Christy!

isn’t exactly something you want plastered on billboards across the globe to win hearts and minds, now is it?
Good one, Christy, except, I think they don’t care about hearts and minds.
I think it’s fairly clear what they DO care about.
And, it’s not our souls either.

Christy,
Not that I would truly advocate following the precedents set by the current administration, but since BushCo has been so adroit at turning EO’s from earlier admins into so much “pixie dust,” What’s to stop the next, hopefully Demo, admin from doing the same to all his EOs?

I remember that one of w’s first acts was to stop the release of the Ronnie Raygun prez records. I’m wondering what will even be left to release of this cabal’s records, given their penchant for destroying evidence, distorting facts, and avoiding accountability.

OT – but the site won’t log me in over at Emptywheel’s place on Mukasey:

The current representative asking questions asked Mukasey re whether it would be permissible under US law to use the rack and screws to interrogate someone.

Mukasey demurred, as expected.

Would that the representative had looked at the 7th Circuit’s own precedents (I think it was one of the Buckley v. Fitzsimmons cases) in the 90s. In that case, one of Mukasey’s former judicial brethren wrote in the context of finding a way to dismiss a civil rights case that: if a prosecutor put a witness on the rack and extracted a confession which implicated a second person, the civil rights plaintiff would have no claim for a violation of his civil rights. This, because the guy put on the rack would not have been implicated in the criminality even though he’d been tortured. And the guy implicated in the confession-extracted-through-torture would not himself have been the victim of torture.

It would have made interesting theater to confront him with the 7th Cir. saying it was OK to torture to extract information.

Jane…I 100% agree. But doesn’t the Executive Order on Presidential Records require the agreement of the previous occupant of that office UNLESS the records are under judicial investigation?

The only way to evade that Order is to

a) rescind it by an additional Executive Order (and there might be ex post facto issues here that would have to be taken to the Supremes).

b) Have the President or an appointee review the materials privately…and then raise issues of illegal activities that need to be brought to light.

c) Impeach the bastards retrospectively when there is sufficient numbers to actually make a CONVICTION successful. This would allow the revocation of any Presidential or Vice-Presidential priveleges under the “no profit, privilege, or honor under the United States” clause of the Constitutions reference to impeachment.

All such priveleges of office including the right to prevent access to Presidential and Vice-Presidential records would be rescinded.

I suspect that #2 (and a bully pulpit about what crimes had been uncovered) would be essential to get enough Republican the votes for #3, even if the Democrats win a strong majority of Senate seats. But if the Republicans didn’t convict then the President could bring it before the Courts and they would be shown to be pariahs.

Saw this clip on Crooks & Liars yesterday with this title:

“Pat Buchanan: McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi””

Hmmm….

Not good….

yeah right, like the last Clinton did after taking over the white house from a Bush:

Special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh was still battling the cover-up that had surrounded the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s; Democratic congressmen were digging into the “Iraqgate” scandal, the covert supplying of dangerous weapons to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the 1980s; and a House task force was suddenly inundated with evidence pointing to Republican guilt in the “October Surprise” case, alleged interference by the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 to undermine President Jimmy Carter’s efforts to free 52 American hostages then held in Iran.

Combined, those three investigations could have rewritten the history of the 1980s, exposing serious wrongdoing by Republicans who had held the White House for a dozen years. The full story also would likely have terminated the presidential ambitions of the powerful Bush family, since George H.W. Bush was implicated in all three scandals.

After winning in November 1992, however, Bill Clinton and the leaders of the Democratic majorities in Congress didn’t care enough about the truth to fight for it. Heeding advice from influential fixers like Vernon Jordan, Clinton and the congressional Democrats turned their backs on those investigations.

Easy Exit

Clinton agreed to let George H.W. Bush retreat gracefully into retirement despite Bush’s brazen attempt to destroy Walsh’s criminal investigation by issuing six pardons to Iran-Contra defendants on Christmas Eve 1992.

In his 2004 memoirs, My Life, Clinton wrote that he “disagreed with the pardons and could have made more of them but didn’t.” Clinton cited several reasons for giving his predecessor a pass.

