Monday, January 28, 2008

FISA. Today.

Jane Hamsher at firedoglake breaks the good news that both Senators Clinton and Obama will be on the floor this afternoon to vote against McConnell's cloture vote on the Intelligence Committee's pro-telco amnesty FISA bill.

This is good news for keeping the fight going, and good news for us. Citizen action, our pressure, is making a difference. The massive push back from the left has actually succeeded in throwing a monkey wrench into the works. That's not yet an out and out win, but it's movement in the right direction. Defeating this cloture vote is more movement. Forcing either a short-term extension of the PAA or letting the bill lapse altogether buys more time, and more opportunity, as Glenn Greenwald explains.

Even just a two-week or one-month extension will allow more time to marshall the opposition to telecom immunity and a new FISA bill and to do what's possible to encourage the House to stand firm behind their bill -- in exactly the way that the Dodd delay in December prevented quick and easy resolution. The longer this drags on without resolution, the more possible it is to push the opposition to a tipping point, and sometimes unexpected developments or even some luck (such as McConnell's overplaying his hand on Thursday) can prevent it all from happening.

As the events of the last two months demonstrate, if citizen opposition is channeled the right way, it can make a genuine difference in affecting the course of events in Washington. Defeating telecom immunity will keep alive the lawsuits that will almost certainly reveal to some extent what the Government did in illegally spying on Americans over the last six years or, at the very least, produce a judicial adjudication as to its illegality. And, in turn, the effects from that could be extremely significant. Because victories are so rare, it's easy to get lulled into believing that none of these campaigns are ever effective and that citizens can never affect any of it, which is precisely why it's so important to remind ourselves periodically of how untrue that proposition is.


So keep pushing, all the way to until 3:30 this afternoon (CST).

The Senators we need to convince are those who voted with the Republicans to table the Leahy substitute amendment, the version of the bill that contained all of those protections and did NOT allow telco amnesty. One of them, Rockefeller, has already said he'll vote no on cloture. Call the rest of the Senators and tell them to stand with their majority on today's cloture vote and vote no.

  • Bayh (202) 224-5623
  • Carper (202) 224-2441
  • Inouye (202) 224-3934
  • Johnson (202) 224-5842
  • Landrieu (202)224-5824
  • McCaskill (202) 224-6154
  • Mikulski (202) 224-4654
  • Nelson (FL) (202) 224-5274
  • Nelson (NE) (202) 224-6551
  • Pryor (202) 224-2353
  • Salazar (202) 224-5852

In addition, call or e-mail your own Senators. Both CREDO and EFF have great tools to make it easy.

The Weekly Wrangle

Time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's weekly blog round-up, compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex, with thanks to Charles from Off The Kuff for assistance.

Off the Kuff looks at the woes of the Harris County GOP and what it may mean in November.

North Texas will have one less class II commercial injection well pumping toxic soup underground, reported by TXsharon on Bluedaze.

TXDOT has dug itself into quite a hole by using your money to lobby for the Trans-Texas Corridor, and to pay for an advertising campaign to sell the wildly unpopular toll road to the citizens of Texas. McBlogger has the details and a great video.

Hal at Half Empty got his TI-83 out and ran the numbers on the presidential primaries. Conclusion? Texas has a chance to crown a king (or queen).

WhosPlayin? looks at the case of a teen brought up on charges for "huffing" hand sanitizer and is frustrated at the lack of discretion caused by "zero-tolerance" policies.

The action plan for Monday's FISA-with-telecom-immunity legislation is contained in PDid's post at Brains and Eggs. Don't strain your dialing finger, and don't forget to call Senators Corndog and Hutch. It's a waste of time, yes, but they still need to hear from us.

NYTexan at BlueBloggin explains who Voters, Pledged Delegates and Super Delegates are and how they influence the Democratic party nomination at the convention.

Are you a MOTO? If not, you will be after reading State Sen. Kirk Watson's guest blog this week at Capitol Annex.

North Texas Liberal reveals which celebrity is destroying the planet... and no, it's not Britney Spears.

Could we be looking at the first upward trend in labor membership since 1983? The Texas Blue thinks we just might be.