Login HereThe essence of the new agreement is that most of the amendments will be subject to a simple up-or-down vote -- if they get 50 votes, then they pass -- while several of the amendments will require 60 votes to pass (allowing, in essence, the Republicans to filibuster those amendments without actually having to go to the Senate floor and engage in a real filibuster).
Senate Democratic leadership sources are trying to claim that this is some sort of victory for Senate Democrats, and echoing that sentiment, even some of the most insightful and knowledgeable around -- such as McJoan at Daily Kos -- are hailing the agreement as evidence that "Dems didn't cave" and that "they held tough." Unless there is something I'm overlooking, I don't understand that perspective at all.
It seems rather clear what happened here. There are certain amendments that are not going to get even 50 votes -- including the Dodd/Feingold amendment to strip telecom immunity out of the bill -- and, for that reason, Republicans were more than willing to agree to a 50-vote threshold, since they know those amendments won't pass even in a simple up-or-down vote.
But then, there are other amendments which might be able to get 50 votes, but cannot get 60 votes -- such as Feinstein's amendment to transfer the telecom cases to the FISA court and her other amendment providing that FISA is the "exclusive means" for eavesdropping -- and, thus, those are the amendments for which the GOP insisted upon a 60-vote requirement.
The whole agreement seems designed to ensure that the GOP gets everything they want -- that they are able to defeat all of the pending amendments which Dick Cheney dislikes, and to do so without having to engage in a real filibuster. In what conceivable way is this an instance of "Dems not caving" or "holding tough?"
Dodd agreed to Unanimous Consent regarding the time limits to debate various amendments. Dodd will get up and talk about retroactive immunity, but this agreement limits what he can do to stop things from going forward. We're trying to get clarification, but the short version seems to be that at the end of the day there will be a cloture vote unless there are 40 senators willing to stand with him -- and there aren't.
We'll keep you posted on how it goes down, but it looks like the House is now driving this.
How this is anything other than utter capitulation to Mr. 25% JAR on Harry Reid's part is beyond me.
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NOOOOO
Coup D’Etat…one drip at a time…
Damn!
What a crock! All this work and NO Backbone!
Get rid of them all. FUCK!
Is Reid impeachable? Because he’s surely not doing the job we-the-public are paying him for.
(’Rubber stamp’ is not in the public version of his job description, AFAIK, and if there’s a secret version, it should be illegal.)
I am dumbfounded
I cannot take this
November can’t get here soon enough.
Yesterday I heard a conversation on FISA in MPR and I think I heard one of the guests say that retroactive immunity is unconstitutional. Can this law be challenged in court?
Yeah, I know, the Roberts Court. Well, we might’s well get all of ‘em on the record…so history will know who’s responsible for:
U.S. Constitution…R.I.P.
I cannot stand another second of politics tonight, this is driving me nutzo
see all tomorrow
Ooooooh, that hurts!
Fuck Hairless Reid.
-G
I can’t imagine what else they’ll accomplish before November. Even then we’re stuck with the most useless leadership on the planet.
Dammit, Edwards and now this. What have they got on Reid? Or his family? Can’t he resign and let someone who honors the constitution lead the fight? Arghhhh!!!
Thanks Jane I don’t like what I read but it is necessary that we have the information so we can now start formulating where we go next to ry and get this immunity removed from this bill!
Dugg it!
It’s time to man the phones and the toobz between now and Monday.
Jane, please put up your list of the Dems who voted the wrong way originally on this. Just maybe, public sentiment can save (sway) the day.
predictable outcome.
Pull back to the big picture. Go back to the PNAC documents and do a timeline forward…Cheney picking himself as VP…Bushco appointed by SCOTUS…spying starts early 2001…9/11…Patriot Act….and on and on and on….
It is all in the timeline….they are ruthless, and they will stop at nothing..
God Help Us.
The immunity in the bill covers 9-11 forward to PAA. Didn’t Nacchio suggest some bad acts prior to 9-11? Shouldn’t we still go after those?
Let’s not despair. As Darcy Burner learned today, we can be a blogSWARM!
Surprise!
SHIT!
(To coin a phrase)
Clinton and Obama were dragged kicking and screaming into nominally supporting Dodd and Feingold because they had something to lose — the support of engaged potential voters — if they hadn’t.
What do Feinstein and Schumer and the other Yellow Puddle Democrats have to lose by not backing Dodd and Feingold? I’m asking this seriously. What do they have to lose that we can see to it they do lose if they don’t stand opposed to cloture on Dodd’s filibuster? We need 40 votes against cloture. Is there no leverage we can bring to bear on the corporate Democrats to force them to do the right thing?
