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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."
I have a feeling we're in for a big letdown on this one. I guess he will just skip the vote altogether to avoid the controversy.
I simply don't understand why the Bush Administration doesn't want to use retroactive warrants. Spy on whoever you want just make sure you submit the warrants to the FISA courts later.
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
After claiming to be against immunity and against this bill, will Obama actually show up and participate in the voting? Or is he "too busy campaigning?"
Oh, wait. He supports the bill now. Can't you just fell the change we can believe in?
And on that first question, apparently Obama is currently campaigning in Las Vegas, although given the second point, maybe that's just as well.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Call and remind your representative that he or she has an oath of office and a public image to sustain, and voting for this bill cannot possibly be a supportive action for either.
Seriously, if this thing passes and becomes law, it should be the job of every /.er to write to their local newspaper and lambaste their representative for voting in support of a bill which violates every citizen's constitutional rights, and aids, abets, and forgives those who broke the law in ante facto.
Conversely, if a /.er's rep votes against it, that /.er should write in support of their representative's action.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Well, it's great that Dodd is filibustering this insane bill, but quite frankly I lost all respect for the guy when he supported giving a $300 billion tax-payer funded corporate bail out to Country Wide (who owns 10% of the mortgages in the US) because he's pals with the CEO. At least with Dubya the game is up and everyone knows him and his cronies for the corporate whores and oil lobby monkeyboys they are. With guys like Dobb, who posture around with a BS charade of integrity it's somehow worse. If you're going to be a festering piece of shit, please don't insult me or waste my time trying to convince me you're a white rose.
A-Bomb
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 that would mean they're following the law. To quote a Bush Administration agent, "Badges!?! Badges?!? We don't need no stinking badges!"
That's their mentality.
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.
Sure, it's a new pair of pants, but they're really a lot like your old pair of pants. Two legs, a few pockets, belt loops, zipper, etc. Maybe you get a button-fly! Or a pair with some extra pockets! But, regardless, they're still just pants.
When you have elected officials, they learn rhetoric, idiocy, and how to play with the body politic. They rarely if ever campaign on what they truly intend to do. Now, in Greek democracy anyone could be elected through a lottery system for a one year term, based on regions of the country. It'd be awesome if we would institute something similar. No more pandering to lobbyists, etc. But oh no, that would be a democracy, and America doesn't want that.
I'm pretty sure they will try TO filibuster since they'll be speaking English.
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.
... in a Democratic Party controlled Congress? I am not trying to play partisan politics, but it is absurd to think that the party that claims to be "of the people" would bow so easily to Big Business and a President that they have made no bones about despising. This is one of the most patently offensive laws to civil liberties that I've ever seen, and I'm just stunned that there isn't enough Democratic support to either strip the retroactive immunity provision or filibuster the bill. Isn't it the Republican Party's job to acquiesce to big business?
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
* Global Poverty Act (S.2433)
* Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act (S. 230)
* Lugar-Obama Nonproliferation Legislation
There's three, related to three very different topics, and all were an improvement in my opinion.
As for McCain-Feingold... he violates the spirit of it every time he catches a ride in his multi-millionaire wife's company plane. With respect to McCain-Lieberman, he both spoke against it to the press as the vote came up a few weeks ago, and then didn't bother to show up and vote one way or the other on the bill itself. Unlike Obama and Clinton, he wasn't in a contested race for POTUS nomination at the time.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
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"?
I met Dodd once. He was trying to sneak a relative into an event where I was interpreting for foreign dignitaries. The woman working security told him his guest did not have the proper credentials to enter the VIP area. His response was quick:
"But I'm SENATOR Dodds."
She wasn't impressed:
"Yes, I know that. And HE doesn't have the proper credentials."
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
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.
Don't dismiss something as rhetoric if you know nothing about it. Obama actually has a very impressive legislative record. In less than four years the US Senate he's gotten three major pieces of legislation passed:
Google For Government (earmark and government spending transparency)
Counter Weapons Proliferation (loose nukes, etc.)