“I wanted the country to be more united, not more divided, even if that split would be to my political advantage,” Clinton wrote. “Finally, President Bush had given decades of service to our country, and I thought we should allow him to retire in peace, leaving the matter between him and his conscience.”

There is also this Washington Post story (via MSNBC) to consider in case it has not been mentioned in comments contained in previous threads:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23037049

Electronic searches at border prompt protests
Seizure of laptops, cameras and cellphones raising legal questions

By Ellen Nakashima
updated 3:59 a.m. ET, Thurs., Feb. 7, 2008

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter’s calls had been erased.

A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. “This laptop doesn’t belong to me,” he remembers protesting. “It belongs to my company.” Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.

(snip)

I don’t buy it.

Mukasey has essenrtially sqid in his testimony today that everyone who acted under an Executive or DOJ legal interpretation is immunized from, not only prosecution, but investigation!

He won’t even investigate to bring forward the facts as to whether actions were illegal, but not, (according to him) prosecutable.

He’s not willing to say whether the President told him not to prosecute avoidance of Congressional subpoenas.

Today, the Executive has declared itself not only above, but outside, the law!

Thanks Chuck & Di.

What if they destroy all the records? Certainly no one would put it past them.

All this makes the candidate quibbles seem very small. It’s imperative that we elect a Democrat this cycle.

Are you for McCain?…

The tape indicates that more than likely McCain will be running something of a third term for Bush which Pat Buchanan interceded with the “will make Cheney look like Gandhi” statement which everyone laughed…

No, I just don’t think he is anywhere near as insidious as Cheney.

I’m all for a Truth & Reconciliation Commission.

minus the reconciliation part.

since BushCo has been so adroit at turning EO’s from earlier admins into so much “pixie dust,” What’s to stop the next, hopefully Demo, admin from doing the same to all his EOs?

Nothing. And not only that, but how can Bush’s bureaucratic appointments in the DoJ be rooted out and ousted.

Great, Christy! Pull all that shite out into the Vitamin D Zone!

I agree. Pat is serving his own agenda in everything he says. FWIW, McCainus is live on cnn/msnbc right now…

Hopefully we’ll never know…

Isn’t a warrant required for that type of search? Or at least some kind of probable cause?

How can that be legal?

Is it time to move the OLC out of the DoJ and into some part of the Judicial Branch – out of the reach of politicians? If 2 hacks can completely subvert the Constitution, as in; torture is not torture unless we say it is, and further you can’t see the reasoning because it is secret, and we can’t tell who authorized it because that is also ‘privileged’, and further by 4 Congressfolk seeing the docs in secret but muted by State Secrets constitutes ‘Congressional Oversight’, if all that can be done by 2 hacks, maybe it is time to move the OLC??

I would like to pose the same question that I posed on election day:

Isn’t it essentially unconstitutional to basically negate the fourth amendment as they’re intending to do with the FISA revision? If it is, why haven’t any of the Senators brought that up, and also, if it is, what would it take to get the Supreme Court to say so once they pass it? If a new administration appoints an AG with guts, could the new AG press a case to throw out the FISA fix on the basis that it negated Article Four of the Bill of Rights without the correct procedures to amend the constitution, ie., a two thirds vote in all the States like we went through with the ERA? What am I missing here?

Is it 2009 yet?

Sadly, this wont fix it. Simply having Obama or Clinton in the WH will not undo the damage or forever remove the option of torture for future GOPer Presidents. The Congress is letting this slide just as they let everything else slide.

Don’t be fooled. They have grilled Mukasey today, and Hayden, etc about torture but they are NOT actually doing anything substantive to terminate the practice forevermore. They are merely acting befuddled that BushCo has admitted waterboarding prisoners and befuddled that Mukasey will not declare it torture, or that he gives a “moving definition” of torture based on who is doing it and to whom. Befuddlement.

Pretend befuddlement at that. The way is crystal clear. They KNOW what the way forward is but they are trying to befuddle themselves around that way forward. The Administration has admitted to torture under the President’s order. They have done this so there is NO reason to hold a hearing on whether or not they did it. They DID it and admit it. We can now skip to the next step: punishment.

