FISA IN The Senate

  Maybe we'll get lucky and the Senate will choke of the FISA Bill and a few other bills that they are hurrying to pass before recess.

   DailyKos

Here's Harry Reid, on the floor earlier tonight, describing the problem and its consequences:

I know of only one holdup on our being able to complete the housing legislation. If we can't get that Senator to sign off on this, then we only have one alternative and that is we'll file cloture tomorrow on another arm of this housing legislation. We will have cloture on that two legislative days later and then we still have one more to do. Now, that would mean we would have to be here over the weekend. Now, that was not anticipated we would do that. In the meantime, having done that, we are not going to be able to -- it will hold up our being able to do FISA. We wanted to do a consent agreement on that tonight. That was -- I was told that would not be possible.

Now, Mr. President, on that, there are people who don't like the FISA legislation. Now, I recognize that the majority of the Senate does. But some people don't like it. But in spite of that, I have found the two people that speak out mostly against that -- and there are others -- but Senator Feingold and Senator Dodd have been very -- Senator Feingold and Senator Dodd have been very diligent in their opposition to the legislation. But, of course, they understand the Senate very well. They understand the Senate very well.

And so what we would like to do is have a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to that. Well, we can't do that unless it's by consent. So, therefore, we're going to have to do cloture on the motion to proceed to FISA at some later time. And then that only allows us to proceed to the bill. And then we still have to do cloture on the bill.

Now, Mr. President, FISA is a product of the administration. It's passed the House and that's fine. But we're not going to stop people from going home for the 4th of July recess over FISA. If people don't want to do it, then we're not going to do it. It's not because we're holding it up over here, is what I'm saying. It's being held up by the minority. Now, we're going to -- we're going to proceed and we're going to stay here and finish this housing bill. Mr. President, the Case-Schiller home price index registered the largest decline in home prices in that index's history. That's more than 40 years. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low. So we're going to finish the housing bill. It may knock a few people out of parades on July 4th, or whatever -- however long it takes us to do this.

Now, the other product we have that we want to finish before we go home is the supplemental appropriation bill. Again, Mr. President, there's been a delicately crafted piece of legislation that has come from the House on this. They've worked very hard to get the House leadership to approve that, Democratic and Republican, the President of the United States has signed off on this.

Is it everything that I want? Is it everything we want over here? The answer is no. But I think, Mr. President, it's something that will pass with a very large margin over here. But we can't get to it unless people allow us to get to it. And so that, too, would have to wait until we get back after the July 4th recess. I think that would be a shame. We've been [told] that the Pentagon can pay the bills until about the middle of February. Then they're out of money. Now, that -- the President -- I want the President, all of his people to hear what I'm saying. We are not holding up the supplemental. We, the Democrats, are not holding it up. We, the Democrats, are not holding up FISA.

It was an odd choice to schedule FISA for consideration before the supplemental. Nobody wants to go home for July 4th parades without passing the GI Bill, and a fair number of Senators feel the same way about the housing bill, the war funding and/or the unemployment benefits extenstion. Putting FISA -- a contentious bill that was sure to produce extended debate -- before the supplemental virtually guaranteed either a delayed adjournment or serious discomfort among the membership.

What an... interesting decision that was. Let's see how that plays out tomorrow, when debate resumes on the housing bill, and the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the FISA bill coming due in the afternoon.

Just like in December, the FISA bill suddenly faces long odds for passage before recess grants yet another (short) reprieve.

UPDATE: Some of you were left less than inspired by Reid's discussion of the procedure. To make up for it, here's Dodd on the substance.

Technorati Tags: FISA,Senate,telecom amnesty,Harry Reid,GI Bill

House Speaker Pelosi On John McCain's Energy Ideas

  Nancy Pelosi released a statement today, pretty much bashing John McCain's energy proposals, pretty much calling Senator McCain a flip-flopper.

“With American consumers and businesses struggling as the price at the pump cascades across our economy, Senator McCain’s proposals show he aims to continue the ‘drill and veto’ policies of the current Administration. John McCain’s energy proposal is an attempt to divert attention away from his recent flip flop and his support of the failed Bush-Cheney policies that have resulted in skyrocketing gasoline prices for consumers and skyrocketing profits for Big Oil.

“Last week, Senator McCain reversed himself and said we need to drill more. Today, he has reversed years of failing to support more efficient cars, new energy technologies and green jobs. Democrats welcome a debate on energy independence from Senator McCain, but we just don’t know which John McCain we are debating.

“Americans are suffering under the Bush-Cheney-McCain policies that were written by Big Oil: $4 a gallon gasoline; $136 per barrel oil and increased reliance on foreign sources of energy. Americans need and deserve a consistent vision for energy independence that will invest in real solutions from their next President.”

     The page on her site also list a few of McCain's missed opportunities when it has come to passing any real energy bills. Try this one below.

RENEWABLE ENERGY TAX INCENTIVES

Sen. John McCain missed two critical energy votes on H.R. 6, The Energy Independence and Security Act, in December 2007. These votes – on December 7th and 13th – would have stopped debate and allowed a vote on an energy bill that included critical tax incentives for renewable energy sources – a bill to strengthen national security, lower energy costs, reduce global warming, grow our economy and create new jobs, and increase American energy independence. These votes were critical to making a $21 billion investment in clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency, including a $3,000 tax credit to help working families afford fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles. On the morning of December 13th, Sen. John McCain was the only United States Senator to not vote on this measure. The cloture vote needed sixty votes to pass. It failed, 59-40 and Senate Republicans forced the tax credits to be stripped from the larger energy bill in order to protect $13 billion in subsidies for Big Oil. [Senate Vote #416, 12/7/07; Senate Vote #425, 12/13/07]

  The New Direction Congress, as Pelosi calls it, has 4 newer proposals coming to the floor of The House this week. They are:

· Reducing Transit Fares (H.R. 6052) - Gives grants to mass transit authorities to lower fares for commuters pinched at the pump and expand transit services.

· Cracking Down on Price Gouging- Gives enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and punish those who artificially inflate fuel prices, similar to legislation passed last year.

· Closing the “Enron-like London Loophole” for Petroleum Markets - Takes steps to curb excessive speculation in the energy futures markets, which experts have noted is driving up the price of a barrel of oil.

· “Use It Or Lose It” for Oil Companies Holding Permits and Not Drilling - Compels the oil industry to start drilling or lose permits on the 68 million acres of undeveloped federal oil reserves which they are currently warehousing, keeping domestic supply lower and prices higher.

  Reducing transit fares? That may work in some places, but I doubt if it will make a big dent in our lives over-all.

    Cracking down on price gouging? Haven't we heard this one many times before? I don't see the FTC looking into anyone for to much of any thing.

    I do like the " use it or lose it " bill. Oil companies have all of this land and sea to drill in, then they should either start the damned drilling or give those permits up. Not that the drilling would help you and I much.

Technorati Tags: Nancy Pelosi,John McCain,oil market,FTC

Our Democrats Support Bush with FISA Bill

   I think that it is time that all of these bums in Washington,DC  be kicked to the curb, especially after pretty much granting amnesty to the telecoms for illegally spying for the Bush administration.

  Cross-posted from AlterNet

Democrats Have Legalized Bush's Crimes

By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted June 21, 2008.

The Democratic leadership cleared the way for the president and his collaborators to evade punishment for defying the law.

