Hot Potato Mash

Wake Up America!

From Prison To Speaking At The Democratic Convention!

Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has accepted an invitation to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

RIGGED DEMOCRACY

Professor and cyber lawyer extraordinaire, Lawrence Lessig, discusses his big idea - that the American public has lost faith in and respect for the central institution of our democracy, Congress - at the 2008 Aspen Ideas Festival.



Yesterday Rasmussen Reports released a poll that showed Congressional approval ratings had fallen to single digits (9%) for the first time in tracking history.

Yet, if history is any indication, more than 90% of all Congressional incumbents running for reelection will win despite the single digit approval rating:

1964 87%
1966 88%
1968 97%
1970 95%
1972 94%
1974 88%
1976 96%
1978 94%
1980 91%
1982 90%
1984 95%
1986 98%
1988 98%
1990 96%
1992 88%
1994 90%
1996 94%
1998 98%
2000 98%
2002 96%
2004 99%
2006 94%

How does this happen? Well, throwing election fraud aside, the system is rigged to ensure incumbents win by, among other reasons, gerrymandered districts, unfair money advantages and "perks" of the Office.

Gerrymandering is when Congressional districts are redrawn, often in ways that look and are insane, to give unfair advantages to one party. In 2000, the two dominant parties in California (aka Republicans and Democrats) co-operatively redrew the legislative map to ensure electoral safety for politicians on both sides of the aisle. This included the 38th district (at right) which, despite being held by a Republican from 1984 to 2000, is now overwhelmingly Democratic to the point that the Democratic incumbent was not even challenged in 2004 and garnered 100% of the vote.

Then there is the ridiculous money advantage incumbents enjoy over challengers. For example, in the 2000 election cycle incumbents spent 93% of the total money and won 67% of the total vote. And in 2004, challengers in the House were outspent by incumbents by an average of $700,000 while Senate challengers were outspent by $4 million.

The result of this rigged system is that the American people have little say in determining who represents us in Washington. More to the point, Congress has little incentive to represent the American people. Instead, Representatives and Senators write laws that benefit the corporations that keep them in office through large donations to their campaigns. And more often than not, those same laws hurt average middle-class Americans.

Thus, a Congressional approval rating of 9%.

Eleanor Clift Questions Democrats Spine In Dealing With Karl Rove

Eleanor Clift: "Karl Rove's claim of executive privilege will not hold up in court if the Democrats have the spine to challenge it."

Technorati Tags: Don Siegelman, Executive Privilege, Karl Rove, Eleanor Clift, Subpoena

CNN, GOP, HILLARY SUPPORTERS GANGING UP ON OBAMA!

 

The Clinton News Network (CNN) is now working overtime on Hillary's behalf by advocating ad-nauseum for new primaries or “Do-Overs” in Michigan and Florida. It seems that despite Hillary's amazing victories on Tuesday people are finally waking up to the fact that she has lost the nomination barring some last minute shenanigans. Enter CNN, the GOP and Hillary supporters! 

In this latest piece of propaganda (video above) CNN's Wolf Blitzer all but begs Florida Governor Charlie Crist to hold a second democratic primary in the sunshine state. Both men point out all of the positive advantages of a “Do-Over” which supposedly include bipartisan support, fairness and a financial windfall to Florida. My god, it's a win-win for everyone! Except for Barack Obama, of course, which CNN fails to mention.

CNN also fails to mention that all of the democratic supporters of the “Do-Over” in the segment are Hillary supporters. Whoops! And if you think that that is an accident or oversight, please see the mashup below from a CNN sponsored debate a couple of months back where the cable news network does the exact same thing:

But CNN propaganda is not just limited to the big ticket items evidenced above. The network also has no problem misleading viewers on the small stuff too:

ELECTABILITY IS EVERYTHING

All Democrats agree that it is vital that the Democratic candidate wins the 2008 presidential election. For this reason alone it is imperative that the Democratic Party chooses Barack Obama. As pollster Frank Luntz explains to Bill Maher below, while Hillary can be beat, he doesn't see a way to beat Obama:

This is not new news. Poll after poll after poll shows that Obama would beat every Republican candidate while Hillary loses to every candidate:

Obama wins. Hillary loses. This is not rocket science.

President McCain

Ken sees President McCain in our future:

The Scenario

Well, I'm afraid to tell you, but the game looks pretty much cooked.  The
media meme has been sealed, and the media are lunging toward a
McCain-Clinton match up.  The salivation is palpable.  MSM has, as
expected, marginalized and excluded any candidate actually remonstrating
the status quo  -- both on the Republican and Democratic sides -- and have
essentially decided on the match up, something they had anticipated
sometime ago.  But some things began to happen that were not anticipated, but for which there was a general strategy.

Actual grassroots movements were happening.  Media reform, election
integrity, corporate accountability, impeachment; a vast spectrum of
public dissatisfaction was readily perceived.  But the corporate media had
decided that none of that mattered.  Any perceived threats to the
aforementioned status quo would be dealt with rather easily.  They would
be ignored.  Brilliant! Most of the American public would have no idea
about Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, even if they agreed with some of their
policies.  The radicals would be dismissed and rather easily.  Because
most Americans don't read political blogs.  That's where Britney Spears
comes in.

And so it has been.  John Edwards, easily the most electable Democratic
candidate, is slowly being turfed out of the scene.  He's a bit too
anti-corporate.  Can't have that.  That's also where Britney Spears comes
in.

If Clinton gets the nomination from the Democratic party, that will only
demonstrate one thing: the Democrats are as much a part of this scam as
the GOP.  Unless, of course, the Democrats do not realise the media shit
storm a Clinton nomination will inspire.  And if that is the case, and
they really don't see that coming, then they are stupid beyond belief.
Clinton will be crucified and McCain could wind up becoming president.

You may not want to admit this, but it will happen.

On the bright side, it sure beats President Giuliani.

CNN's Cafferty Calls Nancy Pelosi (And Crew) 'Beyond Pathetic'

Congressional Democrats cave AGAIN on the budget and AGAIN on war funding and AGAIN on everything and anything Bush desires which pisses of CNN's Jack Cafferty:

“I found it rather startling that he (Bush) was able to get through that entire speech without breaking into hysterical laughter. I mean, he has beaten Democrats around like a bunch of redheaded stepchildren. Pelosi and that crew are beyond pathetic...It's a joke.”

Just not a funny one.

Can Barack Obama Overcome Karl Rove, Republicans, Hillary, CNN, Wolf, ABC, George And The Mainstream Media?

Karl Rove is the ultimate partisan operative who guided a career underachiever with a checkered past to the White House. He is credited with keeping the 2000 election close enough, through dirty campaigning and still dirtier election engineering and fraud, to allow the Supreme Court to step in and gift wrap the presidency for his boss. Suffice to say no one uses dirty tricks more effectively or more often than Karl Rove. As such, many Americans who care about the Constitution, Democracy, the rule of law and plain decency, long ago concluded that Karl Rove sucks. 

But winning the White House was not enough for Rove who “dreamed of creating a 'permanent Republican majority'”. Such a partisan is Rove that he played a central role in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame and the firing of eight US Attorney's who refused to help him illegally create his permanent majority.

In part because of Rove's despicable tactics, the Republican party enjoyed years of success and Rove earned labels like...

 

  “Boy Genius: Karl Rove, The Architect Of George W. Bush's Remarkable Political Triumphs” (Carl M. Cannon, Lou Dubose, Jan Reid)

“Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential” (James Moore, Wayne Slater)

“The Architect” (James Moore, Wayne Slater)

Rove loved the praise bestowed upon him from his friends and foes alike. But then everything came crashing down around him and now his “genius” moniker is in serious need of repair. In an astonishing turn of events, Republicans lost both the House and the Senate in 2006 despite Rove's repeated assurances to the contrary:

“I’m looking at all of these [races] and adding them up. I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math but you are entitled to your math and I’m entitled to the math” - Karl Rove (10/24/06)

Meanwhile, George W. Bush's approval ratings have been on a steady decline and now rest at 30%, 1% above their all time low. 

