clinton, the only presidential candidate serving in the Senate to miss the vote.

Before the vote, Senator Dodd raised a very interesting point that I haven’t previously seen discussed. Three out of of four congressional committees that looked at FISA reform legislation were opposed to retroactive immunity. The Senate Judiciary, House Judiciary, and House Intelligence committees all rejected retroactive immunity for the big telecoms. Only the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence supported retroactive immunity. Yet because the SSCI version of the FISA reform legislation was the underlying bill, we’re stuck with RI coming out of the Senate.

Update I:

Feingold’s amendment 3912, which would have limited bulk collection, failed 37-60. Again, by rough count, more than ten Democrats voted with the Republicans to ensure this amendment failed. I don’t have the full count yet, Updated with all twelve Dems voting with the GOP. but here’s who did vote with the GOP on this one:

Bayh, Carper, Johnson, Mikulski, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Rockefeller, Landrieu, Inouye, Lincoln, Pryor and Webb

Update II:

Bond’s amendment 3938, which includes an exception for wiretaps related to WMDs, passed by voice vote.

Update III:

Kagro X at Daily Kos writes of the demise of the Senate. I quote nearly in full:

In rejecting the Feinstein “exclusivity” amendment to the FISA revision considered on the Senate floor today — an amendment that failed by a vote of 57 Ayes to 41 Noes, thanks to another “painless filibuster” of precisely the type we were promised would not be tolerated on this bill — the Senate has voted to say that although they were passing a law governing surveillance, it was OK if the President decided that he really didn’t like the law very much and wished to make up his own instead.

Exclusivity — the purpose of the amendment that “failed” — meant simply this: that the law they were passing was the law, and it was the governing authority for how surveillance could be conducted in America.

The Senate just rejected it, so that means that they’re passing a law, but if a president decides later on that he thinks there’s really some other controlling authority besides the law, that’s OK.

The original FISA, of course, had exactly such an exclusivity provision in it. That the new revision of the law will have had that provision explicitly “rejected” can mean only one thing: that nobody will know the actual state of “the law” on surveillance, because the “law” as written might not really be “the law” at all. In fact, it could be something entirely different, and maybe even something you’ve never heard of — or indeed will never be allowed to hear it, because it’s top secret. Or hell, you may not ever hear it because the President will make it up as he goes along. It won’t matter what the reason is, in fact. All that will matter is that “the law” supposedly governing surveillance says that there may or may not be some other authority that really controls. Maybe. Maybe not! Tee hee! Isn’t “law” funny?

This is a terribly sad day for our country.

Update IV:

The Specter-Whitehouse substitution amendment #3927 just failed 30-68. Voting against it were liberal senators like Dodd, Biden, and Murray. They opposed it because it would have taken the cases pending against the big telecoms and substituted the federal government as the defendant in all of them. It was a special treatment amendment and had it passed, it would have undermined the rule of law in America. That said, 31 votes for it were almost all Democrats.

Update V:

Feinstein’s “good faith” amendment to move consideration of cases to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts (#3919) failed 41-57. 60 votes were needed for it to pass. While the Democratic caucus was largely in favor of this, some liberal senators like Dodd and Menendez again voted against it for the special treatment it would have provided the telecoms.

Update VI:

The SSCI bill just passed cloture, 69-29. In addition to Joe Lieberman, I believe 19 20 Democrats voted in favor of cloture on the SSCI bill. Here is my currently incomplete the complete list:

Baucus, Conrad, Feinstein, Kohl, Lincoln, Landrieu, Mikulski, Bill Nelson, Pryor, Salazar, Whitehouse, Rockefeller, Inouye, Webb, Casey, Ben Nelson, Carper, Johnson, McCaskill and Bayh.

I’ll update that list when I have all the names.

I will also be looking closely to see which Democrats vote for cloture but against final passage. I don’t see any reason why a Democrat should have voted for cloture and while final passage is a relevant vote, the cloture vote was a lower threshold to stop this bill.

The Senate is taking a break for meetings, but will resume debate post-cloture after 2 PM Eastern. Senator Dodd is expected to take the floor and talk in opposition to the bill for up to four hours. The vote on final passage should take place later this afternoon or evening.

FISA Vote Totals: Part I

Whitehouse 3920 was agreed to by voice vote.

Feinstein 3910 – the exclusivity amendment – failed 57-41. 60 votes were needed to pass.

Republicans voting with the Democrats were Republicans Hagel, Murkowski, Snowe, Collins, Sununu, Specter, Smith, Voinovich, and Craig. Democrats voting with the Republicans was Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

The good news is that Senator Obama was present and voting with the Democrats. Hopefully he’ll be around throughout the day to contribute to our vote totals. Senator Clinton didn’t vote on the exclusivity amendment, though the Potomac primary is taking place today and all presidential candidate senators should be in the Maryland, Virginia, and DC region. Senator McCain voted with the Republicans on this amendment.

Update I:

Feingold/Webb 3979 (sequestration) failed miserably, 35-63. By my tally, thirteen fourteen Democrats and Joe Lieberman voted with the GOP to kill this amendment: Feinstein, Rockefeller, Pryor, Johnson, Inouye, Levin, Mikulski, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Lincoln, Landrieu, Bayh, Conrad, and Carper.