First Draft

MANIMAL!

You know, I'm no fan of grafting human ears onto mice because that shit just looks weird walking around, but you know what nobody worries about? Human-meerkat hybrids. I've seen that show once or twice, and those crafty little fuckers are already looking for ways to rise up and conquer human civilization. Give them thumbs and access to the Hair Club for Men and it's all over for us.

A.

A Letter to the Majority Leader of the United States Senate

Hey Harry:

BOOYAH. Touchdown. We make miracles happen. All due apologies to Rod Tidwell, but you're our motherfucker now.

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Sixty effing votes.

You've got the threshold to pass anything you want now. Anything. You want a bill declaring you have the biggest balls of them all? You got it. You want a bill taking every dollar everybody ever made and putting it in a big pile and lighting it on fire to warm the faces of the indigent and helpless? You got that, too. All you have to do is get your 60 Democrats in line and you've got it all.

What, that's too hard? You want MORE, you greedy fucker? You need 65 votes? You need 100? You need more than both houses of congress and the White House? You need more than that? TOUGH. Nobody said we could get to 60 and we got there for you, so there you are, on a silver platter, is everything you need. If you can't work with that, well then, my God, Harry, I don't know what to tell you. Possibly you need some therapy. I can recommend an excellent woman who will sit you down and tell you, like the sugar-high five-year-old you are, that the world is not fair and we do not get everything we want so on balance let's work with what we've got. What's that? You don't want to appear partisan? You want to grant deference to Republicans? You want to make sure the American people don't perceive you as MEAN?

Let me clue you in to something, Harry. The American people like it when you're mean. They get off on it. They think it's funny when the weaker political kid gets kicked. It makes them feel all tingly in the gonads. If this wasn't true, Bill O'Reilly wouldn't have a job, so stop thinking the American people want warm and fuzzy decency. We don't. We want Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith to go to Washington, punch that bully congressman in his face and fuck the prom queen on the National Mall. We want the team that wins at kickball and then gloats all the way to the end of recess, and if you think it's any more complicated than that, my God, you're just not having enough fun in show business.

I mean, have you seen this country this week? We are fucked. People are dying of treatable illnesses because of ghouls in suits. Our military tortured a teenage kid until he went nuts and is now claiming he can't be released because he's nuts, like, who'd have thought. We have not begun to rebuild what has been torn down in New Orleans or anywhere else, and Levi Johnston is single and dreaming of a rap career. We need HELP here and you all along have been saying you need 60 votes to get it. Well, there you go.

Democratic voters got that for you. Democratic voters and Democratic donors and Democratic volunteers. Thousands and thousands of people in hundreds and hundreds of precincts kicked ass and took names for you to get you what you need. We were tired and we were pissed and we were busy but in Minnesota's and 59 other senate races we busted our humps and we got you 60 votes. It wasn't easy. Remember, wasn't all that long ago all Democrats were America-hating traitors who wanted babies and soldiers to die.

So we'd like a little gloating. We'd like a little trash talking. We'd like a little you wanna screw with grandchildren and grandmothers and sick people and poor people and baby kittens oh yeah well suck on this in the form of a health care bill that will actually help people, an end to the regime of torture and secrecy justified by fearmongering, and maybe some millions more jobs repairing millions more miles of bad road the previous eighteen administrations were perfectly happy to let sit potholed and rotting, mmkay?

And I swear to you if you come to us now like a college kid who blew his book money on hookers and beer and say you need another $400 for your history textbook, you'll get the response you deserve, which is that if you can't hack it on what you're given, you're just gonna have to go get a job at McDonald's to earn those extra couple of votes, because we gave you way more than you had any right to expect. Shut up and take it like the man you say you are.

A.

Sack Up Already, Democrats

Krugman:

The real risk is that health care reform will be undermined by “centrist” Democratic senators who either prevent the passage of a bill or insist on watering down key elements of reform. I use scare quotes around “centrist,” by the way, because if the center means the position held by most Americans, the self-proclaimed centrists are in fact way out in right field.

While driving this morning I was listening to somebody absolutely rip the insurance companies a new one on NPR. Just blistering them. What brave Democrat could this be, I thought?

Republican Joe Fucking Barton:

Yes. Smokey Joe Barton. Stopped clocks, blind squirrels, etc, but still. I offer this as an example of the rule that it does not take a great deal of intelligence to notice when someone is fucking you over. And America is starting to catch on that it's not going to get better, and people are getting pissed off, because we elected you to fix this, not to take a backseat in terms of advocacy to people like Barton. So quit acting like you're surprised it's this hard, and quit bitching that it's difficult for you politically, and FIX IT, because collectively, we are sick of your whining, and we have been here before, and it wasn't fun, and we're not interested in doing it again. Knock it off.

A.

GQ and Barney Frank

GQ is doing some very interesting stuff these days (and I'm not just talking about the swoon-worthy Christian Bale story).  The Rumsfeld Biblical verses story got me watching them a bit closer, and it paid off.  Lisa DePaulo has an interview with Barney Frank on the GQ Blog that's well worth reading.  (My favorite bit comes when DePaulo asks Frank about his coming out, and whether he could survive such a "scandal" politically nowadays, and Frank's response is, "I don't know.  Dave Vitter seems to be surviving."  Hee!)

But that's not what I really wanted to point out.  It's what Frank has to say about Nancy Pelosi getting hammered for what she knew and when she knew it about torture:

"I was given that choice once.  I was invited, when I was senior Democrat in the minority on the Financial Services Committee, to a briefing by two young guys from the Treasury Department.  I got there--after divesting myself outside of my cell phone and my wallet and everything else--and they said, "We're gonna show you something that's gonna be in the newspaper in a couple weeks, and we want to tell you about it."  I said, "Why is it gonna be in the newspaper?  Is this something you're announcing?"  "Oh no."  And it became clear to me, as we talked, it was something that had been leaked, and they were happy that it was being leaked, but they were gonna tell me about it beforehand.  And I said, "Well let me ask you this question.  If I listen to you now and read what you want to show me, and it then appears in the newspapers, can I talk about it after it's been in the newspaper?"  They said no.  I said good-bye.  And so I think that's what happened to Nancy.  She was given information in a way that she literally couldn't use, could not self-evaluate, because she was all by herself.  In fact, she and I have talked about this, and some others.  We have to change these rules about what you can do with briefing information." [my emphasis]

I really wish De Paulo had followed up on that comment, because I think it's one of the more interesting things to come out of the interview.  He's talking about a briefing from the Treasury--not exactly a national security issue, I'll bet.  So why all the hush-hush?  There's a reason we protect the freedom of the press.  It's because the threat of public scrutiny can sometimes keep people from doing really stupid or really bad things.  We need to find a way for Congress to beef up its power to act in those kinds of situations.  Oversight only works when Congress actually has the power to change things, either through direct action, or by exposing the situation to the public.

This is yet another situation where the power of the executive branch has grown too much.  It's time for Congress to take this bull by the horns.  I'm glad to see Frank is at least talking about it.

Moral Compasses and the Desire to Stay Lost

I was at an office lunch yesterday. We were at a large hotel and from my vantage point in the restaurant, looking across the expanse of the busy first floor and lobby, I could see three different televisions, all huge. I was somewhat cheered that only one was tuned to Fox but watching them during the hour and half we sat there, I couldn't push down one of the recurring depressing thoughts I can't ever seem to lose: It didn't have to come to this.

