I’m just back from DC and have been offline all day. Thanks to the other front-pagers for picking up my slack. I see that Steny Hoyer capitulated, as expected. I’d like to just make one point about this. The Netroots is based on opposition and on unseating congresspeople and senators. That’s what we’re good at. Ordinarily we would focus on defeating Republicans, but we’ve become so good at that we’ll be quite happy to toss a few Democrats out of office even if it means a slightly smaller Democratic majority. I don’t think there is any issue that the Netroots is more passionate about than illegal warrantless surveillance. Any Democrat that votes for Steny’s compromise is going to be at real risk of a well-funded primary challenge or, at least, a nasty ad campaign aimed at driving up their negatives. I’m just saying. Our fourth amendment rights are sacred, and getting to the truth of what Bush did is the next thing to sacred.
So, before you go vote tomorrow, be forewarned. There will be a heavy price to pay for voting away our privacy rights.
Steny Hoyer and the GOP will probably keep trying to slide this past us in the hopes we won’t notice. But we will notice and they’re on notice!
Any Democrat that votes for Steny’s compromise is going to be at real risk of a well-funded primary challenge or, at least, a nasty ad campaign aimed at driving up their negatives.
One of my absolute frustrations with the whole netroots phenomena is the reactive nature rather than preemptive. Why not ad campaigns BEFORE any vote is on the horizon?
It always seems to be: “Oh damn, the barn door was left open! Now which Dems helped open it or didn’t help to keep it closed? Well, we won’t forget.” But we do.
Why isn’t it: “Don’t open the barn door! We’re watching and we’ll support those better at keeping it closed if you get any where near the handle!”
Really? Really? Have you been reading Kos at all? He’s been hammering on this for months, organizing his readers to bother Congresspeople, holding feet to the fire, etc. This isn’t a last-second thing, this is a battle the netroots have been fighting for months. And because of that prolonged fight, George Bush and Steny Hoyer and their friends are trying to pass this by ramming it through right before a recess. They know that’s the only way they’ll be able to get away with it. As another poster at the Big Orange pointed out, delaying this bill even a couple of days into next week is probably all that’s needed to kill it completely.
August, 2007 – Behind the FISA Flop
No, I have not been reading Kos much at all. When I did pop over it was primary stats and analysis.
dada is one of those who has stayed on top of this here.
I am amazed how the progressive world became the only true faction of American politics that cares whether or not we get spied on by our government.
The Republicans love the 2nd amendment to shoot their guns and use the a constitutional argument to say Woe vs Rade should not have been ruled on. They cry activist judges everytime a Supreme Court ruling does not got their way. However, when it comes to the 4th Amendment and illegal search and seizure, they gut it in secrecy and want no judicial review. It seems there is no real conviction aside from who writes the biggest check and how they can pump up their image to be tough against the “bad” guys.
Booman, I would like for you to touch on Obama’s role in all this FISA capitulation because he seriously let me down more than his bomb Pakistan comments.
What role? He stated his opposition to this “compromise” a while back, hasn’t been involved since then, and promptly got Slashdotted by irate bloggers today. His campaign is now reviewing the issue.
have been ragging on this for MONTHS and MONTHS.
But TOMORROW will be RAGITUP day. NON-STOP CALLS, FOLKS.
My call list:
Costello (my congressperson)
Hoyer (again)
Obama (again – where ARE YOU BARACK – time to BE COUNTED, MY MAN)
Durbin
Dodd (do the filibuster)
Feingold
Called my congressman and wrote my senators this morning; wrote Obama last night. Now I’ve gotta make some money for the mortgage.
It’s not just FISA threatening our privacy rights:
Ask Senator Dodd why is this in his housing bailout bill?
Senate Housing Bill Requires eBay, Amazon, Google, and All Credit Card Companies to Report Transactions to the Government
We’re all going to be “like a criminal on parole.”
Who wants this power? How will it be used?
This issue first come to the forefront in 2005, when the New York Times reported Bush had been illegally spying on the American public. This story was held back by the New York Times because it didn’t want to hurt the president’s electoral chances (that was basically the New York Times’ official position). The first reaction to the news was outrage. Not outrage that the president and his lackeys had been breaking the law. No. The outrage was manufactured from the right-wing that the New York Times was committing treason by telling the “terrorists that we’re spying on them.” Many conservatives, including Bush, condemned the New York Times and most Dems were silent except for the usual “I’m troubled and looking into it.” [Three years later and Obama is evidently still looking into the issue.]
And how did the Democrats react back in 2005? With outrage that someone was illegally spying on Americans? No. Crickets. They didn’t want to be the ones to stand up and defend the constitution because there was an election around the corner and the Dems can’t look weak on terra’. No real inquiries. No special prosecutors. No prosecution. No laws to stop it. No, the only real legislative response has been to hide what happened and to close all avenues of recourse. And remember, it was congress that created a right for people to sue telecons in the 1970s because of past violations and congress wanted a punishment in place if telecons broke the law.
