The Senate has fallen
Feb. 12th, 2008 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdThe Senate overwhelmingly passed Chief Executive Mr. Bush's version of the FISA/PAA bill today. It includes every horror I've talked about, as Democratic Majority Leader Reid intended - retroactive immunity for separate and specific lawbreaking by the telecom companies that cooperated; retroactive legality of the massive warrantless domestic spying programme; forward legality for this spying programme without accountability or enforceability - it eviscerates the already-toothless FISA court. And, most of all as far as Chief Executive Mr. Bush is concerned, it ends the only functional path of investigation into his many crimes.
This is a disgrace. It is far more than the usual well-crafted lies; it's a case of badly-crafted lies, the kind of lie you can vomit out when you know you won't get called on it, or if you are, you don't have to care. Note how after he has done everything in his power - which is quite a lot, as documented here and elsewhere - to ensure this bill's passage and the defeat of any mitigating amendments, Senate Majority Leader Reid's brutally cynical condemnation of the bill runs unquestioned in the Reuters article out this afternoon. He can lie like this because he knows he won't get called on it. He is the architect of this bill's success; he set the voting requirements; he chose the worse of the two bills that came out of committee; he stifled every attempt to filibuster or amend; and, once everything was done but the final vote, voted a token "no" against the final bill he meticulously shepherded through the Senate, so that he could claim to have been against it from the start.
What contemptible filth.
This derogate bill, and the degenerate sophistry about it, is formed from the purest mockery of the very ideas of law, constitution, and the public good. This is the Church Commission finding the details of Watergate - and signing off on them. This is the vindication of J. Edgar Hoover and his many blacklists. This is Senator La Follette coming back to his office and, finding it ransacked, deciding to retroactively affirm that whole Teapot Dome thing in Federal law. This is taking another look at the Sedition Act and saying, "y'know - that wasn't so bad."
What putrescence must emanate from the very footprints of these vile men. What nauseous gasses must corrode their environs. What wretched half-formed monsters must crawl inside their bodies, straining at their bloated skins. With such glee they must celebrate their faithlessness.
There will be a last stand. It will be made in the House, which passed a bad, but less bad, FISA/PAA bill that did not include retroactive immunity, and did include at least some oversight. You can and should sign the petition demanding they hold their ground here:
Gleen Greenwald called today Amnesty Day for Mr. Bush and the telecommunications industry. This paragraph is particularly relevant:
On a final note: Senator McCain, the GOP leadership's chosen candidate, came by to vote the wrong way on cloture and the bill as a whole; these crimes have his wholehearted endorsement, along with that of the Republican party entire. Senator Obama found the time to stop by and vote against cloture - but couldn't be bothered to do anything more, like stick around and vote "no" on the final bill. Senator Clinton did not even manage that much, no doubt too busy trying to figure out how she could declare that the Virginia primary loss didn't count, either.
I would like to believe that Senator Obama actually cares about this issue - but I can't. A press release - no matter how strongly worded - and a token vote do not amount to caring. After all - Democratic Senate Majority Leader Reid himself condemned the bill! And voted against final passage! He can't be for it - and yet, then, there is reality. And I have no problem whatsoever assuming that Senator Clinton is as happy with the outcome as Senator McCain, and Chief Executive Mr. Bush; I imagine she just didn't want her fingerprints on the corpse, since she, like Senator Reid, condemned this bill that Democratic Majority Leader Reid worked so hard to pass.
I should have more, but I don't. There is no law; we do not have a President; there is no Constitution; and none of us - none of us - are citizens. The courts won't help; they're too busy off in fantasyland, pretending torturing suspects is fine - it's only convincted criminals who are protected against it. All that's left is the scrabbling. So go sign the House petition, and contact your so-called Representative. I've always said it's important to keep fighting all the way down, and there's not much left more now to do - the bottom of this pit is coming up at us, fast. Your signature and calls probably won't change the outcome - I do believe we have lost this war - but, if you care, at least you'll have kept your self-respect, and later, at least you will know: you were there, and you fought 'till the end.