Editor's note: You can read more about Obama backing a FISA "compromise" here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims that a key positive feature of the new wiretap "compromise" is that the bill reaffirms that the President must follow the law, even though the same bill virtually assures that no one will be held accountable for George W. Bush's violation of the earlier spying law. Share this article

In other words, in the guise of rejecting Bush's theories of an all-powerful presidency that is above the law, the Democratic leadership cleared the way for the President and his collaborators to evade punishment for defying the law.

So, why should anyone assume that the new legislative edict demanding that the President obey the law will get any more respect than the old one, which established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 as the "exclusive" means for authorizing electronic spying?

It wasn't that Bush and his team didn't understand the old law's language; they simply believed they could violate the law without consequence, under the radical theory that at a time of war -- even one as vaguely defined as the "war on terror" -- the President's powers trump all laws as well as the constitutional rights of citizens.

Essentially, Bush was betting that even if his warrantless wiretap program was disclosed -- as it was in December 2005 -- that he could trust his Republican congressional allies to protect him and could count on most Democrats not to have the guts to challenge him.

His bet proved to be a smart one. After the New York Times revealed the warrantless wiretaps two and a half years ago, Congress took no steps to hold Bush accountable. Before the 2006 elections, Pelosi declared that Bush's impeachment was "off the table."

Then, on the eve of the August 2007 recess, the Democratic-controlled Congress was stampeded into passing the "Protect America Act," which effectively legalized what Bush had already done and expanded his spying powers even more.

After that law was passed, U.S. news reports mostly parroted the White House claim that it "modernized" FISA and "narrowly" targeted overseas terror suspects who might call or e-mail their contacts in the United States.

However, it soon became clear that the law applied not just to terror suspects abroad who might communicate with Americans, but to anyone who is "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" and who might possess "foreign intelligence information," defined as anything that could be useful to U.S. foreign policy.

That meant that almost any American engaged in international commerce or dealing with foreign issues -- say, a businessman in touch with a foreign subsidiary or a U.S. reporter sending an overseas story back to his newspaper -- was vulnerable to warrantless intercepts approved on the say-so of two Bush subordinates, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence.

Beyond the breathtaking scope of this new authority, the Bush administration also snuck in a clause that granted forward-looking immunity from lawsuits to communications service providers that assisted the spying.

That removed one of the few safeguards against Bush's warrantless wiretaps: the concern among service providers that they might be sued by customers for handing over constitutionally protected information without a warrant.

In short, the "Protect America Act" made warrantless surveillance legally cost free for a collaborating service provider, tilting the scales even further in favor of the government's spying powers.  

Catching on

A week after the "Protect America Act" was passed, the New York Times and the Washington Post published front-page stories explaining how the Bush administration had ambushed the Democrats.

Pressed up against the start of the August recess and the prospect of Republican taunts that Democrats were "soft on terror," the Democratic leaders abandoned earlier compromise proposals and accepted the more expansive law. Their one point of resistance was putting a February 2008 sunset provision into the law.

Still, the Democratic cave-in in August 2007 provoked an uproar among rank-and-file Democrats. Pelosi's office reported receiving more than 200,000 angry e-mails.

Stung by the reaction, House Democratic leaders balked at White House pressure to make even more concessions, including retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies that had collaborated with Bush's warrantless wiretaps in the years after the 9/11 attacks.

In February 2008, to the surprise of many observers, the Democratic leadership allowed the "Protect America Act" to lapse. Though Republicans attacked the Democrats as expected, the accusations seemed to have little political resonance.

Nevertheless, the Democratic leadership -- behind Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, and Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland -- continued working on a compromise.

While the new version drops some of the more intrusive features of the "Protect America Act," such as allowing warrantless wiretaps of Americans outside the United States, the bill adds retroactive telecom immunity (only requiring the companies show they got a written order from the President).

The bill also would grant the administration emergency power to wiretap a target for up to one week before getting a warrant from the secret FISA court. But the bill bars the government from targeting a foreigner as a "back-door" way to spy on an American without a court warrant.

'Capitulation'

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisconsin, a strong constitutionalist, termed the new bill "not a compromise; it is a capitulation."

One of the bill's illusions would seem to be that the precedent of a President ignoring the FISA law and escaping any accountability can somehow be negated by restating what the original, violated law had declared.

In her June 20 floor statement, Pelosi said in her view this was a crucial feature of the bill, the statement that the President cannot ignore the FISA law again. However, Pelosi's position sounded like the words of an indulgent parent of a spoiled child: "This time I really mean it!"

The more powerful message from the latest Democratic compromise is that a President -- at least a Republican one -- can break the wiretap law under the cover of national security and expect to ride out the consequences.

Rather than reaffirming the rule of law and the Constitution's checks and balances, as Pelosi claimed, the new FISA "compromise" may have done the opposite, signaling that the President is above the law.

After Pelosi's speech, the House passed the bill by a 293-129 margin with 105 Democrats -- including most of the leadership -- voting in favor and 128 Democrats against. The bill then went to the Senate, which was expected to approve it.

Technorati Tags: FISA,Protect America Act,Congress,Senate,telecom amnesty,Nancy Pelosi,George Bush,illegal wiretaps,Russ Feingold

FISA: Why Care So Much?

   A lot of the MSM and many ordinary people in the United States can't seem to understand why people like myself and many others, along with various activist groups, are so up in arms over the FISA Bill and it's retroactive immunity for the telecoms and the Bush administration. Let's face it. By giving the phone companies retroactive immunity for illegally spying on us for George Bush and his partners in crime, our New Congress has basically given George Bush and his partners in crime a free pass from any accountability to the congress or to " We, The People " for Bush's illegal, criminal activities since moving into the White House. Our Congress has given Bush and ATT and Verizon the okay to go ahead and intercept our emails, IM's, faxes, and our phone calls without having any legal basis for doing so.

   Congress, on Thursday, gave the Bush administration an early Christmas present by giving him and his crime partners the rights to your privacy. Privacy isn't yours anymore in any form. Our Democratic Congress helped George Bush, the telecoms, and the rest of the Republicans steal your right to privacy, plain and simple! Nothing else needs to be said as there was/is no reason that this bill should have passed in its present form. The Democrats sold you and I out for a few dollars from the telecoms, towards their re-election. There is no other reason that makes any sense what so ever! We have been robbed and I am one mad motherfucker and I am not going to take this one laying down!

Hunter@ DailyKos

Why do so many people care so much about a mere technical issue such as whether such-and-such is legal or illegal?

I can count three reasons.

1. It goes to the heart of illegal actions by this administration. The Bush administration has broken law after law, and been enmeshed in scandal after scandal, and been met with no substantive actions. There are investigations that never end; there are stern letters that are never answered; there are subpoenas that are simply ignored. So to respond to a clearly illegal act by, of all possible things, writing legislation that offers retroactive immunity for those acts, maintains the secrecy of those acts, and declares that the Bush administration itself will be responsible for the future integrity of those acts -- it is patently asinine. It is an insult. It demonstrates a complete lack of regard for the law, and for the very responsibilities of each branch of government. In this, it is symbolic of the entire current Congress, which has proved itself all but nonfunctional when it comes to checking abuses by the executive branch -- or even by their own branch.

2.It is a Constitutional question, and of a sort that the administration has fought long and hard to cripple. Among the more basic premises of the Bill of Rights is the notion of probable cause; your government may not conduct searches or seizures without a warrant, and the judicial branch shall judge the merit of those warrants. But the Bush administration wishes simply nullify that entire concept, if those searches are electronic in nature. It takes no imagination at all to observe that once one type of widespread, warrantless, causeless electronic search is deemed to be outside of 4th Amendment protections, an entire series of other electronic searches will follow. That is, after all, the entire reason the Bush administration pursued these searches illegally, rather than attempting to change FISA law in advance; they have every intention of creating a precedent for future searches, and they now have been given exactly that.

