Friday

So Obama take a slightly nuanced position supporting the FISA compromise but pledging to fight the telco immunity giveaway in the Senate. He admits it's not a perfect bill, but as they say about laws and sausages, it'd not pretty watching them get made.

I'm not terribly torn up about it. Everyone agrees that FISA needs to be updated for new technologies, and everyone in the Constitutionality camp wants to make sure that our government's Executive branch can't violate the rules without oversight from the other two. From what I understand the bill does all that well enough.

The immunity is a sticking point, as wiretaps have been used in the past on civil rights leaders and so-called "enemies" of the particular President of the time (i.e. Nixon). I'd rather the telcos hadn't pitched in when the Bush/Cheney syndicated told them to, but those were heady times and I'm not sure the companies did so enthusiastically.

In any case, rather than blaming Obama for the sins of the GOP Administration, I'd rather get him in office and start the promised transparency January 20, 2009. As President he'll still need to keep some secrets and take steps to protect us all, but it's hard to imagine it will be in the treasonous manner of the mob that still inhabits the White House and associated offices.

While sometimes it's hard to remember, George W. Bush is still in office, and no amount of projecting a President Obama is going to make January 20th come any sooner.

Capitulation

With a solid wall of Republican Representative votes and 34% of the Democratic Caucus, it looks like the so-called FISA "compromise" bill is going through in ugly, amnesty-laden form:

The proposal — particularly the immunity provision — represents a major victory for the White House after months of dispute. “I think the White House got a better deal than they even they had hoped to get,” said Senator Christopher Bond, the Missouri Republican who led the negotiations.

That's immunity for any of the big telcos that helped the criminal Cheney/Bush Administration break the law and spy on anyone, even citizens, without any warrant, as long as they can produce evidence that they were told it was okay:

Doesn't that actually endorse and extend to private actors the Nixonian view that if the president says it's legal, it's legal, regardless of what the law says and the Constitution says? Wouldn't that set an awful precedent that an administration could get private actors to do whatever they wanted including breaking the law?

The leader of the capitulating Democrats appears to be none other than Majority Whip Steny Hoyer, whom Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not want to get the job for reasons like these:

That's the "compromise" Steny Hoyer negotiated and which he is now -- according to very credible reports -- pressuring every member of the Democratic caucus to support. It's full-scale, unconditional amnesty with no inquiry into whether anyone broke the law. In the U.S. now, thanks to the Democratic Congress, we'll have a new law based on the premise that the President has the power to order private actors to break the law, and when he issues such an order, the private actors will be protected from liability of any kind on the ground that the Leader told them to do it -- the very theory that the Nuremberg Trial rejected.

Are the capitulating Dems just covering their own asses? Here's how the entire House of Representatives voted today. Obama's people have reported they are scrutinizing the legislation tonight, which is being jammed through for a vote tomorrow without any hearings, barely time to be read.

Hopefully Barack will stand on the right side of this one, which could be another game changer as well. Go ahead and tell your Congressperson via their website, or donate here to fight the abridgement of our Constitutional rights.

Wild Times

There's suddenly a flurry of action at the end of 2008. I can't hope to cover or even tie together on short notice all that's happening in our political America just this week -- two days.

The FISA vote -- Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) has been staunch and articulate on protecting the U.S. Constitution, threatening to filibuster and forcing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to pull the bill from the floor. Dodd has been a total hero, and while I don't know if it will significantly improve his Presidential bid, it makes him the #1 pick for a new, progressive Majority Leader.

Dodd made Orrin Hatch break down into sad nonsense. The bottom line as Ted Kennedy said:

The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.

Not so fun to remember that they are still President, even if the Primary Season sometimes makes us forget.

But the really huge decision affecting us all, the one designed by Rupert Murdoch et al with this Republican Administration to control all of the news we receive by television, radio and print all in one market. And if the market, like most, has only one newspaper, guess who's going to control the agenda?