Go, and do. It's what's left.
This is a disgrace. It is far more than the usual well-crafted lies; it's a case of badly-crafted lies, the kind of lie you can vomit out when you know you won't get called on it, or if you are, you don't have to care. Note how after he has done everything in his power - which is quite a lot, as documented here and elsewhere - to ensure this bill's passage and the defeat of any mitigating amendments, Senate Majority Leader Reid's brutally cynical condemnation of the bill runs unquestioned in the Reuters article out this afternoon. He can lie like this because he knows he won't get called on it. He is the architect of this bill's success; he set the voting requirements; he chose the worse of the two bills that came out of committee; he stifled every attempt to filibuster or amend; and, once everything was done but the final vote, voted a token "no" against the final bill he meticulously shepherded through the Senate, so that he could claim to have been against it from the start.
What contemptible filth.
This derogate bill, and the degenerate sophistry about it, is formed from the purest mockery of the very ideas of law, constitution, and the public good. This is the Church Commission finding the details of Watergate - and signing off on them. This is the vindication of J. Edgar Hoover and his many blacklists. This is Senator La Follette coming back to his office and, finding it ransacked, deciding to retroactively affirm that whole Teapot Dome thing in Federal law. This is taking another look at the Sedition Act and saying, "y'know - that wasn't so bad."
What putrescence must emanate from the very footprints of these vile men. What nauseous gasses must corrode their environs. What wretched half-formed monsters must crawl inside their bodies, straining at their bloated skins. With such glee they must celebrate their faithlessness.
There will be a last stand. It will be made in the House, which passed a bad, but less bad, FISA/PAA bill that did not include retroactive immunity, and did include at least some oversight. You can and should sign the petition demanding they hold their ground here:
Petition against warrantless spying on Americans and retroactive immunityMore actions will be coming, if there's time - but there's precious little left of that.
Gleen Greenwald called today Amnesty Day for Mr. Bush and the telecommunications industry. This paragraph is particularly relevant:
...the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin cites the primary justification for telecom amnesty -- that these companies were just doing what they were told by the Government -- and then asks rhetorically: "isn't that the very definition of a police state: that companies should do whatever the government asks, even if they know it's illegal?" I used to think that amnesty supporters held their position because they didn't understand this extremely simple point, but now I think that most of them have their position precisely because they do understand it. A lawless "police state" -- and that's the only term that can be used to describe what this bill creates -- is exactly what our political establishment desires.I could not agree more. This happened because they wanted it to happen, worked for it to happen, insured it would happen, and then did it. Nothing less; nothing more.
On a final note: Senator McCain, the GOP leadership's chosen candidate, came by to vote the wrong way on cloture and the bill as a whole; these crimes have his wholehearted endorsement, along with that of the Republican party entire. Senator Obama found the time to stop by and vote against cloture - but couldn't be bothered to do anything more, like stick around and vote "no" on the final bill. Senator Clinton did not even manage that much, no doubt too busy trying to figure out how she could declare that the Virginia primary loss didn't count, either.
I would like to believe that Senator Obama actually cares about this issue - but I can't. A press release - no matter how strongly worded - and a token vote do not amount to caring. After all - Democratic Senate Majority Leader Reid himself condemned the bill! And voted against final passage! He can't be for it - and yet, then, there is reality. And I have no problem whatsoever assuming that Senator Clinton is as happy with the outcome as Senator McCain, and Chief Executive Mr. Bush; I imagine she just didn't want her fingerprints on the corpse, since she, like Senator Reid, condemned this bill that Democratic Majority Leader Reid worked so hard to pass.
I should have more, but I don't. There is no law; we do not have a President; there is no Constitution; and none of us - none of us - are citizens. The courts won't help; they're too busy off in fantasyland, pretending torturing suspects is fine - it's only convincted criminals who are protected against it. All that's left is the scrabbling. So go sign the House petition, and contact your so-called Representative. I've always said it's important to keep fighting all the way down, and there's not much left more now to do - the bottom of this pit is coming up at us, fast. Your signature and calls probably won't change the outcome - I do believe we have lost this war - but, if you care, at least you'll have kept your self-respect, and later, at least you will know: you were there, and you fought 'till the end.
