The issue before the Senate is fairly simple. Last summer, President Bush asked Congress to close a gap in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act created by advancements in technology. He waited until the eve of a recess, and then, as is his habit, falsely presented it as a matter of life and death. Having spooked Democrats on terrorism yet again, Mr. Bush larded the bill with dangerous expansions of his power to spy on Americans.First of all, it is a well-known, often-reported fact the Bush administration pushed forward warrantless wiretapping almost immediately after taking office in 2001; yet, The New York Times continues to emphasize in all its accounts of this issue the White House took no action until after September 11, 2001, as if its intentions were honorable. This obvious, ingenuine LIE is disgusting to the point of nauseating. The sycophantic GOP apologists at The Times can annoint Bush and Cheney if they feel they must, but it fools no one. This is the sort of thing Nixon felt entitled to do, and is a major program of Cheney's Revenge Syndrome. Nixon's and Cheney's motives are identical: to know their political opponents' moves and to identify, locate and suppress critics. Lots of heart and soul in these guys, who couldn't have a law-abiding or patriotic notion if their lives depended on it. It wouldn't be yellow journalism for The Times to tell the truth about it, and it's outrageous that its editors still want everyone to know they still absolutely refuse.
That law expires in February, which means Congress has to pass new legislation giving the intelligence agencies a little more leeway in the wireless Internet age. But once again, the White House, aided by some misguided Democrats, is trying to give the president powers he should not have: the ability to spy on Americans without a warrant and eviscerate the authority of the court that oversees electronic espionage. The bad bill Mr. Reid has now delayed would also give amnesty to telecommunications companies that—for five years—provided Americans’ private data to the government without a warrant.
The White House says it wants to protect patriotic executives. It really wants to make sure Americans never find out how much illegal spying their president ordered up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Second, the progressive alternative press is hailing Sen. Reid's pulling this bill as a grand victory. To be sure, every day this legislation isn't enacted is a great day, but that the bill exists at all is an humiliating shame and sin. How should it be written? If I were the author, my bill would do away with FISA and put these matters back in the hands of public courts. There would be some language about tempered steel restraints for rotten, criminal politicians and crooked public utility employees and lengthy jail sentences without parole. That's a reality-based law, not the fantasy world, authoritarian law writing which makes the phony claim we're threatened by people driven insane paying homage to Allah when republican wiretapping has absolutely nothing to do with that, and never did.
Last week, Mr. Reid started pushing a bill by the Senate Intelligence Committee that gave Mr. Bush all of that—with a six-year expiration date to tie the hands of the next president. It wasn’t his only choice. He could have supported a bill by the Senate Judiciary Committee, similar to one passed by the House, with a two-year sunset, real judicial supervision, restraints on executive power and no amnesty. A few Democratic senators, including Pat Leahy, Russ Feingold and Christopher Dodd, opposed Mr. Reid, who tried to get around them by cutting deals with Republicans but failed.If the authoritarian communists who call themselves republicans won't accept gigantic concessions like this, why give them anything? The point is to write good legislation, not keep moving the bar lower so as to avoid an unpleasant difference of opinion with some fanatic mental cases. Ordinarily, any group will get behind doing the right thing, but at some point you have to start doing the right thing. How are today's Congressional democrats going to look and feel if Mike Huckabee becomes the next president?
In January, the Senate will reconsider this issue in the midst of the primary season, with the February expiration date looming. Mr. Bush and his allies will issue dire warnings that intelligence agents won’t be able to listen to phone calls by Osama bin Laden. That was not true before, is not true now and won’t be true then.The Times has learned to frame its reasoning well from the Bush-Cheney era. How unfortunate the two men's cowardice has so thoroughly rubbed off on the paper of record. I read a piece of rubbish like this and wonder why I keep doing it, letting The New York Times kick me around. With less time and effort they could say the bill should be thrown out. After all, the title of this editorial is "Bad Bill Now, Bad Bill Later." While they're at it, they could say the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act of 2006 should be repealed en toto. But, seeing and telling the truth takes that half a teaspoon of courage Congressional democrats and The New York Times can't bring themselves to swallow.
