Obama's response to the protest on the FISA "compromise" is horrible.

He's gonna wind up voting for a bill that contains retroactive immunity, despite earlier vows to veto any such bill. What happened to filibuster?

He says the "exclusivity provision" makes clear the idea that FISA is the only method by which the President can spy on Americans - even though the old FISA law already says that.

He talks about overseeing the watchers - but there's no such provision for oversight. In the USA, such oversight is supposed to come from the Courts. Obama seems to think it'll come from the Inspector General's office, or the AG's office. He expects the Exec Branch will investigate itself.

He finishes up with a toothless "promise" (after breaking his earlier promises about FISA, why should we listen now?) to have his AG "review" the surveillance methods under use. Instead of promising to prosecute obviously illegal activity.

I don't know if links to these sites have been posted before. If so, more exposure won't hurt.

Regarding bill H.R. 6304...

It's time to get on the phone and fax machine, to contact senators and tell them to oppose passage of the "compromise" bill - the bill which will guarantee immunity for telecom companies which engaged in illegal domestic spying, and which will vastly broaden the government's ability to spy on US citizens.

I just called the Obama campaign. A lady there told me, "We're getting a lot of calls on this issue and we're logging them all. Your voice is being heard".

The numbers and links are below. All I'm doing is broadcasting stuff others have put together. Hopefully, if many thousands of people complain about this, the bill will die.

...will you support them?

Because I am pretty certain that the GOP will go beserk about FISA once the election cycle is over.

It will be easy for them.

Immunity for huge telecommunications companies that spied on US citizens illegally? Establishment of an obscure court system that decides, in secret, who can be spied on and who can't? Those are very unpopular. All you have to do is educate the public on the issues and the public will rally to protect basic civil rights.

It's crazy, improbable - it'll never happen. But that doesn't seem to stop people from speculating about it. I've seen a few articles online quoting Democrats who muse out loud about the possibility of Al Gore emerging from the Denver convention as the nominee. I've heard people talking about the possibility at work.

My wife mentioned it today - and can't remember where she heard it.

Rumors spread quickly, and people love intrigue. Stories of insider deals make for juicy gossip.

But I wonder, what is the sense of the Daily Kos community on such an idea?

Not too many months ago, Gore routinely won online polls on this site. I wonder how he'd fare now? Now that many (most) of us have our hearts, minds and wallets firmly behind one of the 2 candidates.

It seems possible that the race will continue until the convention. Some are calling for the Democratic party "elders" to step in and ask Hillary to drop out. But what party elder is gonna outweigh the arguments of Bill Clinton?

I can't see Hillary dropping out.

So, what about it? If the convention became a madhouse, and Gore emerged as the nominee, what would you do? Who would get your vote?

The Democrats are dropping hints that they'll give the telecom firms retroactive immunity for illegal wiretapping.

So they'll likely cave in on this issue, as they have on so many others.

The Democrats have done nothing to force Bush's hand on extraordinary rendition, on holding prisoners without access to the courts, on politicizing the Attorney General's office, etc., etc.

After a while, I think you have to ask, why are they failing to oppose these measures?

I think the answer is because they want those powers themselves.

A sizable number of Congressional Democrats sided with the GOP and Bush last week, to broaden the government's ability to spy on us.

They want to increase their surveillance capability in order to prevent another terrorist attack.

(You can argue that that's all bullshit, that what they really want is the ability to spy on political opponents, like Nixon did - but for the sake of argument I'm gonna take their word. And the word of the Democrats who voted with them).

The Bill of Rights is a short but powerful document.

You can read the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and get a pretty good idea as to what the revolutionaries who founded our country wanted their government to do.

The GOP has always called itself the party that values the Constitution. That may have been true years ago, but it's no longer true. The GOP of the Bush era favors authoritarianism.

The saddest fact of all is that today's Democrats are helping Bush gut civil liberties.

I think things become more clear if you take a look at some of the amendments in the Bill and see what Bush has done. Pretty quickly you can see that Bush is attacking bedrock liberties.

More below.

This is truly some unbelievable shit.

How can a Democratically controlled Congress sit back and allow a crooked Attorney General and a crooked President seize even MORE un-Constitutional power?

I don't give a damn about Yearly Kos. I'm glad it was fun, I'm glad the media noticed - but the Bill of Rights matters more. Our system of government matters more.

The Bush administration is crooked. They are power hungry liars who will do anything to get MORE power.

The people who founded this country did their best to make sure it remained a republican democracy.

Right now, as we sit, it is turning into a police state. And the Democrats are helping.

I can't believe it. Call your Congressman now.

That may sound hyperbolic, but it's true.

Bush and the Democratically controlled US Congress are currently negotiating to gut the Bill of Rights EVEN FURTHER.

It is no exaggeration to say that Bush and the Republican Congress attacked Americans' civil liberties. They established warrantless spying on US citizens, and have allowed indefinite detention of US citizens without trial.

I thought that the Democrats would stop this foolishness. But they're not - they're knee deep in negotiations with Bush.

Put simply, Bush and the Congress don't have the right to remove our civil liberties.

Call your Congressman. Tell them, hands off the Bill of Rights.

As we sit and watch the Bush administration die an ugly death - Gonzalez under fire, Rove called to testify, etc. - I think it is important that we remember something.