There is no other option here. Running out the clock is illegitimate and will NOT fix this. Running out the clock will pass the torture option on to any and all follow-on Presidents willing to pull it out of their criminal asses. The Congress is set to leave torture as an actual option for Presidents to exercise!

They MUST prosecute. Now. Or they MUST offer a bill on the Senate floor (and House floor) fully exonerating the Japanese prison guards whom we prosecuted after WWII explicitly and exclusively because they waterboarded American prisoners! Those Japanese men and their families deserve that much. If WE can do it then it was legitimate and OK for them to do it. It MUST be done: either prosecute now or exonerate any and all that we wrongly convicted of a non-crime in the past.

Since McCain is my senator….. I kind of agree with ticktock…
McCain will do ANYTHING to become Prez…. how much has he sold his soul to get where he is now?

McCain as bad if not worse because he has NO principles and do anything to become Prez.

Per Rev Deb in comments @ emptywheel.. TPM has this simple summary of todays Mukasey hearing.

So far, he’s dropped two big bombshells. DOJ will not be investigating:

(1) whether the waterboarding, now admitted to by the White House, was a crime; or

(2) whether the Administration’s warrantless wiretapping was illegal.

His rationale? Both programs had been signed off on in advance as legal by the Justice Department.

Cynics may argue that those aren’t bombshells at all, that the Bush Administration would never investigate itself in these matters. Perhaps so. But this is a case where cynicism is itself dangerous.

We have now the Attorney General of the United States telling Congress that it’s not against the law for the President to violate the law if his own Department of Justice says it’s not.

It is as brazen a defense of the unitary executive as anything put forward by the Administration in the last seven years, and it comes from an attorney general who was supposed to be not just a more professional, but a more moderate, version of Alberto Gonzales (Thanks to Democrats like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer for caving on the Mukasey nomination.).

President Bush has now laid down his most aggressive challenge to the very constitutional authority of Congress. It is a naked assertion of executive power. The founders would have called it tyrannical. His cards are now all on the table. This is no bluff.

Yep. This has always been about providing multi-layered cover for the executive branch.

Amen, brother. And not only that, but prosecution is the only way that these bastards will not be back in another 20 years with a new plan to decimate Planet Earth.

It’s the only way to stop them. Permanently.

Not good enough. Straight to The Hague with the lot of them. That is the only way our country can rejoin the civilized world.

McCain: Democrats are blocking the FISA bill and endangering America.

I’m not sure what the fact that he is your senator has to do with it unless you figure you have seen him in action more that someone else. I respect your opinion, I just don’t share it.

Christy,

Off topic but I was wondering if someone could do a peice on the Violence Against Women Act. The new Bush budget completely hacks it.

When McCain said the words ‘illegal immigration’ the cpac crowd sounded like a pack of rabid dogs. Extremely creepy bunch of people, makes my skin crawl.

This is all this campaign is going to be about from here on out sports fans.

Actually regardless of any previous prejudices Pat had regarding McCain I believe the clip shows him giving McCain a kind of a backhanded compliment…

Even though McCain is believed to be more moderate than Cheney because of his past behavior, it truly depends on who his advisors are and if he gets the opportunity to be president as to exactly how he will proceed with his specific agenda.

Bush apparently was perceived to be a moderate governer of Texas at one time.

Look what happened to him.

How about you legal folks? Can he be disbarred for this outrage?

With all due respect to Kumbayama, you can’t work with them. These people and their contempt for our country and our institutions need to be completely and utterly destroyed. I keep thinking my capacity for outrage has reached its limit, and find it has not.

Maybe I’m confused here: Since when does a DoJ legal opinion overturn prior court decisions? We have already tried and convicted people of torture for waterboarding, that would seem to be established law.

When I geto be Atty General, I’m going to issue an opinion that hitting a politician in the face with a pie is NOT illegal depending on the politician and the flavor of pie.

Boxturtle (Then claim National Security as the reason)

I’m wondering what will even be left to release of this cabal’s records, given their penchant for destroying evidence, distorting facts, and avoiding accountability.

It’s one thing to destroy evidence, distort facts and avoid accountability when you’re in power. However, once you’re out of the catbird seat, destruction of evidence is a crime, destruction of presidential records is contrary to the law regarding presidential records, and facts don’t distort as far as necessary to account for all of Hugh’s list, it seems to me!