 

It is hardly surprising that all of the GOP presidential candidates continue to distance themselves from Bush's body. Worse, Rove's permanent majority has been replaced by a public that favors the Democratic Party over the GOP by a whopping 50% to 35% margin. And independents favored Democrats in 2006 by an even larger 57% to 39% margin. It seems that the politics of hate, racism, division, war, war-mongering, propaganda, cheating, lying and stealing can only take a party so far. 

But Rove will not go down without a fight. And thankfully propaganda rags like the ridiculous Newsweek magazine have given Rove a platform to win back his genius (In Newsweek's defense, it is not Time magazine). Despite the new gig, Rove proved to be every bit the partisan with his first column: “How to Beat Hillary (Next) November”:

“And so the question to John McCain from a woman at a town hall in South Carolina last Monday was tasteless, but key: ”How do we beat the [rhymes with witch]?“ Right now, Republicans are focusing much of their fire on Senator Clinton. Criticizing her unites the party, stirs up the unsettled feelings many swing voters have toward her and allows each candidate to say why he is best able to beat her.

For now, that's enough. But when a GOP nominee emerges, he needs to remember no Republican is as well known as Hillary. The Republican has room to grow in the polls as voters get a better sense of who he is and what animates him. Here's what he needs to do.”

The truth is that Karl Rove and the entire Republican Party are salivating at the opportunity to face off against Hillary Clinton and her “high negatives”. And why not, in a Zogby Poll released last week, Hillary now loses in the general election to all five GOP frontrunners while Barack Obama handily defeats the same five:

With this backdrop it seems clear as day that one should take Rove's latest piece in the Financial Times, “Memo to Obama: win Iowa or lose the race”, with many grains of salt:

“Not that you have asked for advice, but here it is anyway: Iowa is your chance to best her. If you do not do it there, odds are you never will anywhere.”

And Rove's stellar advice:

First, stop acting like a vitamin-deficient Adlai Stevenson. Striking a pose of being high-minded and too pure will not work. Americans want to see you scrapping and fighting for the job, not in a mean or ugly way but in a forceful and straightforward way.   

Hillary may come over as calculating and shifty but she looks in control. You, on the other hand, often come over as weak and ineffectual. In some debates, you do not even look at her when disagreeing with her, making it look as if you are afraid of her. She offers you openings time and again but you do not take advantage of them. Sharpen your attacks and make them more precise.

Please! Could Rove give any worse advice than to turn the nice-guy, above the fray, uniter that is Obama into, well, Karl Rove? All can plainly see that Rove is rightfully scared of Obama whom he admits has “the buzz” and could very well win the nomination and upset Rove's plans to keep the White House in GOP hands. And as Frank Rich so ably points out, facing off against Obama would be a far more difficult task than defeating Hillary:

But much like the Clinton campaign itself, the Republicans have fallen into a trap by continuing to cling to the Hillary-is-inevitable trope. They have not allowed themselves to think the unthinkable — that they might need a Plan B to go up against a candidate who is not she. It’s far from clear that they would remotely know how to construct a Plan B to counter Mr. Obama. The repeated attempts to fan “rumors” that he is a madrassa-indoctrinated Muslim — whether on Fox News or in The Washington Post, where they resurfaced scurrilously on the front page on Thursday — are too demonstrably false to survive endless reruns even in the Swift-boating era.   

Part of the Republicans’ difficulty in countering Mr. Obama, should they have to, is their own cynical racial politics. For the most part, race has been the dog that hasn’t barked in this campaign despite the (largely) white press’s endless fretting about whether the Illinois senator is too white for black voters and too black for white voters. Most Americans aren’t racist, most Republicans included. (Those who are won’t vote for the Democratic presidential candidate even if it’s not Mr. Obama.) But the G.O.P., by its own doing, is nonetheless saddled with a history that most recently includes “macaca” and Katrina, Mr. Bush’s appearance at Bob Jones University in 2000 and the nonexistent black population of its Congressional delegation.   

