COWARDS, FOOLS, AND LIARS
Dec. 14th, 2007 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdOkay, a quick refresher course: the new FISA bill, regarding telephone and internet surveillance, has been a big deal for the last few months for a lot of reasons, not least because various versions of it have contained retroactive amnesty for telecommunications companies which have acted in direct and separate violation of the law in aiding and abetting illegal warrantless wiretapping and communications monitoring by the Chief Executive in the United States.
This retroactive amnesty is important because the Justice Department has refused to investigate these crimes, the Democratic Party-controled congress is an absolute, active part of the problem and similarly refuses to take any action other than enabling. The only course of investigation left open are lawsuits by individuals and civil rights groups such as the EFF against the telecom companies. That's all we've got.
Retroactive amnesty is designed, from top to bottom, to end this line of investigation by making it moot. If this bill passes, the court cases are over. The investigations end.
The Democratic leadership has been vital in getting this amnesty moved forward. I rather suspect at this point it's because they don't want to get implicated in this either, and are about as guilty.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is up to bat for the enablers today. There were two versions of the FISA bill in the Senate, as reported out of two committees. One contained amnesty and extremely weak oversight - tantamount to no oversight - of the wiretapping FISA authorises. The other contained no amnesty, and did contain at least some oversight. Senator Dodd announced plans to fight this, via two steps: 1) a "Hold" on the "amnesty" version of the bill, which, if honoured - as is traditional and by Senate rules - stops it dead in its tracks, and 2) a threat of filibuster. This outraged Senate Democratic leadership, as it hurts their efforts to stop investigation into the massive violations of law and Constitution via warrantless surveillance of Americans. It also slowed them down for a couple of months.
Senator Reid - who has honoured literally dozens of GOP "hold"s on bills, including one placed by GOP Senator Tom Coburn to reopen and investigate a slate of Civil Rights Era murders, is ignoring this hold. That's legal; he can do that. However, I do flash back to the Days of Horror when the GOP was going to ignore cloture rules if the Democrats didn't fold on judicial appointment after judicial appointment, and how scandalous it was to threaten to violate Senate tradition and rules. What a load of crap that was. (For the record: it was. But here we see that was never the point for the Democratic Party.)
Senator Reid is bringing the FISA bill with retroactive amnesty to the floor. It will require 60 votes to remove retroactive amnesty; that won't happen. 49 GOP votes + 10 or so from the Democratic leadership (including Senator Lieberman) to continue this obstruction of justice will insure that never happens. Accordingly, the last remaining option is a filibuster, presumably to be led by Senator Dodd.
As a side note, Senator Reid, in a stunning display of bullshit, is trying to blame Senator Dodd for his own refusal to recognise Senator Dodd's hold. It is genuinely appalling.
Regardless, two things need to happen:
1: All the Democratic presidential candidates need not just to endorse Senator Dodd's filibuster against his own party, but actively work to support it. They need to be in DC, they need to be doing the work. If they're not in the Senate, they should be telling at people who are. Lip service - all the Democrats ever seem to have - Does Not Count. At all. It counts for zero. No; it counts for negative points. Your local Senators should be doing the same thing. There will reportedly be a cloture vote early on Monday, as Senator Reid has scheduled debate over a weekend to insure as little coverage as possible. From the count above, it is clear that they will be very close to getting cloture of the retroactive-amnesty-inclusive bill. This must be prevented.
(Clinton: contact form, fax: 212.688.7444, vox: 212.688.6262
Obama: contact form, fax: 202.228.4260, vox: 202.224.2854
Biden: contact form, fax: 202.224.0139, vox: 202.224.5042
Edwards: contact form, fax: 919.967.3644, vox: 919.636.3131
Gravel: contact form, fax: 703.349.2958, vox: 703.652.4698
Kucinich: contact form, vox: (877) 41-DENNIS)
ETA: Senator Dodd calls Clinton, Obama, Biden on their support pledges, saying he's heading back to DC - asks, are they're coming?
2: Senator Reid could still change his mind and choose to honour the bill. Senator Reid's voice phone (202.224.3542) needs to melt with complaints. His inbox needs to overflow with email and faxes (202.224.7327), all of which need to say NO AMNESTY.
This all needs to happen now. Go. Do.
(Material from Christy Hardin Smith, Glenn Greenwald, others.)
This retroactive amnesty is important because the Justice Department has refused to investigate these crimes, the Democratic Party-controled congress is an absolute, active part of the problem and similarly refuses to take any action other than enabling. The only course of investigation left open are lawsuits by individuals and civil rights groups such as the EFF against the telecom companies. That's all we've got.