3. It was easy. I mean, Jesus H. Christmas, it has been the easiest thing in the world -- all they had to do was not do it. It's not freakin' rocket science -- but thanks to the efforts of a number of Democrats, not just Rockefeller and Hoyer but people like Reid and Pelosi, they just couldn't not put immunity in. We were never told why it was so all-fired important -- they would never grace us with any non-childish, non-condescending, non-flagrantly-insulting explanation. But instead of just not passing bills granting immunity, we had Reid treating Dodd more shabbily than he ever treated any Republican, and Hoyer apparently going around Pelosi, and all manner of prodding and dealing by Democrats to get immunity for these acts. It is baffling, and the only rationale available seems to be the most cynical one -- it is merely doing the bidding of companies that provide substantive campaign contributions. No other explanation would seem to suffice.

So those are the reasons. Because of all the issues we've faced, in the last few years, this one was an absolute no-brainer, the one thing that the Democrats, no matter how stunningly incompetent, humiliatingly ineffective or bafflingly capitulating they may be, could manage to win simply by sitting on their damn hands. But no; it took serious work to lose on this one. Serious, burning-the-midnight-oil work to manage to quite so cravenly negate their own oversight duties.

And that is why this will not be forgotten anytime soon. A caucus willing to go to these lengths to satisfy the illegalities of the Bush administration is not one that can easily be defended. It is understandable that it would take a great deal of courage to enforce Congressional subpoenas. We can understand that voting against funding for the war could be risky, if we were to presume that Bush would simply keep the troops in the Iraqi desert to rot regardless of funding.

But this one? This petty, stinking issue of granting retroactive immunity to companies that violated the law, such that they need not even say how they violated the law, or when they violated the law, or how often, or against who, and the whole thing started before 9/11 so it is clear that terrorism wasn't even a prime factor for doing it -- that whole mess is now absolved, no lawsuits, no discovery, no evidence allowed to be presented?

No, that one is indefensible. It is indefensible because it requires not just passive acceptance of a corrupt administration performing illegal acts, but legislators actively condoning those acts with the stroke of a pen. The Democrats are determined to set themselves as partners in committing crimes, then absolving them; there should be nothing but contempt for such acts.

Technorati Tags: FISA,Protect America Act,telecom amnesty,George Bush,Democrats,warrantless wiretaps

Iran's Few Of The United States In Iraq

  All that we seem to hear about when it comes to Iraq is the tale of the " security " agreement that President Bush has been trying to shove down the Iraqi's throats. We already know what our government wants to do with Iraq and that it was only our government that had any input when it came to writing this agreement.

   The press in Iran has a different look at this agreement, which you may find somewhat interesting. It certainly is a different viewpoint from what we hear from our press.

  Tehran Times

June 21, 2008

U.S. colonialism in Iraq
By Ardeshir Ommani

Earlier this month, that part of humanity that respects its own freedom and dignity was a witness to an impending conclusion of a unilateral ‘security’ agreement between the U.S., the sole author of this forced concession, and the Iraqi government.

The one-sided accord is an example of colonial rule and a pseudo-legal foundation for the extension of the violent U.S. occupation of that country. By means of this so-called treaty, with no time and space limitations, George W. Bush’s Washington intends to disguise its ugly and brutal treatment of the people of Iraq with a veneer of legality, such that in the eyes of the least-informed American people, and some of the European members of the UN Security Council, the presence of the U.S. military machine in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region would not be construed as an indefinite continuation of the U.S. military occupation. Furthermore, the agreement would probably be exploited to serve as a basis for using Iraq’s territory as a launch pad for more wars against regional countries.
Meanwhile, in talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Tehran in early June, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei made his rejection of this proposed ‘security pact’ clear by stating that “occupiers who interfere in Iraq’s affairs through their military and security might” are the main cause of Iraq’s problems and are the “…main obstacle in the way of the Iraqi nation’s progress and prosperity.”
Clearly, there is no doubt that the continued aggression of U.S. forces in Iraq should not be tolerated by the Iranian people.
Some years ago, when the early draft version of today’s pact was in its infancy, the nationalist forces and religious leaders of Iraq were led to believe that signing the agreement would sooner or later lead to U.S. troop withdrawal and Iraq’s independence. But today that presumption has been turned on its head and it has become transparent to everyone that the U.S. objective is to pull the noose tight and attain the position of the permanent hangman of modern history. Today some Iraqi officials are trying to convince the Iraqi and Arab popular masses that the agreement will result in the invalidation of paragraph seven of the UN resolution on Iraq that made the U.S. the guarantor of Iraq’s security until the end of this year.
At the same time as this hoax is being pushed, the U.S., by attempting to depict Iran as a serious threat in the Persian Gulf region, is making every effort to define the agreement between Washington and Baghdad as a means to maintain Iraq’s security as a shield against Iranian interference in Iraq and the region. What hypocrisy: the invader of Iraq and Afghanistan claims to be an agent of peace and security!
This agreement imposes capitulation on Iraq for decades to come. It is revealing that the details of the ‘agreement’ have not been made public or grasped by the people of Iraq, who will have very little say in the matter and that is why the package is being furiously pushed through the Iraqi Parliament before its terms are thoroughly exposed. This so-called ‘security agreement’ could more correctly be called ‘The Legitimization of America’s Occupation of Iraq’. According to some reliable Iraqi sources, the agreement does not assure Iraq’s independence, national integrity, and national sovereignty as an inalienable right.
The empire also has to deal with its own American public, which is war-weary and demanding an end to the occupation. The intent of the Bush administration is to blur the differences between the Democratic and Republican candidates on the question of immediate troop withdrawal. Should the White House be able to impose such an enslaving order on the people of Iraq, the chance of Senator McCain’s election improves, while the lot of Senator Barack Obama plummets. It seems tricky George has a card up his sleeve for stealing yet another election.
Once again, the sorcerer in the White House is orchestrating another fabrication. If the current administration can pull this off, they intend to proclaim to the American people that the Iraqi people have agreed to the continuation of the U.S. occupation of their country and “want us to stay to protect them.”
On the other side of this cruel and long occupation stands a fighting force, led by Moqtada al-Sadr, who announced and called for widespread demonstrations against the disreputable and colonial infliction. Responding to the call on Friday, June 1, 2008, hundreds of thousands of indignant and offended Iraqis poured into the streets of all major cities and their reaction was a clear refutation of George W. Bush’s plot: they burned American flags in the hundreds.
Should this Washington document between the invader and the invaded succeed, it would be a clear violation of the national sovereignty of Iraq, to say the least. Meanwhile, the U.S. will continue to plunder Iraq’s natural resources and subject its labor force to the most de-humanizing exploitation and degradation.
The patriotic forces, first and foremost the laboring people’s movement, led by Moqtada al-Sadr, along with other nationalist organizations, have expressed their outrage over such an agreement, which would capitulate their country’s independence to an occupying power. Nevertheless, some Iraqi officials speak in favor of signing the agreement. A draft of this ‘agreement’ emerged for the first time in 2006. It was meant to serve as a legal document legitimizing the crimes committed by individual U.S. servicemen and contract mercenaries (Blackwater comes to mind) against Iraqi citizens with no involvement in the national conflict. The document deprives the Iraqi state apparatus of the right to arrest or prosecute any American involved in service to the occupation, even when he or she commits crimes not related to the U.S. war effort. In the last quarter of 2007, the Bush administration once again brought the issue of the ‘agreement’ forward for discussion in the Iraqi Parliament.
It could safely be said with a high degree of certainty that, for a long time, the U.S. has not been a country that is able to convince other nations to follow its path to peace, democracy and lasting prosperity, the way it has been showcased by an army of advertisers promoting the old cliché of American exceptionalism. In the minds of the overwhelming majority of humanity, including the nations of Western Europe that the U.S. has for almost a century taken for granted, the U.S. socioeconomic system has increasingly become a symbol of violence and fraud. The history of the last half century in particular brilliantly shows that the U.S. has been synonymous with wars, killings, palace coups, threats of annihilation, strangulating sanctions, and false allegations about many countries and nations on earth. Iraq and Afghanistan are only the latest examples