Ethics and Lobbying Reform (banned a lot of the lobbyist perks)
If you go back to the Illinois Senate the list gets much longer, so it's easier to point to his death penalty legislation as his biggest achievement. The outgoing Governor put a moratorium on the death penalty because of too many questionable convictions. So, the issue spent about a decade treated as a political hot potato on both sides. Working groups were formed and dissolved, but nothing got resolved.
Obama took on the issue and got a compromise bill passed by an overwhelming majority. The only way he could do that was to get the police unions and civil rights groups to agree on a fair set of procedures for things like interrogations in death penalty cases. Just imagine what kind of skill it takes to get agreement between cops and the ACLU.
Anyway, those are just a few highlights. I really have neither the time nor inclination to list all of the major legislation he's sponsored or cosponsored. But that should give you a sense of some things he's devoted his time to.
House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last weeks FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision, according to an analysis by MAPLight.org. CBS News.
Why am I not surprised?
I called my senators; I've never called a senator's office before and I found it to be incredibly easy. Took less than a minute each.
I told them I was from their state and was calling to urge the senator not to support the cloture vote for H.R. 6304 regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and that I urge the senator not to support the bill because it takes away rights from every citizen.
You can find your senators' phone numbers at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Obama has missed 42.7% of votes, McCain has missed 61%.
Source
Actually, Obama claimed three pieces of legislation in one of his ads, and FactCheck.org debunked all three claims to varying degrees.
But a more careful review via thomas.loc.gov reveals the following:
110th Congress: 19 amendments to other bills sponsored and passed. All of these amendments (including parent poster's "ethics and lobbying reform" were passed by voice vote or unanimous consent.
109th Congress:
S. 2125, Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006. Passed both Senate and House without recorded vote.
S. 3757, Named a post office after someone. House version passed both House and Senate without recorded vote.
A variety of other amendments to other bills were passed as well.
I didn't see any major pieces of legislation at all, and I must have missed the other ones the parent mentioned above (though I was only looking at legislation that became law).
As for compromise, Obama pales in comparison to his opponent.
Most Democrats did vote against the bill, 128-105, with only one Republican voting against and ten not voting. It's fair to point out that nearly half the Democrats in Congress, including many of their leaders, are also involved in this attempt to subvert the rule of law and the Bill of Rights, but to try and pretend that the Republicans aren't the greater offenders here is just wrong.
Attention moderators: if reading facts that contradict your opinion makes you want to flame someone, that doesn't mean he's writing flamebait, it just means you should be less flammable.
I heard about a lady at an airline ticket counter who wouldn't give a VIP something he asked for. He looked at her and said, "Do you know who I am?"
Her response was to get on the intercom: "Security, we have an amnesiac at the ticket counter."
That's it, exactly. I keep forgetting this; it's just personal resentment towards telcos that reminds me where I'd rather this thing end up.
It's as though the Democrats are afraid of shaming the President. They won't do anything substantial about what he and his gang have perpetrated. This "impeachment's off the table" smacks of blackmail fear or some misplaced perception that the electorate just doesn't want another impeachment.
I want a real one. I want for soap opera broadcasts to be pre-empted, I want a parade of dozens of officials taking the Fifth, and several very damning "I don't recall" responses.
I also want the power to levitate at will and to travel through time without disrupting anything, you know, inconvenient to me.
I do believe that this administration has at least one more gut-level shocking revelation coming. I don't really think that any of them will pay for it with jail time, nor to do think that any of them will really care whether the exposure will prevent them from "serving" in government after the fact.
I think that both the Executive and the Legislative branches have something to hide here, and I suspect that the filibuster threat is an empty gambit. Either the telcos are funding all of the reelection campaigns, or the Congressional committees knew about it too and approved it.
We have become that which we resisted. Welcome, comrades!
"Press to test."
(click)
"Release to detonate."
You really need to learn how to use thomas.loc.gov properly. Although, if the best you've got is to knitpick an ad, then it's no wonder you don't understand how to use a simple website. Honestly, the biggest complaint in that FactCheck page is that he's touting his accomplishments in the Illinois Senate. They debunked nothing; they just took issue with him claiming to have "passed" legislation (as is their policy) and not noting the Illinois Senate legislation separately.
