FISA travesty passes the house

Watching the vote in the House right now; it got the majority needed about five minutes ago, but the vote is ongoing. It's neat how the Democratic leadership engineers these things to insure passage, and it unfolds according to plan, then once enough votes are on record to ensure passage, the (D) "no" count climbs all at once as everybody sees that okay, it's safe to go vote against it now for political cover, we've got it passed. "Yes" votes from Democrats outnumbered "No" votes from Democrats until passage was assured; now they trail significantly. Cute, huh?

Incidentally, there is apparently one (1) GOP member of the house who gives a rat's ass about the 4th Amendment.

Rep. Inslee got one (1) minute to deliver a statement about how there are some lines you don't cross and this bill crosses them, as did a couple of other opponents (Kucinich, somebody else I forget), before it went back to supporters masturbating to glorious fantasies about the TROOPS!!1! and PROTECT AMERICA!1!! and and and.

Final tally: 293-129. Bill moves to the Senate.

I don't like making predictions like this, but

I don't like making predictions like this, but, super-briefly, here's how I think the rest of this goes down:

On probably Tuesday, the Senate passes the FISA bill as passed by the house, without modifications. The only interesting question will be whether enough Democrats will fly their true colours and give it the majority of the majority, or whether we'll see more action like we did today in the House - get it passed, then a bunch of (D)s vote useless "no" votes to placate their supporters.

On Friday, Mr. Bush signs the bill. That evening, or perhaps over the weekend, Mr. Bush will quietly issue a signing statement declaring that he will interpret Section 102(a) (and by implications amendments to Sections 112(a) and 112(b) of existing law) according to his "interpretation" of the Constitution, by which means he will declare the exclusivity clause void. This will be in line with his current assertion that he can do anything he wants under Section II and that Congress cannot constrain him in any way, a view he has never, ever, disclaimed, and which the Democratic Party-controlled Congress has refused to functionally oppose.

This will mean that this dramatically-expaneded warrantless surveillance programme will simply be a, not the only, method of spying on Americans' communications, and that Mr. Bush retains his claimed power to do whatever the hell he wants, law be damned. The only part of this bill which will be relevant on anything other than a technical level will be the retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies who directly, specifically, separately, and blatantly violated the law in spying on American citizens on behalf of Mr. Bush's executive branch.

I have still, btw, heard nothing of any commentary coming from Senator Obama's campaign or office. ETA: See next entry.

Senator Obama ENDORSES the FISA bill. Yes, ENDORSES.

Senator Obama has issued a statement endorsing the FISA capitulation (a term I use reservedly), using the same language as the rest of the Democratic Party leadership. Reported by Glenn Greenwald here, the full-text link is to Mr. Greenwald's documents-archive blog.

ETA: Democratic Senator Majority Leader Reid says he'll try to get a vote on it. We've been here already; this will fail, and it will fail because Senator Reid and the Democratic leadership wants it to fail, and the entire farce is pure theatre to give Senator Obama cover for his "yes" vote. Even Bloomberg calls this an attempt to "provide political cover for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama."

This is your Democratic Party at work, people. This is happening because it's what they want to do. Figure that out.

I am simply not drunk enough

I'm not drunk enough to talk about this right now. (Which sadly means I am not drunk at all, but let's leave that aside.) So have a bunch of links and one substantial ecerpt. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings gets some of it right, but doesn't to my mind go far enough:

Our system of government is built on the separation of powers: Congress passes laws, the Executive implements those laws, the Courts interpret them, and all of us, including the President, obey them. This system is currently under threat. Our President and his advisors believe three things which are wrong individually, but disastrous when combined. These are:

(1) The President can do whatever he wants during wartime, whether or not it violates the laws.

(2) It is always wartime, and the battlefield is everywhere, both at home and abroad.

(3) The President has the right to keep what he is doing completely secret. No one -- not citizens, not Congress, not anyone -- has the right to force him to reveal what he and others in the Executive are doing.

As I said, each of these is wrong individually, but the combination of all three is absolutely toxic. And the secrecy is crucial: if no one knows what the Executive is doing, no one can challenge it.

The FISA controversy puts all three principles together.

Here, while I can still bring myself to care: the neocons who made the whole Iraq war mess go are working on revisionist history to try to make themselves into oppressed heros. Over at National Review, they go on about how the plan was never to bring democracy to Iraq. Spencer Ackerman discusses the five million displaced Iraqis and how the US propaganda machine uses individual stories to distract from that.

Creationist fuckheads like Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis get to lead prayer breakfasts at the Pentagon. Nouriel Roubini at RGE Monitor thinks an Israeli strike against Iran is more and more likely, pointing to an article in Der Spiegel. Also, if you go to the front page right now and open the "Will Israel Strike Iran?" spotlight issue, you'll get a set of bullet points detailing why and what happens if that balloon goes up. And Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Have a bulletpointed list of articles on the US torture state:

• Routine Abuse At Bagram
• "If the Detainee Dies, You're Doing It Wrong"
• McClatchey's is running an ongoing series on the US torture regime called Guantanamo: Beyond the Law:
  • We Got the Wrong Guys
  • I Guess You Can Call It Torture
  • A School for Jihad
  • "Due Process is Legal Mumbo-Jumbo"
  • "You are the King of this Prison"
• Undersecretary for Defense Feith Refuses to Testify
• Senator McCain is a consistent opponent of habeas corpus

Let's watch more things fly apart

Haven't been posting econ stuff. I've been busy.

Morgan Stanley is warning its clients of potentially "catastrophic" events. Royal Bank Scotland "has advised clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months." You're starting to see real desperation at some regional banks, including Fifth Third, National City, and KeyCorp. And the second wave of housing crisis is coming.

Check out the commercial property debt instruments. (Up is bad.) A bit of a recovery (those graphs aren't zero-based) and now all that is over. It's presumably related to MBIA and Ambac, the monoline insurers, losing their last fake AAA ratings. This destroys their business model, which is good, since they never had the money to pay off on their policies anyway. Two other, smaller insurers got cut to junk ratings, as well. Moody's also downgraded hundreds of tranches of Countrywide CDOs (no link there, sorry), prompting Bank of America to give the merger deal a vote of confidence, and baseball fans know what that traditionally means. Oh, S&P thinks it's still a bad idea, downgrading Bank of America to sell.

Mexico's imposing price controls on food. Philly Sheriff John Green is refusing to hold court-ordered foreclosure actions, but it's all crooked anyway; Swiss giant bank UBS has been helping wealthy Americans evade taxes - particularly real-estate developers - and in a separate investigation (holy crap, something got investigated?) hundreds of mortgage brokers have been indicted. I wonder who they pissed off?

I didn't even think about this (Friday Night Blowout)

I didn't even think about this until cow pointed it out, but the Democratically-controlled House passed the FISA changes and retroactive immunity not just with a strong majority, but with a veto-proof majority. Awesome.

Man, I can't wait to see Mr. Bush's signing statement. That should be lullertastic. I wonder if he's made an agreement not to make one? I wonder if it's as good as his other promises? Bwah ha ha!

Oh, and as expected, Senator Obama came out against queers gettin' hitched. He still says he wants to repeal DOMA on the grounds that the Feds should recognise state arrangements, which is an improvement over the status quo, but clearly actually supporting equality is still too much to ask. Even to that, though... given the recent rounds of triangulation, you'll forgive my lack of faith in this promise.