Today is the day that we find out who the truer " patriots " are in our congress as the vote for cloture on the FISA/Protect America Act/Teloco Amnesty bill come before the Senate. It looks like both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be in D.C. to vote!
By mcjoan at DailyKos
Bumped. Today's the day, folks. Rumor is that McCain will not be on the floor this afternoon, but we can't trust rumor. We need to flip three of the Dem Senators listed below, all of whom voted with the Republicans to table the Judiciary version of the bill. Put the pressure on them. mcjoan
Jane breaks the great news that Senator Clinton will be on the floor tomorrow to vote against McConnell's cloture vote on the Intelligence Committee's pro-telco amnesty FISA bill. Beating this vote is critical, and good for Clinton for taking the time out of the campaign to do her current job. The Obama campaign hasn't yet said if he will be there, too, though he is scheduled to have a fundraiser in DC at 4:00. [Update: That was fast! Jane is now reporting that Obama will be there to vote no, too. This is great news. Thank you, Senators, for listening to us, and in turn, sending this critical message.]
This is good news for keeping this fight going, and good news for us. Citizen action, our pressure, is making a difference. The massive push back from the left has actually succeeded in throwing a monkey wrench into the works. That's not yet an out and out win, but it's movement in the right direction. Defeating this cloture vote is more movement. Forcing either a short-term extension of the PAA, or letting the bill lapse all together buys more time, and more opportunity, as Glenn explains.
Even just a two-week or one-month extension will allow more time to marshall the opposition to telecom immunity and a new FISA bill and to do what's possible to encourage the House to stand firm behind their bill -- in exactly the way that the Dodd Delay in December prevented quick and easy resolution. The longer this drags on without resolution, the more possible it is to push the opposition to a tipping point, and sometimes unexpected developments or even some luck (such as McConnell's overplaying his hand on Thursday) can prevent it all from happening.
As the events of the last two months demonstrate, if citizen opposition is channeled the right way, it can make a genuine difference in affecting the course of events in Washington. Defeating telecom immunity will keep alive the lawsuits that will almost certainly reveal to some extent what the Government did in illegally spying on Americans over the last six years or, at the very least, produce a judicial adjudication as to its illegality. And, in turn, the effects from that could be extremely significant. Because victories are so rare, it's easy to get lulled into believing that none of these campaigns are ever effective and that citizens can never affect any of it, which is precisely why it's so important to remind ourselves periodically of how untrue that proposition is.
So keep pushing, clear up until 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, EST.
The Senators we need to convince of this are those who voted with the Republicans to table the Leahy substitute amendment, the version of the bill that contained all of those protections, and didn't allow telco amnesty. One of them, Rockefeller, has already said he'll vote no on cloture. Call the rest of the Senators and tell them to stand with their majority on Monday's cloture vote and vote no.
- Bayh (202) 224-5623
- Carper (202) 224-2441
- Inouye (202) 224-3934
- Johnson (202) 224-5842
- Landrieu (202)224-5824
- McCaskill (202) 224-6154
- Mikulski (202) 224-4654
- Nelson (FL) (202) 224-5274
- Nelson (NE) (202) 224-6551
- Pryor (202) 224-2353
- Salazar (202) 224-5852
In addition, call or e-mail your own Senators. Both CREDO and EFF have great tools to make it easy.
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