It wasn't just Bush who did these things. It wasn't just Bush who flim-flammed the nation into a crazy war. It wasn't just Bush who suppressed government reports that didn't fit his agenda. It wasn't just Bush who created a program of domestic spying. It wasn't just Bush who trashed habeas corpus. It wasn't just Bush who fiddled while New Orleans drowned. It wasn't just Bush who created an international gulag of secret prisons to hold prisoners. It wasn't just Bush who slashed taxes for the rich and screwed the poor. It wasn't just Bush who turned access to Congress into a pay-to-play corrupt farce.

It was Bush AND the GOP.

A bit more below -

Hi. I work at a trauma center, and it is trauma season right now.

Every summer I take care of people who get injured doing stupid, dangerous things. I hope my advice will protect you from similar injuries.

More below.

Mike Stark posted a fascinating interview with David Broder, the "Dean" of the Washington press corps.

If you haven't seen Mike's interview, I recommend it highly.

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Mike handled himself well, and presented Broder with a taste of public opinion - the kind that rarely seems to penetrate the DC bubble.

The thing that interested me most about Mike's video was a part where Broder commented that, when he does WaPo online chats, people always ask him, "If you were so hot to see Clinton resign for lying, why aren't you calling for Bush to resign? Since Bush is clearly a liar, too?"

(I'm sure such questions drive Broder nuts, because they expose both his hypocrisy, and his elite status. The American public despises Bush - the DC elites still love him.)

Anyway, Broder's reply was fascinating. He said the reason he's not calling for Bush to resign, or be impeached, was because the man who replaced Bush would be Cheney, and that would be "no improvement".

More below.

Mark my words - this surrender by the House Democrats will come back to haunt us.

All along this has been Bush and the Republicans' war. The voters knew it, everybody knew it. The Democrats were not in power and had no real hope of forcing Bush to change course.

All that has changed. The Democrats are now in control of Congress and DO have the power to force Bush to change course.

If the Democrats vote to give Bush a blank check on this crazy war, it will become very, very hard to do anything to limit Bush's power on the war later on.

"You Democrats voted to fund the war in 2006 - why are you changing your mind now?"

"Flip floppers! Spineless!"

The same party that hammered Kerry for flip-flopping will quickly take up that mantra again. And it will be effective. The public is watching. If the Democrats don't manage things any differently than the GOP, then why give a damn who you vote for? Both parties act the same, right?

Hey! Dummies!

What the hell do you think you're doing?

You weren't BORN into office. You were ELECTED, because lots of us worked to get you elected.

You were elected to take care of some huge problems - the war, and corruption, and the collapse of the economy for everyone except the rich.

Right now you are screwing up on all 3 issues.

You clowns need to go back to your home districts and listen to your constituents - the people who pay your salary. You need to stop listening to DC pundits and K Street lobbyists.

We want the war to stop.

We want corruption to be stamped out.

We want an end to shady deals that benefit Wall Street, and screw normal workers.

No timeline on the war? Screw that! De-fund the damn war!

No delay before a retired House member can become a lobbyist? Screw that! Kick the lobbyists out!

"Secret" trade deals? WTF? Who owns this country, anyway?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Rangel, Pelosi, Reid, Webb, Tester - what the hell is the matter with you people?

If not, shut up.

A few days ago Glenn Beck was crying on CNN about Imus. The gist of Beck's complaint was that, while nobody would excuse Imus' comments, it was wrong to fire him.

Beck said firing Imus for racist comments (Beck never called them racist - I think he just said Imus was a cranky old man who said dumb things) was like firing Sharon Stone for showing her "girlie parts" in a movie.

Beck said if you pay to see a Sharon Stone movie you should expect to see her naked - because she's Sharon Stone, that's what she does. You shouldn't be upset.

The rationale was, if you listen to Imus, you should expect racist commentary. If you don't like it, change the channel.

That was the kicker - change the channel. Beck doesn't want you to speak out against racism, doesn't want you to criticize Imus' bigotry. You're just supposed to ignore it, move on.

And he sure as hell doesn't want you to band together with like-minded people, boycott advertisers who buy time on Imus' show, or anything like that.

More below.

The NYT article today http://www.nytimes.com/...

is entitled "Court to Oversee U.S. Wiretapping in Terror Cases", and it begins,

"WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 — The Bush administration, in a surprise reversal, said on Wednesday that it had agreed to give a secret court jurisdiction over the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program and would end its practice of eavesdropping without warrants on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists...."

I read that and thought "Great! The Bush admin caved. Judicial review is still required before they snoop on US citizens".

Law and order restored, I thought.

But then I remembered, this is the Bush administration. And the safest assumption about BushCo is that they're lying.

They're lying in this case, too.

I agree that the Democrats have important work to do in Congress. Lots of ground to cover, lots of rows to hoe.

I agree that endless chatter about this or that presidential candidate is childish.

This may be a silly thing to think about, but...

I can't get that excited about Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Kerry, Wes Clark, Chris Dodd, Tom Vilsack or Biden. They seem like good people, and if nominated they'll get my vote. Maybe if I learned more about them I'd like them better.

But right now, what I'd like is a candidate with the sort of enthusiasm Dean had. I'm looking for somebody with the sense of purpose Gore has about global warming.

I wonder if Webb might be the guy?