The Next Hurrah

What happened to the House FISA bill?

by Kagro X

The House was scheduled to take up the RESTORE Act today, in an effort to roll back the August FISA debacle. But as predicted last week, the bill fell victim to yet another Republican motion to recommit (see linked story for a backgrounder on the motion).

As TPM Election Central reported earlier, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced his intention to offer a motion to recommit the bill with instructions that it be amended "promptly" to include language that nothing in it:

"shall be construed to prohibit the intelligence community from conducting surveillance needed to prevent Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, or any other foreign terrorist organization...from attacking the United States or any United States person."

What does that mean? A couple things.

First, it means that Cantor has devised a vote that some strategists worry will be very tough for Democrats from marginal districts to resist. How, they fret, will these Democrats be able to explain voting no on an "amendment" that supposedly ensures that intelligence operatives won't be tied up in red tape when they need to prevent a terrorist attack?

Second, it means that if enough Democrats sweat this vote and go along with Republicans, the bill gets "recommitted" -- that is, it's sent back to committee.

Third, the choice of the "promptly" language means the bill gets delayed, and can't come to the floor for passage right away. Why is that?

If you love having people stare at you like you're from another planet, read on after the flip and find out. Then you too can be the person nobody will sit next to on day two of the legislative education conference.

Dick DeVos and KayBee Hutchison Go After Bloggers

by emptywheel

That's a way to make you feel good about blogging, huh? To be attacked by both Dick DeVos and KayBee Hutchison?

DeVos is suing 30 anonymous bloggers and YouTube users because he believes they are among a group for former distributors who sued Amway and were put under a gag order by the judge in the suit.

In the lawsuit filed this past week in Ottawa County Circuit Court, Quixtar seeks an injunction and damages of more than $25,000 against the posters, identified only as John Does.

[snip]

Quixtar believes the videos and other postings are part of an organized effort by former distributors who unsuccessfully sued Alticor and are under court order not to disparage the company or disclose proprietary information, according to the lawsuit.

Quixtar plans to ask for permission to subpoena various online companies to figure out who posted the materials, spokesman Rob Zeiger said.

According to the Grand Rapids Press, an Alticor representative said the court action was merely to identify anyone who might be associating with those under court order, rather than expressing their own personal opinions.

Zeiger told the paper that his company was not interested in pursuing people not associated with the former employees, and would even reimburse their legal fees if there was no connection. "An individual who is expressing their own opinion, we don't have a problem with that," he said. "They're not doing anything wrong."

I thought at first this might be an attempt to neutralize the power of anti-DeVos blogs, which had been really effective against him in the last governor's election in MI. I need to see the complaint here, because I'm not sure the allegations made in the YouTubes actually relate to the failed lawsuit against Amway. So DeVos risks amplifying the blog material which appears like it may be factually correct: that is, that Amway's online division Quixtar, sucks. (Full disclosure, I have a family member who was a Quixtar believer before he became a Southern Baptist.) That'd be nice, huh? If in pursuit of a bunch of people who tried to bust the pyramid scheme, DeVos actually informed more people that Amway is a big hoax?

KayBee Hutchison, for her part, is complaining about bloggers because--wait for it--they don't follow the esteemed principles of journalistic ethics.

"Catholics Hate Kerry...uh, Giuliani"; Repubs & Fundies to Divorce?

By DHinMI

Remember back in 2004 when the news media and the wingers were all atwitter about how John Kerry, because he supported a separation of church and state and upholding the Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade, was supposedly a rotten Roman Catholic and was under siege by the Roman Catholic Church?  Well, the stories were always wildly overblown, and usually ignored the important fact that the few Bishops who mouthed off about denying communion to Kerry were acting as free agents, because the American Bishops voted 183-6 against adopting an official policy of denying communion to politicians who supported abortion rights or any other social policies in conflict with the Church’s teachings.  As you should expect,  this fact was almost completely ignored by the press. 

The "priests will deny communion to pro-choice politicians" story has returned, but this time with a twist: it’s about a Republican, Rudy Giuliani:

Too Late

by emptywheel

Two more exhibits in too little, too late to keep the Republican party in the mainstream. First, Chuck Hagel calling General Petraeus General Betray-Us Bush's used car salesman.

Maher: Isn’t a dirty trick on the American people when you send a military man out there to basically do a political sell-job?”

Hagel: It’s not only a dirty trick, but it’s dishonest, it’s hypocritical, it’s dangerous and irresponsible.The fact is this is not Petraeus’ policy, it’s the Bush’s policy. The military is — certainly very clear in the Constitution — is subservient to the elected public officials of this country. but to put our military in a position that this administration has put them in is just wrong, and it’s dangerous.”

Hagel, of course, has announced his retirement from the Senate and may well be replaced by conservative Democrat Bob Kerrey.