As the Republican leadership knows, this record is an albatross, driving away not just black voters but crucial white swing voters, too. Ken Mehlman, the former G.O.P. chairman, and Mr. Rove, as recently as in that Newsweek column, have implored their party to reach out to minorities. So have Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp. But not even conservative leaders of this stature could persuade their party’s top 2008 presidential contenders to show up for a September debate moderated by Tavis Smiley for PBS at the historically black Morgan State University.

So the polls emphatically prove that Hillary would be far easier prey for Republicans in the general election than Obama. And if statistics aren't your thing, commonsense clearly dictates the same. And finally, just about every political pundit from Karl Rove to Frank Rich have written as much. So what does Wolf Blitzer of the Clinton News Network wonder about Karl Rove's latest advice column?:

OMG! He is actually taking Rove's words at face value! LOL! Could Wolf really believe that Rove has forsaken his legacy as the greatest partisan political operative of the last 20 year in order to go legit and is now an uninterested, outsider, merely commenting on the political landscape? ROTFL! Yeah, that's the ticket, Rove couldn't possibly have ulterior motives. 

The way I see it, there are two possible explanations for Wolf's comments: 1) he is an imbecile, or 2) he wants Hillary to get the nomination. Either way, he should be laughed out of his job. Of course, this is nothing new from Wolf or the Clinton News Network which showed its true colors at the last democratic debate in Nevada:

To be fair to Wolf and CNN, avid Clintonites like George Stephanopoulos, who formerly helped Bill Clinton get elected President and served as his communications director before moving on to become Chief Washington Correspondent for ABC News and host of his own Sunday morning show, also spew the same nonsense:

All of which makes Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency all the more remarkable. He continues to rise in the polls and threatens to win Hillary's “inevitable” nomination despite having to fight against Karl Rove, the entire Republican Party, the Clinton machine, CNN, Wolf, ABC, George and most of the mainstream media.

If the Illinois Senator can overcome those long odds he certainly has what it takes to lead the country.

  “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” (Barack Obama)

“Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” (Barack Obama)

 

“Barack Obama in His Own Words” (Barack Obama)

'Washington Is Rigged And Our Government Is Broken'

Is this guy trying to win my vote or what?

But small thinking and outdated answers aren't the only problems with a vision for the future that is rooted in nostalgia. The trouble with nostalgia is that you tend to remember what you liked and forget what you didn't. It's not just that the answers of the past aren't up to the job today, it's that the system that produced them was corrupt -- and still is. It's controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water. And it's perpetuated by a media that too often fawns over the establishment, but fails to seriously cover the challenges we face or the solutions being proposed. This is the game of American politics and in this game, the interests of regular Americans don't stand a chance.

Real change starts with being honest -- the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It's rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It's rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it's rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They'll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are -- not for the country, but for themselves.

Politicians who care more about their careers than their constituents go along to get elected. They make easy promises to voters instead of challenging them to take responsibility for our country. And then they compromise even those promises to keep the lobbyists happy and the contributions coming.

Instead of serving the people and the nation, too many play the parlor game of Washington -- trading favors and campaign money, influencing votes and compromising legislation. It's a game that never ends, but every American knows -- it's time to end the game.

And it's time for the Democratic Party -- the party of the people -- to end it.

The choice for our party could not be more clear. We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other.

The American people deserve to know that their presidency is not for sale, the Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent, and lobbyist money can no longer influence policy in the House or the Senate.

It's time to end the game. It's time to tell the big corporations and the lobbyists who have been running things for too long that their time is over. It's time to challenge politicians to put the American people's interests ahead of their own calculated political interests, to look the lobbyists in the eye and just say no.