Technorati Tags: United States,Iraq,Iran,democracy,George Bush

Barack Obama's Statement On The FISA Bill

"Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.

"That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.

"After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act.

"Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance – making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

"It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives – and the liberty – of the American people."   Source

  If Barack Obama was truly against this bill, he would have told both the House and the Senate to kill this piece of garbage. Immunity for the telecoms is a slap in the face to Americans everywhere!

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,FISA,Protect America Act,George Bush,Harry Reid

The House Passes NEW War Funding

  If I remember things correctly, you and I were promised by the Democratic Party that we would see some changes in government when they rose up in numbers in both chambers of Congress. Cutting back and/or stopping U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq was one of the things that our new majority in the House and the Senate would put an end to.

   Have I missed something? We still have our men and women being sent to Iraq and President Bush is still getting the cash to run his little war games.

  Today, Bush got another chunk of money for the Iraq war, but he did have to give into a few of the Democratic demands of funding a few other programs which are much needed.

The Gavel

The House has just passed the fiscal year 2008 supplemental. This version of the supplemental reflects an agreement that was reached yesterday by the House Democratic Leadership, the House GOP Leadership, and the White House. The proposal consisted of two amendments. Amendment #1 provides DOD funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as passed by the Senate on May 22, 2008, and passed by a vote of 268-155. Amendment #2 will fully restore GI Bill education benefits for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, provide extended unemployment benefits to Americans struggling in an economy on the brink of recession, provide urgently-needed disaster relief in the response to the floods and tornadoes in the Midwest, and block damaging Medicaid regulations. Amendment #2 passed by a vote of 416-12.

  Now we can all hope that our troops will live long enough to enjoy the GI Bill benefits.

Technorati Tags: Congress,George Bush,GI Bill,Iraq,The House

Can Obama Defend America?

  Another view from overseas

GuardianUK

Michael Tomasky Thursday June 19, 2008

The last two days have brought the beginning of the debate that will be the most important of the presidential election. The fundamental question is whether Barack Obama can hold his own against John McCain on national security questions.

McCain and the Republicans will try to make the race about security and terrorism (other conservatives will make the race about race, which McCain will hopefully decry when the time comes with more than a nod and a wink). They'll trot out – as they just did for two days running – the same rhetoric that worked for George Bush against John Kerry in 2004. Will it be as effective this time around?

The current set-to started in the wake of the US supreme court's Boumediene decision last week, which extended habeas corpus rights to non-citizen prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay. As I wrote previously, Obama praised the decision and McCain called it "one of the worst" in American history.

On Monday, Obama gave an interview to ABC News in which he brought up the successful prosecutions of all but one of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. He said: "We were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in US prisons, incapacitated."

For the neocon circle around McCain, this was all they needed to hear. That girly-man Obama wants to arrest terrorists instead of kill them – read them their Miranda rights, make sure they have lawyers and gym privileges and pillows in their cells. So for two days running, McCain aides and supporters on the daily press conference call stressed that the comment proved that Obama had a "September 10 mindset", a famous phrase from the 2004 campaign, was advocating "a policy of delusion" and basically that if he became president we'd be lucky if we weren't all blown to smithereens by 2012.

This is the point at which the Kerry campaign would have done one of three things: one, said nothing and hoped the matter went away; two, said something lame along the lines of "Americans are tired of seeing their leaders play politics with our national security" and then tried to change the subject back to domestic issues; three, said something trying to prove that Kerry could be just as tough as Bush, which statement would inevitably seem laughable to conservatives, unpersuasive to moderates and cringe-inducing to liberals.

Besides all that, Kerry was all over the place on Iraq in 2004. The fact that he voted for the war meant he couldn't really call it a disaster or even an error with much credibility. And that in turn got him all twisted up like a pretzel on the war.

It's early days yet, but so far Obama seems to have learned from Kerry's mistakes. Obama returned serve quickly. "Let's think about this," he said Tuesday. "These are the same guys who helped engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11."

The charge had the benefit of being true. The McCain adviser who accused Obama of "delusion" is a certain Randy Scheunemann, a leading neocon Iraq war booster who was on the board of the Project for the New American Century, the chief right-wing intellectual glee club for the war. Being called delusional by Scheunemann is like being called a hypocrite by Eliot Spitzer.

Another who threw down against Obama in the McCain conference calls was former CIA director James Woolsey, who wrote after 9/11 that (I kid you not) Osama bin Laden "may well be responsible" for the attacks but really thought we needed to take very seriously the possibility that the attacks were "sponsored, supported and perhaps even ordered by Saddam Hussein." He's certifiable.

So Obama is not going to do what Democrats have done on military issues going back to the 1980s and on terrorism for seven years now. He's not going to say: "Hey, look at me, I can be a tough guy too." He's going to say: "The notion that these people are the tough guys is an illusion. They've screwed up everything they've touched, and there's a better way to do all this, and here it is." And by the way, Scheunemann and Woolsey are lying about him and the law-enforcement trope. Obama said in August 2007 that if he were presented with reliable intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts, he'd take him out. There is no contradiction in saying that the US or any country needs to use both law-enforcement and military options in fighting terrorism, and in fact it's obviously the only common-sense way to approach the matter. The Bush administration relies on law-enforcement techniques against terrorism every day of the year, as any administration would.

One of the main reasons I supported Obama in the primaries and always thought he'd be the Democrats' strongest candidate, whatever his drawbacks, is exactly this. He is willing to present a genuinely alternative view of foreign policy and America's role in the world and to stand up for that view and push back with it. He's not afraid of the big bad guys on the other side. The fact that he opposed the Iraq war from the start – which was a gamble, even for a state senator; if the war had gone well he not only wouldn't be the nominee, he probably wouldn't even have run in the first place – means that he has credibility as a critic that Kerry lacked.

Will it succeed? I don't know. The major political media in the US, which spent years watching such attacks work for Bush, operates for the most part on the assumption that they'll work for McCain, too. Certainly the coverage of the fracas on CNN on Tuesday, for example, was full of breathless assertions that McCain had Obama on the defensive and so on. The press won't drop this reflex easily.

But beyond the precincts of the media, out there in the land of regular voters, I suspect that Obama's strategy here will work, or at least will work well enough so that he doesn't get hammered on the issue. Solid majorities support his view that the Iraq war wasn't worth fighting and that we should withdraw as quickly as prudently possible. Large majorities support his "irresponsible" view that talking to world leaders we don't like is a good idea. His support for last week's supreme court decision, however, represents the minority view (for data on these last two, go here, and see question 13 for the supreme court decision and question 26 for meeting with hostile foreign leaders).