And then there's Lincoln Chafee, who, after having had the decision to retire made for him, has disaffiliated with the Republican party (hat tip Susie).

Lincoln D. Chafee, who lost his Senate seat in the wave of anti-Republican sentiment in last November’s election, said yesterday that he has left the party.

Chafee said he disaffiliated with the party he had helped lead, and his father had led before him, because the national Republican Party has gone too far away from his stance on too many critical issues, from war to economics to the environment.

“It’s not my party any more,” he said.

Next thing you know, Alan Greenspan will be proclaiming that Bill Clinton is the one with an "old-fashioned attitude toward debt.

Republican Senator violates Constitution, takes orders from Bush

by emptypockets

I know -- you're flabbergasted.

Referring to the establishment of Congress, the Constitution says, "no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office." Yet there was Sen. Lindsey Graham, in Iraq, pistol in a shoulder holster, serving an elective two weeks of reserve duty as an Air Force Reserve colonel.

He didn't even have to read the Constitution to know he was violating it. The highest military court read it to him a year ago, when it found that he had violated the Constitution by serving as a military court judge while a Senator.

Obviously, there is a separation of powers problem with having a Senator under command of the President. And it's a clear violation of Article I of the Constitution -- just ask any strict constructionist. Like Lindsey Graham.

Getting it Wrong on the Central Issue of our Times

By Mimikatz

Fifty years ago I was about to turn 15, it was 1957, and the central issue of our times was clearly seen to be the Cold War, the struggle with the Communist Soviet Union and its allies such as China.  In retrospect, at least from the US perspective, that was probably accurate, although expanding civil rights and economic opportunity to those other than (straight) white men probably runs a close second.  Fifty years from now, in 2057, when today's 15-year-olds are my age, when people look back at the beginning of the 21st Century, what do you think they are going to see as the central issue of our times?  And how are they going to think we did?

I am willing to bet that it will not be the struggle with Islamic extremists, or even with terrorists generally, as the Bush/Cheney regime and its sycophants believe.  Rather, it is much more likely to be the intertwined problems of the end of fossil fuels and global climate collapse.  And depending on what we do in the next 5-10 years, they may be wondering why we didn't feel more of a sense of urgency, why we didn't do something while there was still time, why we threw so much money and effort at a crazy, endless war in the Middle East while the temperatures and sea levels rose around us. 

While both major parties saw the struggle against communism as the central issue in the 1950's, it has been devastating to the cause of mitigating climate change that the GOP and its patrons have not only denied the urgency, but fought the effort tooth and nail for the first six years of the Bush presidency.  But that began to change, as so much did, with Katrina, then with last summer's fires and heat waves, and now this summer's extreme weather events, all of which have cost many lives on all our coasts and the interior.

While Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" was seen as a political event, last night's Tom Brokaw special on the Discovery Channel was global warming 101 for the mainstream.  A poll taken a year ago reported 70% of the public convinced that global warming is happening, an equal amount having become more convinced over the previous two years, with severe weather being a major factor in that change.  This summer's severe rains and floods probably increased the number.

With a sufficient segment of the public now convinced theere is a problem, we sorely need real leadership on the issue.  Based on the 1970's gasoline shortages and our experience here in Califonria with periodic shortages of water and electricity, I firmly believe that the public will respond favorably to clear direction and mandates for change.  In parts of the country without such leadership many people do not do more because they believe that if the problem were real, the government would be doing something.  Thus, we need first and foremost a clear statement that the problem is real, serious and must be addressed. 

Second, people need to understand that while climate change cannot be arrested at this point, it can be mitigated, and that a little effort actually can go a long way.  One of the most informative graphics in the Discovery Channel show depicted the carbon dioxide output of various activities and machines of a typical family as blocks of soot above the house.  An amazing amount can be saved through conservation and efficiency around the home with negligible change in lifestyle.  The California Flex Your Power website claims that if every household replaced one incandescent bulb with an energy-saving CFL bulb it would be the equivalent of taking a million cars off the road.   (Flex Your Power is a model partnership of utilities, residents, businesses, institutions, government agencies and nonprofit organizations working to save energy formed during the 2001 energy crisis here.  Its website has a wealth of ideas for saving energy.)   In fact, addressing energy use in buildings and construction is at least as important as addressing conservation through better means of transportation, a point also made by the Discovery Channel special.  Municipal, residential and business lighting is another area ripe for conservation.  A fascinating article in theAugust 20, 2007 New Yorker discussed how improved outdoor lighting not only saves energy and allows more enjoyment of the night sky, but is actually safer as well.  Tucson has long set an example in this area.   

Finally, it is obvious that even as we conserve, we need to develop new technologies for building, transportation and power generation.  Rather than costing jobs, this could become the next entrepreneurial frontier, if there were more incentives (such as fuel efficiency mandates, seed money and regulatory changes that mroe fairly internalized, rather than externalized, the costs of existing fuel sources). 

