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Posted at 3:05pm on Jul. 9, 2008 They're winding up FISA now in the Senate.

Took 'em long enough.

By Moe Lane

[UPDATE and bump]: Final vote is 69 Ayes, 28 Nays. A look at the final apostate list in a moment, but I'd just like to note something. There were two Senators who were serious Democratic Presidential candidates, and they both voted on FISA. One of them voted against telecom immunity - a matter of extreme importance to the netroots - all the way down the line (and despite the fact that Democrats in Congress have assessed the public mood, and have clearly decided that the bill must be passed). The other voted against it... except for the final vote, which is the only one that the population will actually care about. In other words, we have a case of actual integrity versus equivocation.

The funny part is that the netroots went with the equivocator. Barack Obama brazenly lied to them about his intent to filibuster FISA, and they support him anyway. And now they have to go give him some more money, so that he can lie to them some more. Funny, I don't recall Hillary Clinton being nearly as bad in that regard this election cycle.

Have a nice day.

-------

Senator Bond is finishing up his commentary, and we'll be seeing the start of the process of watching the amendments go down in flames any minute now. (Ooh, he just kicked the netroots!)

While we're all waiting for the inevitable, check out Jake Tapper's piece on the subject. Especially the bits about Obama's flip-flops on FISA.

[UPDATE]: Below is the approved list of Netroots-Acceptable Democratic Ideological Purity. To stay on it, all the Democratic Senators have to do is vote Aye on all three amendments, and Nay on the vote itself. Shouldn't be too hard, right?

Akaka Baucus Bayh Biden Bingaman Boxer Brown Byrd Cantwell Cardin Carper Casey Clinton Conrad Dodd Dorgan Durbin Feingold Feinstein Harkin Inouye Johnson Kennedy* Kerry Klobuchar Kohl Landrieu Lautenberg Leahy Levin Lieberman Lincoln McCaskill Menendez Mikulski Murray Nelson Nelson Obama Pryor Reed Reid Rockefeller Salazar Sanders Schumer Stabenow Tester Webb Whitehouse Wyden

*I think that he may not be present. Which would explain why McCain's not there, either.

On Dodd/Feingold: 32 Ayes, 66 Nays. Embarrassingly bad, that.
On Specter: 37 Ayes, 61 Nays. Not quite as bad. Not quite.
On Bingaman: 42 Ayes, 56 Nays. I guess that I got this wrong: the pro-FISA people clearly didn't need much in the way of cover at all.

...And Reid is recessing, in order to let the GOP go have its (delayed by the Helms funeral) lunch. Isn't he just the best, most biddable Democratic Senate Majority Leader that the GOP could wish for?

[UPDATE] Well, we're back, and I believe that this is the cloture vote (yup, it is). Bit garbled, but I heard 26 Nays; it clearly passed. Final vote - finally, the freaking final vote - coming up next.

Posted in Congress | FISA | Kneel Before Zod | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (136)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:38am on Jul. 3, 2008 And so we wait for the Great Obaman Reversal on Iraq.

We also wait for everyone's June fundraising numbers, but that's a different issue altogether.

By Moe Lane

Like Glenn Reynolds, I am nigh-breathless from waiting to see how long it'll take for Senator Obama to finally integrate objective reality into his Iraq position, which is slowly but surely looking more and more absurd every day. As Brother Soren notes, Obama's surrogates are already doing an admirable job of muddying the waters, but the IDB/TIPP poll referenced (but not linked to) in the link above is grim news to anybody wanting to cut and run. When you have half of independents and 45% of Democrats now disagreeing that the war is lost, you have a problem with being a Democrat running on a campaign that the war is lost.

So... we wait for him to cave on his most fundamental, bedrock policy position. I expect that it'll be right after that trip to Iraq and Afghanistan that the VRWC shamed him into making. And when he does, the derision and mockery that will ensue over this last, best betrayal of the progressive netroots will make our reaction to the Democratic cave on FISA look like an Elks Club Amateur Comedy Night.

Just thought that I'd share.

Moe Lane

PS: Exit question, as Allahpundit would say: Do you think that the netroots support the Democratic Party in the same way that I was a New York Mets fan, growing up? Because damned if I can see how they're getting any practical return on their money, particularly when it comes to foreign policy.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Iraq | Obamafiles | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 6:14pm on Jun. 26, 2008 Rapidly Losing The Netroots

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

I used to think that it would not be fruitful to quote or link to Glenn Greenwald. But I was wrong. The man is a veritable canary in the coalmine for anyone interested in checking out the state of the netroots.

Today's post indicates the depths to which the netroots have been betrayed by their allies in political office and in the mainstream media. Not only are people like Barack Obama cowering--and yes, that is the right word--in response to netroot calls to resist the FISA reforms that are currently on the table, but pro-Obama forces in the media are enabling the cowering (while entirely disregarding their previous statements against FISA reforms) and they are turning a deaf ear to netroot concerns regarding the legislation. Shows how much the netroots matter, nyet? If Greenwald and his allies were half the political force they once might have thought they were, at the very least, the mainstream media would have done a better job of reflecting netroot concerns on an issue as important and as emotional as FISA legislation. But no--the netroots are completely and entirely thrown under the bus on this issue. Their anger, outrage, objections, concerns and arguments are utterly and completely meaningless as far as Obama, the Democratic political establishment and the mainstream media are concerned.

The only time the netroots will regain even a patina of respectability in the eyes of Democratic politicians and any of their enablers in the mainstream media is when people like Barack Obama need money. Then the sweet-talking will come hot and heavy and the netroots will be told over and over and over just how important and needed and wanted and loved they are.

But when it comes time to discuss and shape policy, they will be banished to the little kids' table.

Must be humiliating. Oh yes. Yes, it must.

Posted in Miscellanea | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (2)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:15pm on Jun. 20, 2008 The FISA Bill And Its Political Ramifications

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

An agreement on surveillance legislation has been concluded between Congress and the Bush Administration. The details of that legislation can be found here:

The agreement extends the government's ability to eavesdrop on espionage and terrorism suspects while effectively providing a legal escape hatch for AT&T, Verizon Communications and other telecom firms. They face more than 40 lawsuits that allege they violated customers' privacy rights by helping the government conduct a warrantless spying program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

[. . .]

Under the surveillance agreement, which is expected to be approved today by the House and next week by the Senate, telecoms could have privacy lawsuits thrown out if they show a federal judge that they received written assurance from the Bush administration that the spying was legal.

The proposal marks a compromise by Republicans and the Bush administration, which had opposed giving federal judges any significant role in granting legal immunity to the phone companies.

The legislation also would require court approval of procedures for intercepting telephone calls and e-mails that pass through U.S.-based servers -- another step that the White House and GOP lawmakers previously resisted.

"It is the result of compromise, and like any compromise it is not perfect, but I believe it strikes a sound balance," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), the lead Democratic negotiator in talks between lawmakers and the White House.

But overall, the deal appears to give Bush and his aides, including Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, much of what they sought in a new surveillance law.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto called the measure "a bipartisan bill" that "will give the intelligence professionals the long-term tools they need to protect the nation, and liability protection for those who may have assisted the government after the 9/11 attacks."

Read on . . .

Posted in Barack Obama | Policy | Surveillance Policy | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:44pm on Jun. 20, 2008 Some thoughts for our esteemed visitors regarding the passage of the FISA bill.

And may I offer my condolences for Senator Obama's sudden attack of laryngitis?

By Moe Lane

Good afternoon, our colleagues from the Other Side. As you no doubt know by now, the FISA bill has passed the House (293-129-13), complete with sufficient protections for the telecom industry so as to prevent precisely the sort of discovery expeditions that so many of you have so eagerly dreamed of. The Senate will in due course ratify it; the President will of course sign it; and it will not be repealed, even if "your" party somehow manages to win the Presidential election in November.

But I would like to offer these words of comfort. When you look back on your quest to fight this bill, I want you to appreciate the amazing amount of work that you spent on the issue. You called. You networked. You wrote letters and blog posts. You contributed to opposition groups. You reached out, and found people just like you, and you banded together to fight. And you kept going, and calling, and struggling, and you put your time, your money, and every atom of your being on the line. For some of you, this was your finest moment. You fought for this. You fought so hard for this.

Oddly enough, I didn't do any of that, but I won anyway. That's because you suck, and I don't.