Diane Rehm had someone on her show several weeks ago making the argument that if waterboarding was torture we wouldn’t use it as a training exercise (to train our troops about withstanding torture methods). I’m sorry I have such a hazy recollection, but I thought at the time that there was a HUGE logic flaw in that argument.

Yea, and we don’t use bayonet training to teach troopers to stick the bad guys.

Having been through boot camp I seriously have doubts that they would tie someone up and do this to them, if they did, that is torture also. Goddamn it we have to stop parsing this bullshit.

Have either Clinton or Obama been asked if their Justice Department would actively pursue prosecutions against Bushco?

I don’t think they are talking boot or basic, I think it’s survival school for zoomies.

My candidate for president would have none of this.
http://www.markjasher.com/main.php

This is what happens when you get lawyers “interpreting” the law to fit their client’s needs. Or precisely to DOJ to sanction actions which are unlawful by a series of byzantine arguments.

Courts interpret laws not lawyers.

It’s the old fixing the intelligence around the policy goals meme. Fixing the legality of torture around their need to torture.

Of course they don’t explain what they learned from torturing and how that was useful. State secrets mind your own beeswax.

I don’t care, it is torture.
And as an aside, what good does it do, no one and I mean no one can endure this.

An Eight Mile man’s detailed account of being “waterboarded” while undergoing training in a Navy survival school in California in 1975 is so accurate that “only somebody who went through it would know that,” according to a former instructor at the school.

Linky

Take it easy, I agree with you but that wasn’t what you said.

Hahaha! Jews and Vatican not talking, again. Holy Pope can’t understand why Jews are upset. Their denouncement of Jews and urge to conversion, should not be upsetting to Jews. Why can’t Jews just please Holy Pope and admit the Holy See is God and do what he tells them. Geeze. Just convert and be good Catholics ;x (Do as you are told and keep your mouth shut.)

It would be funny if not for the ugly history of violence towards Jews by the Catholic Church.

Sorry Raven, I am in no way upset with you. I am upset with the insanity and get so mad I don’t always think before I write.

NP :)

What do you expect from a former member of the Hitler Youth.

I’m hoping we can work this all into “America the Beautiful,” like:
America
America
God shed his grace on thee
We don’t mutilate
or sodomize
Those things are always bad

PS. It’s been 42 years since I went through the gas mask drill and I still think THAT was torture!

The curious thing about this torture and the FISA stuff is that are so clearly unlawful / unconstitutional and insane and there is not full on outrage… shut the gov down until that BS stops by the dems.

Our constitution is not worth the paper it’s written on. We live under a dictator for all intent and purpose who does what he wants.

I do believe they do that as for various boots. I think it’s army or marines that have to breathe through a spot of gas as part of their rite of passage. One of the tests they have pass. It’s been a while since i’ve heard the usual rituals. Air Force as none of that in boot, but once you get into the careers? Anything that requires survival? Up to and including simulated ‘torture’ even if for a few minutes? Is part of it. They want you to be prepared for if the enemy does it. Probably harsher for the survival schools that are the ground based forces and the navy special ops as well.

The sad part? Is we’re now that enemy. In the 90s (when i was able to hear this information as a recruit), we hadn’t done this stuff. Now? We have and the irony absolutely kills me.

A new President may find it advantageous to quickly distinguish himself (or herself) from the current Administration and its policies. By exposing what is “shameful” in our recent past the new Administration could demonstrate a clean break with its predecessor, and lay the foundation for a more transparent and accountable Presidency…. (emphasis mine)

I have been watching the live blog of emptywheel and it just seems bizarre the administration is claiming all this power

I cannot believe these misogynists and bigots will allow a women or a black man to have the power they claim

I think we need to be prepared for a third bush presidency

CIA Director Michael Hayden cast doubt on the legality of waterboarding on Thursday, a day after the White House said the harsh interrogation tactic has saved American lives and could be used in the future

Here

this is the administration’s line of reasoning regarding torture;

“waterboarding is ordered by the president, therefore it is now not torture since torture would be illegal and nothing the president orders can be illegal

for instance, if the president does it, that MEANS it is NOT illegal”

OT – HRC rally starting live on MSNBC

I agree with ya there! That CS gas was/is nasty! It looks like the Stimulus bill will pass out of the Senate…

In Army basic in the stone age of 1966 you went into a hut filled with tear gas. One by one you went to the Drill Instructor, took off the mask and recited name, rank and serial number until he released you to run outside and puke you guts out. . .memories are so beautiful and then. . .