And it's time for the American people to take responsibility for our government -- for in our democracy it is truly ours. If we have come to mistrust and question it, it is because we were not vigilant against the forces that have taken it from us. That their game has played on for so long is the fault of each of us -- ending the game and returning government of the people to the people is the responsibility of all of us.

READ THIS INCREDIBLE SPEECH IN ITS ENTIRETY

IMPEACHMENT WEDNESDAY: WOULD PRESIDENT PELOSI BE DISTINGUISHABLE FROM PRESIDENT BUSH?

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for Democrats and the Democratic leadership comes this from the Washington Director of the ACLU, Caroline Fredrickson, responding to criticism that there was no organized lobbying against the new FISA bill that greatly expands Bush's power to spy on Americans:

Much of your criticism is unwarranted: we worked FISA and hard (and have been since December 2005).  We reached out to Democratic leaders -- we met with Pelosi and with Reid -- we spoke with the staff from every leadership office. They did not listen to us. It was dem leadership who scheduled the vote on these particular bills. Why be mad at us and not at them? We met with them. They rebuffed our arguments.

We weren't notified that the bill was moving until 6 days before when Rep. Harman let it slip on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. We gave it the full court press: with action alerts, meetings with Members of Congress and Senators and their staff.

Pelosi and friends spent the entire week negotiating with the DNI and cut out ALL the civil liberties groups - not just the ACLU. Senator Rockefeller led the effort on the Senate side (with McConnell). The bill only passed because a) 41 dems crossed the line in the house, after the “liberal leadership” could NOT muster up its own party to assert its 30 seat majority, and b) most importantly, Pelosi, our “liberal leader” scheduled the bill in the first place. She could have put any bill on the schedule and she chose the Administration's. We worked this hard, and somehow you blame the ACLU?

Wow. Damning to say the least for Pelosi, et al. One wonders if Pelosi put impeachment back on the table which the House acted on and the Senate followed with convictions, would we notice any change in governing by our new president?

Read more at Open Left

This Is Getting Ridiculous: Dems Continue To Do Bush's Dirty Work

We are really beyond the point of absurd, no?

Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense John Murtha (D-PA) has moved to block a provision President Bush signed into law making the national intelligence budget public.

“One day after President Bush signed into law a bill that requires public disclosure of the national intelligence budget, the House of Representatives adopted an amendment to prevent that requirement from taking effect,” Steven Aftergood, editor of Secrecy News, wrote Monday.

Passed by Congress last month and signed into law last Friday, “Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007,” called for the disclosure of the national intelligence budget.

If adopted, it would make the first time the legislative branch has compelled the executive branch to reveal currently classified information, Aftergood say.

Only it now appears that a powerful member of the party challenging Bush Administration secrecy -- the Democrats -- will move to keep the figures under wraps.

More at Raw Story

WARRANTLESS SURRENDER & WAR CRIMES

Glenn Greenwald: “It is inconceivable on every level that the Democrats would capitulate in this way and it is disgraceful beyond what can be adequately described.”

Marjorie Cohn: “This is a Congress that has remained terrorized by the Bush administration since 9/11.”

Marjorie Cohn: “It takes the power out of judges hands and puts it in the power of Alberto Gonzales and the Director of Intelligence.” 

Glenn Greenwald: “Two months earlier James Comey testified before the Senate that he and Aschroft and others had discovered that whatever it was that they were doing from 2001 to 2004 was so illegal, so unconscionable, that they had all decided to resign en masse from the government unless that behavior seized immediately.” And Greenwald interviewed Senator Chris Dodd this weekend, “and I asked him whether or not Senators had any idea of how they had been using this secret spying in order to spy on Americans - what these additional programs are, what it was that they were doing that made James Comey and John Ashcroft threaten to resign from the government - he has absolutely no idea nor do the other Senators.”

In other words, Congress passed a law for which it knows nothing about but that we know was so unconscionable that John Ashcroft threatened to resign over it. And if that is not scary enough, the rubber stamp judges of the FISA court have been replaced by Alberto Gonzales.

