Looking Beyond the FISA Bill

You didn't really expect them to do the right thing, did you?

That's okay. I was naive once. We've all been a little naive. The issue with telecom immunity boils down to this--there was no way that the telecom companies that illegally assisted the government with an illegal warrantless wiretapping program that did nothing to protect the American people were ever going to face true legal jeopardy. There was no way they were going to pay the penalties. No way were the decision makers going to face the music. There was no chance of a perp walk similar to the one we saw yesterday with the people at Bear Stearns. There was no way their cadre of lobbyists was going to allow legislation to come out of the Congress that would eviscerate these companies and cost them billions in liabilities.

With Fred Fielding in the White House and Michael Mukasey at the Justice Department? Forget it. Only a naive, pie-in-the-sky worshipping bobble-eyed hippie would have hoped it would all turn out right. Have we been able to set aside the freakout and accept such a bummer outcome all along? Did we know it was all going to turn to shit?

We may never know the full extent of what happened--nor should we care to. Someone waved papers at someone else across a table and someone had more intestinal fortitude than someone else. Someone got beat, and beat badly. That's all there is to it.

You can go read Jessalyn Radack and you can go read Glenn Greenwald and I will tell you--everything they're saying is correct.

But there is one thing no one knows--and that is, how bad was the thing that was used to threaten the Democratic Party to roll over on this issue? How bad was the thing they were threatening to use against anyone who opposed them? Was it the fact that there are archives on every Democratic politician kept sealed away--archives of their personal conversations, archives of their monetary dealings, details of their sex lives?

Here's one thing I do know--nothing is outside the realm of possibility. Nothing is too crazy, too paranoid or too outlandish to rule out. Did someone threaten to destroy the careers of a few prominent Democrats? Did a few lobbyists band together and threaten to have someone's dog shot and killed on a suburban street? Did someone produce photos of a lawmaker pressed naked against the headboard of a cheap hotel bed?

Something had to have been done to produce this result. Something awful.

You are never going to beat these people with outrage. You are never going to beat them with righteous indignation. You are never going to beat these people by citing the US Constitution as proof they do not respect the rule of law.

Because that's a fool's paradise in America, circa 2008.

No, you're only going to beat these people by quietly and purposefully organizing strong opposition to their efforts by backing candidates for office that have a chance of defeating them in primary races or in general election races. We need better Democrats now, not necessarily more Democrats, just better ones. We need to get rid of the Steny Hoyers, Jay Rockefellers, and the concern trolls like Harold Ford Jr. and James Carville. Their time is over. Not one thin dime, to any of them. They are craven fools who have sold us out.

The only way to beat them is to assume that, for the next ten years, you're not going to win anything. Assume that it will take that long, or longer, to find grassroots candidates who believe in what is right and are willing to fight against the people who are selling us out. Assume that there's a good possibility you'll never get there. Assume you'll get half way there and your candidate will sell you out.

That's how it works in the grown up world. You take what you can get. You fight to get whatever you can. But if you toughen up and learn to expect disappointment and frustration, those times when you do win and when you do make a massive impact will be all the more fulfilling. If you're up against tight-fisted, mean and nasty people who will say or do anything to hold on to what little they have then you've got to get just as mean and just as nasty and be willing to go where they won't--like, door to door in the rain signing up voters or being the only person you know who cares.

It is time to grow up--we're not going to get what's right. We're not going to get what's fair. We're going to get a cold, hard, bitter tasting pill to swallow. The question is--do you give up? Do you fight harder? Do you take this as a legitimate grudge against the people who sold you out and use it against them when they are weak and vulnerable and damn them to hell with it? When you're both exhausted and on the ground, and when your opponent reaches out to you for mercy, do you slap their hand away and stomp them into the ground and remember back to this moment and savor the victory?

The next fight is forming. They're not sitting there feeling sorry for you. They're celebrating. They popped corks last night and drank themselves silly because they won and we lost.

Are you going to take that?

McCaskill will go to the mat for Budweiser, but the Fourth Amendment can go hang

Well at least her priorities are straight. With telecom immunity rearing it's ugly head once more, Claire is ready to fight...not for the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law, you understand, that's just piffle, taking a back seat to vacation time and $19,000 in campaign contributions from telecom companies. (Who knew that the going rate for a U.S. Senator was so embarrassingly cheap?)

No, what has McCaskill ready to fight is Belgian company InBev's attempt to acquire Anheuser-Busch, the company that makes Budweiser.

Seriously. My disgust with McCaskill has been palpable since she sold us out and caved in to fearmongering last August so she could get her vacation underway. After thousands of Missouri voters called her out on the issue, she sent out a form email that was the lamest correspondence I have ever received from an elected representative, and I have been a Democrat represented by Kansas republicans. I know from lame responses. So long as she continues to disappoint, I will keep hammering at her. That is my job as a citizen. Until she shapes up and gets right on that one all-important issue, I will continue to ride her like a rented pony.

By the way - "protecting the companies and their stockholders" is actually a smokescreen supreme. It's actually nothing more than a petticoat for aWol bu$h to hide behind so Americans don't find out how far these bastards went, because the companies are most certainly protected by indemnity contracts

There is one thing that will get Claire back in the right side of the issue...If Senator Obama comes out strong and stands with Feingold and Dodd against the turncoat, sniveling, spineless cowards and bu$hdogs - she will get with the program.