Obama doesn't need to win the national security fight. So many other issues tilt so strongly in his direction – the economy, healthcare, change versus experience and so on – that he merely needs to stand his ground on national security and not let it become the single defining issue of the race. It seems to me that the best way to do that is to push back. Certainly "ceding the issue", as Democrats have done since 9/11, has worked something other than wonders.

And importantly, putting forward an alternative view will come in handy not only before November but after it, if he's elected. It's the understatement of the millennium that America needs to change both its practice and its image in the world. A president who will radically depart from the radicalism of the past seven years is a pretty radical idea indeed.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,John McCain,Iraq,security,elections

Bush's Oil Policy Is A Fraud

  That jack-ass President Bush had his little speech today which was pretty much an attempt to raze the Congress for not opening up more of our lands to the oil companies for more drilling.

  President Bush: “First, we should expand American oil production by increasing access to the Outer Continental Shelf, or OCS.”

  But the facts as far as that drilling is concerned?

         Energy Information Administration: “The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. … Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.”

  So Mr. Bush, how would all of that extra drilling help me at the gas pumps right now?

President Bush: “Meanwhile, scientists have developed innovative techniques to reach ANWR’s oil with virtually no impact on the land or local wildlife. I urge members of Congress to allow this remote region to bring enormous benefits to the American people.”

Energy Information Administration: “The opening of ANWR is projected to have its largest oil price reduction impacts as follows … $0.75 per barrel in 2025 for the mean oil resource case…”

  So once again, none of George Bush's energy policy help either you or myself. I should make note though, that his ideas would help the big oil companies, of course.

   Now, here's a little fact sheet for you.

Drilling

· The fact is there are 68 million acres onshore and offshore in the U.S. that are leased by oil companies—open to drilling and actually under lease—but not developed.

· The fact is if oil companies tapped the 68 million federal acres of leased land, it could generate an estimated 4.8 million barrels of oil a day – six times what ANWR would produce at its peak.

· The fact is 80 percent of the oil available on the Outer Continental Shelf is in regions that are already open to leasing—but the oil companies haven’t decided it’s worth their time to drill there.

· The fact is that drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge wouldn’t yield any oil for 10 years—and then would only save the consumer 1.8 cents per gallon in 2025.

· The fact is that America uses a quarter of the world’s oil consumption every day—but only 1.6% of the world’s supply—so there’s simply no way to drill a solution.

Refinery Capacity

· We currently have excess oil refining capacity. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), our refineries are currently running at 88% capacity - well below the 95-98% capacity use rates we’ve seen this time of year for the last decade.

· No new oil refineries have been built in the past 30 years because major oil companies have not sought to build them:

1. ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP and Shell have publicly stated that they had no plans to build new refineries. Instead, they prefer to expand existing facilities.

2. Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP all testified that they were unaware of any environmental regulations preventing them from building new refineries or expanding existing ones.

3. Internal memos from oil companies make it clear that oil companies decided that they needed to reduce refinery capacity to drive up their profits.

   The Bush energy policy ideas suck big-time for both you and I, but not for his friends in the oil industry. We do not need more drilling. We need just a few oil company CEO prosecutions!

Technorati Tags: George Bush,energy,EIA,OCS,ANWR,Exxon Mobile,oil

John McCain's Flip-Flop On Social Security

  This old man just cannot remember one of his comments from another.

    John McCain has stated that he has never been for the privatization of Social Security, but that isn't exactly true. Are we surprised?

Original from DailyKos

John McCain, last week:

But I'm not for, quote, "privatizing" Social Security.  I never have been, I never will be.

And back in the day when, side by side with George Bush, John McCain fought to privatize Social Security.

2004: "Without privatization, I don't see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.  [C-Span Road to the White House, 11/18/2004]

2005: "McCain has been especially supportive of his onetime rival, appearing with Bush at three events over the past two days in trying to prod Democrats into negotiations to include private accounts in a plan to revamp Social Security." [Washington Post, 3/23/05]

2008: "As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it - along the lines of what President Bush proposed. I campaigned in support of President Bush's proposal and I campaigned with him, and I did town hall meetings with him." [Wall Street Journal, 3/3/08]

In the words of Barack Obama, "privatizing Social Security was a bad idea when George W. Bush proposed it. It's a bad idea today."  As for John McCain lying about his previous position?  It's yet another YouTube moment for Senator Straight Talk.^TM

Just another Republican jackass who has sold his soul for a trip to the White House. If the GOP is supposed to be God's party, then God has some major issues going on.

Technorati Tags: John McCain,George Bush,social security,YouTube

George Bush's Gifts To Israel

  Let us take a read from an editorial in a newspaper based in Syria concerning all of the military gifts which Israel has gotten from President Bush and others which they are requesting in aid. Weapons to Israel isn't the entire point of the editorial though.

Watching America

Why All These Gifts?

By Ahmad Hamada 2008-6-13
Syria - Al-Thawra - Original Article (Arabic)

The American President George Bush has agreed to increase American military aid to Israel so that it will reach thirty billion dollars over the course of the next ten years.
The Pentagon for its part is informing the American Congress about a proposal to provide Israel with what will amount to 25 T-6A training aircraft along with added equipment in a deal worth 190 million dollars. Among the characteristics [of these aircraft] is that they will lessen fuel requirements by 66 percent.
In addition to the two reports published by the American press, Israel has requested from Washington that they be supplied with 25 F-30 jets [sic, should be F-35 jets] as part of their yearly financial aid.
Perhaps the essential question which presents itself after all this enormous military assistance which Israel continues to receive from its main ally in the world is: what peace are they talking about?! And what kind of peace are they making plans for during the course of the next ten years when military aid reaches this unimaginable level over one decade, [a decade] during which it is assumed will be accomplished a movement towards promoting the establishment of desired peace in the region?!
And when we try to better understand American thinking which continues to insist on wars and inflaming the world and assistance to Israel, then the last question is: where are the plans of the United States to feed more than 40 million hungry Americans. Only yesterday the [United Nations] Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) disclosed at its conference in Rome that [these Americans] need less than a quarter of this amount in order to cross the threshold out of poverty and secure a free and decent life for their families.
Thirty billion dollars in gifts, presents and generosity from one [country] to another is unprecedented in the history of the relations of the countries of the world at a time when this country which is giving all this huge amount to Israel suffers from many problems, the least of which is that 40 million of its inhabitants suffer from miserable poverty!!

Technorati Tags: George Bush,Israel,foreign aid

John McCain: Some Facts On His Support For Troops

BarbinMD at DailyKos put together a little list of a few of John McCain's votes when it comes down to helping our veterans and our current service members. Many of you will know about these votes. For those of you who did not, welcome to reality!