Concern for the environment is one major area where young voters are disenchanted with the GOP.  Along with the traqgic blunder that is Iraq, I believe that GOP denial of global warming and refusal to confront it as a major problem may prove the undoing of conservatism as an appealing ideology even to an extent in the ultra- conservative parts of the country.  Certainly that would be the case if the Democratic Party leadership and candidates made addressing global warming and coping with declining supplies of fossil fuels through conservation and innovation a major part of their platform.   Not to do so is to be wrong, colossally wrong, about the central issue of our time.

We Can't Wait for Bipartisan Solutions

by DHinMI

"We need a consensus."

This is what Joe Biden said a little while ago, when asked by Keith Olberman if he would appoint a Republican to head up the Pentagon or the Department of Homeland Security.  I don’t have the exact language, but he seemed to imply that nothing would work unless it had significant support from Republicans.

I was floored.

If there is anything that has been apparent since the Democratic takeover of Congress, it’s that many and probably most of the current Republican members of Congress will NEVER work with Democrats for the good of the country.  Since the rise of Newt Gingrich, the majority of Republicans in Congress have demonstrated that they don’t care about the good of the country.  Grover Norquist is inadvertently one of the most honest of conservatives, and when he referred to bipartisanship as date rape, he wasn’t revealing just his own personal view, he was describing the mindset of much of the Republican Congressional caucus and it’s allies in think tanks, among campaign hacks and activists, and in a sizeable chunk of its electoral base. 

It’s a realization many of us had come to long ago.  It’s one of the reasons many of us ended up on progressive blogs, the knowledge that George W Bush, his allies in Congress and the people who push them in to power will use unscrupulous means to attain, maintain and exercise power. They know they have to conceal their unscrupulousness from the public. While the Republican party has veered farther and farther to the right, the American people haven’t really budged.  In fact, on individual issues, the American public is more liberal today than it was 10 or 20 years ago, and far more liberal than it was when Lyndon Johnson crushed Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election, which provided the mandate to enact our major civil rights legislation and the most major extension of the social welfare state since the New Deal and World War II.  Republicans involved in organizing and running elections and selling their policy positions to the press and the talking heads know that the American public is far to their left.  But they conceal their radicalism through clever marketing scams like Frank Luntz’ Contract on America and the pabulum of "compassionate conservatism." 

The Politics Of Iraq Part III

by DemFromCT

Part I and Part II look at how and why Republicans are deserting Bush, and on what time scale.

Republicans are feeling the heat. From the LA Times:

Republicans say they hope passion about the Iraq war will cool by the time 2008 ballots are cast. But they acknowledge that if the election were held tomorrow, the war would be a ball and chain around the GOP ankle.

The party was hobbled by antiwar sentiment in the 2006 midterm election, when Republicans lost control of Congress. If the politics of the war do not change, Republicans fear, their hope of regaining control of Congress in 2008 will not be realized.

"Do we hope Iraq is not an issue by election day? Sure," said Rebecca Fisher, spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "But can we guess where we will be next year? No way."

The political fallout from the Iraq debate is hard to gauge, analysts say, because it will hinge in large part on uncertain developments in the war and whether Bush changes course.

That is why more Republican senators, after standing by Bush for years, are now trying to reshape policy well before election day arrives. Last week's Senate debate on defense policy featured a who's who of Republicans facing reelection in 2008 signing on to proposals designed to signal their dissatisfaction with the course of the war.

"If the politics of the war do not change..." Yeah. "The political fallout from the Iraq debate is hard to gauge, analysts say, because it will hinge in large part on uncertain developments in the war and whether Bush changes course." Sure.

What the press simply won't write is that Iraq is not going to get better, and there's zero chance Bush will change course without being forced to. Somehow in the "he said, she said" style of the New Journalism, Bush's stubborn insistance on leading the the country over a cliff is portrayed as 'resolute' as opposed to stubborn to the point of simple-mindedness (there is no Plan B, Bush has no intention of changing course, and these statements have been repeatedly made by the WH to a disbelieving press who can't fathom that Bush actually means what he says. How often the press has failed us for that very reason! What he says is unreasonable but he's never called on it).

As noted, signing on to Lugar and Warner's amendment gets us nowhere. There's no teeth in the amendment. However, it does embarrass the WH to have to be told to get your head of wherever it's been placed and rejoin the reality-based community.

The fact that so few Republicans have been willing to endorse a firm deadline means they will continue to be exposed to criticism from Democrats and from constituents weary of the war. Some Republican strategists worry that no matter what lawmakers do now, the issue will leave some Republican incumbents vulnerable.

"There will be races that will be more competitive in places you don't expect," said a senior advisor to one Republican facing a tough reelection contest. "Fifteen months is a lifetime in politics, it's true. But questions like this war don't go away quickly. This has been three years coming. I don't think it goes away in a New York minute."

