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Dodd, Feingold To Try and Filibuster Immunity Bill
shma writes "This morning the senate has a scheduled cloture vote to cut off debate on the FISA bill which grants retroactive immunity to telecoms who engaged in warrantless wiretapping. Senators Russ Feingold and Christopher Dodd have pledged to try and filibuster the bill, but require the vote of 40 senators to keep the filibuster alive. The article states that a similar 'threatened filibuster failed in February, when the Senate passed a measure that granted amnesty and largely legalized the President's secret warrantless wiretapping programs.' Should they lose the cloture vote, the bill is all but assured of passing. A proposed amendment stripping the immunity provision from the bill is also expected to fail."
Skipping a vote to avoid controversy is worse than taking a stand, even the 'wrong' stand. It would be nothing but cowardice. If he really believes what he says he'll vote against it.
Then again he skipped a LOT of votes in Illinois as a State Senator, probably for similar political reasons.
Because the Bush administration would look pretty silly going to FISA after the fact to get a warrant for spying the Democratic National Committee.
This way, they can use the excuse of terrorists, and spy on any one they want to.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
As this bill was brought forth by the Democrats and expected to pass by a Democrat controlled majority why isn't this marked with a "Democrat" tag?
Yeah, must be that evil, lame duck Bush Administration using his monarchy powers to get this through with the Republican Sith... ]sic[
Because then they could still be held accountable. This whole administration has been about avoiding accountability for bone-head moves.
Getting the paperwork ready for the rubber-stamp is evidently too hard for them. The FISA court almost never turns down a request. What's that say about the kinds of things the Bush Admin and their toadies want to do, if they don't even want token oversight?
Both parties are in favor of increasing government control. On one side, you have a party that's voting to increase power because it's what they want to do, regardless of what their constituents have to say. On the other, you have a party that secretly wants to increase power, but has more vocal constituents. So instead of just voting to increase power, they vote to increase power and say things like "it's an election year" and "we can't afford to appear soft on ."
There's *always* an election coming up. If you don't vote for people with a backbone when the chips are down, and keep accepting the excuses, nothing will ever change.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
People laugh at Jesse Ventura when he goes on Larry King and condemns both parties for exactly this kind of bill. But that's one ex-pro-wrestler who has Washington pegged PERFECTLY.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Because they know that the scope of the people they're spying on would never hold up to FISA scrutiny (a truly scary thought, as FISA is basically a "rubber stamp" court in the first place). Even the FISA court wouldn't accept a warrant for wholesale email and phone call data mining on EVERYONE.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Learning from watergate means they'll be more careful about getting caught. Such as making sure there are no tapes that inconveniently crop up.
Not a typewriter
Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. That's the line of crap they give us proles & the Telcos have squadrons of attack lawyers who should have knew better, if in fact they were consulted at all. Qwest had enough sense to say no, the rest of them can die in a fucking fire.
There is a war going on for your mind.
This is why your constitution protected your right to bear arms. The rest of the world has spent decades listening to Americans wax lyrical about how and why those rights are needed. If you don't use them now, then everyone who said you were just a bunch of nut jobs spouting empty rhetoric will be proven right.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
They were asked to help their country and got some bad legal advice.
The companies knew they were breaking the law. They have the best FISA lawyers in the world on retainer but decided to break the law anyway.
But it really isn't about the corporations or the outcome of law suits. By granting them immunity the illegal Bush programs will never make it to court and thus the public will never know exactly what went on or how extensive the spying is. Do you seriously believe the Bush administration is obeying any laws at all in an area they can keep in the dark just by mumbling "National Security"?
Well? A politician who needs to compromise in order to get where they want is nothing new.
A good negotiator will give up something he doesn't need for something he does. He doesn't give up something important for something trivial.
Why not show in your post that Obama needs the intelligence community and cannot afford to anger his constituents who have worked hard on a compromise?
If he is elected President, he will be the "intelligence community's" boss. If he isn't elected then as Senator he still holds power over them, not the other way around.
Granted, this compromise stills appears to be a potential death knell for the separation of the real church (big corporate money) and state
A vote for a Democrat or Republican is a vote for a politician beholden to the national religion (money worship and corporations). Both are corporate funded entities. Neither is pro-human, both are pro-corporate.
condemning someone for doing what may be necessary doesn't seem very productive especially when the alternative is someone who works toward very sinister ends as well (looking at you, Mr. McCain).