Well, I didn't say that they were words of comfort for you.

Moe Lane

PS: Now go give money to Barack Obama. That's all you're good for, anyway.

Posted in Congress | FISA | I'm Sing-ing in the Rain... | Kneel Before Zod | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (34)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:02pm on Jun. 19, 2008 Just words?

By Jeff Emanuel

Just for clarification, it appears that when Democrat Congressman Paul Kanjorski, of PA-11, says:

I shared the frustration of my constituents that the war in Iraq continued...I expressed my belief that some Democrats in 2006 overestimated the ability of a single house of Congress to end the war, particularly in the face of an intransigent President and Senate Republicans who are committed to continuing the war

...it actually means, "I'm going to vote for giving the President everything he wants and more in the next Iraq Supplemental I get the chance to vote on."

Thanks for the clarification, Congressman. It's appreciated, not least by your gullible netroot supporters, I'm sure.

Posted at 9:31pm on Jun. 19, 2008 "House passes Iraq war funds bill backed by Bush"

By Jeff Emanuel

Thanks to Reuters for the tasty headline, quoted above, that really rams home the fact that the Democrat-"led" House of Representatives has once again given President Bush pretty much exactly what he asked for on that pesky little war they inconveniently promised to end if elected in '06.

Well, I suppose that the "inconvenience" is more felt on the part of those friendly, gullible netroots who "ate up" the knowingly insincere promises of the Democrats they donated so much time, treasure, and typing to.

Voting results are here.

Guess those "blood-soaked" dollar bills Code Pink protesters planned to shower the voting Members with during tonight's polling didn't convince any of them overmuch. It's a shame; I hear they were dipped in the actual blood of the Iraqi children the witches of Code Pink keep fighting so hard to abandon to the mercy of terrorists in Iraq.

Well, maybe not. But would it honestly surprise anybody?

Updated below the fold...

Posted in Code Pink | Congress | Kneel Before Zod | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (8)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:10pm on Jun. 19, 2008 The FISA Controversy, in tedious Question and Answer form.

I'd call it a Guide for the Perplexed, but I'm not that good.

By Moe Lane

The questions and answers are below the fold (thanks to Dan McLaughlin for a suggestion here and there). We hope that you'll find it useful, particularly if tomorrow afternoon is witness to screams and shrieks of inarticulate fury all along the sinister half of the blogosphere.

Well, here's hoping, at least.

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, thanks, you disagree with [Insert Random Assertion by Moe Lane here]. Glad to hear it. Moving on...

Posted in FISA | Liberals | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (8)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:30pm on Jun. 19, 2008 Congratulations Godfather

The New Democratic takeover crashes on

By Neil Stevens

Today, on the day of another Neocon Democratic victory, I must congratulate Godfather Jerome Armstrong. He and his new Democratic leadership clique have accomplished so much for Neocons recently, that he must be so proud of these accomplishments of the Howard Dean era of the Democratic party:

• Continuing war funding
• Agreeing on Telecom FISA immunity
• Thwarting Presidential and Vice Presidential impeachment

Yes, there is that as-yet failure to nominate Hillary Clinton, but it's quite a record. And yet, the great Vis Numar does not rest on his laurels, oh no. He's pressing on and continuing to set the Neocon agenda within the Gate-Crashed Democratic Party:

Congressional Dems should adopt the position [of promoting drilling for oil in America's coastal waters], include some safeguards, and alongside billions in funding for finding alternative fuel solutions, make it part of a long-term solution.... [T]he ideological purity position of there being an environmental/aesthetic argument against it is exactly the position the Republicans want us to adopt.

Armstrong, Moulitsas, and Dean have done so well in reshaping the Democratic party into one not merely able to follow Republican orders in Congress as a pliable minority, but to take the lead and implement the core pieces of the moderate Neocon agenda as the majority. All those centrist Democrats that the Netroots were told to get elected are truly paying off in crushing the radical left's say in the Democratic agenda. Winning over moderate Republicans must come before ideological purity, no matter how many Republican positions are adopted.

So for today I salute you, Vis Numar, as the triumphant enemy of my enemy.

