At the end of another day

The House passed a $696 billion defense bill that gives a 3.5% pay raise to troops retroactively. Doesn't sounds like much, still, hoo-rah! The Asshat-in-Chief threatened to veto the previous bill version until Bush got what he wanted -- a provision that would allow him to "grant Iraq immunity" nullifying any "guarantees that U.S. victims of state-sponsored abuse can sue foreign governments in court." Uh-oh.

Go Cheney yourself: Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) held a press conference on an economic stimulus program. Boehner addressed House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) -- "As soon as they put those cameras away, I'm going to flip you the bird." Transcript. CQ Politics on the stimulus plan.

Tomorrow... Oversight & Government Reform Committee hearing: Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) will convene "Assessing Veteran’s Charities – Part Two” that will "focus on orgs operated by Roger Chapin, who failed to comply with a subpoena compelling his testimony" in December. Chapin will appear to respond to questionable activities of 20 organizations "including a number of veterans’ and military-oriented charities." Previous hearing and transcript here.

Pentagon kerfuffle: SecDef Gates pissed off Britain and other allies "accusing Nato countries fighting in southern Afghanistan of lacking experience in counter-insurgency warfare." Times UK

Tsk, tsk. Those Ungrateful Saudis. OBL and Ahmadinejad scored higher favorability than Bush in a poll conducted in Saudi Arabia last month. Read Robert Scheer at The Nation. With friends like these...

Missing WH emails gone forever -- A new court filing disclosed that the WH "effectively erased e-mail related to some of the biggest controversies of the Bush administration, including the leak of a CIA officer's name, the start of the Iraq war and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes." Who's to blame? The tape recycling system. CREW has more.

In the Noise -- Karl Rove revealed GOP strategies for attacking Hillary and Obama in '08. Details at the link. Bottom-line: "[T]he Republican candidate must show the electorate 'that they understand the surge is working.' Rove said the candidate should get firmly behind the war effort, painting the Democratic nominee as 'defeatist.'" SSDE.

Terror fundraising ring: In Kansas City, MO, a 42-count indictment will keep former Reagan appointee and Michigan Repub Mark Deli Siljander busy. And how! Counts include "money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists." AQ and the Taliban. Jeepers! TPM.

"Just how trivial can the media make the presidential race?" Matt Taibbi of The Rolling Stone offers some answers and Greg Sargent analyzes the John Edwards media blackout .

[That's all...no more after the jump.]

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Democrats Protect Cheney

On November 6, 2007, Democrats in the House of Representatives showed America what they are made of--again. Headzup.

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Democratic leadership scaring me on proposed FISA renewal

Here’s why: House progressives say they’ve been shut out of the bill-writing process and the ACLU says it hasn’t even been briefed. House progressives fear that at least some of the incredible spying on U.S. citizens incorporated into a six month renewal of FISA late this summer are going to be made permanent.

But, they’re fighting back. The entire Congressional Progressive Caucus, all 72 members, has released a pre-emptive list of items they want to see in a FISA renewal bill:

1. It should be the policy of the United States that the objective of any authorized program of foreign intelligence surveillance must be to ensure that American citizens and persons in America are secure in their persons, papers, and effects, but makes terrorists throughout the world feel insecure.

2. The best way to achieve these twin goals is to follow the rule of law. And the exclusive law to follow with respect to authorizing foreign surveillance gathering on U.S. soil is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). As initially enacted by Congress, the exclusivity of FISA was unambiguous. Legislation must reiterate current law that FISA is the exclusive means to authorize foreign surveillance gathering on U.S. soil.

3. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) should be modernized to accommodate new technologies and to make clear that foreign to foreign communications are not subject to the FISA, even though modern technology enables that communication to be routed through the United States.

4. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) is indispensable and must play a meaningful role in ensuring compliance with the law. This oversight should include, where possible, regular judicial approval and review of surveillance, of whose communications will be collected, of how it will be gathered, and of how content and other data in communications to and from the United States will be handled.

5. Congress must have regular access to information about how many U.S. communications are being collected and the authority to require court orders when it becomes clear that a certain program or surveillance of a target is scooping up communications of U.S. persons.