So what is always with the pretense of the Dems “fighting” in the first place?
Lucy!
Hehehe.
Feinstein is married to a war profiteer. She votes with the republics more than the Dems. Her husband was under investigation that all seems to have vanished.
Did she learn that? Have we heard from her?
Yeah. That was supposed to be a big cover story in The Nation a year or so ago and it got “disappeared.”
I thought the handwriting was on the wall when the votes the other day were 45-48, twice. We couldn’t even get 50 votes. This is going down on the day before Election Day if I read this right. That means that there are likely to be many empty seats on the 4th. Each of those seats must be considered the same as a no vote, because only the yes votes count in a situation wherein you need 50 votes to win. Same reason that we could never really gather enough support to impeach anyone. My disgust is immeasurable, but I can still count.
Adjusting my tin foil hat….
Just exactly are they using to keep these weak knee Dems in line?
Nothing, nothing could be worse than the crimes of GWB…. spill it and be free
Does anyone know if spine transplants are covered with the Congressional Health Plan?
Jane How do we get Harry removed as Majority Leader? Is there anything that can be done to remove him legally?
The only thing that would surprise me anymore is if the Dem Leadership actually stood their ground and fought for the American people and their base…who’ve they screwed again. They talk big and then ALWAYS CAVE….F**K them and their mothers and the ship they came in on…
I think the Dems will find some way to blow this next Presidential election too…..
I didn’t vote for her in the last election. She has nothing to lose since she isn’t running again.
It appears Sen Feingold is good with it.
http://tpmmuckraker.com/2008/0.....rveill.php
Who is caving now?
Feingold took a lot of cheap shots at Edwards. His apparent backbone on this matter has withered.
It’s been pretty clear to anyone watching with one eye shut that DiFi is personally profiting from WOT.
Happy Corproate Sovereignty Day!
I was reading Glenzilla on this earlier today. Thanks for bringing the debate over here.
It looks to me like what we need to do is
(1) mobilize our troops to phone, fax and email our Senators to support every single one of the good amendments (mainly those by Feingold &/or Dodd) but not the one by Bond/Rockefeller
(2) ask our senators to support any Dodd or Feingold filibusters
(3) ask our Conference Committee senators to cede to the House version of the bill,
(4) ask our representatives to vote *against* the reconciled bill if it is as bad as we suspect it will be;
(4) hope that Bush vetos the bill entirely out of pique that we haven’t totally caved in on everything.
We should point out to everyone that the 1978 law that is on the books, plus the extension on certain parts of the PAA will give the gov’t everything they need for the rest of Bush’s term of office.
Have I got all that straight?
Bob in HI
New Harry Reid Hearts Mitch McConnell doll.
and Happy Corporate Sovereignty Day, as well!
Two words: conference committee.
If they like, Reid and Pelosi can appoint only immunity-opposing Senators to that committee and win the vote.
There are still options–we just have to fight hard enough to make the leadership use them.
I kind of wish MoveOne would have held back their endorsement until this was resolved.
EEEck. MoveOn
This is exactly why I suggested (at emptywheel’s place today and Think Progress yesterday) a compromise to allow the immunity in exchange for net neutrality. Hell, even if immunity was stripped, Bush would find a way to prevent anything from happening, either via signing statement or through the DOJ.
I just fucking knew Reid and others would cave and that we’d get jack shit, while BushCo got everything it wanted.
And, lo and behold, that’s what happened.
It was what I expected.
Like the song “You win again.”
damn!
You gotta be joking. Fuck. This has been a bad week.
Obama and Clinton need to lead on this or they wont get my vote on Tuesday.
This procedural stuff is hard to follow. I’ll take Greenwald’s analysis as the correct one for now but maybe he is partly wrong since Feingold and Dodd are on board. Are they being fooled too? Are they folding? We will know soon enough.
As if the calculus needs to be drawn out again, here goes. There will be another significant terror attack here, sometime. All these votes and laws and anti laws are meant as political cover. “See, we did everything we could to stop it they can say”
It was an astounding thing that not one iota of blame was ever put on Bush for 911, fairly or not. You know if Gore had been president he would probably have been impeached, even if he had done the follow up in Minnesota and caught the whiff of oddness at the Florida flight school and got the CIA info to the FBI about the guys living in California. All that and still the plot might have gone on. It was a slam dunk because of faiilures going right to the top and Bush skated. Anyway, Democrats know they can’t skate the next one so they shuck and jive to this dance.
Fuckery, plain and simple.