The intelligence agencies can easily be given the flexibility they need without sacrificing the Constitution. If the law expires, fine. It won’t harm national security, and it will give Congress time to reflect. The Constitution has been battered enough by rushing through major bills like the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act.
• Speaking of obstructionism:
WASHINGTON—The Republican Senate minority today filibustered an omnibus budget bill, setting a modern-day record for blocking the most legislation during a congressional session. A new report released today by the Campaign for America's Future details the 62 times conservatives have used the filibuster to block legislation (or force modification of bills) in the first session of the 110th Congress. In just the first year of this two-year Congress, their use of the filibuster in the Senate topped the previous record, reached during the entire 107th Congress. [...]Of course, you don't get the facts laid out by mainstream media. After all this time, the only thing I can think is that corporate America thinks it will make more money under a communist government than a democracy. So, add to my list of legislative priorities, more funding for education, the prohibition of private funding for candidates and the repeal of political parties. Hey, I think we're on to something!
"In just one session, a minority in Congress has prevented a mind-blowing 62 pieces of legislation from going to the floor for an up or down vote," said Campaign for America's Future co-director Roger Hickey. "Our report shows how over and over again, the uncompromising minority has thwarted the will of majorities in Congress and of the American people, holding the Senate floor hostage to a radical right-wing agenda."
Sixty votes are needed to invoke cloture and end a filibuster. The 62nd cloture vote of the session is more than any single session of Congress since at least 1973, the earliest year cloture votes are available online from the Senate. Republicans are on pace to force 134 cloture votes to cut off a filibuster, according to the Campaign for America's Future analysis, more than double the historical average of the last 35 years.
Even pieces of legislation that have made it past the Senate filibuster blockade have been obstructed by President Bush. Last week the President vetoed for the second time a popular bill that would expand health coverage for 10 million American children. According to the Campaign for America's Future report, Bush has threatened to veto 84 bills and has vetoed six as of December 17. In contrast, during the period when the Republicans were in the congressional majority, Bush went the longest time without vetoing a bill since President Arthur Garfield.
Eric Lotke, Campaign for America's Future research director and lead author of the new report, calls the obstruction a "deliberate strategy." He observes that the congressional Republicans block legislation, then blame the Democrats for getting nothing done. "It's like mugging the postman and then complaining that the mail isn't delivered on time."
• No surprises here: it turns out the White House knew about the torture videos as early as 2003 and strongly supported their destruction:
WASHINGTON — At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials. [...]And so forth. The formula is always the same, destroy the evidence to stay out of prison, then have spokespeople present confusing, conflicting accounts or just say you don't remember. There's never anything to wonder about: everyone knew everything from the start, they're all complicit and can't be hanged soon or high enough.
Those who took part, the officials said, included Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as White House counsel until early 2005; David S. Addington, who was the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney and is now his chief of staff; John B. Bellinger III, who until January 2005 was the senior lawyer at the National Security Council; and Harriet E. Miers, who succeeded Mr. Gonzales as White House counsel.
It was previously reported that some administration officials had advised against destroying the tapes, but the emerging picture of White House involvement is more complex. In interviews, several administration and intelligence officials provided conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed.
One former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said there had been "vigorous sentiment" among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes. The former official did not specify which White House officials took this position, but he said that some believed in 2005 that any disclosure of the tapes could have been particularly damaging after revelations a year earlier of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
• Rep. Wexler's petition exceeds 100,000 signatures. While the petition of support to initiate impeachment proceedings against Dick Cheney has no legal force of its own, it is persuasive evidence majority leaders in Congress will be hard pressed to ignore. This time, talk about impeachment is serious. If you haven't signed on, please do.
• Blogger wasn't displaying the pictures in the nameplate properly for some reason. After multiple attempts to post/change the picture, I just took it out. Too bad, too—the picture of Bush biting a kitten says it all.