Of course it wasn’t that much worse than the last night of the 72 convention in Miami!

You know?

You just gave me a real glimmer of hope. That may turn out to be a brilliant idea

… for instance, if the president does it, that MEANS it is NOT illegal”

That needs to be buried with nixon and reagan, either one.

From what i remember hearing, that hadn’t changed in the 90s either. Probably the same now for the current recruits. Except now i wonder what they’re thinking, if they even get a chance to hear news from the outside world or if they pay attention before they go in!

If this had happened when i made my attempt? I likely would have dropped out period. Stopped my shipping out process in its tracks!

Nah, it’s good training.

McCain is against torture…he just wants to kill ‘em.

I had the same experience. My mask leaked and I couldn’t breathe, when he asked me for my name, rank and serial number I got one word out, shoved him out of the way and went out the door, now that’s torture and survival training all in one fell swoop.

So far there seems to be only 4 Nays; Allard, Craig, Coburn and Hagel, a lot of R’s voted Aye…

“I wanted the country to be more united, not more divided, even if that split would be to my political advantage,” Clinton wrote. “Finally, President Bush had given decades of service to our country, and I thought we should allow him to retire in peace, leaving the matter between him and his conscience.”

One of Hillary’s best line in the last debates was that it took a Clinton to clean up the mess from the last Bush Administration, and she thinks it may take a Clinton to clean up after this one. If I were Barack, I would reply that although they did some mop up, they didn’t follow through enough to prevent the mess we have now, which they were in the position to do. I’d throw that back in the face of the woman who claims experience through her husband’s administration in a heartbeat. That’s politics.

Hah, it’s only to instill confidence in our gas masks’ effectiveness, so why do we have to take them off…?

O.T. I love this!!! :

CPAC it seems, is directing its loyal goers to not boo McCain. They must be more excited that McCain has finally signed on to appear after years of snubs than they want to let on.

During registration last night at the Omni Shoreham a registrant was asking to upgrade his CPAC package and then proceeded to ask what time GOP front-runner John McCain was going to speak today. “Oh good,” he said to the response — answer: 3 p.m. today — “I hope they boo him out of the room.”

“No, no no no no” came the reply from the person registering him. “We’ve been instructed to tell participants not to boo McCain.”

“Are you kidding me?” the shocked CPAC-goer asked.

“Well, we want to seem above Democrats and we don’t want the booing to be the story,” the CPAC person declared. When asked for a response, CPAC’s Ian Walters told us: “We would hope that our folks would be polite and give him a fair opportunity to be heard.”

I guess this is how we would feel if Joe “lie”berman had just pinned down the Dem. nomination!!

The training is good. But i went in trusting my government to take care of me and make sure it was in the right when i did.

I couldn’t make that same choice today. No way, no how. The only thing as a female, i’m not subject to the draft. (at least so far) I now hold to stronger morals and ethics than my own government. And i’m considered a bit of a radical for doing so.

Something to make Jane all warm and fuzzy — via TPM

The Effect of the Tweety Effect

Emily’s List using Chris Matthews’ buffoonery as fund-raising tool for Hillary.

So why did they boo McCain when he mentioned his stance on comprehensive immigration…?

That would be a great line for barack, he should use it, but then he will be flip flopping from his kumbya speech.

It’s this whole “unite not divide” thing. Dems get punk every time

I can only guess the bile build up made them do it!! :)

here is the entire article:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/…..cCain.html

In the early 70’s in women’s Army basic training we had to walk with gas masks on into a hootch that was filled with tear gas. We had to take our masks off and recite our name, rank and SSN before being allowed to put our masks back on. Unpleasant for sure, but not torture by any means, unless you didn’t know you had asthma.