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin cast the deciding vote to allow monopolistic territorial media control by major corporations:

Free Press: FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is ignoring the public will and defying the U.S. Senate. His decision to gut longstanding ownership rules shows once again how the largest media companies — with their campaign contributions and high-powered lobbyists — are corrupting the policymaking process at the expense of local news coverage and independent voices.

“Martin’s FCC relied on slanted research and a rigged process to reach today’s preordained outcome — local media wrapped in a bow for Tribune, News Corp., Gannett and all the rest.

John Kerry's talking about freezing FCC funding in retaliation, not sure how much that will do with the horse already over the gate.

It's clear to me that the only candidate who's just all out declaring themselves the people's warrior to beat back our almost medieval global corporations, get our Constitutional rights and help America save itself. There's things I like about the others, but Edwards is starting to do in Iowa what he's known for doing best: making the strongest closing argument.

Think about it, three lawyers. Can Obama or Hillary do what Edwards did in courtrooms for huge verdicts?

Meanwhile, Blackwater, no joke, shot to death the The New York Times' dog in Iraq, and Ron Paul reveals exquisite literary taste when he calls a spade a spade.

Unimmunity

I can't say I have high expectations for how it will fare in the Senate, but the FISA bill made it out of the Judiciary Committee day without immunity for those telecoms which knowingly violated the law for Cheney/Bush.

It was a 100% party-line vote, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein getting the message and reversing her support for immunity earlier this week. I had let her know what I thought by email, as her phone lines were jammed.

Seems the main metaphor these days:

Hold the line.

Brave Ones

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) seemed like the only principled Democratic Senator today, vowing to filibuster the cave-in FISA bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) want to push through. For Rockefeller, the grant of retroactive immunity to telecom companies for agreeing to break the law for the Bush Administration appears tied to a sharp increase in campaign contributions by said companies this year. And I used to like that guy.

It's behavior like that which leads to editorials -- accurately representing Democratic rank and file sentiment -- like this:

It was bad enough having a one-party government when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. But the Democrats took over, and still the one-party system continues.

By the end of the day fellow candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), had stepped up to say he'd join a filibuster against the bill.

Now where are supposed "leaders" Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) on this?

Why haven't we heard yet?

Props to Dodd for acting like a frontrunner more than the frontrunners. Leading is about protecting us first, that America outside the beltway. Getting out in front of issues rather than seeming like reactants. Contribute here.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, where there a chance of another female restoration at the top of the government, that woman is risking life and limb, as are her supporters:

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said on Friday she would carry on her struggle for democracy, despite an attack on her motorcade that killed 133 people as she returned home after eight years of exile.

"We are prepared to risk our lives. We're prepared to risk our liberty. But we're not prepared to surrender this great nation to militants," Bhutto, wearing a black armband, told a news conference at the home of her parents-in-law in Karachi.

"The attack was on what I represent. The attack was on democracy and the very unity and integrity of Pakistan."

I have no idea what's the truth over there in Pakistan's politics, whether Bhutto is saint or not, but it sure looks like she's the one alternative to the current President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, per the rules of their democracy, and there's no denying the risk she's taken in returning to her country.

With her own and other actual lives on the line, sure, Bhutto's courage may be greater than Dodd's. But we need courage like Dodd's to try and prevent threats to our own democracy.

Threats from within.

Threshold

This is a threshold issue for me, and I've already written my most susceptible Senator, Diane Feinstein, that she not support any bill without real teeth:

A Democratic bill to be proposed on Tuesday in the House would maintain for several years the type of broad, blanket authority for N.S.A. eavesdropping that the administration secured in August for six months.

In an acknowledgment of concerns over civil liberties, the bill would require a more active role by the special foreign intelligence court that oversees the interception of foreign-based communications by the security agency.

A competing proposal in the Senate, still being drafted, may be even closer in line with the administration plan, with the possibility of including retroactive immunity for telecommunications utilities that participated in the once-secret program to eavesdrop without court warrants.