It’s been pretty clear to anyone watching with one eye shut that DiFi is personally profiting from WOT
from 37.
what is WOT?
I’m dubious about the argument that it’s Unconstitutional if the basis of that is that it represents an ex post facto law. Ex post facto applies only in cases were a law where individuals who confront prosecution is passed after their acts, or where penalties are increased.
It doesn’t apply to cases where laws are voided or penalties reduced. Recall that the amnesty of Draft Dodgers during Vietnam, those who fought against the Union in the Civil War, Shay’s Rebellion. There are hundreds of laws that have been voided or reduced in US history…I’ve never heard anyone challenge them on the basis that those who were released or had their sentences revised downward were being shown leniency Unconstitutionally?
War on Terra.
what did Reagan used to say ?
There they go again.
war on terror
Oh, crap.
lol - he got that right
My contempt for Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman knows no bounds.
Really.
How do we change the Majority leaders. It is pay back time for Harry Reid. He has done nothing for the party since given leadership. Lets get a primary candidate ready to challenge him in his next electionstarting now. Lets start the Boot Harry & Nancy Fund.
Emptywheel has a lot more analysis on this topic on her branch as well as some strategic discussion about what’s possible and where lobbying should focus.
LATimes endorses McCain and Obama….
makes me lean heavily toward Clinton.
Holy Shit! :o)
One of the biggest of the netroots organizations votes for Obama 70-30!…and they endorse him.
James Brown, I feel good, too!!! :O)
John? Al? :o)
(cross-posted from EW’s place a few hrs ago:)
W/r/t the UC plan, I don’t have a good feeling about it. The R’s wouldn’t have agreed to any thresholds they’re not confident they’ll be able to prevail on, at least not for the ones that really matter. Smells like a Pyrrhic victory to me — yeah, we got the right to vote on amendments, but so frickin’ what since (and where have we heard this one before?) the votes are all rigged. And I include the Monday schedule there — going back to my earlier comment, Reid now seems to have taken Super Tuesday into account all right, but not in a positive way since he may well be down 2 hands when it matters most.
I hope other Senators join Feingold if he should have to Filibuster.
One thing that would be very helpful would be if someone could put together a concise list of each amendment (by amendment number) and how we think our senators should vote on them. There is a large number of amendments - I think it will be very confusing for most of the Senators who aren’t on either the SSCI or Judiciary Committee. That list would then become the basis of our faxes and e-mails.
damn. that’s what i was saying this morning. wtf made the dems cave on this one?
the republicans have made it clear since dec 17 that they did NOT want to filibuster. dodd et al had a real lever of power. why did they give it away?
damn. damn… when christy and cboldt jumped all over me, i was hoping i had it wrong.
cboldt thinks there won’t be a conference committee, but christy thinks otherwise.
The scripts are written in the back rooms..we get excited by what we see on C-Span but the ending is already determined. All the filibuster talk is crap..all that it would have taken is for one Senator to object to the UC. The mixing of majority and 60 votes on amendments means, as Glenn points out, that the UC was structured for the Thugs to win. It’s easy to point the finger at Harry, but the reality is that the Thugs have a reliable 10-14 Bush Dogs to work with. The bottom line is that a lot of big talk and outrage but no objection to the UC. After Feingold’s slap at Edwards; I now think the score is even.
that would have required objecting to this UC.
yes.
i wonder if they got a good price for their capitulation. 30 pieces of silver?
How do we know they’ll do that? It seems like at least Reid is going out of his way to do the opposite.
They’re codependents in an abusive relationship WRT The Most Holy George W. Christ The Infallible. Perhaps we ought to send them some books on the subject.
Exactly, the filibuster talk is Kabuki..The objection to the UCs would have forced them to grind it out vote by vote and would have gummed up the Senate schedule. Any Senator doing that would have been thrown out of the club..I guess none of the 14 though it was worth it..too bad.
Jane- your first sentence:
“Harry Reid once again used Senate procedure to tank retroactive immunity…”
To me tank = deep six, so maybe a slip of the pen?
you know, i don’t think i’d be quite so pissed if they didn’t try to bullshit me about it.
I get the feeling that something’s going on that I don’t understand. I can’t see Dodd or Feingold agreeing to UC if they knew that the retroactive immunity would pass. Wouldn’t either of them, but particularly Dodd, attempt to filibuster? What’s up?
the only way i could see to prevent immunity was a poison pill amendment passing - one that would make cheney tell bush to veto it.
so, they give up on the best way they had to stop it.
i have never seen either of them object to their leadership’s decisions (except dodd breifly last dec). in the end they’ve always gone along… i guess this time is no different.