Go, and do. It's what's left.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-13 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-13 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-13 04:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-13 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-13 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-13 04:41 am (UTC)Also, I friended you.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-13 11:59 pm (UTC)WHAT THE FUCK
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00015
no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 12:40 am (UTC)You're not making sense here. The cloture vote was what mattered. Between the lockstep Republicans and the Bush-dog Democrats, this was always going to pass if it ever got to a straight up-down vote. In practical terms, Obama sticking around to vote no on the actual bill, would simply have been a waste of time.
The cloture vote was the whole ball of wax. And he voted no. So it was not a token vote.
It seems to me you're looking for excuses here, because if Obama had stuck around to vote no on the main bill, you could just as easily be condemning that as a fake no vote that never actually mattered -- i.e., just like Reid's no vote, or Feinstein's no vote.
And the guy is in the middle of a rather close campaign. And despite that he has taken time out on at least two occasions to show up in Washington to cast procedural votes against telecom immunity. What good is it if he sticks around to cast the bullshit votes if that means he ends up losing the nomination to Hillary "we need to be stronger on National Security" Clinton?
Which is not to say that you need to become his A#1 Fan now. I would very much prefer it if he'd been out in front on this the way Dodd was, and as a Constitutional Law professor, he of all people should know what's at stake here. But let's at least give credit where it's due.
sorry for the edits, I suck
Date: 2008-02-14 02:02 am (UTC)Hopefully I can elucidate.
The cloture vote was the whole ball of wax. And he voted no. So it was not a token vote.
The "ball of wax" was the month or so leading up to the cloture vote, and in the agreement wherein Senator Reid declare which amendments would need 50 votes, and which would need 60 by way of silent GOP filibuster. By the time the votes were scheduled, we knew how they would come out. Accordingly, the vote was a bit of a token. I agree that that the symbolism of it matters - but only so much.
The problem is that I don't have enough to let me know that Senator Obama actually cares about this issue. I also don't have enough to tell me that doesn't care, either. I have inadequate affirmative evidence either way, and I do want to know. It is possible that he was putting in calls to other Senators over the last couple of months and trying to change people's minds. It is possible that he was writing letters, or doing some other form of actual active work to try and stop this monstrosity. (As you say: he of all people should know what's at stake here.) But I haven't seen any of this, so I don't know. And that's what I wanted. And since I didn't see that, I can't believe he actually does actively care.
But, similarly, I didn't see the games of a Reid, and I didn't see the contempt of a Clinton, so I'm withholding judgement and am not assuming he actively doesn't care. This is much more credit than I'm giving Senator Clinton, who I strongly suspect not only does not care but would, were it to come down to it, vote for this bill, or Senator McCain, who has outright endorsed it and all its criminality.
I have long ago come to accept that what someone says they believe in these circumstances must be assumed to have literally zero actual meaning. Senator Reid said throughout this processes that he strongly opposed retroactive immunity and was doing everything he could to stop it, a lie absolutely opposite the reality of the situation. And the Republicans still claim to be the party of small government and Federalism, as well as national defense. This, similarly, is a knowing and cynical lie that they repeat because it is their branding, and that their actions are demonstrably exactly the opposite has had very little real impact. If the reality in their case was not so opposite the rhetoric, it might continue to have no impact, tho' I think the extremity of the situation has highlighted the lie to the point of visibility to the general public. So when statements of value are made, they might be true; they might be a lie; the reality might be orthogonal. There has been precious little way of knowing.
But the actions taken - even if unsuccessful - those do have meaning. I didn't see any meaningful actions, other than the symbolic one, too late, against cloture, from Senator Obama. That doesn't rate zero - but doesn't rate enough.