So, FISA has been a proiminent issue for at least 3 years (and before that for people that cared). There have been a number of FISA fights over the last couple of years, and some major fights the last year up until yesterday. Obama has consistently avoided making this issue a priority. So did Hillary Clinton. They were both AWOL during the last FISA fight.
Restoring the constitution after the Bush assault on it has long been my #1 priority. I never was a sucker that thought Obama was like Kucinich or Dodd on this issue (or even Ron Paul or Bob Barr, for that matter). But I had “hope” that Obama would use his new consolidated power to fight for this issue. I at least thought he would be better than Hillary.
It’s very clear what Obama’s priorities are. The same as if Hillary were the nominee. Both are more than happy to piss all over the constitution if it will help them convince some schmuck in Appalachia that the Dem candidate will protect them from the boogeyman.
Did they issue that Amber Alert for Obama yet, or is he still being allowed to hide?
Brendan, didn’t Obama call you?
I’ve called twice this morning to the campaign (and by the way Bob, apropos your earlier comment, I don’t see Obama as some all-powerful angel of light: I do however see him as our nominee for president and as such the leader of our party, therefore giving him a much stronger voice than simply another senator, so of course I expect him to use that extra strength to LEAD), and SURPRISE: no representatives are answering the phone and the mailbox is full.
Real leaders lead, they don’t hide away from tough issues like scared little bunny rabbits.
Read my other statements on this. Obama has voted and given his opinions on this. Pelosi and Hoyer are going against his public position. Do you actually think that if he got into a public wrestling match with Pelosi and Hoyer over this that he’d win? They’ve already played their hands. You expect them to pick their cards off the table because Obama has embarrassed them publicly?
do you think Pelosi and Hoyer would want to engage in a public fight with the next president?
we all know mccain’s not winning. Obama has leverage, let’s see him use it.
Brendan, do you think that the only reason why they proposed this was because they calculated that Obama wouldn’t do anything?
What is Obama’s leverage? How do you know that Obama hasn’t tried to use it behind the scenes? And what are the real consequences if Pelosi and Hoyer don’t kowtow? And who delivers those consequences?
You see, you don’t see the whole picture and your anger isn’t letting you see the whole picture, the real dynamics here.
Obama needs to weigh in. This is the big issue of the day, maybe of the week or month. What is his position?
He needs to make a clear statement.
let me say this REALLLLLLY. SLOOOOOWWWWWLY FOR YOU.
There is NO negotiation on my fourth amendment rights and Mr. Obama is either a strong leader or he isn’t.
A STRONG leader is willing to buck his party. A WEAK leader does not.
Obama’s campaign people aren’t even answering the phones and you get nothint but no comment out of his office.
WEAK. Tell me, if he has so much to worry about in retribution from Pelosi and Hoyer, how come people like Feingold and Leahy aren’t afraid to say NO?
Stop making excuses. the candidate of change is the candidate of typical DemocRAT behavior.
once again, the dems have shown their unique capacity to wrest defeat from the jaws of victory. If they think that this support for spying will be ignored and that it won’t cost them votes they are out of their minds.
Add to this insanity the Obama flip on public funding, I can’t wait to see what the next stupid dem act will be.
Business as usual.
It is third party time!
Not a complete flip. He did set conditions on it. And claims the conditions haven’t been met. Then there’s McCain. TPM points out he is blatantly breaking the law.
just watched that smirking son of a bitch tell us how happy he is with respect to the dems capitulation. I urge all to watch him and then decide just who to vote for in Nov. The dems just lost my vote.
This is absolutely sickening! I doubt that it’ll do any good, but I called my Congresswoman’s office this morning to encourage her to vote against the FISA “compromise.” I spoke to one of her assistants, but I gave that person an earful about how this isn’t a compromise and how people in Topeka are unhappy with the “compromise” as well as with Pelosi and Hoyer.
I keep asking what you Obama bashers expect him to do or say. The ship is sinking and the best we get is what? “I’m going off to form a third-party.” Or, “I’m going to work for H. Clinton to get the nomination at the convention.”
If you’re going for a third party, I’d suggest going with the Green Party. Nader’s so 2000. As for H. Clinton, she didn’t even vote against the last FISA sellout and she was in DC that day. No excuse. She could show her leadership now, but I suspect she is just fine with the sellout. That would be consistent with DLCers.
Meanwhile, Obama has spoken out against the last FISA sellout and actually voted against it.
Think about it, folks. That means that Pelosi, Hoyer and the rest of Congress know his position too (just like you and I). If you read his statement last spring you know WHY he’s against it. Hoyer and Pelosi are going ahead with it despite Obama’s position. That means that a presumptive Presidential candidate is not all-powerful within the Democratic party. Instead of flailing about, how about doing a little of what they used to call structural analysis? Ask why this is happening.
First, right now Obama’s “power” as a presumptive candidate isn’t very strong. His lead over Clinton, while certainly enough to win the nomination, isn’t overwhelming. Imagine if Obama now gets into a public battle with Pelosi over this. He needed Pelosi to push him over the top. How does that affect the nomination? Do you folks really want a struggle at the convention which might give the nomination to someone more inclined to do the FISA, and to leave the Democratic Party in a position to lose in November?
