Tie!

I’m with Steve Benen, last night was a draw and anyone who’s spinning hard one way or the other is just spinning you. Both candidates had places where they had key victories. Both candidates lost in places they really would have been helped to win. Generally speaking, I think Obama closed ground and kept delegates out of Clinton’s hands in places like Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California with his late surge. I don’t think he could have realistically be expected to have won those states based on where the polls were two weeks ago. Obama kept Clinton from winning big in big states; but Clinton still won some of the biggest states yesterday.

So, no, Taylor, Obama should not give up. And no, Joe, the tide has not turned against Clinton.

The race is deadlocked and the primary contests moving forward are incredibly important. I hope we’ll be able to determine a winner based on delegates pledged from the outcomes of our primaries and caucuses, but it’s looking more likely that super delegates will decide the winner.

Police State

Feingold: The DNI envisions a government where, if it were technologically feasible, would listen in on every, every international phone call made by its citizens. And read every, every international email. Now that’s a police state, Mr. President, not the United States of America.

Via Emptywheel, who also has an analysis of the latest word out of the White House about which amendments would cause them to veto or what we can expect to be negated (in their eyes) by signing statement.

The Republicans’ SSCI Myopia

Watching the Republicans debate FISA amendments over the last number of days, one theme keeps coming up in their speeches. The Republicans are acting like only the Intelligence Committee has jurisdiction on FISA. They keep referring to the fact that the Rockefeller bill is bipartisan and they want retroactive immunity, etc.

What they refuse to recognize is that the Senate Judiciary Committee also has jurisdiction on this matter and what the SJC said – no RI, no bulk collection, minimization, etc – is equally applicable for consideration.

I wonder what would give them the idea that the SSCI interpretations of FISA reform legislation has complete and total precedence over the SJC work on the legislation?

Could it possibly be that Harry Reid’s decision to make the SSCI bill the underlying bill contributed to this position? Perish the thought…

I Voted For Obama

I voted today in New York City and I voted for Barack Obama. It wasn’t an easy decision and one that constitutes where I am today, not an endorsement. As anyone who’s been reading this blog knows, I’ve been highly critical of both Obama and Hillary Clinton most of the time and I expect that I will continue to be until one of them convinces me that I should be proactively supporting their candidacy in whatever way I can.

I’ve been trying to write a longer post explaining my thinking and the circumstances of my vote for the last hour. I’m completely unhappy with all of the drafts that I’ve written. I might take another crack tomorrow, but for now, this is all I’ve got.

Jay Rockefeller: More Illegal Spying on Americans, Please

I actually missed this speech yesterday, but fortunately Marcy Wheeler didn’t.

Jello Jay’s speech is eye-popping for several reasons. It reveals he simply does not care if the government abuses this collection program. For him, it’s more important to make massive collection easy than to include safeguards against abuse. His speech amounts to legal sanction for the government to abuse this program….

Also, Jello Jay’s speech reveals just how false are all the claims that this program does not involving spying on Americans. The reason he falsely asserts that Feingold’s program would cause the government to lose all of the information collected in a given program is because the US person data collected as part of these programs cannot be segregated out from the foreign data.

This program is, Jello Jay reveals, designed to spy on Americans.

Ryan Singel at Threat Level has much more on Rockefeller’s efforts to expand the government’s ability to spy on American citizens. Singel writes:

The changes aren’t about making it easier for the National Security Agency to listen in on a particular terrorism suspect’s phone calls. The changes are about letting the nation’s spooks secretly and unilaterally install filters inside America’s phone and internet infrastructure.

Rockefeller essentially wants to make everything the Bush administration has done outside the law legal. Moreover, Rockefeller’s argument for bulk collections of Americans’ communications runs in direct contravention to the 4th Amendment and likely makes the SSCI bill unconstitutional.

Playing Offense

Via Bob Cesca, I see Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks has endorsed Obama and included this in his reasoning:

If we choose Hillary, then we have to defend her for the next nine months. I can and I will. But I’d rather play offense. I’d rather talk about how inspirational and hopeful and terrific our candidate is, and honestly, how theirs isn’t. It should be the Republicans playing defense this time around. Let’s make them.

