So, the Dodd bill—great improvement over the Paulson bill, perhaps because as a friend quipped, “that wasn’t a bill, that was an ultimatum. Make me dictator, or the economy gets it.” However as it stands the Dodd bill won’t actually bail out the economy or the financial sector. Here’s how to start fixing it so it does.

As much as I think the Dodd bill is a significant improvement over the Paulson power grab, and I do, it is missing a number of important things.

So there was “Goldman” Hank, holding a gun on the economy and staring Congress down. “Give me the 700 billion, or the economy gets it!” he threatened. For two days it looked like he was going to get away with it, 700 billion dollars to spend on the Wall Street gang, the boys who’d already shot the economy up so bad it was in danger of bleeding to death.

Then Marshal Dodd came swinging through doors, shotgun in hand, and said “not so fast Hank. Put the gun down, and back away from the economy. We’re going to do this my way.”

Senator Dodd, what’s the going rate? Could Lieberman stay in the caucus and keep his chairmanship if he gave the DSCC just $200K? $150K? 50K? $9.99? As the cliche goes, it seems we’ve established what the Dems in the Senate are — now we’re just haggling over the price.

Final speeches continue on the floor just prior to the voting beginning on the amendments to the FISA Amendments bill, and then the Senate will proceed to voting on the bill as a whole. Various senators are finishing up speeches on the floor at the moment — Sen. Dodd spoke previously and was in a fiery mood today. Good on him….

Senators will not vote on the FISA amendments until after they ride in Fourth of July parades back home. Perhaps you could give them a message as they ride by. After all, what could be more patriotic than celebrating the Fourth of July by standing up for the Constitution?

45 years ago, John F. Kennedy gave a speech in Berlin, urging those who do not understand freedom to come to Berlin. Steny Hoyer and his Democratic colleagues who are busy carrying water for BushCo’s warrantless wiretapping and telecom immunity might want to listen to what Kennedy had to say.

Yesterday evening, Sen. Chris Dodd gave a ripping speech on the Senate floor regarding FISA, the rule of law, and the disrespect for the institutions of government that supporters of telecom immunity have shown. It was, bar none, the best speech anyone has given since this whole illegal domestic spying program was revealed — he laid out illegalities, specifics about the law and the facts of the whistleblower revelations about

It’s no secret, the Senate is getting ready to follow the House’s lead and screw us on FISA, letting telecom criminals off the hook. We do have potential heroes — Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd are extremely pissed about all this — but their task will be greatly aided if their fellow Senators hear that there is tremendous public outcry over this. If you’re on our email list in one of the key states, you’ll be getting an email from us asking you to call your Senator and let them know you feel strongly about this (and if you’re not on our list and would like to receive these kinds of notifications, you can sign up here).

If you’re not on our list, and one of the following is your Senator, give them a call and speak up:

Stephanopoulos extracts a paean to Tim Russert from John Edwards, then launches into a substantive discussion of tax policy, taking up Edwards’ challenge to have more robust conversation about real issues that affect real people.