John McCain banked on the war to spearhead his drive for the WH. The result?

However, you can also count on Bush to assume he can't go any lower, and with good reason (Charles Franklin writing at pollster.com):

The question is whether Republicans are yet willing to reduce their support for President Bush still further. Republican Senators have begun a series of breaks with the President over Iraq policy and could signal to the grass roots that it is time for an end to unconditional support for Bush. On the other hand, Republicans in the House have retained their unity in support of the President's Iraq policy and so far Republican presidential candidates have refused to repudiate the President. With the divisive immigration bill behind him Bush may be able to sustain a new plateau in partisan support leading to a flattening out of his approval trend.

That assumes independents, or at least 20-25% of them, will also stay on board.

That's why Bush won't change course unless forced, why the August recess is so important, and why R congress critters are not likely to bolt until the get home and hear what the country is really saying.

Follow the news, but keep your expectations realistic. Anything that happens now to advance the discussion is a bonus and worth going for. But when the press writes that this amendment 'failed' or that attempt 'did not succeed' put it in perspective. The Administration is losing support everywhere; it just takes time to work its way to DC.

Is It Ken Starr's Fault?

by emptywheel

I found this story on the National Review cruise over at Susie's place. It's the perfect comedy to accompany the Sunday shows--stories about what nuts Republicans when they presume they're alone. There's a lot that worth reading, not least the portrayal of the Podhoretz-Buckley feud (with Buckley almost--but not quite--disowning his conservative offspring). But I was particularly amused by Ken Starr's self-denials, in response to the question of whether maybe he's personally responsible for 9/11.

nd one morning   on the deck I discover Kenneth Starr, looking like he has stepped out of a   long-forgotten 1990s news bulletin waving Monica's stained blue dress. His   face is round and unlined, like an immense, contented baby. As I stare at   him, all my repressed bewilderment rises, and I ask – Mr Starr, do you feel   ashamed that, as Osama bin Laden plotted to murder American citizens, you   brought the American government to a stand-still over a few consensual blow   jobs? Do you ever lie awake at night wondering if a few more memos on   national security would have reached the President's desk if he wasn't   spending half his time dealing with your sexual McCarthyism?

  He smiles through his teeth and – in his soft somnambulant voice – says in   perfect legalese, "I am entirely at rest with the process. The House of   Representatives worked its will, the Senate worked its will, the Chief   Justice of the United States presided. The constitutional process worked   admirably."

  It's an oddly meek defence, and the more I challenge him, the more   legalistic he becomes. Every answer is a variant on "it's not my fault" . First, he says Clinton should have settled early on in Jones vs Clinton.   Then he blames Jimmy Carter. "This critique really should be addressed   to the now-departed, moribund independent counsel provisions. The Ethics and   Government [provisions] ushered in during President Carter's administration   has an extraordinarily low threshold for launching a special prosecutor..."

It's an excellent question with even more interesting answers. Ken Starr, the bulldog of the late 90s, can't even answer "no" to the question of whether he's personally responsible for 3000 dead Americans and the worst attack on US soil ever. And his denial--"the constitutional process worked admirably"--sure sounds different than what I heard from a bunch of Republican Congressman last Wednesday, who are convinced that the constitutional process somehow misfunctioned, because Clinton didn't go to jail for his consensual blow job.

Can we have more of this from US journalists? Maybe an interview a week from Ken Starr on his personal responsibility for 9/11?

The Politics Of Iraq Part II

Part I is here. H/T to yesterday's commenters, here and at Daily Kos, who provided excellent links.

Today's discussion is about responsibility. The question for today is "why don't the Republicans who think a change of strategy is needed work and vote with Democrats?" The answers are somewhat varied. Today, let's look at New England. That's easy because there's only one person to took at.

Chris Shays CT-04:

Rep. Christopher Shays has called on Congress to approve withdrawing virtually all American troops from Iraq by December 2008, a blow to Bush administration efforts to fight the mounting support in Congress for a sharp change in strategy.

"I believe we need a timeline. I believe the president's wrong," the 4th District Republican said Friday.

So, Bush is wrong and Shays will help rectify his position. And doesn't that mean Chris Shays will do the right thing and vote with the D's? Ah, you don't know Chris "Mr. Waffle" Shays.

He first embraced the idea of timelines about a year ago, on the eve of a fierce re-election fight, but stayed away from offering specific dates. Shays earlier this year had said that while he would go along with timelines, it was up to the president and not Congress to set them.

Not anymore.

"I can't wait any longer for the administration to come and say, `These are the deadlines,"' the congressman said Friday. "I've waited longer than I'm even comfortable with."

He set the December 2008, date because it would allow the troops to leave before a new president took office a month later.

But did Chris Shays vote with the Democrats to set a timeline?