I agree with Bob and Cenk – we can and will defend whoever our nominee is, as well as find ways to play offense on behalf of our nominee. Unlike the post-partisan bullshit, this is a real reason to be optimistic about an Obama candidacy. Obama is generating a real movement of Democratic activists, young voters, and new voters. If he wins the nomination, he’ll come into the general with a head of steam and more money than any presidential candidate has ever mustered for a campaign. It will immediately put the Republicans on the defensive and give us a unique chance to not only win in November, but do so in grand fashion.

Nuts

It’s hard to describe the Clinton campaign’s decision to do a 180 and accept an invitation to participate in a debate hosted by Fox News as anything other than nuts.

According to the Lear Center, Fox News is the most politically divisive news channel. 70% of its daily viewers are conservative and only 3% are liberal.

Via The Hill, a Media Vote study paints an equally imbalanced picture of the Fox audience:

Yet, in our 2004 polling with Media Vote, using Nielsen diaries, we found that Fox News viewers supported George Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7 percent. No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News viewers.

Moreover, Democrats are getting huge turnouts in the polls so far. The viewership for their debates on other networks is through the roof. Fortunately it looks like the Obama campaign is currently holding the line on Fox debates:

“As of right now, there are no debates on our schedule at all,” Burton told the Huffington Post. “We’ll figure out our schedule, including any debates, soon.”

The good news is that you can’t have a debate with just one candidate there (though I did see Tom Tancredo be the only GOP candidate in attendance at the NAACP Presidential Forum in July, which was hilarious). I’m all for more head to head debates between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, particularly if the Democratic nominating process might run all the way to the convention. But there’s no reason to hold future debates on Fox News.

Update:

It’s worth noting that Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films series of “Fox Attacks” videos are as convincing a body of evidence as any other for Democrats to avoid Fox News.

“The End is Near on FISA”

Late last night there was an exchange on the floor of the Senate between Senator Harry Reid and Republican Senator Jon Kyl that revealed the sad state of affairs in the FISA debate. If I ever had any doubt that Senator Reid does not care to get good FISA legislation passed, this exchange confirmed it for me.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I said it was my own personal view that we would not be wasting the American people’s time to have a debate on the stimulus package and to have a vote on it on Wednesday. Obviously, I am not speaking for any of my other colleagues, and we would obviously have to do that, but if the leader is concerned about not having people come back for votes tomorrow, which is a perfectly reasonable concern, given the importance of tomorrow on both sides–there are Senators who are out campaigning, and I understand that is a very important proposition–then I think it is appropriate to wait until Wednesday to have a vote on the stimulus package.

Mr. REID. We only have three Senators out campaigning, McCain, Clinton, and Obama, and it was my suggestion that tomorrow, if the Republicans don’t want votes, then shouldn’t we at least have the ability to see if we can complete the offering of amendments on the FISA legislation? We can intersperse that with people who want to talk about the stimulus. They can do that.

I am happy to set a time certain on Wednesday so McCain, Obama, and Clinton know when to come back on Wednesday. I am happy to do that.

I understand my friend is saying that he is speaking for himself, and I appreciate that, but he is the second ranking Republican leader in the Senate. What I would suggest, Mr. President, is that he talk to whomever he needs to speak with–I am sure the Republican leader–to see if what he suggests is doable, and we will get that worked out tonight. And that is tomorrow we can come in, people can talk about the stimulus package all they want, and set a time certain on Wednesday to vote. That would save me having to file cloture on it either tonight or tomorrow night, which will happen. If I file it tomorrow night, the vote will have to be on Thursday. In the meantime, we have to wipe out a lot of time.

I think it is very important we get FISA done. The end is near on FISA. We have worked out an agreement to finish that bill.

So I say to my friend, if I came and offered a consent agreement in keeping with what your suggestion is, do you think you could get it approved tonight?

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, obviously, our colleagues are not here. I would not object to that kind of agreement. I don’t know what others would do.