Marjorie Cohn: “Even though I am a criminal defense attorney, I quite enjoyed writing up a sample indictment of Alberto Gonzales for War Crimes. He's a war criminal because it was memos that he signed and policies that he put into place, that he convinced Bush to put into place, that led to torture of prisoners in US custody.”

“Torture is illegal under our law. It's illegal under three treaties we have ratified -- the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And notwithstanding the Bush administration's distaste for treaties and so-called international law, our Constitution has a provision called the Supremacy Clause and it says that treaties shall be the supreme law of the land. That means that treaties are US law. And pursuant to those treaties we have enacted two federal US statutes -- the Torture Statute and the War Crimes Act. Under the War Crimes Act, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions constitute war crimes. So torture is illegal, all the time. And, in fact, the Torture Convention says, no exceptional circumstances, even a state of war can ever be used as a justification for torture.”

And yet we torture at Gitmo, Abu-Ghareb, all around Iraq, Afghanistan and at CIA black-sites.

Glenn Greenwald: “The greatest threat, the truly unresolved issue is whether we will have a military confrontation with Iran prior to the end of the Bush presidency.”

Amy Goodman: “And yet your explanation of the Democrats and how they are dealing with the president at his lowest polling ever -- perhaps in modern polling history, still caving in bill after bill.”

Glenn Greenwald: “What is so baffling about it is, i think people forget that immediately before the midterm election in 2006, Karl Rove's strategy was to force a vote on the military commissions act and warrantless eavesdropping.” And Democrats voted against both and the Republicans tried to make a huge deal about Democrats being weak on terror. “And the Republicans got crushed with that strategy. And Democrats refuse to realize that that strategy no longer works. Americans are largely immune to this fear-mongering.”

Marjorie Cohn: “The war was premeditated, deliberate, violation of the law. The UN Charter, also a treaty, also part of US law says the only two instances where a country can use force against another is in self-defense or when the Security Council agrees.  And there was never any evidence that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to us or any other country...and the Bush administration knew that...they intended to invade Iraq since way before 9/11. And now it's really clear why they did that. And that is to install huge permanent military bases, the biggest in the world, and the biggest US embassy in the world in Baghdad. And to privatize Iraq's oil. They are trying to push through this Iraqi oil law that even Congress is touting as a benchmark for Iraqi progress and it would give control of 3/4 of Iraq's oil to foreign oil companies.”

“It is very important not to say that the war was a mistake, the war is being fought incompetently. The war is illegal and it is also immoral. It is killing thousands of US soldiers. It is killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and draining our national treasury. And the majority of American people know this. But Congress has not caught on yet. ”

What Folks Are Saying About The New FISA Bill

“The passage of the new FISA bill by the Senate and now the House demonstrates that the Democrats stand neither for defending civil liberties nor for checking executive power. They stand for nothing at all.”

Jack Balkan

“I’m not thrilled,” “There are some changes we need to make to make sure that American citizens are protected. But it’s a lot better than a lot of things that have been forced down this Congress’ throat right before recesses that trampled on American’s liberties.”

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

“it must be the case that the NSA's aim is not simply to surveille foreigners who it already suspects as being part of Al Qaeda. It can obtain a FISA order as to those folks. What it wants, instead, is to be able to intercept foreign communications coming over domestic wires where (i) it does not have probable cause to believe that any of the parties is a terrorist or agent of a foreign power; and (ii) there is a chance that some of the intercepted communications will be with persons in the U.S. ”

Marty Lederman

“The day we start deferring to someone who's not a member of this body is a sad day for the U.S. Senate”  “We make the policy, not the executive branch.”

Sen. Russ Feingold

“It provides a weak and practically nonexistent court review.”

Sen. Jay Rockefeller

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)

“We're hugely disappointed with the Democrats. The idea they let themselves be manipulated into accepting the White House proposal, certainly taking a great deal of it, when they're in control well it's mind-boggling.”