During Basic Training there is very little news of the outside world infiltrating down to the trainees. Made it tough for a news junky like myself but the entire reason is to close off outside influences as much as possible.

Thank you for last night’s post. Late last night I did quite a bit of reading about the matters you brought to our attention and found it all very interesting.
I will say this, the political culture of Illinois, particularly the ethical aspects of it, are remarkable.

What no forced sodomy? Pikers.

-G

PS. It’s been 42 years since I went through the gas mask drill and I still think THAT was torture!

OT: When my husband was stationed at Ft. Belvoir, there was a small building that looked like an out house. Always laughed, when I saw it because written in bold letters across the front was “Gas Chamber”.

Hubby said this was where they did the gas mask drills. Not so funny huh?

Hey all — sorry to dive in late. Had to run out with The Peanut for a bit, and ran late getting back home…

The gas chamber at Parris Island is about the size of a 2 car garage…probably sees lots more use too, I guess.

Well yeah. *laughs* I was in USAF boot in the midst of the OJ trials in ‘95. That’s all the calls for news was about, when we got half a chance to ask. I had no interest in it, but i watched my fellow airmen yell out questions with amusement. XD

And yeah, i’m aware of the training for the gas masks and whatnot in the other branches. I know it’s training, and i see the logic for it. The thing is nowadays the cognitive dissonance between what we’re doing in Iraq and Afghanistan would probably make me not even go in. Back then i trusted the government to be ethical at the very least. Now, they aren’t even that!

If someone running for President is still looking for an issue that we ensure winning: “I PROMISE TO FULLY INVESTIGATE EVERY ACTION UNDERTAKEN BY MEMBERS OF THE GEORGE W. BUSH ADMINISTRATION. IF MY ADMINISTRATION DETERMINES ANY FELONIES HAVE BEEN COMMITTED, BY ANYONE ELECTED OR OTHERWISE, THEY WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW.”