Now, I do have to admit that I was mistaken on the Feingold-Obama Ethics Reform Bill (S.230)--it hasn't been passed yet. However, here are three major pieces of Obama's legislation passed into law:
Coburn-Obama Google For Government (S.2590)
Global Poverty Act (S.2433)
Lugar-Obama Nonproliferation Legislation (S.1949)
It's funny really, for all McCain's constant bluster on earmarks it turns out that Obama's the one who's actually enacted legislation to help fix the system (S.2590). Of course, McCain was supposed to be involved in the Obama-Feingold Ethics Reform Act too, but he turned the first attempt into a very public, partisan car wreck. The resulting bill ended up being a watered down mess. Fortunately Obama and Feingold had the dedication to revisit the issue and revive the legislation.
As for compromise, it's sounds like you've just bought into the McCain image. The fact is that being senselessly antagonistic doesn't make one a maverick, and flip-flopping for political expediency isn't compromising. You can take almost every issue McCain is campaigning on and make him debate his past positions. He was against the Bush tax cuts and now he's for them. He supported comprehensive immigration reform and now he's against it. He supported campaign finance reform after his Keating Five scandal, and now he's running a primary campaign in violation of finance laws and has established state funds allowing donations of up to $60k per contributor. He claims to be environmentally conscious but has a lifetime score of zero from the LCV and just flip-flopped on offshore drilling. I could continue, but frankly I'm getting bored.
Look, maybe in the future you should be less focused on your candidate's hype and pay a little more attention to the substance.
"Actually, it's the Bill of Rights and not the Constitution"
The Bill of Rights is nothing more than a name for the first ten amendments to the Constitution. And amendments are part of the Constitution, so you're quite firmly wrong on that.
"The Constitution and Bill of Rights don't grant rights to the people, they provide a list of rights that the government should be unable to take away from the people."
The Supreme Court long ago ruled that the Constitution does apply to all citizens, and does directly enumerate their rights, thank you Mr. Constitutional Scholar. You're using the same old lame argument that segregationists used, and it's no more valid when you write it than they.
" The actual text is, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." "
You should read the actual text yourself. The first part lays out the reasoning for the right, but the second part guarantees the right. Even if the circumstances for giving the right have changed (the left-wing "but we have the National Guard now" argument), the right itself still isn't voided. The only way to strike a Constitutional right is the ammendment process. You can't simply have a judge go "oh well, times are different, this right isn't needed any longer". You simply cannot void a Constitutional right without actually changing the Constitutuion itself.
SCOTUS will likely rule on the individual right issue, and if experts are correct, is likely to put this foolishness about the 2nd being a "collective right" to bed forever. There are no collective rights. Rights are by their very definition for individuals.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"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."
It may be allowed, but the truth is, voting "present" is just a way for a politician to avoid taking a stand or going on record.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I need to learn how to use Thomas? Here's what I found out about your citations in less than five minutes:
109th Congress, S.2590: Half the freakin' Senate (47 senators) cosponsored this bill. Tom Coburn was the bill's sponsor. How does that translate into Obama being responsible for passing it into law?
110th Congress, S.2433: Neither it nor its House version (H.R.1302) have passed. The bill had been introduced in the 109th Congress in the House but not the Senate.
109th Congress, S.1949: Also did not pass. Obama is listed as its only cosponsor.
But perhaps you can tell me where a guy fits in who:
- Supports the first AND second AND fourth amendments
- Supports abortion rights
- Supports universal health care and malpractice tort reform
- Opposes wacko environmentalists, bible-thumpers, and political-correctness
- Distrusts big business and trial lawyers
- Hates the Iraq War
- Fully supports the Afghan War
- Thinks the government should help the poor more than the rich, but not to the point of fraud and dependency
- Supports higher taxes and less spending
- Thinks the government has a responsibility to balance the deficit before this country goes bankrupt
- Supports putting an income test on entitlements like Social Security
Now, tell me what party speaks for me. Jesse Ventura is the closest thing I've seen so far to my ideals. And alas, he doesn't have a party either.SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.