Retroactive amnesty is designed, from top to bottom, to end this line of investigation by making it moot. If this bill passes, the court cases are over. The investigations end.
The Democratic leadership has been vital in getting this amnesty moved forward. I rather suspect at this point it's because they don't want to get implicated in this either, and are about as guilty.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is up to bat for the enablers today. There were two versions of the FISA bill in the Senate, as reported out of two committees. One contained amnesty and extremely weak oversight - tantamount to no oversight - of the wiretapping FISA authorises. The other contained no amnesty, and did contain at least some oversight. Senator Dodd announced plans to fight this, via two steps: 1) a "Hold" on the "amnesty" version of the bill, which, if honoured - as is traditional and by Senate rules - stops it dead in its tracks, and 2) a threat of filibuster. This outraged Senate Democratic leadership, as it hurts their efforts to stop investigation into the massive violations of law and Constitution via warrantless surveillance of Americans. It also slowed them down for a couple of months.
Senator Reid - who has honoured literally dozens of GOP "hold"s on bills, including one placed by GOP Senator Tom Coburn to reopen and investigate a slate of Civil Rights Era murders, is ignoring this hold. That's legal; he can do that. However, I do flash back to the Days of Horror when the GOP was going to ignore cloture rules if the Democrats didn't fold on judicial appointment after judicial appointment, and how scandalous it was to threaten to violate Senate tradition and rules. What a load of crap that was. (For the record: it was. But here we see that was never the point for the Democratic Party.)
Senator Reid is bringing the FISA bill with retroactive amnesty to the floor. It will require 60 votes to remove retroactive amnesty; that won't happen. 49 GOP votes + 10 or so from the Democratic leadership (including Senator Lieberman) to continue this obstruction of justice will insure that never happens. Accordingly, the last remaining option is a filibuster, presumably to be led by Senator Dodd.
As a side note, Senator Reid, in a stunning display of bullshit, is trying to blame Senator Dodd for his own refusal to recognise Senator Dodd's hold. It is genuinely appalling.
Regardless, two things need to happen:
1: All the Democratic presidential candidates need not just to endorse Senator Dodd's filibuster against his own party, but actively work to support it. They need to be in DC, they need to be doing the work. If they're not in the Senate, they should be telling at people who are. Lip service - all the Democrats ever seem to have - Does Not Count. At all. It counts for zero. No; it counts for negative points. Your local Senators should be doing the same thing. There will reportedly be a cloture vote early on Monday, as Senator Reid has scheduled debate over a weekend to insure as little coverage as possible. From the count above, it is clear that they will be very close to getting cloture of the retroactive-amnesty-inclusive bill. This must be prevented.
(Clinton: contact form, fax: 212.688.7444, vox: 212.688.6262
Obama: contact form, fax: 202.228.4260, vox: 202.224.2854
Biden: contact form, fax: 202.224.0139, vox: 202.224.5042
Edwards: contact form, fax: 919.967.3644, vox: 919.636.3131
Gravel: contact form, fax: 703.349.2958, vox: 703.652.4698
Kucinich: contact form, vox: (877) 41-DENNIS)
ETA: Senator Dodd calls Clinton, Obama, Biden on their support pledges, saying he's heading back to DC - asks, are they're coming?
2: Senator Reid could still change his mind and choose to honour the bill. Senator Reid's voice phone (202.224.3542) needs to melt with complaints. His inbox needs to overflow with email and faxes (202.224.7327), all of which need to say NO AMNESTY.
This all needs to happen now. Go. Do.
(Material from Christy Hardin Smith, Glenn Greenwald, others.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 08:23 pm (UTC)How come you didn't include Biden's contact info? Has he already dropped everything to go to Washington to support Dodd?
no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 08:35 pm (UTC)Oh, first: Senator Dodd calls Clinton, Obama, Biden on their support pledges, saying he's heading back to DC - asks, are they're coming?
no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-16 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-16 11:45 am (UTC)more worried about what i get from Reid. why the FUCK cant fucking politicians get it through their heads that, like all other public servants, THEY WORK FOR US?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
(its days like these that i really really really miss tyranny. honest tyranny. with a big fat dictator who at least doesn't tell us that he's actually doing this for US, that its what WE want...)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-16 07:58 pm (UTC)Because they don't, on the whole. The fix, as they say, on this particular business is in. I will be stunned if the cloture vote fails. But that doesn't mean not fighting all the way down.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-17 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-21 03:29 am (UTC)yeah, i guess a certain class of dictator does, at that.
sorry it took so long for a reply - i was dragged off to Redding, Ca (from Ohio) and i just now found a bloody starbucks...
no subject
Date: 2007-12-21 03:39 am (UTC)