Civil liberties disappear not with a bang, but a whimper

I don't understand, nor have I heard an adequate explanation, why the Democratic House and Senate is delivering George Bush exactly the FISA bill he wants.

It has to be that the Democratic senators and reps voting for it must either truly support the idea that the government can spy on whomever it damn well pleases, or their afraid of being accused of being soft on terrorism. In either case, it's confounding. Seriously confounding. Because the fourth amendment is being decimated.

Civil libertarians, and there are a few in the Senate - Feingold and Dodd, to name a few, are in jawdropping disbelief that our lawmakers would enact such a bill, and that they would hand George Bush, the most untrustworthy of presidents, power to immunize corporate lawbreakers, and at the same time, immunize himself, from prosecution. He and they broke the law once. Now they have the consent of the legislative branch. The most unbelievable part is that Democrats, including Barack Obama, are touting the FISA bill as a compromise. As Glenn Greenwald has pointed out for months, it is no such thing. It is a capitulation to the President and to Republicans.

Listen to Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, who appeared last night with Rachel Maddow on Hardball. He calls the impending vote a "cave-in."

The dog ate my homework, but he also ate the Constitution

Chris Dodd has not offered a sufficiently clear explanation for his acceptance of VIP loan status from Countrywide Financial. As Chairman of the House Banking Committee, who has received thousands of dollars in campaign support from Countrywide, there is no accepting his logic (or lack thereof), that he didn't know he was getting a special deal.

Why can't politicians say: "I made a mistake. I was wrong." Chris, why can't you say: "I made a mistake. I was wrong."

Because when you don't admit mistakes, it steals the power from your great speeches, and from your ideals. For example, Chris Dodd's indictment of the FISA amendment is classic. He finds a way to make clear what exactly is wrong with the bill, how it is unconstitutional, and what needs to be done. It could be a completely shining moment, if there weren't a dark cloud hanging over his head.

As far as FISA goes, Glenn Greenwald hails Dodd, and his fellow Senator Russ Feingold, for standing up to the politically expedienct actions of their colleagues. And Greenwald holds out hope that the procedural obstacles Dodd and Feingold can set across the tracks, my yet put the FISA locomotive in the ditch.

Filibuster or bust

Russ Feingold says that he and Chris Dodd will filibuster the FISA amendment if it arrives on the Senate floor with telecom immunity intact.

We can only hope that Harry Reid will delay action on the bill until after the end of the year, but that being unlikely, given his track record, that Dodd and Feingold will stand and talk until the country hears what we're about to be fed.

Feingold catches McConnell lying

It seems like the "trustworthy" and "non-partisan" labels Mike McConnell has been trying to hang on himself are as silly as they are untrue. McConnell is nothing more and nothing less than one more Bush henchman willing to abandon the truth to propagandize for his president.

And Russ Feingold has caught him redhanded.

Dodd bulldogs FISA

As a new clip on The Raw Story indicates, Chris Dodd isn't budging on his opposition to the FISA bill passed into floor debate by the Senate Intelligence Committee. But Judiciary Committee members Leahy and Specter are not optimistic about its passage, and Russ Feingold, who saw White House papers as part of an "exchange" with the judiciary committee, says the wiretaps were clearly illegal

Biden and Dodd on hold, Clinton and Obama disconnected

Joe Biden has declared that he will join his colleague Chris Dodd in issuing a hold on the FISA bill now heading for floor debate.

The only negative is that Dodd didn't make political hay on being the first and only Senator to issue a hold. Now he's got to share the limelight.

And where are the other Senators?

Feingold and Dodd, the only decency in the Senate

While the head of the Senate intelligence committee accepts new campaign funds from the telecom company, only Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd vow to fight the FISA bill at all costs. They understand what the other senators seem to have forgotten, that the government is designed to protect the people based on law set down in the Constitution, and not that the government must be protected from the Constitution.

I'm on the pavement thinkin' 'bout the government

And if you don't get the allusion, check this out: