In which the bully and his friends hang out in the yard and boast

The resident of the White House, invited his minions into the garden to gloat over their victory to embellish the power of the executive branch.

There he is, with the usual group of lockstep-voting, non-compromising Republicans, the deceitful attorney general, the untrustworthy head of "national intelligence," and a cadre of traitorous blue-dog Democrats, patting each other on the back for creating an act which will "protect our people."

Oh, the delightful, ironic resonances of that phrase. "Protect our people," indeed. The corporate telecommunications executives will be protected from lawsuits. Our people. The executive branch operatives who convinced the telecoms to break the law will be protected. Our people. The president and vice-president will be protected. Our people. The CIA, NSA and FBI will be protected. Our people. The suspected terrorist who is thrown into a foreign prison without hope of basic legal representation, or any of the rights of habeus corpus won't be protected. That's okay - not out people.

Remember, this crew in the Rose Garden yesterday, these are the folks who wanted to put librarians in jail for refusing to respond to national security letters issued by the FBI.

Read the signing speech. It's a joke on us. But it ain't funny.

For sale: the fourth amendment

The Senate passed the FISA bill, with telecom immunity, by a lopsided 69 to 28 vote. The New York Times calls it a "major expansion of government surveillance power," and notes that it's one more victory for George Bush, who has set a new record for a low approval rating. Barack Obama voted for the bill, and thereby telecom immunity.

Naive and puzzled as I was to see so many Democrats anxious to please the Bush administration, and to trample on the fourth amendment, I never considered the obvious - political payoffs. But, as this video report demonstrates, money talks.

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."

Get ready for the government to be in your shorts

As Ian Walsh reports over at Firedoglake,

the real FISA vote took place yesterday when the Senate voted overwhelmingly to proceed with FISA cloture, meaning debate will be limited to 30 hours, before a vote is taken. Filibuster is now impossible.

Only 15 members of the Senate vote against cloture. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain were absent.

And lest you believe otherwise, this vote can be pinned entirely on Harry Reid, who had the ability to procedurally disable the bill.

Shame on Barack Obama.

And Glenn Greenwald reports how even Keith Olbermann has changed his stripes of FISA.

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.

Must remember: it's not the Democratic party or the Republican party, it's the incumbent party

The whole FISA compromise is a puzzle to me, in which the only satisfactory answer is that someone is on the take. Maybe many someones. Constitutional scholars have pointed out that the FISA amendment flies in the face of that venerable document. Democrats have pointed out that it's antithetical to the principles of their party. Party leaders have vowed to stop it, and haven't. To be sure, Harry Reid can kill the whole bloody mess by keeping it off the agenda with a parliamentary manuver. Chris Dodd once vowed a Mr. Smith-style filibuster, now he's written a letter. Barack Obama said he was against it, before he said he was for it. And many observers have demonstrated that this vaunted "compromise" is not a compromise at all (though Democratic leaders are working hard to convince voters, and themselves, that they've reached a good deal)>

Bipartisan? By whose definition?

The FISA vote by the house is being spun as a bipartisan effort. Bullshit. Check out the vote and you'll see that, as ususal, the Republicans voted as a block, except for one lone vote, and the only bipartisan effort was by Democrats who defected to their corporate sponsors, and to the lame-duck president. Pathetic.

The bill supports warrantless wiretapping on anyone, and immunity for telecom companies who participated in those wiretaps, illegally, in the past.

Connecticut's congressional reps voted against the bill, as might be expected, with the exception of Chris Shays.

Loss of vertebrae

Just when Congressional Democrats ought to be standing up straight in defiance of the faltering Bush administration, they appear to be ready to cave on telecom immunity.

It's up to us to remind our representatives that we're still watching.

Can you hear me now?

Today the House passed a version of FISA which calls for more oversight of the intelligence function and DOES NOT offer telecom immunity.

Look for our tin tyrant to veto the bill in a hissy fit that will be guaranteed to include logic defying explanations as to why he cannot sign a bill that he says is necessary to protect this country.

Evidence of a backbone, part 2

Glenn Greenwald documents the ways in which the new FISA bill not only does not capitulate to the demands of the Bush administration, but appears to offer an "olive branch" to telecoms, without the hope of blanket immunity.

Congressional evolution: evidence of a backbone

Perhaps the next version of the Protect America Act will not be a complete giveaway to the Bush administration.

Reports from the House of Representatives indicate that the bill will not offer telecom immunity, but will allow judges in lawsuits agains telecoms, to view classified information to decide if the lawsuits have merit.

If Congress can explain this to the government, it will be Bush who must wipe the egg from his face.

Hello Central, give me everybody

President Bush would like us to believe that al-Qaeda hasn't figured out that our country is doing everything possible to listen to calls its members make. Excuse me, but I'd guess that Season 3 of The Wire is available even to Osama bin Laden.

So, what's to fear if some righteous American citizens want to sue phone companies which have illegally allowed the government to spy on nearly all of us?

Well, it certainly wouldn't give terrorists any more information than they could already guess.

But it would give the American citizens information about just how many of us have come under government surveillance. And that number could be high, as in, all of us.

And what would you call a government that spies on all of its citizens, hides the fact that it does, and then lies about it when they are caught? How's Oceania sound?

Of course, the right-wing radio ranters will chime: "Our way of life is at stake. We need to wiretap. If you're innocent, what do you have to hide"

Remember that, conservatives, when it's Barack Obama who's listening into your midnight chats.

In denial

(CNN photo)

George Bush held a news conference today to demand recognition of his delusional world.

Bush said he didn't think we were headed into a recession. Maybe he meant that we were already in one, as hundreds of economic experts have suggested, but no, he confirmed that we were in a "slowdown."

Bush said that allowing lawsuits against the FISA abuses by the government and telecom companies would be "unfair." Of course, not unfair to individuals who had been abused, but to the poor, poor corporations who colluded with a criminal government.

While he seemed to acknowledge that his refusal to compromise on FISA was all about telecom immunity, he failed to acknowledge that he alone was responsible for refusing to sign an extension of the Protect America Act, which would have staved off the frightening, monstrous terrorists he continues to conjure.

And he acknowledged he didn't know what a gallon of gas might cost this summer. That's because he's never had to worry about pumping it himself.

When you don't know what a gallon of gas, or a gallon of milk costs, you have no right talking about understanding what the American people want.

Blame it on the Democrats

You would expect the well-drilled Republicans in the Senate to vote, en masse, with the president to offer immunity to telecom companies, who, with him, broke the law and spied on hundreds of thousands of Americans.

What you wouldn't expect is the defection of 18 Democrats, who voted to ratify this unconstitutional FISA bill. What you wouldn't expect is the Senate leader Harry Reid to offer the Senate a version of the bill that included the retroactive immunity. Nor would you expect him to ignore a "hold" placed on the bill by Chris Dodd, which would have given Reid the opportunity to eliminate the immunity. After the vote, Ruff Tuff™ Harry Reid wrung his hands and bemoaned his inability to do anything to stop the bill. What a crock.

As for the Democrats who voted for the FISA bill with immunity, we can only guess that they agreed with the bill's precepts, or they were afraid of being accused of being soft of terror.

Have any of them examined the results of the primary in which a pro-civil liberties, anti-war candidate is leading all candidates?

Have any of them ever read the Constitution?

And so, not only can the government spy on you and me with impunity, and without a warrant, but any corporation which assists them now, yesterday or in the future, gets a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card.

Unless the House decides to shred the immunity clause, and that's a possibility, though a small one. Time to call your representative in the House to have them vote against immunity.

BTW, while Chris Dodd was fighting immunity with every tool he had, Creepy Joe™ Lieberman voted to exonerate the criminal telecom executives.

All this and what's the major headline on the NY Times website? Clemens Set to Testify. Even if we have abandoned the Constitution, we aren't failing baseball.

Why Americans don't care about FISA

Chris Dodd is currently giving yet another impassioned speech about the faults of the FISA bill before Congress. He's calling this one of the darkest days he's seen in the Senate. The Senate is virtually empty. The media has buried the story. Fellow Democratic Senators have voted against limits on spying.

Why doesn't anyone care?

This is big-brotherism at its core. The federal government, abetted by the telecom industry is spying on us, one and all.

As Glen Greenwald indicates, one of the reasons is that many Democratic lawmakers actually support the "core value of our political establishment (as reflected by the Bush administration)." So, they can't be expected to vote against more power to the feds. In the same way, average Americans have been scared to death by the boogeyman of "terrorism" and so are ready to relinquish freedom for security.

The media doesn't care because they can't figure out a way to sell it to the world as an issue of importance. It's not a simple issue, nor a simple bill. But the base concept is simple. The Bush administration (the federal government/the political establishment) wants the ability to listen in to any of us, at any time, without an explanation.

If it interfered with America's ability to vote for American Idol. If an item suddenly appeared on our phone and cable bills, labeled "Spying....$30." If your cell coverage was suddenly limited to certain quadrants. Or, if your son or your daughter suddenly "disappeared" for having protested government actions, then America would begin to care.

Screw you, we've got the phone companies to worry about

The Senate voted, a few minutes ago, to reject an amendment that would have stripped telecom immunity from the FISA bill (Protect America Act). Despite his promise to filibuster, Chris Dodd did not. He spoke eloquently for two and a half hours last night (I watched most of it), but because of some arcane Senate procedural agreement, he agreed to relinquish the right to a true filibuster. Some of his supporters, who understand better the labyrinth of rules and regulations in the Senate, say his hands were tied.

This is a good day for George Bush, the telecoms, and the Senators who benefit from the largesse of the telecoms. For you, not so good.

Keep in mind, a fascist government values the rights of corporations over the rights of individuals.

By the way, Obama voted to block immunity. Clinton was absent.

The Senate now debates the full bill, but considering how lopsided the amendment vote was, there's little hope of blocking the bill in the Senate.

There is some small hope that the house will block the bill.

I'll vote for whoever supports Dodd

My vote's for sale, sort of. As Glenn Greenwald points out today, the FISA fight is imminent, most Democrats are cowering (they're afraid of being called cowards, and in the process are demonstrating their cowardice), and Chris Dodd is preparing for a filibuster.

Greenwald points out that there will be web campaigns launched this week to help convince the top three Democratic presidential contenders to vocally and publicly support Dodd in his fight against FISA as it's being brought to the floor by Harry Reid.

So, whoever puts some public face time in the fight against FISA will get my support in the primary. Otherwise, it'll be voting my heart for Dennis Kucinich.