We don’t know how much Obama has discussed this with Pelosi, or Hoyer. But we do know that Dem leadership in the House is ready to go against the presumptive presidential candidate on this issue. Maybe Clinton has let them know that if they ever get into a tussle with Obama over this that she’s still available.
In any case, this matter should give the casual viewer of politics an understanding about who is wielding actual power right now. Bush may have an imperial presidency, but that power doesn’t extend to whomever is leading in the polls in June. Obama can’t call out the troops. He can’t get the NSA to wiretap the House members.
Next, who does have the power? Who wants this FISA capitulation? The Dem leadership, for one. The NSA and its intelligence allies (to spy on the citizenry, not to find terrorists). The telecoms, because they don’t want to get sued. The Bush administration. We can easily discern all of these groups’ motives except for the Dem leadership. Money? Well, there are plenty of money sources out there, and it’s bad politics to piss off a lot of your motivated constituency in an election year to push an unconstitutional bill.
I saw this theory floating around last night. The Dem leadership, as things stand without some FISA deal, are in jeopardy regarding this illegal spying. Presumably, Pelosi and others knew about it early on and said and did nothing. This deal would seem to get them off the hook for any legal difficulties. In any case, this would certainly explain Pelosi’s less than stellar accounting of herself.
Finally, as I’ve said before, the intelligence community, as far as we know, was doing this kind of spying on U.S. citizens before 9/11. Echelon was in place in the mid-nineties. If you read THE PUZZLE PALACE you know that decades ago the NSA had workarounds for using its equipment to spy on Americans (their “Jew Room” for instance). In the world of politics if you have power you tend to use it. I would imagine that in the world of spycraft this tendency shows itself more consistently. You don’t collect information on private citizens just to fill up folders or hard drives. You do it because information is power. Does anyone here think that the intelligence community doesn’t have compromising information on Democratic politicians? (think Spitzer) Does anyone here think that it hasn’t been used against Democratic politicians? (think Spitzer again)
My point is that there are reasons why some Dems are cowardly when going up against the intelligence community. They know the intelligence community’s power. Some here don’t.
+++
It’s a shame that Matt Gonzalez (Nader’s Veep) didn’t run for Pelosi’s seat this year. He’s a Green, he’s been very popular in San Francisco, he almost beat the much more popular mayor (lost to Gavin Newsom by a few percentage points), could have run a campaign in Pelosi’s compact district cheaply (and would have gotten plenty of money nationally). He would have had a good chance of actually winning outright, and certainly would have put pressure on Pelosi over FISA. Alas.
That’s just silly that Obama doesn’t have the power to do anything. He is probably the one Democrat with the most power to stop this assault on the constitution.
But I see your point Bob. Sure, maybe Obama was told by Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid and Rockefeller, or whoever, to cave in on this issue. Maybe they are more “powerful” than Obama. And I have no doubt the intelligence community or the military industrial complex or the “real powers” put pressure on these pols to cave in. And maybe Obama bloggers are also part of the conspiracy because I hear crickets from them in putting pressure on their savior to do anything.
But putting pressure on Obama is the best, most rational hope for anyone that cares about our old constitution. There’s not much I can do practically against the secret powers that pull the strings in Washington. I will focus on the guy with the public power. And Obama could have done something. He could have put pressure on the leadership to not bring these bills up. He could publicly show his split and he could publicly lay bare the false claim that the Dem leadership has no choice but this just came to the floor. He could seriously punished these Dems if he so chose.
At the very least he didn’t have to film a spot supporting one of the main traitors to the constitution. He should be filming spots for his challenger (that is if Obama made protecting the constitution a higher priority).
And he could have . In the old days a president had some power to knock heads in his caucus. The Republicans certainly have such party discipline right now.
It is obvious to any patriot except an Obama partisan that Obama has not made the constitution a priority. He could have led his party on this but he obviously views it as a secondary issue and he doesn’t want to “waste” his political capital on. He would rather have it disappear so he can run on issues he thinks will help him more.
For me restoring the constitution and righting the wrongs of torture and war crimes is issue #1. Any political capital should be spent on that. Evidently Obama has other priorities for the Democratic party. I guess Democrats will be spending their time talking about potential first ladies’ cookie recipes, crazy religious people, and offshore drilling in Florida instead of restoring our constitution.
Don’t forget to keep voting Democratic, kids!
Remember the slogan: “What the fuck else you gonna do?”
This is some seriously demented shit. But can we stop calling it “capitulation”? Who are they capitulating to, exactly? The least popular President in history, who has no mandate, and is a lameduck with 7 months left in office besides? Republican Senators and Representatives, who amount to a soon to be decimated minority despised by the American people?
They are not capitulating. They are doing what they are paid to do. It’s as simple as that. And, as with the Iraq war, it ain’t going to be no different when Obama sits his ass in the Oval office and an even larger Democratic majority controlls Congress. Why would it be?
Jeff is right. The Dem leadership wants this bill. Obama is passing like some his Illinois State Senate votes. It still blows me away how much influence these corporations get with so little money of their total profits.