Sorry, imprecise. I should have said: I hope other Senators will join Feingold in voting against final cloture on the bill should it become necessary.
That’s what makes me rather sad about the calling and faxing…we are responding to the fiction that we watch on C-Span..it isn’t real. The bottom line is, Harry doesn’t have the votes. The Republicans have a reliable majority of 60-62 votes.
I did my part and called my senator and also Clinton’s and Obama’s offices and urged them to get off the campaign trail on Monday to be in the Senate and back their words with a vote to strip immunity from the bill. Feeling good about that, I then read Glenn Greenwald’s piece last night and immediately realized that the amendment will not pass and became depressed.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g.....index.html
Seriously, assuming all of the Republicans show, there is no way the amendment stripping immunity passes. Joe Lieberman voting for the amendment? LOL. Besides, if the vote is close, Darth Cheney will be there with his tie breaker. Likelihood of him needing to be there, slim or none. In fact, all you will need to know about the capitulation by Reid will be evident once it becomes apparent that Darth didn’t even bother to take the ride down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Senate. Therefore, telecom immunity for ATT and Bush & Cheney will be a fact of life after Monday.
In the end, all of this comes down to Harry Reid’s total lack of effectiveness as a majority leader in starting with the intelligence committee bill rather than the judiciary cmttee version. Everything after that is pure kabuki, including the votes earlier this week.
The only remaining hope then will be the House, with its ineffective leader, Nancy “Impeachment is off the table” Pelosi. In other words, not much hope there either.
Someone please tell me again ANYTHING positive about Reid and Pelosi and what has been accomplished with a supposedly Democratic controlled congress?
You know, it seems to me that there might actually be a way to stall the whole thing. Don’t they need a quorum? What’s to prevent our Dems from just not showing up the day before election day? Are these people in such an ivory tower that they’ve never actually heard of blue flu? The way I see it, if a strike is good enough for the blue collar workers (especially over health and safety issues), then it should be employed by these Senators if they care anything at all about the health and safety of the Republic. Why haven’t they made a public fuss about this to get the people on their side? The Prez has the biggest bully pulpit in the world; why haven’t many, many Senators sought press conferences over this? Keith and even Jon Stewart did bits about what’s happening to our Republic. If you missed it last night, Raw Story has the funniest part of last night’s show (on signing statements and their effects) here.
Harry intended to screw Dodd from day one. What I don’t understand is how Dodd went along consenting to UC on all of this.
this shit just makes me want to go and buy hard liquor again so I can get smashed.
I just want to scream.
These have always been 60+ votes to pass the Cheney bill..McConnell overplayed his hand and put the Dems who wanted to vote for it in a bad position. The UC is structured to allow everything that Cheney wants to become law and at the same time provide cover for the ~12 Dems who want to vote for it.
Demopussies
As was said in a thread yesterday somewhere, Harry and Nancy are doing exactly what they want to do. They are not on “our” side—that is the side of the rule of law.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The consequences for objecting to the UC would have been severe. The Republicans could do it because they vote as a block. The number of Dem Senators who are willing to stick their necks out over this is probably less than 10..not enough to protect a Senator who objected to the UC.
That may be true. But until the votes happen, I’m going to make it as tough on those Dems (including my own senator - McCaskill - who was one of the 12) as possible. That means faxing this weekend and phone calls on Monday. We need to see this one through until the end.
The U.S. Congress has become a very bad joke. Unfortunately no one is laughing except for Reid and Bush. Bush will be gone in less than a year. Hope it’s the same for Reid.
Ding!
Could you explain what the consequences are or direct me to where I can find them already explained, please? I haven’t had a chance to read the entire thread, just the post and the comments toward the bottom.
Harry probably lied to him.
Or Harry’s mind got changed afterward.
I’d like to know what they’re using on the Democratic non-leadership, to get them to fold every f*cking time they come to ‘hold or fold’.
If I hear one more time what a poker player Harry is . . . . .
don’t ask.
Time to ask who he things his opponent is, maybe. Same with the overworked boxing analogy. Seems to me the public are the ones being kept outside by that good jab of his.
in this case i don’t think that is true for all the amendments - if it was, the Rs would not have been freaking out over having simple majority votes. i think we could have won some of these - if they were allowed to pass with a simple majority… BECAUSE THE REPUBLICANS WERE NOT GOING TO FILIBUSTER (which would have required 60 votes to get cloture). i think we had this one in the bag and blew it.
How do we get rid of Harry Reid? It’s way past time to start looking for ways to replace the Democratic leadership.