Two, three, even four years ago, what we needed to know was there, some of it at least, it was right in front of us. About the economy, certainly much of it was apparent to those who cared to know. Also about the war(s), about torture. It's not about lack of information, and it's not just about lack of curiosity, it's the fucking lack of the validity of curiosity.

You all know this. Of course this isn't wildly original thought on my part. But it's one of the places I revisit too often, like when I watched this interview with Eliot Spitzer.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

A Little Congressional PEP

It's my least favorite time of year at work.  We have this fun thing called PEP.  Performance Excellence Plan.  It's exactly what you think it is.

PEP.  Of all the stupid acronyms.  So anyway, I'm bracing myself for the silliness that is the PEP review, where my boss gives me my little review packet, and I get to go through it and say, "Yep.  I'm average," and then I meet with him and we both say, "Yep, I'm average."  Because we've been told in no uncertain terms that there will be no "grade inflation" on the PEP.  (You have to walk on water, rescue a baby harp seal, clean up a Superfund site, and repair the Hubble telescope to get "above average.") Then my boss tells me I need to network more, and I think to myself, "Yeah, I'll get right on that.  Just as soon as I get through the four-foot deep pile of data requests I have on my desk."  (Don't get me wrong--I like my boss, he's great.  It's the PEP I have a problem with.)

But it got me to thinking...why don't we have PEPs for our Congresscritters?  After all, if I have to suffer through this, why don't they?  Yes, I know, the election is kind of a PEP, but why not give them feedback before the election, while they still have a chance to do something about it?  HR always says you have to offer opportunities for improvement before firing somebody, after all.

I was over at Kos the other day and they had a thing about the NY Legislature's new web site.  (Check out the post...it's really interesting.)  To have the ability to comment directly on pending legislation?  Wow.  I think Congress needs to take a hint.  Our president has gotten into the interactive government idea, too, guys.  How 'bout you put together something like this?  Give each congressperson a handy-dandy website where their constituents can rate them on their job performance, can offer suggestions on specific legislation, can get more directly involved.  It might even help dilute the influence of lobbyists (I know, call me Pollyanna...)

Obviously, that's not gonna happen anytime soon, so in the meantime, how's your congresscritter doing?  Mine, Congresswoman Betsy Markey, would have to work pretty hard to annoy me, since she replaced Marilyn Musgrave, but so far I'm not unhappy.  I didn't like her vote against the Conyers mortgage bill, and I sent her a note about that.  Other than that, she's keeping her head down, which is okay for now.  (I'm keeping an eye on her with regard to health care reform...)  So, Congresswoman Markey, yep, you're average.  Way to go!  Now, you need to network a little more...

(By the way, I checked up on my gal here: Project VoteSmart.  A very handy way to check up on your critter's voting record, stance on the issues, etc.  Y'all are probably well aware of it, but I like to remind people these tools exist.  Real tools, I mean.  Not the "he's a tool!" sort of tool.)

Alternatives to the Republican Budget

Fark has them covered:

A.

Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin Need to Talk

About that silly "volcano monitoring" stuff:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano erupted four times overnight, sending an ash plume more than 9 miles high into the air, but the state's largest city has likely been spared from any ashfall.

"The ash cloud went to 50,000 feet, and it's currently drifting toward the north, northeast," said Janet Schaefer, a geologist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

The first eruption, in a sparsely area across Cook Inlet from the Kenai Peninsula, occurred at 10:38 p.m. Sunday and the fourth happened at 1:39 a.m. Monday, according to the observatory.

The wind patterns were taking the ash cloud away from Anchorage, toward Willow and Talkneetna, near Mount McKinley, North America's largest mountain in Denali National Park.

Geophysicist John Power said no cities have yet reported any ash fall from the volcano, but noted that it was still early.

Using radar and satellite technology, the National Weather Service is predicting ash to start falling later Monday morning.

A.

A Slightly More Apt Comparison Between Then and Now

Than this, might be this.

While Republicans rush to grovel and embrace their most prominent lunatic mouthpiece, whose genocidal rhetoric and general attitude of bullshittery should embarrass us all as mammals, at least half the Democrats in the Senate fell all over themselves to agree with Republicans that MoveOn was very mean indeed.

Times have changed.

A.

Did You Miss The Speech?

Here's the whole thing.

A.

Oh For The Love Of

Yes, clearly we're screwed, Lindsey:

But scorn from the right is equal to admiration from the left: He championed a new way of doing things in Washington, but Obama went about shepherding his stimulus bill in a very old-fashioned partisan way, Republicans said.

That Obama signed the historic measure into law 1,500 miles away from Washington in Denver, Colorado, was a symbol to some of just how much animosity it had stirred up in the nation's capital.

"If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country's screwed," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, declared last week.

And I mean, so what? You don't need bipartisanship of anything other than the exact kind that was accomplished with three Republican senators to do anything. That was the point of winning the whole enchilada in November, dumbass. I'm sorry Lindsey's upset but making Lindsey happy isn't bipartisanship, it's a blowjob.

A.

What Matters

Charming. Just charming. Nice going, "centrists." Nice fucking job:

$40 billion State Fiscal Stabilization

$16 billion School Construction

$7.5 billion of State Incentive Grants

$5.8 billion Health Prevention Activity

$4.5 billion GSA

$3.5 billion Higher Ed Construction (Eliminated)

$3.5 billion Federal Bldgs Greening

$2.25 Neighborhood Stabilization (Eliminate)

$2 billion broadband

$2 billion HIT Grants

$1.25 billion project based rental

$1 billion Head Start/Early Start

$1.2 billion in Retrofiting Project 8 Housing

$1 billion Energy Loan Guarantees

Via Kos, that's what got cut from the stimulus bill. Bipartisanship is the victor! Huzzah, huzzah, we all feel good about ourselves for being friends! Wheee! Way to go, Senator Nelson, Senator Collins, Senator McFuckingCaskill. Way to be. You cut some kids' textbooks and made sure we'll get our asses kicked by the Chinese IN SPACE just to continue going to lunch with your favorite people in the whole wide world: One another.

So you schoolkids, trying to do math problems with the windows nailed shut and your coats on, who walked through doors with padlocks and chains just to show up today, you can just bugger off, because the Republicans and Democrats still love each other, and that's what matters.

You families, living in your apartment on Section 8 vouchers in the only part of town your snotty suburb will allow Section 8 housing built, wondering why your heat is off in January and you can't get hot water and the sewer backs up and your locks don't work (which is good, because the crackhead next door likes to come in at all hours) and the roof's caving in? Not as important as maintaining Senate collegiality and crowing about working together.

You parents, trying to raise little kids while working the five jobs you work to be "uniquely American" and pay your mortgage? Not as big a deal as being able to Twitter joyously that you aren't for pork and earmarks, no siree.

You know, I think I really wouldn't have a problem with bipartisanship. But this isn't bipartisanship, making these cuts in order to make these friends. This is narcissism. This is the same mirror-kissing bullshit that got us FISA and the Military Commissions Act, that got us the war and the spying and the debt and the death. This is prioritizing being friends over improving people's lives, and that's not bipartisanship, that's institutionalized selfishness.

I have a news flash for Nelson and McCaskill. Nobody really gives a shit about you. Nobody really cares if you can still pass notes to Susan Collins in the coatroom between classes sessions. Nobody out here in the world in which our local governments can't pay people to do such trivial work as teaching people to read gives a shit about how you look on the Sunday shows because we're too busy working extra hours to watch the Sunday shows.

We only care about "ending the gridlock in Washington" and "working with Congress and the president" and "moving things along" when it results in our lives being better. Otherwise we don't really care that much. So quit sucking face with your reflections and acting like it means something to us. It's embarrassing.

A.

Oooga Booga ACORN!

All right, I don't always love Dick Durbin, but this is a frakkin' epic smackdown:

The amendment, which deservedly failed, would have prohibited ACORN from receiving any funding from the programs paid for by the stimulus bill. It was a zombie lie of the right-wing extremists that ACORN was receiving an earmark in this bill, on top of which, grant and other spending programs funded by the bill are all to be awarded on a competitive basis, anyway.

Vitter's amendment was particularly petty, as Durbin points out, given that ACORN volunteers rehabilitated some 3500 homes in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Vitter thanks them for their service by trying to use them as a whipping boy.

I cannot believe some of these people are senators, I truly can't. And I'm not even picking on Vitter so much, because believe it or not that WASN'T the stupidest thing I've ever heard a Republican senator say. Which in and of itself scares me witless.

A.

Not Everyone Agrees

And they don't have to:

There’s essentially a “best practices” approach to dealing with financial calamity: you max out your monetary policy, which we’ve already done, and then you spend as much money as you possibly can without actually setting the stuff on fire (I’m exaggerating, but you get the point). That’s not Obama’s plan or Democrats’ plan, that’s the mainstream economic plan. Not everyone agrees with it, but not everyone agrees that you should take antibiotics if you’ve got pneumonia or that you should stop smoking if you’re coughing all the time.

Which is really the thing here. Waiting for everybody to get on board, or doing counterproductive things to get them on board when they don't really want to be on board, is some serious bullshit time-wasting. Let it go. Leave some Congressmen behind. They're big boys and girls, they can catch the bus.

I do agree with one point being made all over the panicking blogosphere this week, which is that Obama spent a lot time courting Republicans and not enough time courting Democrats. As we all know, we have like six parties in this country and most of the members of same call themselves Democrats, and they all want to be petted and cajoled and generally treated like the pretty pretty princesses they all are. Delicate little snowflakes. Very annoying. But you keep them all together, you don't need the Sarah Palin Party giving you strategy at the hands of Joe the Plumber.

If I've failed to completely give up on Obama as of yet, it's just because every time I've done so I've looked like an idiot, but he's had a crap week. Daschle was a bad choice for First Big Mistake, because if you're gonna blow a call you want it to be for something worthwhile. Judd Gregg is looking like the car I bought that time I had to buy a car in a week and it didn't really matter what kind of car it was or if it, you know, ran properly. Every time Max Baucus opens his mouth about national health care, sorry, I mean national health insurance, I want to stab holes in the walls. And I know Obama's busy but we really do need to get this torture thing handled, if only with some kind of definitive statement that we will continue to suck in perpetuity so that those of us holding out hope can give up and go take a nap.

All this is leaving aside how much fawning Tweety and his ilk have been doing over stupid shit like coffee klatches and who Obama had lunch with yesterday.

I'm not absolving the Congressional Democrats here, either. It's their responsibility to support the policies of the leader of their party, the man they fell all over themselves to get next to at their inaugural balls like he was National Prom King. You don't elect somebody and then disappear for six weeks while the Republicans pummel him all day long on the stupid talk shows. Get your heads together, figure out who's being interviewed when, and let's do this bitch already.

I'm sorry if I should be adopting a more general wait-and-see policy, but I am kind of freaked out that at any moment the ceiling could come crashing down and there'd be no money to fix it. Those of us out here losing our damn minds and scraping under the couch cushions for cash do not have a lot of patience left.

A.

Columnwhoring: If You Want to Win the Golden Broom, Find Your Spine

Link:

Americans elected Democrats in landslides across the country, tossing Republican incumbents from office left and right. Obama's margin of victory, his mandate to change the way this country has been run for the past eight years, couldn't have been much wider.

Democrats hold a 78-seat majority in the House and are up by double digits in the Senate. There's no real reason to care, at all, what Republicans think. If the Democratic party wants to get something done, all they have to do is decide to do it. They're doing Republicans a favor by making concessions of any kind, on any bill, whatsoever. They're being nice.

Not that I expect that to matter. In the first place, Congressional Democrats are rarely united, even on the party's most basic principles such as support for American labor and women's reproductive freedom.

In the second place, Democrats in and out of office are so Stockholm-syndrome stricken - so accustomed to bending over backward to please the opposition - that some concessions to a party with no leverage at all seem not just necessary but proper. They've spent so much time pleasing a Republican president and his once-popular Republican allies, pleasing them with votes to go to war with Iraq, spy on Americans, illegally imprison and torture, that finding their guts is going to take a searchlight and posse.

A.

Rahm Wants You To Say His Name

SAY IT, GRASSLEY.

A.

You Don't Need Their Votes

I wasn't going to get too crazy about this, because my most charitable interpretation lately has turned out to be correct, and I think this commenter gets it largely right:

I dunno, I'm going to hold off forming an opinion just yet.

The more I think about it, the more I think he's going for the Chicago Mafia tactics. Invite you in, wine and dine you, give 'healthy' advice and show concern for your own good if you don't take it... until they realize you simply aren't going to play along- then shoot you over dessert and say "Now look what you made me do."

(Or maybe I'd just like to see that.)

But then I remembered that this isn't just Obama, it's fucking Nancy and Harry and Steny and the club of the most of them that have been acting like scared little children since 2006, and I think they need a reminder:

Okay? You don't need them to get anything done. You don't need them to get anything done at all. You can get up in the morning, see the five messages from Boehner wanting to meet and talk and fight and fuss and complain, and you can distribute each one to an intern to use as a coffee coaster. You do not need to care what they think. 

And you certainly don't need to worry that people will be upset with you, people who vote. People right now demonstrably do not give a damn about cosmetic shit, about the Republican outrage of the day, if they did they never would have voted for Obama in the first place, because he has a funny name and pals around with terrorists and wants to take your guns away to give to gay aborted babies. People right now demonstrably do not want you to be nice to Republicans. They may not want you to be mean, but that's only because they don't care how you are to Republicans AT ALL.

I mean, Nancy, Harry, Steny, have you seen this country lately? We're so completely fucked:

"We could tell you what we did on a daily basis, but you wouldn't believe it. You know, boxes in a big container, and it'll weigh 800 pounds, you push it out the door through eight inches of snow, and push it up on a barge, and we were idiots enough that we did it by ourselves. We worked as a team, and we had a good friend right along side of us," Keith Rider tells correspondent Scott Pelley.

"You're losin' a lot more than a job," Pelley remarks.

"Our friends. It's crazy. You'll never understand it. But we loved it," Rider says.

"I remember people with scarves breathin' through ice in just unreal…eyelashes frozen and I started in '81. And when you worked, you worked. Why weren't we bailed out?" Morris Deufemia asks.

Do you think in the face of that anybody gives a shit what Republicans think of your manners?