Posted in Democrats | drill here | Neocons | New Democrats | oil | The Great Netroots Betrayal | vis numar — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:11pm on Jun. 19, 2008 I hope that this is *false* amazement over Obama's FISA betrayal.

Not that I consider it a betrayal, but then, I wouldn't.

By Moe Lane

Glenn Greenwald and Matt Stoller are predictably upset that Senator Barack Obama has chosen to help out pro-FISA compromise and Blue Dog Democrat John Barrow (GA) over anti-FISA compromise and progressive Regina Thomas by cutting an ad for the former. It would be a pity if this was true upset; these two are often touted as being shining lights of the progressive blogosphere, so it'll make us all look bad if either or both turn out to actually only have the cognitive development of a badly-socialized greyhound. After all, it's fairly clear why Senator Obama has made this call: conservative Democrats, particularly Georgian ones, have alternatives.

At this point, progressives don't.

So I suggest that the two of them shut up and get on with the job of writing puff pieces about the Democratic candidate for President, and how you should give him all of your money. That's pretty much the task that's been assigned to them by their betters, and the sooner they learn their place, the sooner that they'll grow accustomed to it.

Moe Lane

PS: You, too, mcjoan.

Posted in FISA | Liberals | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (2)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:50pm on Jun. 5, 2008 That Ned Lamont thing? It just keeps paying dividends, boychik.

*Dividends*.

By Moe Lane

Latest payout?

Citizens for McCain.

John McCain knows he is going to be the President of all Americans, not just the ones that voted for him. No matter what party you belong to or who you supported during the primary campaign, we want you to be part of our team.

And do you who's helping Senator McCain with that?

(slow, mocking smile)

Guess.

Lieberman launches grassroots organization
From CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Joe Lieberman – who has taken on increasingly high-profile campaign roles on behalf of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain – announced Thursday that was launching and heading a new grassroots organization, "Citizens for McCain," with a direct appeal to Hillary Clinton’s disappointed supporters.

“The phones at the campaign headquarters have been ringing with disaffected Democrats calling to say they believe Senator McCain has the experience, judgment, and bipartisanship necessary to lead our country in these difficult times,” Lieberman wrote in a message sent to the Arizona senator’s supporters. “Many of these supporters are former supporters of Senator Clinton.”

Over the past few weeks, some supporters of Hillary Clinton – whose campaign announced Wednesday that she would be suspending her presidential run this weekend — have said that they would consider voting for McCain if she were not the Democratic nominee.

Lieberman highlighted McCain’s “very good working relationship with Senator Clinton” – which he said would continue in the future – and his comments praising her in a speech at a Louisiana campaign event Wednesday.

Oh, I'm sure that once Senator Clinton concedes the race Saturday...

- by which I mean that she: explicitly drops out of the race; explicitly endorses Senator Barack Obama by name for President; formally and explicitly releases her delegates to vote for Senator Barack Obama; and promises to give Senator Barack Obama all the help that she can, explicitly including her contribution lists and whatever general election money that she can legally transfer. That's what's going to happen Saturday, right? -

...this will all be, as they say, moot. But until then, hey, lots of fun all around. Not to mention a blatant reminder how Lieberman got away and continues to get away with breaking away (at least in public) from the Democrats over the Iraq War. But, hey: the Democratic Party will no doubt promise that they'll be stripping the apostate of all his chairships with the new Congress. And you can believe them when they say that: after all, when was the last time that they lied to the netroots?

(pause)

Ah, 7:50 PM, Eastern Standard Time. Why do you ask?

Posted in 2008 | Joe Lieberman | Kneel Before Zod | The Best Democratic Primary EVER | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (44)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:25am on Mar. 26, 2008 More Superdelegate Math

By Neil Stevens

As the unpledged Party Leader and Elected Official delegates to the Democratic National Convention weigh their solemn duty to decide who will be the 2008 Democratic Presidential nominee, arguably their chief job is to choose the candidate who is best equipped to win. No Democrat who has to run on the ballot (most PLEOs are elected officials) has a need to see another George McGovern.

So following is the kind of math the delegates are most likely looking at as the Democratic nomination process wears on:

Read on...

Posted in Democrats | Rooting For Injuries | superdelegates | The Best Democratic Primary EVER | The Great Netroots Betrayal — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »