By the way, Wilson’s response, posted above, is obviously bullshit.

Forgot to mention that, but then again it’s as plain as the nose on your face.

Absolutely! It’s that doublespeak again. We all feel just so much safer without our civil liberties while they are on recess. Why I just wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I thought the KGB DHS wasn’t listening to my phone calls and reading my emails.

This kind of ignorance just drives me crazy.
1. This war is a lie, started by fools.
2. It was lost before it ever started.
3. It is destroying young men beyond calculation.
4. It is killing innocent civilians by the hundreds of thousands.
5. To continue will avail nothing but misery for all.
6. The true patriots in America do not live behind the beltway in D.C.
So senator What The Fuck open your goddamn eyes and use your mind for something other than a calculator stuck on two plus two equals 3

With regard to the recent legislative debacle involving warrantless wiretapping, Nadler said that the original Democratic House bill provided pretty much everything that they had been asked for by the Mike McConnell. But then the White House started smearing the Democrats with charges of being “weak on terror” and demanded major new changes, providing the administration with what Nadler termed “carte blanche” to spy without warrants or FISA court supervision. He said that Pelosi and Conyers thought the demands were outrageous but they decided to approve them anyhow lest they be–you guessed it–smeared with charges of being “weak on terror.”

[snip]

After the meeting I buttonholed Nadler and didn’t let him get away–following him out the side door, into the elevator, up the stairs, down the sidewalk, etc. until he finally escaped into his car. I was less in his face than some other people but asked him harder questions.

[snip]

Nadler had been very confident in the meeting but during our conversation he had a hard time looking me in the eye. I think he’s very strong at answering initial questions about impeachment and then a first round of follow-up questions. But if you can follow up to the follow-up questions you get him to the point where he runs out of pat answers and has to admit that his arguments don’t ultimately hold water. I think the best way to move Nadler is in small meetings where people can make him follow his arguments to their logical conclusion and show that they don’t hold water.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/25718

Well done, Jacob Park!

Shortly before noon last Saturday, about 20 House Democrats huddled in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to decide what to do about a surveillance bill that had been dumped on them by the Senate before it left town.

Many of the Democrats were furious.

[snip]

…Several members from swing districts — including Reps. Heath Shuler of North Carolina and Patrick J. Murphy of Pennsylvania – expressed openness to having Congress stay in town to fight if important constitutional issues were at stake.

But the moment passed.

http://journals.democraticunde…..idian/1426

scott says:
August 8th, 2007 at 4:47 am

Rahm Emanuel will be at La Villa Restaurant and Banquets, 3638 North Pulaski Road, Chicago, Il on Tuesday, 8/14/07 between 11:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M.

Democrats to protest Pelosi
by Annie Spell
Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 10:37:14 AM PDT

SEND A MESSAGE TO NANCY: “DO THE PEOPLE’S WORK!”

Monday, August 13, 2007
4:00 PM
Our Lady of the Gulf Church
228 South Beach Blvd.
Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..13337/9239

A couple of random points in response to earlier comments:

1. It seems that we now know of two Democratic Representatives (Ohio’s Charlie Wilson, and NC’s Heath Shuler) who voted for the Senate FISA bill in the House, but who admittedly would have preferred not to if given a choice between bills. In fact, Shuler (in one of the media accounts – perhaps EJ Dionne’s) seemingly was prepared to stand and resist the White House pressure, in order to pass the House FISA bill HR 3356 rather than the Senate-passed version, but was not able to sway the leadership to his point of view. I think this may be very significant in terms of where the pressure to ‘cave’ was really coming from (i.e., not primarily from the “Blue Dogs” per se).

2. As to the missing senators, I believe there are really only two possibilities here: Either the 60-vote margin for the Bond/McConnell bill was known for some hours in advance of the vote (as the unanimous consent agreement Reid proffered Friday evening was being negotiated), or else Harry Reid did not inform senators who had already left for the month that he had changed his mind about holding a Friday FISA vote, and scheduled it suddenly before they could return to Washington to participate. If the latter, there ought to be some very steamed senators out there – and in my opinion they should not cover for Harry Reid’s (possible) manipulations of the process, and put the blame where it lies.

But senators had to know that the Senate had recessed (at 11:30 a.m.) subject to the call of the Chair, rather than adjourning – and so I suppose they can’t really claim to have been caught off guard that significant business was done when the Chair called the Senate back into session before adjourning for the month late that night. This sequence of events needs more explanation – Tom Harkin, for example, seems to have been uninformed about the planned FISA vote; but was he informed before he left town of at least the possibility of a FISA vote that evening, and simply decided not to wait it out, or to join in the negotiations and deliberations leading up to it? I hope some of these missing senators will be upfront with us about these circumstances, and explain whether or not they were given full opportunity to participate in this FISA debate, and simply chose not to, or else knew that the (off-floor) debate had pretty much concluded and that the votes were counted and pre-determined before they left town.

Bush’sPenoir @ 72

Does anyone know — does Rahm have the balls to meet his constituents? I see nothing on his website and some who have called have previously reported being told nada.

Bush’sPenoir – A commenter posted details of an event that Rahm is apparently due to attend at a restaurant on August 14th. I’ll find that comment and post it below, FYI.

The “You Work For Us Summer Tour” is a great experiment to see if the netroots or what have you can raise the temperature beyond what they can take.

But without a credible option to vote for anyone else, c’mon, the Washington (D)’s know they can pretend to listen politely, maybe try some kabuki, and keep getting on with the business of raising money from corporations and lobbyists.

Primary challenges are heat that matters more, and if some neo-con with a (D) in front of their name wins, then ponder what Howie says at Downwithtyranny:

The Democrats’ most vulnerable incumbent is reactionary Mary Landrieu (LA) who has worked very hard to earn the contempt of progressives for years. The Republicans are likely to go after her with all their might. Let them. Progressives should let her go down to defeat, the same way we let the treacherous DLC congressman Harold Ford defeat himself in Tennessee last year. Last year we won a majority in the Senate without Ford and we’re better off without Ford. We’d be better off without Landrieu as well. She isn’t a Democrat except on the day she votes on organizing the Senate. There is no way to teach Democrats to vote in the interests of the grassroots unless the grassroots stand up and let them know there is a price to pay for perfidy.

“a price to pay for perfidy.”

Has a nice ring to it.

Here’s a price – if one is fond of venting against the stupidity,cost, and wrongness of the war in Iraq, what are you going to do if a neo-con (D) like Clinton or Obama gets in office and continues the war?

Or worse, uses nuclear weapons against Iran?

When I see/hear Ford, I feel the cold decrepit hand of Joe Lieberman writing his words.

And if Tennessee really won’t even consider sending anyone more liberal than Harold Ford to the Senate, then fuck it, let ‘em have a damn Republican. We’re not going to win all 100 Senate seats, and if we let people like Harold Ford veto our power to define ourselves — to the advantage of *Republicans*, whom you’d *THINK* Democrats would want to *OPPOSE* — we’re better off without him.

So, I won’t listen to overly shrill tendentious diatribes about how evil awful bad US militarism has been. Has it been any worse than other big countries in history who have had the means to inflict shock and awe on the weaker? I don’t think so.

it was better than leaving the American people unprotected for the next few months. -Charlie Wilson

I don’t doubt Bush would put the choice to Democrats that way. I just want to know if he said “We cannot do our jobs without this power,” or whether he said, “We *WILL* not do our jobs without this power… and *I*’ve got SS protection at my Crawford ranch, so I *know* I’m safe. Can any of y’all say that? No? Okay, then.”