Heres hoping that Senator Obama takes a firm stand and does it today.

And once more, here is the ActBlue link - pissed off progressives have contributed over $150,000 in 24 hours to go after sellout Democrats. It's a cryin' damn shame that we have to go after members of our own party, but it has come to the point that we have no choice and must take such action against - because when they sell out the Constitution, what choice do we have?

Update @ 3:30 p.m. - I just fixed the link in the paragraph above, and am happy to pass on that in one 24 hour period, nearly 3000 supporters have kicked in almost $170,000 to fight back against the betrayal by Hoyer.

~~BG

There's a Hellhound on your tail, Steney Hoyer

You betray us by getting on the Kit Bond bandwagon and stabbing us in the back and grinding the Fourth Amendment under your heel, and we are coming for you.

Perhaps you should call Dick Gephardt. He lost his leadership role after betraying the majority of the Democratic caucus and rubberstamping bu$h's war.

What part of "No Telecom Immunity" do you not understand? The American people have made it profoundly clear that we do not want to let the them off the hook for being complicit in illegal domestic spying.

We are coming after you for this, and we are not going to back off. When I say you have a Hellhound on your tail, I mean it.

An ActBlue page was started yesterday, when it became clear that you were knuckling under like a weak-kneed little bitch and betraying the majority of the American voters. In just a few hours, nearly 2500 people contributed over $140,000 to be used targeting you in ads because you are not fit for leadership.


Glenn Greenwald is as pissed off as I am, and he takes Hoyer apart, and it's like watching a carcass cleaved apart with a laser. Glenn has the audacity to throw Hoyer's record back at him.

...What makes this behavior all the more appalling is that it contradicts every claim the Democratic Congressional leadership has made about what they believe. When the Lewis Libby criminal proceeding was pending, the entire House Democratic leadership -- including Hoyer -- wrote a letter to President Bush demanding that he not pardon Libby because -- and this is really what they said -- it is vital that the rule of law apply equally to everyone.

The telecom amnesty they're about to hand to companies that are major contributors of theirs violates every one of these principles exactly to the same extent, and for exactly the same reasons, as Bush's pardon of Libby would have (and as Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence did). By compelling the dismissal of lawsuits against telecoms even if they broke our domestic spying laws, Hoyer and other House Democrats are about to trample on what they called -- when it came time righteously to rail against George Bush -- the "fundamental tenet of equal treatment under the law."

More amazingly still, Hoyer himself -- back in March of this year -- pointed to the above-cited ruling form Judge Walker and argued that amnesty for telecoms would be corrupt and wrong. This is what Hoyer himself said back then:

Let me remind my colleagues of the statement by Judge Vaughn Walker, the chief judge of the Northern District of California, in a case involving AT&T's participation in this warrantless program.

Judge Walker, a Republican appointee, wrote: "AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal."

I submit that a reasonable –- responsible -– Congress would not seek to immunize conduct without knowing what conduct or misconduct it is immunizing.

What Steny Hoyer back in March called unreasonable and irresponsible is exactly what he is now about to do.

Back in March when, when Hoyer was against telecom immunity before he was for it, , he said "the most important thing this body does" is "uphold the law. Not just pass the law. Uphold the law."

So what happened? How did the "most important thing" the Congress does -- "uphold the law" -- suddenly become optional? By granting immunity to these very companies that a mere three months ago Hoyer himself was chastising, he is signing off on tyranny.

Glenn again:

No matter what, the Democrats are going to control the House and Senate after the 2008 election. What people like Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel are pursuing is the consolidation of their power so that they become entrenched and can control Congress for the next decade, at least. That's obviously their first and only objective, and they are willing to sacrifice anything that they perceive at all threatening to that goal -- including efforts to stop the war in Iraq, basic constitutional liberties, protections against warrantless eavesdropping, and the equal and firm application of the rule of law.

This isn't about whether Republicans or Democrats should control the Congress. That is already a settled matter. The Democrats are going to have control over both houses of Congress after 2008, and nobody disputes that. This is about whether the Democrats who control the Congress are even minimally accountable in how they exercise that control, whether they'll be permitted to trample upon the most basic principles in order cravenly to preserve their own power.

Right now, they perceive that the only political cost comes from opposing the Far Right on matters of constitutional protections and civil liberties. Thus, they're willing -- eager -- to trample on those protections and liberties in order to protect their own power. That dynamic needs to be reversed. They need to know that there is a bigger price to pay when they betray the promises they repeatedly make, the principles they continuously espouse, and the duties that they have to preserve basic precepts of equality under the law and core constitutional protections.

Greenwald is heading up the campaign to push back at Hoyer and we will be keeping an eye on it and keep you posted. If you have a couple of bucks to spare, you can throw them in the hat by clicking here.

It is about accountability. Accountability is a cornerstone of democracy, and it is high time it came back in vogue for our elected officials. Caving in to a war criminal and acting as a rubber stamp to enable the most heinous violations against the Constitution by the bu$h junta is an offense against the rule of law must be answered for. Conspiring with criminals to grant immunity to telecoms that illegally spied on Americans by listening in to our phone calls and reading our emails surely ought to rise to a level of outrage that demands it be brought before the bar of Justice.