To be fair, did I represent the distinguished majority leader correctly, that you had assured Senators they would not be voting on the stimulus package tomorrow?

Mr. REID. Yes, I have said, starting at 2 p.m. today–I might even have said it last week–that I have two

Senators, Obama and Clinton, whom I would try to give at least 1 day’s notice when a vote was to occur. That is why it is important to me, and I would think it would be important to Senator McCain also, that we have a time certain on Wednesday to tell them when they have to be here. If we can’t do it by agreement, then the only thing I can do, if the Republicans are going to waste all the time on 30 hours postcloture, I will have to, before midnight tomorrow, file cloture so we can have a Thursday cloture vote.

Mr. KYL. If I can respond, obviously, the majority leader knows I can’t make that agreement here on the floor, but I will pass that on to the minority leader and consult with our colleagues and see what can be agreed to in terms of an agreement.

I think the majority leader is exactly correct. As a matter of courtesy to Members on both sides, it is probably not the best idea to have votes tomorrow. It is an historic day in American history.

Mr. REID. If I can interrupt my friend, on FISA, I think we can easily have votes tomorrow. There would be no problem with that, because those votes, most of them, aren’t going to be that close anyway. I think we need to work through that. I have told all my Senators we would do our best to try to have votes on FISA tomorrow.

Now, maybe this has been in the works for a long time, because one of my Senators told me she was coming over and one of the reporters said: No votes tomorrow, right? She said: What are you talking about? They said: Senator McConnell has told his Senators there will be no votes on Tuesday.

So maybe this has been in the works for some time, that there would be no votes on Tuesday. But we may have a couple anyway, to make sure we have some. I do have that ability, to have votes. It may not be much on substance, but it will be votes, and it will be counted on Senators’ voting records. (S588-589) [Emphasis added]

Let’s be clear on what’s happening in this exchange.

First, Reid tells us that he does not want to hold a vote on the stimulus package without giving Senators Obama and Clinton one days notice to return and vote. The economic stimulus vote is too important to take place without all the presidential candidates there to make their position known. But the same can’t be said about warrantless wiretapping and retroactive immunity. In fact, FISA votes are so unimportant that Reid suggests they continue to take place in absence of presidential candidates (and possibly their surrogates) as a way to kill time while waiting for Super Tuesday to be over and the opportunity for real, important business to arrive.

Second, this is a reflection on what the presidential candidates are making their priorities for the rare trips back to DC. I was not going to place the blame on Senators Clinton and Obama for the Senate “deal” including a schedule that originally put the main debating and voting days on FISA on Monday and Tuesday of this week. It is really unreasonable to expect them to be in attendance in the Senate on the two largest days of the presidential campaign. However, it is also now clear that they are in close communication with the Majority Leader’s office. They have talked with Reid about being in attendance for the stimulus package, while giving the stamp of approval for him to schedule votes on FISA while they are absent from Washington.

Now, again, I don’t have any problem with Clinton and Obama not being in DC today and yesterday. And I do hope they come back to vote on the economic stimulus package. But as I’ve always said, if Obama and Clinton wanted to set the agenda on FISA votes, they probably could. If one of them demanded that Reid not schedule FISA votes without giving them adequate notice to allow their return, I have no doubt based on Reid’s statements about the stimulus package, that Senator Reid would grant them this courtesy. It appears that they have not asked this of Senator Reid.

Third, Reid wants FISA over and done with, even though it is now clear, per Reid’s statement above, that Democrats will not have the votes to pass amendments needed to improve the SSCI bill. His concern is not that the FISA legislation facing the Senate grants retroactive immunity to telecom companies that broke the law and helped the Bush administration spy on American citizens without warrant. His concern is not that the SSCI bill grants massive new powers to the executive branch, while denying needed oversight to the legislative and judicial branches. Harry Reid’s only concern is political – that Republicans will accuse him and other Senate Democrats of failing to give the President a bill to sign, thereby making America less safe and killing adorable kittens, or something equally absurd.

I don’t doubt that the Republicans will attack Dems for obstructionism. Nor do I doubt that they probably want to draw out the process to limit the amount of time available for the House and conference committees to report out a single bill. But Reid’s focus solely on political concerns, now for weeks on end, while ignoring the potential to actually improve the legislation or whip his caucus to ensure that we can reach 51 votes to strip retroactive immunity and stop reverse targeting, bulk collection, and sequestration is beyond infuriating. Instead Reid has conceded that the raft of amendments needed to make the SSCI bill a good bill will not pass. Reid simply wants to get votes on them so he can say, in bad faith, that he and his colleagues did all they could to regulate warrantless wiretapping and act as a check to the executive branch’s power.

Last week there was a great deal of back patting when the Democratic leadership struck a “deal” with the Republican leadership on what FISA amendments will receive votes. We were told the Dems didn’t cave. I had my doubts at the time that that was an accurate representation of the “deal,” but am sad to say that my doubts have been fully confirmed. Reid does not expect the Senate to pass good FISA legislation (though he virtually assured this when he set the SSCI bill as the underlying bill in this debate). He does not expect them to remove retroactive immunity from the SSCI bill, something that he says he wants to do. He has thrown in the towel and all we see happening now is a rear-guard action to cover him from criticism by the base. He is sadly mistaken if he thinks his fig leaf of a “deal” will protect him from any criticism by those of us who actually care about defending the Constitution or standing up for the rule of law over the rule of men.

Mr. Reid says, “the end is near on FISA.” No doubt he is right. And no doubt with that end, which will be brought about by hasty votes cast by mostly apathetic Senators under the milquetoast leadership of Mr. Reid, we will find ourselves in a country where the rule of law is shuffled aside at the request of the most powerful companies with the assistance of their morally corrupt partners in Congress. We will have granted our government unprecedented authorities to invade our privacy and violate our civil liberties. Our Senate will have passed a bill that is almost certainly unconstitutional. And the work that so many of us have done for so long to assure our rights be protected will have been brushed off by the decisions of people like Harry Reid to not act in good faith to ensure that legislation worthy of our country’s values and dignity is passed by the Senate.

Super Parade Fat Tuesday

It’s an overcast day in New York City, with misting rain and temperatures in the upper 40s. The picture this morning is more bleak, I think, than the actual weather.

I was the 102nd person to vote in my precinct. I voted at around 9:45 AM and there was no line, with lots of poll workers on hand. Anxious to vote, I made the mistake of not asking the poll workers how the turnout compared to past years. The composition of the poll workers was interesting. There were 8-10 people staffing the location, half of whom looked to be in their early-mid twenties.

The New York Giants victory parade is forming up at Battery Place. At least a few thousand people are already down by Battery Park and though I didn’t look up Broadway, there are surely tens of thousands more people waiting to great the Giants on their way to City Hall. The Giants, as you can see above, have not yet arrived to celebrate.

I’m only posting this picture because whoever owns this truck was fully dedicated to the Giants winning Sunday. Well…and because it’s awesome.

FISA Programming Notes

The Senate has, again, resumed debate of FISA in the Senate, though today’s schedule is far less clear than we thought it would be.

Though there was a good deal of debate on FISA amendments yesterday, no votes were held. The Senate spent some time on the economic stimulus package in an effort to get that quickly to the desk of the President. Now the Republicans are obstructing the Democrats from moving back to the discussion of FISA amendments, instead insisting on staying on the stimulus package for the duration of the 30 hour period before cloture ripens.

The Democrats will try to get both debate and votes in today, though it’s unlikely that all FISA amendments will happen today in the best of circumstances. Republicans just don’t want to get this done. Even if we are able to move back to FISA, it looks unlikely that any Title II amendment – pertaining to retroactive immunity – will be voted on today.

The good news is that this delay gives us more time to put pressure on the Senate to vote in favor of the Dodd-Feingold Amendment to strip retroactive immunity from the Intel bill. Contact your Senators now through CREDO Action’s contact tool.

Stay tuned for updates.

Cross posted at the CREDO Blog.

Hold Fast

A blog by Matt Browner Hamlin