• McCain has repeatedly voted against amendments in the Senate that would have...covered such important services as improving care at veterans’ hospitals, providing mental health services to soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse problems. [2006 Senate Vote #7, 2/2/2006]
• In 2006, McCain voted against the Kerry amendment that would eliminate increased fees and co-payments for veterans in the TRICARE health care program by raising the discretionary spending limit by approximately $10 billion. The provisions would have been fully offset by eliminating creating corporate tax breaks. [2006 Senate Vote #67, 3/16/2006]
• McCain was one of only 13 Republicans to vote against an amendment that added over $400 million for inpatient and outpatient care for veterans. [2006 Senate Vote #98, 4/26/2006]
• McCain voted against increasing funding for veterans health care by $2.8 billion in 2006. [2005 Senate Vote #55, 3/16/2005]
• McCain joined his Republican Senate cohorts in opposing exempting all military personnel and veterans from means testing in bankruptcy cases. [2005 Senate Vote #13, 3/1/2005]
• McCain opposed an amendment that would reduce from 60 to 55 the age at which certain members of the National Guard and Army reserves could receive retirement benefits. [2004 Senate Vote #136, 6/23/2004]
• Senator McCain opposed $322 million in funding for "battlefield clearance and safety equipment for U.S. troops in Iraq." A reduction in Iraqi reconstruction funds would have funded the additional protection for troops in the battlefield. [2003 Senate Vote #376, 10/2/2003]
• McCain voted against an amendment that would increase spending on the veterans health care program TRICARE by $20.3 billion over 10 years to members of the National Guard and Reserves. The increase would be offset by a reduction in tax cuts. [2003 Senate Vote #81, 3/25/2003]
• McCain opposed an amendment that would have increased veterans spending by $13 billion from 1997-2002 to be offset by closing corporate tax preferences and reinstating expired taxes. [1996 Senate Vote #115, 5/16/1996]

  It would seem that Senator McCain has forgotten all about the help which he received when he returned from Vietnam. He seems to forget a lot of things when it is convenient for him to do so. Should we remind the old man?

   This old liar does not have any business running the country that you and I live in.

   George Bush's third term? No thanks.

Technorati Tags: John McCain,elections,veterans,Republicans,TRICARE

John McCain: 3RD Bush Term

  John McCain has been a little ill lately because of Democrat Barack Obama always saying that a McCain presidency would be a 3rd Bush term.

   Check this video out and you'll see that Barack Obama is right.

3rd Bush Term

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,John McCain,George Bush,elections

Labor Wages and Paid Sick Days

  Just while browsing around the net, I ran into these interesting stats from the magazine Dollars & Sense, which also has many more interesting stories and stats for those of you who care about labor rights and other issues.

    Elise Gould tells us that only 57 percent of private industry workers have paid sick days while 43 percent have none at all. The funny thing is that the less that you earn as an hourly worker, the less chances are that you have paid sick days.  See the    CHART.

Workers at the bottom of the wage scale, those making less than $7.38 an hour, are five times less likely to have sick days than workers at the top of the scale, those making greater than $29.47 an hour. As the figure reveals, only 16% of low-wage workers have access to paid sick days, versus 79% of high-wage workers.

  If you're alive and breathing and you happen to be one of those workers in the chart, then you already know that your workers rights have been turning to shit over the past few decades. Paid sick days should be available to all workers on an equal basis based on your time of employment, not your wage rate.

Technorati Tags: labor,economy,wages,healthcare

Barack Obama and John McCain

  Obama doesn't stand for anything as far as " the issues " go, while McCain is the man with a plan? That's what the media would have you believe according to diarist  Stroszek at DailyKos.

Where Obama's web site boasts a 12 page document on the subject of energy independence alone, McCain simply offers three short paragraphs that outline a vague perspective:

John McCain Will Help Americans Hurting From High Gasoline And Food Costs. Americans need relief right now from high gas prices. John McCain will act immediately to reduce the pain of high gas prices.

John McCain Believes We Should Institute A Summer Gas Tax Holiday. Hard-working American families are suffering from higher gasoline prices. John McCain calls on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

John McCain Will Stop Filling The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) To Reduce Demand. International demand for oil is bolstered by federal purchases for the SPR. There is no reason to fill it when oil is so expensive; the overall SPR is of adequate size, and when it places further upward pressure on prices.

What about other economic issues? Obama's site offers a 48 page PDF dedicated to issues concerning the middle class. He also has separate sections that focus specifically on fiscal responsibility,  poverty, rural development, urban policy, and transportion.

McCain offers a little over 2,000 words, about the length of a short answer essay for Poli-Sci 101.

How about education? Obama has a 15 page document on PreK-to-12 education and a separate document on college affordability.

McCain has a page that consists of a few general statements of principle with no specific proposals beyond extending what George W. Bush has already done.

What about Iraq, allegedly McCain's big issue? He has a page, and again, it's mostly just a restatement of his ideological perspective. One of his proposals is, in fact, to "level with the American people." OK John, then level, but don't expect us to accept things like this:

More progress is necessary. The government must improve its ability to serve all Iraqis. A key test for the Iraqi government will be finding jobs in the security services and the civilian sector for the "Sons of Iraq" who have risked so much to battle terrorists.

Iraq will conduct two landmark elections in the near future – one for provincial governments in late 2008 and the other for the national government in 2009. John McCain believes we should welcome a larger United Nations role in supporting the elections. The key condition for successful elections is for American troops to continue to work with brave Iraqis to allow the voting to take place in relative freedom and security. Iraqis need to know that the U.S. will not abandon them, but will continue to press their politicians to show the necessary leadership to help develop their country.

Obama, of course, supports gradual redeployment coupled with implementation of the Biden plan to federalize Iraq. His is an entirely new approach to the problem. McCain's "plan" can be summed up by Bush's 2004 mantra: "Stay the course."

In all the other sections, from Health Care to Veterans Issues, McCain doesn't fare much better. On substance, Obama clearly has him beat, so if there's an "empty suit" in this race, anyone with internet access would have to conclude that it's John McCain.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,John McCain,elections,issues,Iraq,economy,healthcare,George Bush

The House Passes Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act With Veto Proof Majority

  This will make Bush come out kicking and screaming and holding his breathe until someone takes this bill away! Luckily, for those workers who can't find a job because of our great booming economy under Bush, this bill is going nowhere but into the books.

  The Gavel

The House has just passed the Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act, H.R. 5749, by a veto-proof margin of 274-137 after Republicans blocked the legislation yesterday. The legislation will immediately provide up to 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits in every state to workers exhausting the 26 weeks of regular unemployment benefits, providing much-needed relief to 3.8 million unemployed workers to assist them with rapidly rising gas and food costs, while they continue to struggle to find work in the slowing economy.

  A veto proof majority. What a concept!

Technorati Tags: unemployment,The House,Nancy Pelosi,Republicans,jpbs

Obama Beats McCain In Polling Match-ups: Still Has More Work To Do

  This from MSNBC

       In the head-to-head matchup, Obama leads McCain among African Americans (83-7 percent), Hispanics (62-28), women (52-33), Catholics (47-40), independents (41-36) and even blue-collar workers (47-42). Obama is also ahead among those who said they voted for Clinton in the Democratic primaries (61-19).

  That's a pretty damned good showing for Barack Obama over that old, live in the past, John McCain. It is noted though that Obama still has a few important areas to improve in, mainly white men who favor McCain ( 55-35 ), and white suburban women which McCain has the lead by 44-38 percent. Those will continue to be two tough areas for Barack Obama.

              However, Obama has a seven-point advantage (46-39) among all white women. How important is that lead? Newhouse explains that Republican candidates always expect to win white men by a substantial margin, but it is white women that usually decide the race. “If a Republican wins among white women, we usually win that election,” he says, noting that George W. Bush carried that group in 2000 and 2004.

  So what do the voters say that they want?

           In the survey, 54 percent say that they’re looking for a new president who would bring greater changes to current policies, even if that person is less experienced and tested. By contrast, 42 percent say they’d rather have a more experienced and tested person become president, even if that means fewer changes to current policies.