Dammit man, there are more than two candidates for President!!!!! So far I plan on voting for Barr, even though he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. I stopped voting for "the lesser of two evils a while back.
If you say "if you don't vote Democrat or Republican your vote is wasted", well if that's so then a vote for loser Gore was a wasted vote too, now wasn't it? You should have voted for Bush rather than wasting your vote on a loser. Just look at the popularity polls, vote for the guy you think has the best chance of winning and vote for him so you don't waste your vote.
If you follow that twisted corporate logic, then I plan on wasting my vote this November. Wasting my vote on a loser is better than voting for a man who wants me in prison.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Simply put, it's an election year and none of the Democrats want to appear "soft on terrorism/defense/insert-the-buzzword-of-the-day-here", out of fear of losing their jobs.
Unfortunately for "we the people", their fear means the loss of more of our civil liberties.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
If Obama votes to pass this, you know he is compromised.
If he skips the vote, you know he will not stand up for what is right in the face of intimidation by big business etc - which is almost as bad as the first choice.
If he votes the bill down, then he'll really be showing something...
Unfortunately I don't expect him to show much of anything when it really comes down to taking a risk.
He sounds great, and certainly is better than the other candidate(s), but anyone can get up and talk about freedom and healing, etc. It is an entirely diferent thing to stand up in front of the machine and refuse to play ball or roll over. If he cannot do this, then we're in for more of the same.
Lets get real. EVERY candidate that runs is simply out for the president's job. That is the nature of these beast. The question is, who is likely to make an improvement. At this time, it almost does not matter. Both of these will improve on the disaster that W has left.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Then again he skipped a LOT of votes in Illinois as a State Senator, probably for similar political reasons.
That's a load of crap and should be downmodded to oblivion. Obama had an exceptional attendance record in the Illinois Senate, where he cast over 4000 votes in eight years.
Perhaps you're instead referring to his "present" votes, of which he cast about 130 total. Of course, if you knew anything at all about the Illinois legislature you'd know that his use of the "present" vote is entirely normal. And if you tracked his votes you'd see that it falls in line with his policy of using "present" to identify bills that either require further refinement, are unconstitutional at their face, or as part of a larger policy strategy (such as with Planned Parenthood). That's why in Illinois the "present" vote is called a "'no' with an explanation."
Come on, do you really think there's a non-trivial number of people willing to take up arms against the government at this stage? Hell, most of the most strident 2nd amendment boosters are the ones that are most vocally defending these types of bills and defending the President's right to take away our civil liberties in the name of "security".
Saying we have the right to overthrow the government by force is nice and all, but if you think it's actually going to happen any time soon, no matter how many freedoms are taken away, you're delusional. The only way to overthrow governments these days is via military coup, and the military doesn't seem in any hurry to get into politics in this country, and I doubt we'd be in any better shape if they did.
I think your perception of 2nd amendment supporters is a little off. They are generally the ones who do not trust the government on any level, hence the reason to arm themselves. Do you really think those nutjobs out in the middle of nowhere in Montana or Texas really want to give the government the right to freely monitor their phone conversations??
"But this one goes to 11!"
You simply gather together a bunch of morally bankrupt lobbyists and get major corporation to fund them and provide them with sufficient capital to funnel that cash to a bunch of criminal politicians. Also you arrange for a proportion of those bribes to go to, well, somewhat less than Christian leaders of the various Christian right organisations, to ensure a whole lot of blind, listen to the words but ignore the actions, voters , do the right 'er' wrong thing.
To push it all along you get the government department that is meant to ensure that mass media organisations do not become monopolistic, do not become a one eyed voice for the majority shareholders ands sociopath corporate executives, to do the exact opposite a work towards turning mass media into a propaganda network for endless war and corporate fascism.
Now it also helps if you get the telecoms to start monitoring everyone who disagrees or might even consider disagreeing as well as every opposition politician and their supporters, to keep one step ahead of them and to ensure you can enact measures to isolate them.
There you go, everything you need to over throw a government and blow me down but, you don't have to look to far to see the evidence of it. Now I can think of one reason why the immunity bill might make it through. It really all boils down to how much dirt the telecoms were able to dig up on the various political leaders and how much of this dirt would appear as evidence if those telecoms were prosecuted. Take a very careful look at the ones voting for immunity, they are likely not voting for the telecoms immunity from prosecution, so much as they are, voting for their own immunity from prosecution, really nasty stuff.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen