“Despite the Administration’s stonewalling, the Judiciary Committee, which knows even less about the program than the Intelligence Committee, today approved legislation that would not only legalize a program that the Committee does not understand but would also completely gut the FISA law…Expanding executive power at the request of a president who has shown such deep disrespect for the rule of law is exactly the wrong thing to do.” Checks and balances? Bah, humbug. At Dubya’s mandate — and despite Democratic attempts to limit the damage — Spineless Specter and the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee approve legislation legalizing the NSA’s warrantless wiretap program. As the ACLU summed it up: “Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee acted as a rubber stamp for the administration’s abuse of power.” For shame.
Category: Russ Feingold
Joe Must Go.
“It surprised me…It seemed almost orchestrated. It’s sort of demeaning to the people of Connecticut…I thought the senator and the vice president were both wrong to use that attack (strategy) on the voters of Connecticut.” In the first full week of the post-primary race in Connecticut (Joe’s up five at the moment), Ned Lamont calls out Lieberman for his recent Cheneyisms. And, in related news, Russ Feingold asks Lieberman to get out of the race on ABC’s This Week: “Joe is showing with that regrettable statement that he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it…Senator Lieberman has supported the Bush Administration’s disastrous strategic approach of getting us stuck in Iraq instead of focusing on those who attacked us.”
…and Dubya’s FISA double down.
Meanwhile, in another recent reversal — one likely precipitated by both the Hamdan case and pending lawsuits by the ACLU and others — the Dubya White House agrees to a deal put forth by Arlen “paper tiger” Specter that would put the NSA warrantless wiretaps to a constitutional review by the FISA court. But the trick, as many Dems have pointed out, is under this deal the FISA court would only do a general review of the wiretap program, rather than conduct the individual case-by-case reviews that the law has always demanded: “Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) criticized the agreement, saying he will oppose ‘any bill that would grant blanket approval for warrantless surveillance of Americans, particularly when this administration has never explained why it believes that current law allowing surveillance of terrorist suspects is inadequate.’“
Not this time, Karl.
“He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside saying, ‘Stay the course.’ That’s not a plan.” As justifiably disgruntled veteran John Murtha lights into bile-spouting chicken-hawk Karl Rove for another gutterball attack on Dems’ patriotism, the Democrats step up to the bar and offer two substantive plans for phased withdrawal from Iraq, to be debated tomorrow. “Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin…pushed an amendment requiring that U.S. combat troops be out by July 2007…In a statement, Kerry and Feingold said a deadline ‘gives Iraqis the best chance for stability and self-government’ and ‘allows us to begin refocusing on the true threats that face our country.‘”
Hayden Right?
“Unlike so many of the hacks placed in charge of important government agencies during the past six years, Hayden possesses powerful qualifications for the job…By the admittedly dismal standards of the Bush administration, then, Hayden is an unusually good appointment.” As former NSA head and probable CIA director-to-be Michael Hayden navigates the confirmation process (leaving all his Snoopgate-related answers for the secret session), he procures an endorsement from an unlikely source: Salon‘s Joe Conason: “[D]espite his military uniform, Hayden is likely to be more independent of the Pentagon and the White House than Goss was. It will help that, unlike Goss, he actually knows what he’s doing.” Hmmm. Update: Hayden is through committee on a 12-3 vote. (Feingold, for his part, voted no: “Our country needs a CIA Director who is committed to fighting terrorism aggressively without breaking the law or infringing on the rights of Americans.”
Spineless Specter.
“‘I don’t need to be lectured by you. You are no more a protector of the Constitution than am I,’ Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) shouted after Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) declared his opposition to the amendment, his affinity for the Constitution and his intention to leave the meeting.” Senators Feingold and Specter go toe-to-toe over the anti-gay-marriage amendment, which passed a private meeting of the Senate Judiciary Comittee on a 10-8 partisan vote yesterday. My goodness, Specter is a joke these days, isn’t he? He says he’s “totally opposed” to the amendment for the cameras and his moderate Pennsylvania constituency, but, as per the norm, he capitulated to his GOP masters — who want this chum in the water for the fundies ASAP — at the first available opportunity. Senator, you’ve already proven time and time again in this Congress that you’re nowhere near the Constitutional protector as Sen. Feingold. But if you were, you’d recognize immediately that this vile and ridiculous piece of pandering to right-wing bigotry is the biggest embarrassment to our founding document since the Three-Fifths Compromise, and you would act accordingly.
Straight Talk on Gay Marriage.
“‘Obviously, it’s a very difficult issue and evokes a lot of emotions,’ Feingold said in a telephone interview yesterday. ‘I think it’s something ultimately that people throughout the country will accept, but it’s not an easy issue.'” Unlike many of his Dem colleagues (and potential rivals in 2008), Feingold comes out for legalizing same-sex marriage. “Feingold noted that removing the prohibition against gay marriage would not impose any obligation on religious groups. He indicated that no religious faith should ever be forced to conduct or recognize any marriage, but that civil laws on marriage should reflect the principle of equal rights under the law.“
The Granite State Strikes Back.
Faced with the prospect of his state losing its disproportionate influence on presidential campaigns, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch (D) begins twisting the arms of possible presidential candidates in 2008, with Evan Bayh the first to cry uncle. “New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has assiduously avoided taking a position on the issue despite personal urgings by Lynch to do so. Former Virginia governor Mark Warner, the hot ‘anti-Hillary’ candidate these days, is similarly noncommittal.” Pushing back on New Hampshire’s entreaties are Bill Richardson (New Mexico) and John Edwards (North Carolina), for obvious reasons. Feingold is also uncommitted (as far as I know), although one would think that, as an independent-minded maverick, he’d be a prime candidate for an early Granite State boost. That is, provided John McCain doesn’t suck all the air out of the state, as he did in 2000 versus Bradley.
Topic of Cancer.
“‘We know the president broke the law,’ Leahy said. ‘Now we need to know why.'” With the Dems — except for Feingold and Leahy — AWOL yet again, the Senate Judiciary Committee debates Feingold’s censure resolution and hears testimony from former Nixon counsel John Dean, who is back before Congress for the first time since Watergate. Said Feingold at one point: “If you want the words ‘bad faith’ in [the censure resolution], let’s put them right in, because that’s exactly what we have here…The lawbreaking is shocking in itself, but the defiant way that the president has persisted in defending his actions with specious legal arguments and misleading statements is part of what led me to conclude that censure is a necessary step.” Said the rest of the committee Dems (Kennedy, Biden, Kohl, Feinstein, Schumer, Durbin): Nothing.
Same Old Senate for Sale.
“I don’t know,’ said Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio…’People are not really talking to me directly about lobbying. I think they’re concerned about some of the, quote, scandal, but I don’t have anybody come up to me and say there’s a lobbying problem. It doesn’t get that specific.‘” As such, one day after voting down an independent ethics office 67-30, the Senate passes a watered-down “lobbying reform” bill 90-8 that, for all intent and purposes. seems to be merely cosmetic. “The Senate measure toughens disclosure requirements for lobbyists and requires lawmakers to obtain advance approval for the private trips that were a central feature of the Abramoff scandal. But it does not rein in lawmakers’ use of corporate jets, and it fell far short of the sweeping changes, including a ban on privately financed travel, that some lawmakers advocated in January…’It’s very, very weak,’ said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.“
Five Republicans and only three measly Democrats voted against the phantom reform bill: McCain, Feingold, Kerry, Graham, DeMint, Inhofe, and the “unlikely duo” of Obama and Coburn. (The West Virginia Dem delegation — Byrd and Rockefeller — abstained.) Still, “Mr. McCain predicted that there would be more indictments growing out of the investigation into political corruption, and said that such a development would lead Congress to revisit the issue again.“