Comments on: Obama and FISA: Let’s Not Recycle The Crooks Again This Time

By: waynec

waynec — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:12:22 +0000

Kieth Olberman makes a good argument for Sen Obama to vote either way on the FISA bill next week. Here’s the link:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25463360/

And here’s a sample of his argument:
“Senator, sometimes it is better to be lucky, than good. Keep your eye on the wording of the legislation to make sure the Republicans don’t realize its flaws. Then vote for the amendment to strip telecom immunity out of the FISA bill. Then after that fails, vote for the FISA bill, if that’s your final answer. Then the minute the president has signed the FISA bill, you announce that you voted for it because it renews FISA and because it permits a bigger prize than just civil suits, that it allows for criminal prosecution of past illegal eavesdropping.”

Sounds reasonable to me. We can only hope the good Senator does what is right and starts criminal investigations as soon as he enters the WH in January.

OT-I still would like to know where the gas and diesel come from that we are using in Iraq.

WayneC

By: dakine01

dakine01 — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:34:28 +0000

New Ian a couple of flights upstairs

By: MayDaze

MayDaze — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:32:29 +0000

Well, three if you count Nixon – he wasn’t impeached only because he didn’t hang around long enough.

By: FormerFed

FormerFed — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:29:26 +0000

Yes, and how many times has Congress used that remedy?? At the presidential level I can think of two.

By: cboldt

cboldt — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:23:13 +0000

– when in the Hell is Congress going to take on the “signing statement issue” and get resolution from SCOTUS –

That reminds me of Senator Specter’s speech last week. He pissed and moaned about President Bush not following statutes (among other things, using signing statements to get around Congressional intent re: detainee treatment and USA PATRIOT Act provisions), then said he was going to file a bill that said “the president has to follow Congressional intent.”

Idiot.

Congress has a remedy for executives who “go too far,” and passing another law isn’t it.

By: siri

siri — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:18:30 +0000

I just got an email from Chris Dodd. He’s introduced an amendment with Senator Feingold to strip immunity from the bill. That’s not entirely acceptable to me, but I DID sign on as a citizen co-sponsor of that amendment.

You can do so too here.

By: WilliamOckham

WilliamOckham — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:16:17 +0000

Actually, there is good evidence that the Administration continues to break the law (FISA) even today. One possibility for Obama’s willingness to pass the current abomination is that he doesn’t want to inherit an illegal program when he takes office.

By: Fractal

Fractal — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:13:42 +0000

good post from Glenn Greenwald this morning with updates:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/g...../01/obama/

But no news on Accountability Now’s ad campaign.

By: angie

angie — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:11:05 +0000

they’re scairt of him.

(snicker)

he was jovial and totally at ease on KO and spoke up against the admin, too– saying Bush “blew it.”

when asked if there was anything new since he last asked if he was gonna be running for VP– “not really”.

By: Fractal

Fractal — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:10:03 +0000

cboldt, it’s looking grim as usual. We need to achieve results with this Accountability Now project. MSM blogs are now picking up on the explosive growth of the sub-group (aka list-serv) on the Obama web site demanding he stop FISA.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.....-backyard/

But even if that group grows to 10,000 members this week, and even ignoring the fact that there are hundreds of duplicate registrations (because the site is just a tad slow to acknowledge new subscribers), that group is not raising money or planning to run ads against Blue Dog sell-outs like we are. Emails and faxes to Barack’s Chicago staff have been ignored. Supporters of Barack’s decision to support the FISA bill say out of both sides of their mouth that (a) nobody is paying attention to FISA out in the middle of the country and (2) he has to vote for FISA to win over all the concerned “moderate” or “centrist” voters who ARE paying attention to FISA.

We need to achieve tangible results in this fight. I would be really happy to see a sample of the new ads from Accountability Now that might be running against John Barrow in Georgia.