Caroline Fredrickson, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union

“This bill would grant the attorney general the ability to wiretap anybody, any place, any time without court review, without any checks and balances,” “I think this unwarranted, unprecedented measure would simply eviscerate the 4th Amendment,” which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.

“Of the many problems surrounding the new FISA bill (soon to be law), the most frustrating one is that we (the public) didn’t really have a chance to debate it. And I mean this in two different respects. First, and most obviously, Congress railroaded the bill through too quickly for meaningful debate. But more importantly, the terms of the debate were fundamentally dishonest. I wish that, for once, we could debate these proposals honestly and on the actual merits.”

Publius

“Rather than pass this bill, my Republican colleagues chose to rubberstamp a flawed administration proposal that fails to provide the accountability needed in light of the administration’s repeated past mismanagement of key tools in the war on terror,

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada)

”Do you want to fix the problem, or do you want it as a political issue?“

House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas)

lawmakers ”are not going to leave Alberto Gonzales as the gatekeeper on American civil liberties.“ ”That's the fundamental problem, and we're going to fix it when we come back,“ ”We had to do it. We did what we needed to do. The Democrats are united in fixing this flawed law.“

Rep. Rahm Emanuel

”The result was predictable. Through fear, threats, and the unmentioned “club” of bad PR, should another attack take place, the Democrat Party of 2007 proved once and for all that the voters were snookered in 2006. After all that hard work, all that time and effort, all that money, sweat and tears, what did we achieve? We replaced a few of the crooks and criminals from the GOP with some spineless, blue dog, DLC-bootlicking bastards of the Democrat Party. In effect, we replaced one set of bastards with an identical horse of a different color.“

Rob Kezelis, Capitol Hill Blue

”I hope that there are no attacks before we are able to effectively update this important act,“

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee

”I find this cave-in most discouraging.“ ”One central disappointing aspect of this story is that the Bush administration is apparently still able to use completely bogus scare tactics of its usual post-9/11 sort to intimidate the Democrats.“

Andrew Bard Schmookler

”Al-Qaida is not going on vacation this month,“  ”And we can't either until we know we've done our duty to the American people.“

Sen. Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky

”By passing a FISA modernization bill that the president can sign before we go home for recess, the Senate has taken immediate and decisive action to improve the security of our country,“

Sen. Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)

”But lost in the gales of rage is an aspect of this political pantie raid that seems overlooked: why is this even happening? The White House has long asserted that the president has the authority to conduct this program with or without congressional approval and in violation of FISA; that because Bush is a “war president,” he doesn't actually violate any law because he is the law. FISA, or any other law for that matter, has no jurisdiction over the president in “war time,” and that such approbation grants Bush carte blanche to do whatever is necessary to win the War on Terra.™ In the name of national security, that is, a banana republic banner that can and has been slapped on almost anything.“

Bhc at Anything They Say

”The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, has assured me that this bill gives him what he needs to continue to protect the country, and therefore I will sign this legislation as soon as it gets to my desk.“

George W. Bush

”We've worked hard and in good faith with the Democrats to find a solution, but we are not going to put our national security at risk,“ ”Time is short“

George W. Bush

”This law gives our intelligence professionals this greater flexibility while closing a dangerous gap in our intelligence-gathering activities that threatened to weaken our defenses,“

George W. Bush

”Over the past three decades, this law has not kept pace with revolutionary changes in technology,“ ”As a result, our intelligence professionals have told us that they are missing significant intelligence information that they need to protect the country.“

George W. Bush

”And I will no longer support the Democratic party until they start acting like the majority and representing their party. And that begins with telling the president to fuck off when it comes to spying on Americans.“

Hot Potato Mash

16 Democratic Senators and one Independent a-hole from Connecticut voted to expand Bush's authority to spy on Americans including Diane Feinstein (D-California), Evan Bahh (D-Indiana) and Jim Webb (D-Virginia)

It's Official: Democrats Betray Americans

AP:

The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying Saturday, “Protecting America is our most solemn obligation.”

Why I will no longer associate with the Democratic Party