Moreover, 59 percent say it's more important to have a president who will focus on progress and moving America forward, versus 37 percent who would rather the president protect what has made America great.

“Voters are not convinced that McCain represents the change they want and that he’ll be all that different from Bush.” Indeed, according to the poll, 48 percent say it’s likely that Obama will be real change to the country. Just 21 percent say that of McCain.

   And last but not least, this bit of info.

     Fifty-four percent of the respondents in the poll — no matter whom they are voting for — believe that Obama will win in November. Only 30 percent think McCain will win.

  McCain has his work cut out for him along with Obama. The difference is, McCain is climbing up a very steep hill and it gets rockier for him every time that he opens his mouth. Keep up the good work, John-Boy!

Technorati Tags: MSNBC,Barack Obama,John McCain,elections,George Bush,Iraq

Feingold And Dodd Send Letter To Dem Leaders Concerning FISA Compromise

Original

June 10, 2008

Dear Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Chairman Leahy, Chairman Conyers, Chairman Rockefeller and Chairman Reyes,

As you work to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, we urge you to include key protections to safeguard the privacy of law-abiding Americans, and not to include provisions that would grant retroactive immunity to companies that allegedly cooperated in the President’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program.

With respect to immunity, we are particularly concerned about a proposal recently made by Senator Bond, and want to make clear that his proposal is just as unacceptable as the immunity provision in the Senate bill, which we vigorously opposed. As we understand it, the proposal would authorize secret proceedings in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to evaluate the companies’ immunity claims, but the court’s role would be limited to evaluating precisely the same question laid out in the Senate bill: whether a company received “a written request or directive from the Attorney General or the head of an element of the intelligence community … indicating that the activity was authorized by the President and determined to be lawful.”

Information declassified in the committee report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the FISA Amendments Act, S. 2248, confirms that the companies received exactly these materials:

The Committee can say, however, that beginning soon after September 11, 2001, the Executive branch provided written requests or directives to U.S. electronic communication service providers to obtain their assistance with communications intelligence activities that had been authorized by the President.

… The letters were provided to electronic communication service providers at regular intervals. All of the letters stated that the activities had been authorized by the President. All of the letters also stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Attorney General, except for one letter that covered a period of less than sixty days. That letter, which like all the others stated that the activities had been authorized by the President, stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Counsel to the President.

In other words, under the Bond proposal, the result of the FISA Court’s evaluation would be predetermined. Regardless of how much information it is permitted to review, what standard of review is employed, how open the proceedings are, and what role the plaintiffs’ lawyers are permitted to play, the FISA Court would be required to grant immunity. To agree to such a proposal would not represent a reasonable compromise.

As we have explained repeatedly in the past, existing law already immunizes telephone companies that respond in good faith to a government request, as long as that request meets certain clearly spelled-out statutory requirements. This carefully designed provision protects both the companies and the privacy of innocent Americans. It gives clear guidance to companies on what government requests it should comply with and what requests it should reject because the requirements of the law are not met. The courts should be permitted to apply this longstanding provision in the pending cases to determine whether the companies that allegedly participated in the program should be granted immunity.

We also urge you to correct the significant flaws in the FISA provisions of the Senate bill, some of which were addressed in the House version. The Senate bill authorizes widespread surveillance involving innocent Americans and does not provide adequate checks and balances to protect their rights. First, it permits the government to come up with its own procedures for deciding who is a target of surveillance, and provides no meaningful consequences if the FISA Court later determines the government’s procedures are not even reasonably designed to wiretap foreigners. Second, even if the government is wiretapping foreigners outside the U.S., those foreigners need not be terrorists, suspected of any wrongdoing, or even be of any specific intelligence interest. That means the government could legally collect all communications between Americans here at home and the rest of the world. Third, the Senate version of the bill failed to prohibit the practice of reverse targeting – namely, wiretapping a person overseas when what the government is really interested in is an American here at home with whom the foreigner is communicating. Fourth, the Senate version of the bill failed to include meaningful privacy protections for the Americans whose communications will be collected in vast new quantities. We strongly believe that these problems should be corrected as the legislation moves forward.

Thank you for your consideration of these concerns. As this legislation moves forward, please know that we will strongly oppose any legislation that includes a grant of unjustified retroactive immunity and that does not adequately protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans.

Sincerely,

Senator Russell D. Feingold
Christopher J. Dodd

Technorati Tags: FISA,ATT,Russell Feingold,Christopher Dodd,telecom amnesty,illegal wiretaps

Hard Core Neo-con John McBush, McCain

Consortiumnews

Article II Powers

Holtz-Eakin further cited Article II powers of the Constitution in explaining how McCain would act as President, suggesting that McCain -- like Bush -- would exercise virtually unlimited executive powers for the duration of the indefinite "war on terror."

McCain also has announced that he would appoint Supreme Court justices like Samuel Alito and John Roberts who -- along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- represent four votes in favor of reinterpreting the Constitution to grant the President the broad powers claimed by Bush and McCain.

If a President McCain gets to replace one of the five other justices with another Alito or Roberts, the new court majority could, in effect, rewrite the rules of the American Republic to declare the imperial presidency "constitutional."

If that happens, the American people would no longer possess "unalienable rights," as promised by the Founders and enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The President would possess what the neocons call "plenary" -- or total -- power.

John McCain may criticize President Bush on the edges of neoconservative policies, such as failing to prosecute the Iraq War more aggressively, and he may differ with Bush on the efficacy of torture, given McCain's own mistreatment as a Vietnam prisoner of war.

But there should be no doubt that a McCain victory would give the neocons another four-year lease on the White House. And, after those four years, there might be no feasible way back for the great American Republic.     Entire Article

  I hope that you read that very carefully. If not, go back and read it again, very slowly. This is what the country that you and I love will have to face if John McCain makes it into the White House. We cannot have that happen. I for one, love my freedoms, few that I now have, and you probably do also.

   If John McCain, as President, gets the chance to appoint someone to the Supreme Court, then we will all be fucked for a very, very long time. If I had wanted to live under a dictator, I would have moved to Cuba, or Russia, or China or one of the other " controlling " countries on this planet.

  All of the crap that you hear concerning the Protect America Act, FISA, and Homeland Security Department are not in place to protect you or I from a terrorist threat, they are in place to keep track of us.

   The only terrorist that you and I should be mighty concerned with, are the ones in the Republican Party as they are the terrorist!

  Now, read the entire article from above and get educated on McCain and the neo-cons. CONS indeed!

Technorati Tags: John McCain,George Bush,Republicans,the Constitution,Bill of Rights,Supreme Court,elections,2008

Fugitive Saudi Gets Pentagon Contract

  If this doesn't take the cake! Leave it to the Bush Crime Syndicate to give a contract to an individual who is wanted by the F.B.I.

  DailyKos

Gretchen Peters reports that the Pentagon has awarded an international fugitive, shadowy Saudi financier Gaith Pharaon, an $80 million contract to supply jet fuel in Afghanistan (h/t Ron Beasley). Pharaon is a fugitive from the FBI as well as the subject of investigations by France and Italy.

The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion.

The Saudi businessman was also named in a 2002 French parliamentary report as having links to informal money transfer networks called hawala, known to be used by traders and terrorists, including Al Qaeda.

Interestingly, Pharaon was also an investor in President George W. Bush's first business venture, Arbusto Energy.    More

  This creep was a fellow classmate of George's back at Harvard and his speacialty would seem to be banking scandals, remember BCCI and CenTrust?

