Disrespectful non-handshakes aside ...

... the best line of the SOTU (I nearly type STFU every single time) goes to my man John:

"Even he and his people admit it's gonna take months for this stimulus to actually kick in," said Edwards before a buoyant crowd of over 400 people (in Nashville, TN). "The truth of the matter is, it is so important that between now and January of 2009 that we stand up to this president, that we stand up for what's right, that we don't let him continue to make it so hard for the middle class."

Earlier in Chattanooga, Edwards said, "I think a lot of us know what the state of the union is."

"And the president will walk into the Congress, to the United States House of Representatives, and he'll give a speech about his stimulus plan to try to stimulate the economy.

"And you know what'll happen is he'll go in there and the Congress - who kinda quit listening to him a while back - but they'll all stand up, cheer, clap. You know, the truth is that Washington is out of touch with what's happening here in the real world."

Let's help him reach this modest goal today.

A victory today on FISA

Great work by everyone today ... with the possible exception of the waffling, prevaricating Louisiana Democrat, Mary Landrieu. smintheus has the synopsis:

Well this afternoon we won a second improbable victory against the FISA bill that rewards telecoms for joining George Bush in breaking the law. The Republicans didn't come close to invoking cloture against Sen. Chris Dodd's filibuster. In fact, they couldn't muster even 50 votes. Cloture attracted only 48 votes (to 45 against).

Republicans then blocked a Democratic attempt to move ahead to a vote to add another thirty days to the temporary FISA extension, which is set to expire next week. Democrats wanted to allow the Senate some time to debate the complicated issues surrounding FISA legislation. Republicans, by contrast, did not think it right that a deliberative body should devote any more time to actual deliberation. Instead, they said, they feared that Bush would veto any such extension. It's is as good an excuse as they've ever come up with for doing nothing.

So tomorrow at 2:00 PM EST the Senate will resume debate on the Intelligence Committee's version of the FISA bill -- the one that provides for retroactive immunity for telecoms. And presumably Dodd's filibuster will resume as well.

Tomorrow Democrats in the House may attempt to pass their own version of a thirty-day extension and then pass it on to the Senate. If so, McConnell may be forced to permit a vote on a similar bill.

There are plenty of plaudits to go around today: To Chris Dodd for organizing an effective and critical push back against the Bush administration's further aggrandizement of its nearly monarchical powers; to nearly all Democrats in the Senate for standing foursquare with Dodd (apart from three four who voted with Republicans: Senators Pryor, Ben Nelson (NE), and Landrieu, and Lincoln); to Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama for returning to Washington for the vote; to Sen. Lieberman for staying out of DC while he campaigns for a Republican presidential candidate.

And to voters who made their voices heard in the Capitol. A lot of people were skeptical in December, when activists began organizing this effort to support the Dodd filibuster, that it was possible to budge a cynical Senate back in the direction of upholding the rule of law. Two victories later, those doubts should be at an end.

How many will wear them?

For seven long years, Preztledent Bush's lickspittles in Congress helped push forward his failed conservative agenda. This week Americans United for Change began delivering "I’m a Bush Republican" buttons to all of the Republicans in the House and Senate, in advance of Bush’s final State of the Union Address today, with this message: "Your votes helped build his legacy; you should show your support for him by proudly declaring that you’re a Bush Republican."



Tonight, as cameras scan the House Chamber during the State of the Union Address, we’ll see how many Republicans -- those who have voted for Bush’s policies on Iraq, the economy, energy and health care -- are willing to put their lapels where there votes have been and wear a button with this simple message: "I’m a Bush Republican."

Will Senator $7.5 Million Corndogs wear it? How about Kay Bailey? Will John Cumbersome? What about Goofy Louie Gohmert or Kevin "DWI/flak jacket in church" Brady?

Taking a drink for each button you spot in the crowd is not the official SOTU drinking game. THIS is.

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.