6. Once the government has reason to believe that a specific account, person or facility will have contact with someone in the United States, the government should be required to return to the FISC to obtain a court order for continued surveillance. Reliance on the FISC will help ensure the privacy of U.S. persons' communications.

7. Congress should not grant amnesty to any telecommunications company or to any other entity or individual for helping the NSA spy illegally on innocent Americans. The availability of amnesty will have the unintended consequence of encouraging telecommunications companies to comply with, rather than contest, illegal requests to spy on Americans.

8. Authorization to conduct foreign surveillance gathering on U.S. soil must never be made permanent. The threats to America's security and the liberties of its people will change over time and require constant vigilance by the people's representatives in Congress.

These are, or should be, no-brainers. Then why do House progressives still feel locked out of the loop by people like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer? Why did Hoyer postpone a FISA press conference after hearing of the caucus’ bottom line demands?

And, beyond that, the obvious question: “Where’s Pelosi and Reid on this?”

If you’ve read some of my posts, I need not mention that I’m skeptical Democratic leadership will go even halfway to meeting Progressive Caucus demands, and is more likely to come to a modus vivendi with Republicans.

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America to Congressional Democrats -- Are You Going To Do Anything?

I have spent some time reading the responses of Congressional Democrats to the President's speech last night. Senator Clinton's comments are posted below. You can find Senator Barack Obama's response here. Here are Joe Biden's comments. The comments of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Harry Reid and Rep Steny Hoyer can be found here.

I think all of the above comments are best be summarized by the title of the following video. Unless the Democrats in Congress get off their royal asses and do something, they may just as well "sit right down and write themselves a letter." The rest of us have had it.



Maybe that is the best description of this Congress. From now on we should refer to the 110th Congress as the "I Am Going To Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter" Congress.

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Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid--August 3, 2007 Edition

All month we have been treated to the reemergence of al Qaeda, gut feelings, vague threats and most recently a fear mongering senator. Yesterday Minority Leader John Boehner revealed that earlier this year the FISA Court ruled part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program illegal.



The Washington Post explained this morning that a large percentage of the world's communications passes through communication switching stations in the United States. Earlier this year a FISA judge ruled that it was illegal for the government had "to broadly surveil communications," even if a phone call or email exchange starts in one foreign country passes through the United States and ends in another country. (I don't know what that means either, but I would guess "broadly surveil communications" means something like having a computer listen to all the phone calls and scan all the email from one country to another or at least one city to another.)

It is pretty clear the Administration and their lackeys in the media and the Republican house leadership are sending Democrats in Congress a simple message--give us more American freedoms or if we are attacked we will tell the world it is your fault.

It looks like the Democrats are more than willing to give the President what he wants. This morning the President announced:

The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, has provided the Congress with a narrow and targeted piece of legislation that will close the gaps in intelligence. In other words, he's working on the Hill and he's told members this is what we need to do our job to protect the American people. It's the bare minimum the DNI said he needs to do his job. When Congress sends me their version, when Congress listens to all the data and facts and they send me a version of how to close those gaps, I'll ask one question, and I'm going to ask the DNI: Does this legislation give you what you need to prevent an attack on the country? Is this what you need to do your job, Mr. DNI? That's the question I'm going to ask. And if the answer is yes, I'll sign the bill. And if the answer is no, I'm going to veto the bill.

Everybody who expects the Decider to keep his word, put up your hand. No hands. Well at least you have learned something the last 6 plus years. According to TPMMuckraker

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), says that a deal had in fact been reached with McConnell, who has been busy lobbying Congress on a FISA update all week. "We had an agreement with DNI McConnell," Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Bernards tells TPMmuckraker, "and then the White House quashed the agreement."

The real question is will Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid surrender all of our remaining Constitutional freedoms in a mad dash to avoid being labeled soft on terrorism while still getting out of town for their August vacation?

UPDATE: The the Huffington Post is reporting that Senate Democrats have just surrendered many of the remaining rights of free Americans to the Administration. What could they do? They had to go on vacation.

Pressure is mounting on Nancy Pelosi to go along with the Senate. In what could be taken as a veiled threat, Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas said, "I hope that there are no attacks before we are able to effectively update this important act."

"We're hugely disappointed with the Democrats," said Caroline Fredrickson, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union. "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 __ it's mind-boggling."

Can we just say no to Congressional Democrats when the ask for money?

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