    This bum is going to supply fuel to our pilots in Afghanistan. More of the Republicans support for our troops, I guess.

Technorati Tags: Gaith Pharaon,Pentagon,banking scandals,george Bush,Arbusto Energy,Al Qaeda

John McCain's New " General Election " Campaign

  Have you been to John McCain's website lately? Go check it out Here  if you have the time. If you have seen his old site, then you know how old and boring looking the place was. Well now, he's somewhat come into the 21st century with a real, modern looking site. One problem with this site though. It is almost a copy of Barack Obama's website!

  You can be damned sure that the Republicans know that they are in deep shit if they have to steal something from the Democrats in order to make themselves look good and trustworthy. McCain is neither one of these.

   On that note, a comment from georgia10 over at Daily Kos

Sat Jun 07, 2008

So yesterday, Senator John McCain released his first general election ad. It's playing in 54 media markets across 10 states - Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. You can watch the ad here. The full text of the ad:

"Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war. ... I was shot down over Vietnam and spent five years as a POW. ... I hate war. And I know how terrible its costs are. I'm running for president to keep the country I love safe. I'm John McCain, and I approve this message."

Who would have thought that John McCain would have put out the first anti-war ad of the general election?

For the no or low information voter, the average American who doesn't know much about John McCain, this introduction tells them two things: John McCain was a POW, and John McCain hates war.

And for us, who have known John McCain all along, it tell us that, as expected, the only way John McCain thinks he can win is if he sounds like a Democrat.

The transformation from "primary season" McCain to "general election" has been remarkable.  Gone is the austere black-and-white website and scrubbed is the text that McCain wants to send more troops into Iraq. The not-so-subtle slogan "the American president Americans have been waiting for" has been tossed aside, and sing-songs about bombing Iran are a distant memory.

Welcome the new, general election McCain.  His website is now bursting with color, and has an all-too-familiar logo on it. His slogan, riffing off of Obama's, is now "a leader we can believe in." His speech on Tuesday?  It was all about "change." In fact, McCain mentioned "change" twice as many times as Obama did in his victory speech on Tuesday.

It's not surprising that McCain is co-opting Obama's message (among other things).  After all, it's a message and a campaign theme that has clearly resonated with voters. It works.

But no matter how clever the McCain camp thinks it is by camouflaging itself in Obama's mantle of change and pragmatism, no amount of spankin' new marketing or rebranding can change the candidate himself. No amount of reinvention can alleviate McCain's YouTube Problem, or erase the fact that McCain has voted with President Bush almost 100% of the time over the last two years.   

In 1985, the Coca-Cola Company launched a new product, New Coke. It looked like traditional Coke, but was sweeter and was rolled out with a grand marketing campaign. The product lasted a whopping 77 days, as consumers, who weren't swayed by the savvy marketing, rejected the "new" Coke. 

The American people have a sophisticated palate when it comes to their Coke.  Will the same prove true for their candidates? Given how transparently obvious McCain's attempts are to conceal his true policies and positions, and how brazen his attempts are to market himself as a reasonable moderate when his record proves anything but, I suspect many Americans will find the "new" McCain entirely unappetizing. 

Brand new package for McCain, but the same old bull wrapped up inside.

Technorati Tags: John McCain,Youtube,elections,Barack Obama,marketing

Christianity And The U.S. Military

  Kind of on the sick side today so I've had ample time to cruise around the Internet while having no reason to do so.

   I ran across a website The Public Record, which has an interesting story about a lawsuit brought by Jeremy Hall and Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) because it seems as if Hall was denied a promotion because  of a pending lawsuit against the military.

He does not believe in God. Mr. Hall is an atheist and he refused to hold hands  and pray at a Thanksgiving dinner in 2006. It get really good from that point on.

The complaint alleges that Hall's First Amendment rights were violated as early as Thanksgiving 2006 when, because of his atheist beliefs, Hall declined to participate in a Christian prayer ceremony commemorating the holiday.

"Immediately after plaintiff made it known he would decline to join hands and pray, he was confronted, in the presence of other military personnel, by the senior ranking ... staff sergeant who asked plaintiff why he did not want to pray, whereupon plaintiff explained because he is an atheist," the lawsuit states. "The staff sergeant asked plaintiff what an atheist is and plaintiff responded it meant that he (plaintiff) did not believe in God. This response caused the staff sergeant to tell plaintiff that he would have to sit elsewhere for the Thanksgiving dinner. Nonetheless, plaintiff sat at the table in silence and finished his meal."

Additionally, the complaint alleges that last July, when Hall received permission by an Army chaplain to organize a meeting of other soldiers who shared his atheist beliefs, his supervisor, Army Major Freddy Welborn, broke up the gathering and threatened to retaliate against the soldier by charging him with violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The complaint also alleges that Welborn vowed to block Hall's reenlistment in the Army if the atheist group continued to meet - a violation of Hall's First Amendment rights under the Constitution.

"During the course of the meeting, defendant Wellborn confronted the attendees, disrupted the meeting and interfered with plaintiff Hall's and the other attendees' rights to discuss topics of their interests," the lawsuit alleges.

The complaint charges that Hall, who is based at Fort Riley, Kansas, has been forced to "submit to a religious test as a qualification to his post as a soldier in the United States Army," a violation of Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution.    Entire Article

Technorati Tags: U.S. Military,Christianity,First Amendment,Jeremy Hall

The Bush Economy Loses More Jobs In May

  This must be the Bush booming economy that we have heard so much about this year. Those permanent tax cuts are supposed to do what? Create jobs? I just don't see it.

The Gavel

Leader Hoyer:

It is increasingly clear that the only people who believe the Bush Administration’s policies are working are the cheerleaders who reside and work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Today’s dismal jobs report is more bad news for American workers, who not only are struggling with the reality or fear of job loss but also with decreasing household incomes, exploding gas and food prices, and skyrocketing health care costs.

While economists debate whether the economy is technically in recession, the one-half point jump in the unemployment rate in May to 5.5 percent and the loss of more than 300,000 jobs since the first of the year demonstrate that the Bush economy is wheezing to the finish line.

The American people want and deserve economic policies that are designed to generate economic growth and create jobs, to ensure tax equity and fairness, to invest in our future, and to restore fiscal responsibility. These are precisely the goals put forward in Senator Barack Obama’s dynamic economic plan, and I look forward to working on his behalf in the campaign ahead. It must trouble all Americans that Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has flip-flopped and now promises to pursue the Bush Administration’s failed economic program. Our nation needs to move in the new direction that Senator Obama has outlined. The last thing we need is the third Bush term that Senator McCain promises.

  But wait! There's more!

The number of people looking for work climbed 861,000 to 8.5 million in May. Nearly one in five of those looking for work have been jobless for six months or more. (BLS)

Average weekly earnings continue to fail to keep pace with inflation - up only 3.2 percent over the last year compared to nearly 4 percent inflation. (BLS)

Crude oil prices today reached a record $134 per barrel, and gas prices remain at a record of $3.99 a gallon - more than double that of 2001 - after setting new record high prices for 28 of 29 days. Diesel prices remain at near record levels, at $4.76 a gallon. (AAA)

Families faced the biggest jump in food prices in 18 years in April – as prices rose by more than 6 percent over the last quarter. The cost of bread is 14 percent higher than a year ago, while milk is up 13 percent. (BLS)

Technorati Tags: economy,jobs,George Bush,John McCain,employment,inflation