Timothy Shriver, Concern Troll

Timothy Shriver says Hillary Clinton should just "do nothing" now that she's suspended her campaign. Hey, I'm sure that she thanks you for the advice, but it really wasn't necessary:

Hillary Clinton’s amazing campaign is over. Regardless of what one thinks of her, we can all appreciate the model she has set for women and girls. She’s redefined the possible in politics, and our country is forever changed because of her.

Pundits have already begun to evaluate her next political move. Senate leader? Legislative powerhouse? New York governor? None of the options seems exactly right.

At times of transition, when people don’t know where to turn, the spiritual world has an answer: Do nothing. Do nothing every day. Do nothing at all for several days and then continue doing nothing at least once a day for the rest of your life!

Sorry, Timothy. She's free to do whatever she damned well pleases, and your concern troll pleading to soothe her battered spirits underlies the fundamental reason why no one in your line of work understands her: doing nothing is what got us where we are today.

Doing nothing allowed George Bush to wreck the fucking country. Hillary was in there, every single day, trying to do something to stop it. You can complain about her vote for the war, but she was lied to like everyone else, and we're getting to the bottom of that, so you and everyone else can stop bitching at her for it. If she were to come out and say that it was a mistake, you and everyone else would bitch at her for that, too.

[If you want to comment, and bitch about the war, please do. But the point has already been made--voting to authorize the war was a mistake. Hillary was willing to do whatever it took to fix the problem, and she wasn't the one who suggested we stay there for a hundred years. So STFU.]

Now, the concern troll suggestion that she drop out of public life is all well and good, but I thank God for Hillary Clinton, because that's the last thing she's going to do. She's already back at work, fighting like crazy for the good of this country, and here's why:

For the next twenty or thirty years, a whole hell of a lot of us now get to work extra hard to un-fuck the country so that our grandkids can have something.

Hey, thanks for playing. Now, please go shut your fucking piehole and let us get to work.

--WS

FISA Showdown Today in the Senate

Scroll Down So You Can Read About The Fundraiser (SDSYCRATF)------------

We're watching. We're hoping. We're a blogging team with one workstation down and the other swamped with other things going on. We have our ears to the ground. We're paying attention.

We read Glenn Greenwald:

FISA does not expire on Friday. Only the Protect America Act, which amended FISA by increasing the President's powers, expires.

FISA -- which was passed in 1977 and amended multiple times since, including after 9/11 -- continues in full force and effect even if the PAA expires.

So every time you see the media talking about how the Democrats want to shut down the eavesdropping we do on terrorists, quote them Glenn's brilliant little summation. Then tell whoever is spouting such nonsense to STFU.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

The Shame of the Show-Me State (Which one, right?) Kit Bond tries to link giving blanket amnesty for telecoms to the issue of whether those companies will help when a child is kidnapped. What a shameless, despicable liar.

Bond tries to claim that the 4th Amendment rights of Americans will be protected--yet, he fails to note that CIA Director Hayden doesn't even understand the 4th Amendment and that DNI McConnel has said that Americans shouldn't expect privacy on the Internet anymore. Hilarious.

Russ Feingold speaks--the Senate should not be having a cloture vote today. The Senate should vote to improve the bill and add amendments.

"The conduct of the minority has been very disturbing on this."

You got that right.

Feingold CALLS OUT THE VICE PRESIDENT. Yes!

UPDATE II - PALE RIDER

Cornyn is crying about "cooperation" like the sob sister that he is. This is what Texas sends to the United States Senate? Good Lord.

The Republicans can lie like no other party. They will say anything to please a few campaign contributors.

Cornyn claims everything was done "within the law."

OK, then why can't we see the documents we need to see? People with clearances are blocked from seeing them. Perhaps we could just stop the fearmongering and admit what this is really about--the Bush administration has been caught spying on their political enemies. Retroactive immunity isn't worth exposing that fact.

Does Cornyn or any other Republican want to bring up Sibel Edmonds? Didn't think so.

UPDATE III - PALE RIDER

Saxby Chambliss--my God, what a tragic waste of a human being--lists a number of things that terrorists could do. All of which are under surveillance now, as they have always been and all of which will be even if this law expires.

Fearmongering is all these crazy bastards are good for. Lying and fearmongering. He doesn't even have an understanding of the legislation. He's just reading the carefully worded misdirection his staff wrote for him twenty minutes ago.

UPDATE IV and FINAL - PALE RIDER

WOW. Looks like their feeble arguments persuaded no one. It appears to be party line. Harkin didn't vote, Nelson didn't vote, and who gives a shit about Lieberman?

YEAs ---48
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-NE)
Obama (D-IL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

MoDo, shut up, just shut the hell up!

Someone get this bitch a saucer of milk and a Xanax.

I, for one, have not forgotten how she ruthlessly - and baselessly - pilloried Al Gore in 2000. I remember so vividly that I have a bail-fund set up in case I ever meet her on the street, because it will be redheads goin' at it, and I guarantee this one will win. (Always bet on the real one who has been nursing a grudge for the better part of a decade. Besides, I'm younger than her and in better shape than she is.)

Right now, she is swiping at Hillary. But that can turn on a dime - this nasty bitch is the ultimate player-hater. If Obama gets the nomination, she will simply redirect her spite and venom toward him.

She isn't a political pundit, she's a hateful harping harridan. Having never accomplished anything substantive in her own right, she makes her milk money by turning her poisoned pen toward anyone who does actually step up and take decisive action and try to make a difference.

It is easy for those of her ilk to tear down other peoples accomplishments. They mean nothing to people like her, because the only (feeble) "accomplishment" she can point to is a B.A. in English and a gig on the NY Times op-ed pages as their token shrew. Oh - and she has written a couple of really bad books that went immediately to the remaindered pile. I read her Lewinsky series back in the 90's. It was definitely not worth that Pulitzer that went to her head and cemented her over-blown sense of self and grandiose affect.

I have not heard a single person say "That was a good column by Dowd today" in, well, years. So here is the puzzler I keep returning to: Given the fact that the bloom is soooo gone from her rose, why doesn't the Times simply exile her to the style section where she would find her natural idiot-twit constituency? This is a mystery for the ages.