I'm trying very hard to support Democrats and not fracture my Party at this time of great GOP evil. I also recognize that it is up to me to make my federal representatives know where I stand, hopefully helping a larger effort to convince her with my one little webform email.

Here's where you can find your reps contact info.

Tell them, politely if need be, that no teeth = they lose your vote.

Go Ask Alice

Are you like me on this whole NSA / FISA illegal wiretapping scandal?

Are you too busy to work out the detail but know that of course the Cheney/Bush/Gonzales Administration shredded the Constitution, the only question is whether we'll ever find out how small the pieces were?

Are you just hoping that the "independent" Judiciary and Democratic majority with do the jobs we pay them for, get the truth out and punish, or at the very least stop the Administration for continuing their nefarious ways?

If you're like me, you may get a lot out of this Daily Kos diary by Night Owl where he explains what happened in the Federal Appeals Court where today the huge class action case finally kicked in, Hepting v. AT&T and Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Bush. The diary is an annotation of this original liveblog by Wired.

The government, you know, "our" government, lays out this Catch-22 argument claiming the Executive Branch's absolute right to absolute secrecy, absolutely no oversight, for anything that branch of government says relates to national security.

The President someone working for him can classify anything at any time and he/they can decide that no one, even in the highest levels of the other branches of government, can see it -- even to judge if it should be classified.

Under their argument, We the People, and no other branch representing us, gets to check if someone in their branch is actually abusing their power and breaking the law.

One of the three judges, Judge Harry Pregerson, is eighty-three, was a U.S. Marine Corps First Lieutenant in World War II, and seriously wounded in Okinawa. He's seen a lot of American democracy:

"Who decides whether something is a state secret or not? ... We have to take the word of the members of the executive branch that something is a state secret?"

Garre counters that the courts should give "utmost deference" to the Bush administration.

Judge Pregerson: "What does utmost deference mean? Bow to it?"

Yes. Bow to your President.

Another judge, Judge Hawkins ask if a document provided by an ex-AT&T employee to the Electronic Freedom Foundation (co-plaintiff) is really that secret?

"Every ampersand, every comma is Top Secret?," Hawkins asks.

"This document is totally non-redactable and non-segregable and cannot even be meaningfully described," Bondy answers.

Because if you describe it to someone outside the Administration, then they will have to kill both of you.

And yet another instant classic from today's hearing, the third judge:

The government says the purported log of calls between one of the Islamic charity directors and two American lawyers is classified Top Secret and has the SCI level, meaning that it is "secure Cheshire compartmented information." That designation usually applies to surveillance information.

This allusion to 'Cheshire' inspires the judicial money quote:

Judge McKeown: "I feel like I'm in Alice in Wonderland.".

At the heart of all this evil is, of course, Richard Bruce Cheney. This is info-surveillance porn, power porn. Bureaucratiporn.

The two questions are how the judges will go on this and, if they go against the government, will anything against CheneyBush be enforceable?

Or will the Vice President just cut out the middleman?

And shoot all three judges in the face.

FISA Falldown

The supposedly Democratic Senate and House of Representatives just passed the FISA rewrite backed by Mister Bush and President Cheney. This is all that illegal wiretapping, which I have often said will eventually be revealed to have been conducted on their political opponents, particularly in the 2004 Presidential Election campaign.

On the face of it, this is horrifying news. Bush wins. Dems fold. One more brick on the road to scot-free.

The potentially mitigating "good" news:

- It's only a six-month bill. The Dems did this tactically, to stall until they are back in session and can write the final bill.

- Freshman Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) voted for it, and he's been one of the fiercest critics of the Administration's war policy.

That's it. That's the good news. The bad news is that this is how the Democrats can lose every election from here to eternity and deserve it. No convictions = weak as smeared.

Here are the turncoats this round. Email them now to scare them straight for the next, more critical one.