And fine, they want to make it about birth control, let's make it about birth control. Do you think poor women trying to scrape by with whatever they've got left, trying to get basic health care (and yes, forget having babies or not having babies, in some cases birth control pills ARE basic health care that allows you to be well enough to work, you assholes, try living with fibroids and endometriosis and see what that does to your productivity, you nutsacks) really give a shit if you and the Republicans are friends? If you all can have lunch together? If Chris Matthews thinks you're being mean? If Barack Obama's really living up to his promise to make us all be excellent to each other? Really, you think that's what's critical here?

I mean, okay. But your approval rating's in the basement and there's a reason why, demonstrated in every move you make: You're clearly more interested in bending over backwards to please people your constituents have told you they don't want pleased than in helping people fucking live. You cannot work up the amount of get-it-done-NOW urgency for the American people that you can when Boehner sends up a howl. It's the comparison, you morons. It's all of us, out here, watching to see what really rings your bell.

Maybe what we need to do to get your attention is put on suits and spray-on tans and change our party affiliations. Maybe that's what it takes.

Schmucks.

A.

How Short Attention Span Theater Works To Our Advantage

In about thirteen days nobody's going to even remember the name of Governor Tit Clown or for that matter Give 'Em Head Harry (tm whoever thought that one up), because that's how loud and bright the awesome of Barack Obama's inauguration will be.

We're all gonna be talking about Michelle's dress, I mean, come on.

A.

All I Have To Say To The Incoming Congress

A.

In Honor of Norm Coleman Being a Losing Loser Who Lost

Let us all remember his crowning achievement, his upside-down apotheosis, the Bolton confirmation hearings:

When I was a prosecutor, we used to say on closing arguments, I'd stand in front of the jury and I'd say, You know, you got to watch out for the rabbit out of the hats trick. And what happens is that the defense would come in, they got a hat, a magician's hat, and they got lots of rabbits, and they go running around. And they hope that one member of the jury chases one of those rabbits and takes their eye off the goal, the main thing being the main thing. And so we have the rabbit of personal relations, and we have the rabbit of violating procedure, and we have the rabbit of lack of candor, we have the rabbit of bad policy judgments.

A.

'I'm So Sick of Congress I Could Vomit'

Seriously, could they fail any harder?

Harry Reid has sworn to use his mastery of Senate procedure to block the Burris appointment and protect the integrity of that very exclusive club, which nonetheless warmly embraces Joe Lieberman.   

If only he had been so Johnny-on-the-spot when Bush was appointing Supreme Court Justices, ramming through telecom immunity, FISA and the Military Commissions Act, and otherwise trashing the country.

I think this may be my favorite part, however:

Should Roland Burris show up Tuesday for duty in the Senate, armed police officers stand ready to bar him from the floor.

This cinematic showdown is among an elaborate set of contingencies that Democratic leaders are planning if, as expected, the Illinoisan shows up with newly elected senators pressing his claim that he is the legitimate replacement for President-elect Barack Obama after the disputed appointment of Burris by Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich.

Would that by any chance be the Sergeant-at-Arms, who oversees the Capital police, who was never deployed to enforce congressional subpoenas when the Bush administration refused to comply?

So many powers at their disposal!  Who knew?

Blago could actually show up himself on Tuesday -- as a sitting governor he would have to be allowed on the Senate floor, even if they won't allow Burris.

It would be quite fitting.  Not that they needed any help, but Blago has done a damn good job of making the Democratic leadership look absolutely ridiculous.

I am really just about ... okay, I get that there are reasons we don't put me in charge of soothing tensions abroad and running the floor fight on FISA and whatnot, like my OH MY GOD FUCK YOU style of diplomacy isn't everybody's cup of scotch, but you can't tell me this is the right way to handle things. This is the fight you get up for, Harry? Seriously, this is the thing you can get out of bed with morning wood about? This. Roland Burris, who while he's always come off round these parts as kind of a self-aggrandizing douchebag, isn't even in the neighborhood of the list of Top Ten Senate Douchebags that includes not only ponces like Lieberman but people like Brownback, who think high school bathrooms are full of predatory lesbians, and Cornyn, who has impure thoughts regarding reptiles.

I don't even know what to do when Harry Reid wakes up from his two-year nap and discovers that THIS is a bridge too far.

Post title via The West Wing.

A.

Happy Kerry Photo: Barbara Boxer Edition

Or Happy Boxer Photo, John Kerry Edition:

In sum, the bipartisan report found that “senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.” The report, led by Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, concluded that “those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.” I fully support Chairman Levin’s proposal for an outside Commission with subpoena power to investigate this matter further.

In light of this report and Vice President Cheney’s admission that torture was approved at the highest levels, I ask that you hold a hearing on the use of torture and its impact on U.S. moral standing in the world. The last eight years have been a dark chapter for U.S. global leadership and have left a deep stain on our moral authority. Now is the time to send a clear and unequivocal sign that we completely reject torture, that we respect the rule of law, and that America will once again lead on human rights through the power of our example. [Emphasis added]

Listen to the distinguished college from Cali, Big John.

A.

The First Thing We Do Is, We Hide

Oh, goody, an asshole party!

From Roll Call comes the relatively unsurprising news that Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh is attempting to form a "Blue Dog" coalition in the Senate, one which would mirror the one that Democrats already have in the House. This group will presumably include some of the swing senators that I described last week, folks like Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor and Mary Landireu.

The practical upshot of something like this -- apart from making Bayh one of the ten most powerful people in Washington -- is that the Democrats in the Blue Dog coalition would presumably tend to vote as a group rather than individuals. That is the whole point of a coalition; if a coalition's members are not voting together, it really isn't serving any purpose. Let's say that there are seven Democrats in the Blue Dog group. In theory, this means that instead of having anywhere between zero and seven votes on a particular bill (but most commonly some in-between number like two, three or four), Barack Obama would tend to get either get exactly seven votes or exactly zero. Would this behavior be helpful or harmful to his agenda?

I would argue that it might be helpful, simply because of where the numbers tend to stand in the Senate right now.

The problem is that the Blue Dog coalition in the House has largely served to fuck over progressive Democrats at every turn and hump on Bush's leg, and so while I'm hopeful the magic of Obama will overcome the tendencies of Bayh and Landrieu and the like to cower before anyone who threatens to call them a pussy on TV, I cannot see anything modeled on the House's Bush Dogs as anything other than a giant "oh shit this again" moment.

It seems sick that we have to figure out who among our own party is most likely to screw us, but it looks like Bayh's getting them all together in a room so they can reinforce each other's paranoid delusions. While on any other day a block of Democrats working together would be a good thing, on the whole I'd rather they stay in Gen Pop where they can be peeled off and given stern talkings-to by Feingold and Kerry and Teddy as the need arises. 

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Health Coverage vs. Health Care vs. Neither

A couple of things to read:

Flory on Ezra on Daschle.

Baucus making sure his friends are taken care of.

And finally, this is just me: Having health insurance for everybody might mean everybody can afford to go to the doctor. But it doesn't mean everybody can get health care. If the doctor finds something wrong with you, and it's not covered by your insurance, or it's only covered to 90 percent but that remaining ten percent is still $1,200 and right now you don't have $1,200, or it's covered entirely but you're off work during your recovery time and you're paid by the hour ... You're still screwed. It's possible to be entirely covered by what are by all decent standards pretty good forms of insurance and still end up entirely hosed by something as random as sickness. And don't jaw at me about not smoking or eating right. You can do that and still get whalloped by a tumor. 

My point is that we should try for better than we've got but let's not get fooled into thinking better is best, or better is done.

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But - But - But - But - Bipartisanship? Cooperation? Conciliation?

As usual, a load of Republican crap:

Earlier this month, the Bush administration nominated Neil Barofsky, a federal prosecutor, to be the Treasury Department's special inspector general on the bailout program. That's a crucial post, given the astronomical sums at issue, the broad authority that Treasury has been given to distribute them, the concerns that have been raised about possible conflicts of interest, and the general urgency of our efforts to prevent an economic collapse.

So you'd think Congress would be doing everything it could to get Barofsky confirmed right away. You'd be wrong.

Last week, Sen. Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the banking committee, issued a little-noticed statement saying that although the nomination "was cleared by members of the Senate Banking Committee, the leadership of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and all Democratic Senators," it was "blocked on the floor by at least one Republican member." (itals ours.)

Senate rules allow any senator to anonymously block a vote on confirmation to any federal post, for any reason.

The rationale for the move remains unclear. But a Washington Post story from a few days before Dodd's statement offers two suggestions. It notes that Barofsky supported Barack Obama, and describes an unresolved "battle between the Finance and Banking committees over which has jurisdiction over the confirmation process."

It was never more than a dodge. It never is, with them. You can't trust a damn word they say. I don't know why I, a girl with a web site, can figure this out and the U.S. Senate leadership seems to have some kind of mental block (not to mention which, Chris, these are the people your pal Joe thought were great guys, so ...) on realizing when they're getting hosed.

This is why, while truth and reconciliation commissions are a nice idea, my personal desire is to see everyone who had anything to do with the Bush administration's abuses, I mean down to the clerk who photocopied Douglas Feith's memos, prosecuted and imprisoned. Because there's absolutely zero call to trust that going forward, they won't simply do the same damn thing all over again. While the 1970s Nostalgia Presidency was fun for a few defense contractors and the Bush family, not so much for the rest of the country, and I don't think we can take another turn of this particular screw.

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Condolences

To the Biden family.

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Shunned

Deservedly so...

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., was virtually shunned by other Democrats when he returned to the Senate Monday, fueling increased speculation that his days as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and perhaps as a member of the Democratic Caucus, are numbered.

Lieberman's speech at the Republican National Convention last week, delivered to a national television audience in support of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, appears to have been the last straw for many Senate Democrats, as members and staff who previously avoided publicly criticizing the senator on Monday showed a new willingness to condemn his conduct.

The article outlines why no decision on Joe's future with the Democrats will likely be made until after the election.

Joe Wants To Be On TV

It's the only reason he sticks around:

Lieberman wrote in a political autobiography of why he stopped sounding like a liberal when he ran for office in the late ’80s: he’d lost a Congressional race by being painted as one at the dawn of the Reagan era. He’d never let that happen again.

He may have launched his career by taking on machine Democrats. But he quickly made his peace with them, and the Teamsters who helped pull their votes, as he ascended to the position of Connecticut attorney general, then U.S. senator.

When he began making alliances with the Republican right in Washington, he was cultivating powerful friends among a network of politicians and operatives who came to dominate the federal government and the national discourse. He became a star.

When he ran as Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore’s number-two in 2000, he suddenly backtracked on those principles: He no longer called affirmative action “un-American.” He embraced civil rights again and warned against dangerous Republicans.

When he ran on his own for president in 2004, he positioned himself as a Scoop Jackson Democrat, hoping to capture the votes of conservative Democrats. But he was still seeking the votes of partisans. So he ditched the bipartisan, bridge-building talk.

And you know, I do get it in a pragmatic sense. The only way for a Democrat to get any face time during the first seven years of the Bush presidency was to diss his own party and praise the president, so that other TV commetators who felt guilty for falling for Bush's weasel show would be able to point to "even the liberal senator X" in order to justify how icky their skin felt after he slimed all over it. I do get that if you've got a message, and it's mostly "aren't I awesome?" then the only way to get that out there was to append "and other Democrats suck" on to the end of it.

But it's not 2002 anymore. Nor 2004 nor 2006. It's time to stop treating these people like it was ever okay for them to sell out their principles just to be able to make love to the microphones. Joe's not a proud Democrat. He's not, in fact, a proud anything, not anything at all.

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Irena Sendler

About whom we posted here, is honored by Congress, who might take a lesson:

Whereas on May 12, 2008, Irena Sendler, a living example of social justice, died at the age of 98;

Whereas Irena Sendler repeatedly risked her own life to rescue over 2,500 Jewish children in Poland's Warsaw ghetto from Nazi extermination during the Holocaust;

Whereas inspired by her father, a physician who spent his career treating poor Jewish patients, Irena Sendler dedicated her life to others;

Whereas Irena Sendler became an early activist at the start of World War II, heading the clandestine group Zegota and driving an underground movement that provided safe passage for Jews from the Warsaw ghetto, who were facing disease, execution, or deportation to concentration camps;

Whereas Irena Sendler became one of Zegota's most successful workers, taking charge of the children's division and using her senior position with the city's welfare department to gain access to and from the ghetto and build a network of allies to help ferry Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto;

Whereas Irena Sendler was arrested by the Gestapo on October 20, 1943, tortured, and sentenced to death by firing squad;

Whereas Irena Sendler never revealed details of her contacts, escaped from Pawiak prison, and continued her invaluable work with Zegota;

Whereas in 1965, Irena Sendler was recognized as `Righteous Among the Nations' by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel;

Whereas in 2006, Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize;

Whereas Irena Sendler was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest civilian decoration;

Whereas Irena Sendler's life has been chronicled in the documentary film, `Tzedek: The Righteous' and `Life in a Jar', a play about her rescue efforts;

Whereas Irena Sendler, a woman who risked everything for the lives of others and whose bravery is unimaginable to many of us, expressed guilt for not being able to do more for the Jewish people; and

Whereas Americans, as well as the world community, are reminded not only of the horrible cruelty at the time of the Holocaust, but also the incredible difference one person can make by knowing Irena Sendler's story.

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Feingold Has A Message For The Pro-Immunity Members Of The Senate

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUCK MY BALLS:

Mr. President, I sit on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, and I am one of the few members of this body who has been fully briefed on the warrantless wiretapping program. And, based on what I know, I can promise that if more information is declassified about the program in the future, as is likely to happen either due to the Inspector General report, the election of a new President, or simply the passage of time, members of this body will regret that we passed this legislation. I am also familiar with the collection activities that have been conducted under the Protect America Act and will continue under this bill. I invite any of my colleagues who wish to know more about those activities to come speak to me in a classified setting. Publicly, all I can say is that I have serious concerns about how those activities may have impacted the civil liberties of Americans. If we grant these new powers to the government and the effects become known to the American people, we will realize what a mistake it was, of that I am sure.

In the van today, cataloging all this EPIC FAIL as well as the few moments of PURE WIN noted above and below, people were listing off all the conversations they'd had with various members of Congress and their staffs, who they wrote letters to, who talked to them on the phone, who answered an e-mail, who got through and who didn't. And godDAMN, people. You stood the hell up today like men and women, like grown-ups, like Americans. You have nothing to feel bad about.

It seems a pretty poor consolation, that we did everything we could. But honestly, honestly honestly, it's not. It's not a small thing, doing everything you could. You are not obligated to complete the work, says the Torah, but you are not free to abandon it. It's not a small thing to take the time you have and make the calls and write the letters, and you don't even do it for them. You do it for the hour between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. when you are wondering, what could I have done? You do it so that there's an answer to that question. There are things that we do not because others deserve to have them done but because we deserve to do them.

The point about victories in the face of impossible odds is that the odds are impossible and the victories unlikely. To pivot from the Torah to Shakespeare, as you do, "The harder matched, the greater victory," but the great victories, you don't get those every single day. You don't get them when you want them and you don't get them when you need them, even. So why fight? Because you never know when they're going to come. You never know where your words are going to stop. You never know who is going to hear you and take notice. You never know who is going to stand up with you and who is going to get your back and it might never be the person place or thing you expect.

If you can't expect, all you can do is plan. All you can do is get up every day and fight every day like a dog for the things that you want and you believe in, fight like a goddamn junkyard dog. Because you lose and you lose and you lose and you lose and you lose and you lose and you lose and then you fucking win. And if you hadn't been pushing, all that time, if you hadn't been fighting, if you hadn't been getting back up, you wouldn't have been there when the air changed and the floods rolled back and the ball hung in the sky just a second longer than it ought to and you wouldn't have been able to change where it landed.

This sucked. We lost. Anybody fucking tired?

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Dodd Gives The Republic A Eulogy

From the Senate floor today:

I want to thank the thousands who joined with us in this fight around the country – those who took to the blogs, gathered signatures for online petitions and created a movement behind this issue.  Men and women, young and old, who stood up, spoke out and gave us the strength to carry on this fight.  Not one of them had to be involved, but each choose to become involved for one reason and one reason alone:

Because they love their country.

They remind us that the “silent encroachments of those in power” Madison spoke of can, in fact, be heard, if only we listen. 

All of us—my colleagues and citizens around the country—share a fundamental belief about in our Constitution, Mr. President.  We believe our Constitution isn’t incidental to our security – but rather its very foundation.

This notion—that it is the rule of law that keeps us safe—should not be controversial, Mr. President.

I take a backseat to no one when it comes to protecting Americans and Americans’ safety.  But if history has taught us anything, it simply isn’t necessary to sacrifice our freedoms to do that. 

I do not believe history will judge this President kindly for his contempt for the rule of law.  But will history will be any kinder to those of us who have served as these transgressions occurred on our watch?

I have two daughters – Grace and Christina, who are six and three.  Their generation will ask someday:

Where were you when the President asked you to repudiate the Geneva Conventions and strip away the right of habeas corpus?

Where were you when stories of secret prisons and outsourced torture first began to surface and then became impossible to deny?

And of today they will ask, where were you when Congress was persuaded to shield wealthy corporations that may well have knowingly acted outside of the law to spy on Americans?

Where were we?

Right here, Mr. President – in this chamber, at this moment. 

History will not forget.

It will not forget our role in any of this.

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FISA Debate Crack Van

Live feed here once it begins. Debate is today, votes are tomorrow, thanks to Jesse Helms' funeral. Call your Senators.

I don't know how much I'll be able to be around during the day today, so play nicely. Whoever's not driving, make sure everybody's strapped in.

Update: Van closed. Thanks to all who liveblogged during the day. The van will reopen tomorrow for the voting. In the meantime, read Glenn:

The political class has made as clear as can be that it is intent on supporting a limitless erosion of core constitutional liberties and the creation of a two-tiered justice system that exempts the political elite from the rule of law. Neither the "opposition party" nor the establishment media are the slightest bit interested in, or capable of, stopping any of that. Battling against that is the responsibility of citizens who find these political trends dangerous and intolerable.

Because that about covers it.

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'Not Even From A President on Mount Rushmore'

Good Christ I love this man:

Most agree that this law needs to be modernized, as it has been many times over the years. But this time, the president is asking Congress to do something much more: to shield the telecoms from any judicial review of their actions. He wants Congress to declare spying without a warrant both constitutional and necessary to defend this country.

It is neither.

That is why I have done everything I can to stop retroactive immunity from being included in the FISA bill. As written, this bill does not say, "Trust the American people." It does not say, "Trust the courts and judges and juries to come to just decisions" about what happened at the telecoms. Rather, retroactive immunity sends this message:

"Trust me" -- a message that comes straight from the mouth of President Bush. I would never take "trust me" for an answer, not even in the best of times. Not even from a president on Mount Rushmore.

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This Week It All Comes Down

And you don't want to be sitting there knowing you didn't make a call.

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Jesse Helms Dies at 86

Obit:

Early on, his habit of blocking nominations and legislation won him a nickname of "Senator No." He delighted in forcing roll call votes that required Democrats to take politically difficult votes on federal funding for art he deemed pornographic, school busing, flag-burning and other cultural issues.

In 1993, when then-President Clinton sought confirmation for an openly homosexual assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Helms registered his disgust. "I'm not going to put a lesbian in a position like that," he said in a newspaper interview at the time. "If you want to call me a bigot, fine."

After Democrats killed the appointment of U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle, a former Helms aide, to a federal appeals court post in 1991, Helms blocked all of Clinton's judicial nominations from North Carolina for eight years.

Helms occasionally opted for compromise in later years in the Senate, working with Democrats on legislation to restructure the foreign policy bureaucracy and pay back debts to the United Nations, an organization be disdained for most of his career.

And he softened his views on AIDS after years of clashes with gay activists, advocating greater federal funding to fight the disease in Africa and elsewhere overseas.

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Russ Feingold Sends Me E-Mail!

Just me, of course. Not like seven billion other people. Just me.

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Know Who Your Friends Are

FDL has the FISA cloture vote tally.

We get back up. We may take a minute to lay here and kick our feet (thanks for showing up to work, senators, honestly, thanks for making it into the office, I know it can't be easy to walk with your head so far up your own colon) but in the morning, we get back up. When that's all you've got left, that's what you take. You pull me up, I'll pull you.

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Dodd FISA Filibuster Crack Van, Er, Speech

C-Span watch here. Fuck me blind, he's actually doing it.

Update: False alarm. Dodd gave an absolutely blistering speech, which is here:

None of our fellow Americans will have their day in court.

What they will have is a government that has sanctioned lawlessness.

Well, I refuse to accept that, Mr. President. I refuse to accept the argument that because this situation is just too delicate, too complicated, that this body is simply going to go ahead and sanction lawlessness.

We are better than that.

And if I have needed any reminder of that fact, simply look to all those who have joined this fight – my colleagues and the many, many Americans who have given me strength for this fight. Strength that comes from the passion and eloquence of citizens who don’t have to be involved, but choose to be nonetheless.

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Preznit Sez

Nice job, Steny, you suckhole.

Did I miss a meeting? Are the American people clamoring for protection for the phone companies? Did Bush's approval rating shoot through the roof while I was mopping my floors this morning. What the hell, guys? Have Republicans suddenly surpassed, say, beastial perverts in the esteem of the average U.S. citizen? Whence cometh this unholy haste to compromise with a dickhead nobody likes, on an issue nobody who goes by the name of Joe Sixpack really cares about, in the direction of being utterly fucking useless?

I mean it, I'm never cleaning my house again, if this is the kind of thing that gets done when I'm not paying attention.

Update: Paging Chris Dodd to the white courtesy phone, please:

Last week, Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., urged the Democratic leadership not to bring forward the compromise solution, which they said was unacceptable.

In a letter sent to several senior Democrats in Congress, Dodd and Feingold said the result of the court's evaluation would be predetermined.

This is because a declassified section of a Senate Intelligence Committee's report admitted the existence of the presidential authorizations.

Might be time to make good on that filibuster now, Senator.

And Dodd responds:

“As I have said time and time again, the President should not be above the rule of law, nor should the telecommunications companies who supported his quest to spy on American citizens.  I remain strongly opposed to this deeply flawed bill, and I urge my colleagues in Congress to join me in supporting American’s civil liberties by rejecting this measure.”

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On Being Nice

I look forward to McCain's sponsorship of a resolution declaring Barack Obama a Christian who does not actually want to have sex with Osama bin Laden on top of a pile of dead puppies.

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Dodd: Why Didn't They Fight Back?

Someday we'll be asked:

I’ll ask this, Mr. President: Who will chair the commission investigating the secrets of warrantless spying, years from today? Will it be a young senator in this body today? Will it be someone not yet elected? What will that senator say when he or she comes to our actions, reads in the records how we let outrage after outrage after outrage slide, with nothing more than a promise to stop the next one? I imagine that senator will ask of us, “Why didn’t they do anything? Why didn’t they fight back? In February 2008, when no one could doubt anymore what the administration was doing—why did they sit on their hands?”

Someday you, Sen. Bayh, and you, Sen. Webb, and you, Sen. Lincoln, and you, Sen. Kohl, and all the others, will be asked.

I guess we know now how you'll answer.

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A List of Those So-Called Democrats Who Voted to Protect Phone Companies Instead of Your Privacy

Cloture vote passed, 69 to 29.

Dodd's amendment failed, with the following Democrats voting with Republicans:

Bayh, Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Stabenow, Feinstein, Kohl, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Carper, Mikulski, Conrad, Webb, and Lincoln.

Hillary wasn't there to vote.

Obama voted to support Dodd.

McCain voted, of course, with the Republicans, because he's a maverick-y maverick who bucks the party line.

And you know, Atrios and Jane think the Democratic cave-in is about values and money, respectively, but I'm not willing to attribute to higher causes that which laziness and stupidity will adequately explain. I think these people have been told for so long there's only one way to appeal to voters they've stopped listening to anyone telling them different. I think they just don't hear it. I really do.

So we have to make them. And I know, I know, it seems like we've been doing that forever and ever, and why is it still THIS HARD, and why doesn't anybody get it yet. These assholes were supposed to be on our side. They were supposed to be fighting for us. They were supposed to see the Republicans as the opposition, not the left flank of their own party. They were supposed to be better than this. We are all supposed to be better than this, and I'm pissed and exhausted and I very much want to lie down.

But when you don't have the money and you don't have the power and you don't have the guns and you don't have the strength all you've got is the ability to keep getting up until they get too tired to hit you again, and if that's all we've got left then that's what we'll do. If that's what we've got, that's what we've got. We've got Dodd and Russ, and Obama, and 29 Senators who know their jobs, and the hundreds of people who wrote and who called, and the power of our votes in primaries and generals, and e-mail and text messages, and it's not enough, apparently, but it's what we've got. That list of 18 up there, that list of people? Those are the ones who have cause to be ashamed of themselves. Those are the ones who should feel like going back to bed and eating a whole bag of chocolate chips. We've got work to do. They've shown us that.

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Dodd Video of Win

I really like how he spits out "Republican" like it's a filthy bucket of mop water, and says "This is the US SENATE" with the unspoken "BITCH" at the end.

Blistering contempt is pretty much the only response Senate Republicans are due right now:

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Dodd to Senate: SACK UP

Read the whole thing. I've been trying for an hour to pick out the best bit, and I can't. I can only wish I'd heard it, because holy shit, does this guy ever blow the doors off when he's on a hot streak:

We’ve let outrage upon outrage upon outrage slide with nothing more than a promise to stop the next one.

There is only one issue here. Only one. The law issue. Attack the president’s contempt for the law at any point, and it will be wounded at all points.

That’s why I’m here today. I am speaking for the American people’s right to know what the president and the telecoms did to them. But more than that, I am speaking against the president’s conviction that he is the law. Strike it at any point, with courage, and it will wither.

That’s the big deal. That is why immunity matters—dangerous in itself, but even worse in all it represents. No more. No more. This far, Mr. President—but no further.

More and more, Americans are rejecting the false choice that has come to define this administration: security or liberty, but never, ever both.

It speaks volumes about the president’s estimation of the American people that he expects them to accept that choice.

The truth, though, is that shielding corporations from lawsuits does absolutely nothing for our security. I challenge the president to prove otherwise. I challenge him to show us how putting these companies above the law makes us safer by an iota.

That, I am convinced, he can’t do.

More every day. More every fucking day.

Hat tip to reader Paddy.

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Courage, Man, The Pain Cannot Be Much

Those of you who were in the Crack Van with us this morning heard it in the original, delivered by a righteously pissed off Chris Dodd, who along with Russ Feingold was about the only person in the Senate fully awake today. But if you missed it, or wanted the full version unsullied by kitten noises, applause, vague sexual innuendo and recipes, why, I'm here to serve:

Mr. President, I oppose the Intelligence bill on these five counts for the same reason I oppose retroactive immunity: because where the president’s power is strongest, the rule of law should be strongest, as well. The Intelligence Committee’s bill means more power—and less law.

It reduces court oversight nearly to the point of symbolism; it could allow the targeting of Americans on false pretences; it opens us up to new, twisted rationales for warrantless wiretapping, the very thing it ought to prevent; it could allow bulk collection, as soon as an administration has the wherewithal to build such an enormous dragnet; and it sets all of these deeply flawed provisions in stone for six years.

In sum, Mr. President, the Intelligence version is entirely too trusting a bill. With its immunity, and with its wiretapping provisions, it has a simple answer to George Bush’s “trust me”: an all-too-eager “yes!”

I leave my colleagues with a simple question: Has that trust been earned?

Despite stories saying the Democrats caved yet again, this thing won't be entirely done until the final cloture vote Monday afternoon. At which time Dodd will have to pull out his big guns again.

I found it hilarious that Reid and others accused Dodd of "grandstanding" for his presidential campaign when he threatened the filibuster before. Hilarious because most Americans, sadly, couldn't pick this issue out of a lineup consisting otherwise only of seletions of breakfast pastry. Hilarious because, yeah, if you want to boost your presidential campaign in Iowa, what you do is talk all day in the Senate. Hilarious because, given all that Dodd said in December, like he wasn't gonna come back and fucking own this in January. He warned Reid then: Bring it back and back I'll come and bring everybody with me.

There's a few more days to salvage this thing, to at least convince enough people to make a stand. To convince Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that they need to get into town on Monday, walk into the Senate chamber, clap Chris Dodd on the shoulder and say, "Good job, man, and we're here with you." I know it's a pipe dream, but what are we doing here, if not to call for the courage we dream of, so that it becomes reality? Ask them to stand up. You shouldn't have to, and they might not, but ask them anyway. Ask them to lead. Ask them to stand. Ask them to have the courage of not just their convictions but their constituents.

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In Case You Missed It

I love the Internet. Here is a transcript of every speech given during Monday's Doddsmack (tm Sinfonian). Just mouse over the names to see the awesome (Dodd, Feingold, et al) and the tooliness (McConnell, Sessions, anything else with an R after its name).

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Your Mom, On Demand

Why, it's almost like they notice when you win:

In a setback for the White House, Senate Democrats on Monday put off until at least next month any decision on whether to give legal protection to the phone carriers that helped with the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program.

The Bush administration had pushed for immediate passage of legislation to grant immunity to the phone companies as part of a broader expansion of the N.S.A.’s wiretapping authorities. But that will not happen now.

Via the Dodd squad.

A setback for the White House. The 24 percent White House, may I remind us all, that is due no deference and deserves no courtesy, that has sanctioned bigotry and assisted persecution, that has done nothing for seven years but divide and frighten us, that took a country and turned it against itself, and then blamed that same country for its ills, that has villainized its own people, tortured them, imprisoned them in secret and then denied their crimes.

I know Harry's probably still reeling from the pimp-slapping he got yesterday, but if he starts to come out of his impotent stupor, he might read that first line again. A setback for the White House. He might start thinking about what it would feel like to read that every day for the next year, what that might do to his fortunes, and start paying some attention.

Not. One. Inch.

A.

'Don't You Ever Let It Happen Again'

That's it.

I mean it, that's it.

Chris Dodd for president.

I said I couldn't pick and I couldn't commit and you know what? It wasn't me, it was them. I just hadn't heard anything that got me enough. I heard it today:

If this disastrous war has taught us anything, it is that the Senate must never again stack such a momentous decision on such a weak foundation of fact. The decision we’re asked to make today is not, of course, as immense. But between fact and decision, the disproportion is just as huge.

So I rise in determined opposition to this unprecedented immunity and all that it represents. I have served in this body for more than a quarter-century. I have spoken from this desk hundreds and hundreds of times. I have rarely come to the floor with such anger.

But since I came to Washington, I have seen six presidents sit in the White House—and I have never seen a contempt for the rule of law equal to this. Today I have reached a breaking point. Today my disgust has found its limit.

I don’t expect every one of my colleagues to share that disgust, or that limit. I wish they did—but had that been the case, we would never have come to this point.

I only ask them to believe me when I say if I did not speak today, my conscience would not let me rest.

(I know, I know, I know how badly this is gonna hurt, but right now, I'm drunk with it, spinning, crazy, intoxicated, up in the air, don't talk sense to me, don't you dare say one sensible word about thinking about my future and weighing all my options and going to college instead of running away with the handsome man in the green tie. I want this moment to be worth the hangover I can already feel nibbling around the edges of that second glass of red. Don't talk me down, I like it up here.)

I think my favorite moment of the approximately 12 billion hours of Senatorial nonsense we sat through (you and me and everybody else crammed into the crack van, calling Harry a fucker and talking about Scout's Christmas ham), I think my very favorite moment came at the end. When Harry Reid, beaten and pissed off, told Dodd the bill would just come back in January, and Dodd said fine. Bring it back. But if it includes retroactive immunity, again, I'm just gonna filibuster it. So bring it back.

I'll come back, and my supporters will come back, and their friends and families and co-workers and neighbors will come back, and Feingold and Kerry and Boxer and Cardin and Wyden and Nelson and Kennedy will come back, and my country tis of thee the United States of America will come back and we'll keep doing this until you get it. I don't care how long it takes. Until you get it, until you stop this, we will keep pushing, so just shut up and take it like the man you say you are.

(I may be paraphrasing a bit there. But only a bit.)

Harry's displeased. But if he really opposed retroactive immunity, he'd have honored Dodd's hold. He'd stop knuckling under. He'd stop compromising. He'd stop giving the president everything the president wants. He'd stop backing down. I'm really sorry Harry's pissed off, I am. But I'm sorrier, you know, about ALL THE LAWS BEING BROKEN, and until Harry figures out that there are harder things than this, he's just gonna have to stay pissed off, and that's the end of that.

While we're at it, man, was the Republican ass parade in full swing today. Kit Bond, saying we weren't granting the telecoms immunity because they didn't do anything wrong, but even if they didn't, they still needed immunity. For stuff. That they didn't do. Mitch McConnell, autowittering on about how senators had worked all weekend on their pretty diorama bill, and how dare Dodd and Feingold point out where the glue was showing! Jeff Sessions, who ... I don't know, his mouth was moving, but all I heard was "9/11 made my penis small" and then Saxby Chambliss showed up at which point I thought it best to go clean the litterbox. All the greatest assholes of our time, one after another, talking about how difficult it was for them to see our country so defiled by those dirty fucking hippies and their insistence on debate.

Obama didn't come out of it looking too bad, I do have to say:

It's not clear whether he can return for the vote, but under the Senate rules, the side trying to end a filibuster must produce 60 votes to cut off debate. Whether he is present for the vote for not, Senator Obama will not be among those voting to end the filibuster.

But Dodd ... his campaign forwarded around this assy thing the Chicago Tribune did, full of their usual smugly superior tone, that "aren't you activists just so cute" thing that's like their institutional default, about how he was doing this to make a splash for his campaign. Because, yeah. What you want to do to attract the attention of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire is to stand in a near-empty Senate in Washington a week before Christmas giving speeches about a bill most Americans couldn't identify if you stuck it in a lineup with Siegfried, Roy and a breakfast pastry. That'll get all the girlies wanting to scream. I am not entirely un-self-aware. I realize a handful of people are paying attention to this.

That doesn't make it worth less, though. That makes it worth more. Dodd should get some turkee out of this. He should get some blogospheric love. But in the end? Is that gonna put him in Clinton-Obama-Edwards poll territory? Fuck no. I'm not that round the bend, that I think this will be the thing that begins a wave of nationwide Doddmania that sweeps the country. He won't win the presidency based on this.

But he should. Oh, he should. Because what he did today was to stop trying to convince me he should have the job, and just start doing the job. He did what leaders do: Get out in front of the thing nobody else even notices is happening, and take it where it ought to have been in the first place. He made an example out of himself. He could have done this thing, where he went on the Sunday shows and talked about how Democrats really ought to be strong leaders and they ought to put aside their own interests and work for their constituents and they really ought to do this, that and the other fucking thing. He could have talked all day long about what Democrats should be doing.

Instead he got up, as a Democrat, and did it.

The bill will come back in January. He'll be there.

We'll all be there.

A.

RETURN of FISA Debate Crack Van

Update: Reid pulled the bill until Jan. 1. Read more at the Dodd site. And lest you think this is just a temporary reprieve, Dodd said in his closing remarks, if they come back with a bill that still includes retroactive immunity, in January, he'll stand up and cockpunch them again, so don't even think about it.

(I may have made that last bit up a little.)

Thanks to everyone who stopped by for the van today! Call your senators over the break, and ask them to stand with Chris Dodd.

A.

Just Ask

Joe Lieberman's available to help you:

On the other hand, if all it takes is asking for Lieberman's support for an endorsement, then everyone should get on the phone now, call Lieberman's office at (202) 224-4041, and ask for his support on, well, anything. You want support for your run for president of your local ACLU chapter? Call Joe. You want a new job or maybe a committee chair in some organization? Call Joe. How about getting your kids to like vegetables? Joe'll support you.

Seriously. He's waiting for your call right now. And obviously, all you have to do is ask.

A.