Any bets on who would agree to undertake such a campaign promise?

~~~ModNote: All-Caps is considered shouting, and is discouraged. Thanks.~~~

I’ll never understand the Clinton decision to decline to follow up on Bush 1 law-breaking. Regardless of Hillary’s positioning as a fighter, somehow, I think she would do likewise. For no other reason than opening up the Bush II can of worms would likely open up Clinton I can of worms as well.

…and unfortunately, you’ve nailed it with Obama. Following up on this will be antithetical to his unity spiel.

Coupl’a more vids

I would love this to be the case. Clinton would never go for it. This sort of shit started with robustness under Clinton I (at least the illegal warrantless wiretapping shit). Obama would probably state that that is “about the politics of the past”.

The thing is nowadays the cognitive dissonance between what we’re doing in Iraq and Afghanistan would probably make me not even go in. Back then i trusted the government to be ethical at the very least. Now, they aren’t even that!

I agree. I was proud of the service I gave my country, but it is hard to explain to the kids why I cried during the Super Bowl pregame show when the assemblage of former players recited the Declaration of Independence. Only the wife understood when I said I was in mourning.

I did USAF basic in December ‘76/January ‘77 and as far as I can remember there was no big ongoing news story at the time.

Fortunately, I got out of Basic the Friday before the Super Bowl that year. Wound up watching the game at the in-processing center where the new troops were met by their new DIs.

Here comes the cave-in on FISA!

Ah crap. Looks like they are trying to “work out a deal” with the House on a compromise FISA bill for possible vote. This means it is in the House’s court for NOT caving on immunity and basket warrants.

Damn straight, DeadLast!

It’s the single most important thing facing our country.

“I wanted the country to be more united, not more divided, even if that split would be to my political advantage,” Clinton wrote. “Finally, President Bush had given decades of service to our country, and I thought we should allow him to retire in peace, leaving the matter between him and his conscience.”

Question for the day, is this more cleanup…or coverup?

cow pucky on the low road

OT, sorry, but someone needs to pay attention to this ASAP

FISA is back on the senate floor, with a call to vote on Feingold’s Amendment 3915 (use limits amendments) and 3913 (reverse targeting). Will do two votes tonight, more debate tomorrow with wrapping up of votes on tuesday. Votes on economic stim package had just ended and they jumped pretty quickly into this.

I’m hoping someone here or on DKos will make sure this gets attention this afternoon.

Watching it right now — and it’s a quorum call-o-rama at the moment. Has been like this all day.

Yays and Nays on Feingold amendment now…

I’m guessing they brought this up late day like this to take advantage of Obama and Clinton being in town. I hope that means they feel confident about the chances these amendments will pass. Come on lucky 51!

Damn, Innouye voted no. I thought we might get him…

I saw that. Argh, that about seals it, unfortunately.

This is the use limits amendment, so there are still a number of others to go. I missed which other amendment is likely to get a vote this evening (cooking dinner and trying to watch C-Span at the same time here). Did you happen to catch which amendment will be next?

Heh, yep 3913, which i think is the reverse targeting amendment. This one is not going well, more of the other wafflers have voted no (Lincoln, Bayh). Haven’t been able to tell if any repubs have gone aye.

Thanks, I missed the number on it. The Peanut got hungry and, when you are 4, you don’t care if mommy’s watching C-Span. You just want your snack. *g*

Yays 39, Nays 56 — Reid asked for motion to reconsider.

Now Leahy/Specter coming up…

Heh, i can understand that. Hmm, Lincoln just went aye at the end. She must’ve changed once she saw it was politically expedient?

Wait — asking for the Leahy/Specter on Tuesday. Jeebus, they are trying to confuse things today, aren’t they?

Reverse targeting up next. This one should pass…but the GOP has been exceedingly pissy today…

Yeah, i’ve given up trying to figure what they do logistically there. that 39 votes was a poor showing, very disappointing. i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to hijack this post into being a FISA liveblog.

I’m hoping you’re right about this amendment, we need a victory.

I could be wrong about passage on this. I’m reaching back in my memory about a conversation I had earlier in the week on the amendments as to which one had a more likely whip count. I got sick early this week and have been mostly out of the loop the last coupla days, so I may be misremembering on this one. But I know this was one of the ones that Specter and a couple of other GOP members on the more libertarian side of things were leaning toward based on 4th amendment concerns.

And I do think that if these restrictions aren’t amended into the bill, that it faces a legitimate challenge in court on these grounds. Maybe the Bush Administration doesn’t care that the next president will have to clean up after its mess, but you’d think the candidates running to replace him would…

There is still hope that the resulting House/Senate reconciliation bill would be something better than this Intel committee bill, too. At this point, anything that Bush would veto would be okay. I’m sure you’re right about the challenge this could and should face in court, but the worry is that it would get there in a reasonable amount of time.

Bah, Rockefeller, Feinstein, Landrieu, Inouye all no’s.

I have a bad feeling about this one, too, Batman…

What in the hell is Bond doing — I thought they were done with amendments on FISA this evening?

They were, according to Reid’s schedule. the Rocke/Bond amendment just passed by raising hands?!?! What the

I turn around to cut out some biscuits and get them in the oven and I missed the whole damned voice vote. I give up…today, I just give up.

Trying to analyze this quickly. At first i thought they wanted to use that amendment to dangle in front of senators who might be persuaded to vote for the Dodd immunity amendment, give them another option to split that vote. So he should’ve held his amendment until after Dodd’s. But it looks like he is maybe hoping to get a cloture vote before Dodd can get up and filibuster. By pushing this amendment through first, instead, he might get his damn cloture votes.

Dammit, outmanuevered.

On the plus side, didn’t Bush say he was going to veto this sucker if it had that amendment?

I missed it, too, and i was listening. I’m pretty sure i didn’t hear anything. do they vote by raising hands?

i’m with ya, i believe i’ll have a drink tonight.

I think I will open up a bottle of wine and join you in a drink. And, as dinner is ready, I’m going to head out for that as well. Thanks for the commiseration…

Thank you as well, enjoy your wine. I’m glad i had someone to vent with.

Mukasey today, referring to the warrentless wiretapping said he wouldn’t investigate whether “it was lawful, because it was legal” as per DOJ. I’m not a lawyer, but is there a distinction between something being “lawful” and being “legal” and therefore “unlawful” and “illegal”? Just his use of words brought back memories of what “is” is.