Would you agree that “we” does not necessarily include Harry? In the sense that he’s perhaps more “they” than “we”?
“So that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth…”
I don’t have the link “handy” but when this first began, KagroX wrote a diary about how the Senate “really works”. Basically the Senate can’t function without UCs. There is a lot of horse trading and arranging by staffers to formulate the UC. A “hold” is nothing more than a notification to the majority leader that a Senator will object to a UC. If, a Republican puts a hold, they can make it stick. The Dems don’t usually have the votes to do the same. If a Senator or small group objects and pisses off enough people..They will never get legislation or amendments or projects for their States again. That is the nuclear option to keep “maverick” senators in line.
it’s not just reid - any senator could have blocked the UC. that they did not means that either:
1) they like the agreement
2) they price they would have to pay was too high - because the vast majority of the caucus wants the bills to pass and will exact a steep price on anyone who gets sin their way.
i think that is true for not just reid, but also most of the senators.
Ok you want to put a stop to this, then boycott buying anything other than what’s necessary to survive. I mean it. We have the clot, if we are willing to use it. But there has to be unity within the progressive community and a clear and easily understandable explanation of why you should boycott. And also, as a carrot, tell the progressive populous, if successful here, we can extend this method for other actions, such as impeaching bush and gang. Note that the MSM would most certainly pick this up, maybe in a big way, so there is our voice to the general public.
I think the amendments were carefully placed in each category, some will pass some will fail but the ones that count have been carefully coordinated to pass or fail. Kabuki. This is what was supposed to happen last week but Mitch got a little to full of himself and screwed it up.
Mr. Reid seems to have spent most of his time falsely allaying the fears of Democrats that he would cave. His job was to confront the GOP and their president over demands that they - along with their corporate aiders and abettors - should immunized from their past, current and future criminal behavior.
Mr. Reid is a coward and a liar. As is each Senator who supports him and his tactics on this issue.
I’ve lived in SF since ‘76 and I have ALWAYS felt she was a Rep in Dem clothing. It was and is IMPOSSIBLE to be elected in SF, the Bay Area and at that time California as a republican. So consider yourself warned:SHE IS A REPUBLICAN or a raging DINO.
I admit I don’t know enough about the prerogatives of being Majority Leader to know how much power Reid actually has to direct the course of events in ways opposed by a majority of Senators, but what we’re dealing with, after all, is a Republican agenda of unrelenting all-fronts attack on the constitutional foundations of the country, with the support of a significant number of Democrats. Absolutely everything they do is intended to advance the goal of gutting effective constitutional limits on the arbitrary excercise of presidential power.
Reid either doesn’t see that this is what’s happening, or he approves of it, or he’s afraid to use what prerogatives he has to interfere with it for fear his caucus will remove him as Majority Leader, or he genuinely feels impotent to stop it, but likes the ML position so much he’ll play along rather than resign on principle, or he’s simply incompetent (which I don’t believe). Is there any other possibility I missed?
Whatever the reasons are, it’s not as though he has no choice but to let it play out the way it does (over and over and over again).
i’m not sure about lasts week, but i agree about this week.
all reid has to do is protect anyone who wants to object. he doesn’t even have to lead.
Ack! I’m talking about DiFi!!!
Hmmm! Payback perhaps?
A Grand Jury has subpoenaed reporter David Kelley regarding his sources regarding CIA Efforts To Block Irans Weapon Programs
Kelley has been involved in the reports about how the CIA screwed up an effort to sell the Iranians bogus nuclear detonators.
There’s a lot of mystery about this initial report and the motive behind it. Some have accepted it at face-value and presume that the report is accurate…but the recent NIE raises the issue as to whether the Iranians even had a nuclear program at that stage. Or the plans may have been given over as an incidental to their efforts to obtain civilian nuclear technology. Perhaps it was planted with other documents.
Another theory is that someone leaked the tale to discredit Valerie Plame, who would have presumably been involved in such a Covert Ops.
Is the CIA going after an informer who erroneously suggested that an operation failed, when it actually didn’t?
Lot’s of stuff involved here…or is it really the reason Kelley is being targeted at all?
Kelley also was involved in disclosing the violations of US law in the current non-FISA warranted wiretapping issue.
Far better that the PAA expire than it be amended this way and made permanent.
Essential programs would continue until after George Bush and Dick Cheney leave office. Plenty of time later to amend it in a rational fashion. For Bush, however, his only chance to immunize his followers is now.
Presumably, that includes scores of Democrats; otherwise, they would not so willingly be leading us off this unconstitutional cliff.