I am very impressed by this post at Swing State Project. The poster has really done some research on this.
I really do disagree with his rather condescending attitude toward those who question the FISA cave-in.
I don't have any ranting to add to this matter, as that's not really Swing State Project style; I'll leave that to Glenn Greenwald and the good folks over at Open Left and Daily Kos.
We need people like those mentioned to question our Democrats when they do things that don't make sense. I love the ones he mentioned and read them daily. Good for them for ranting. I rant a lot, too. Not sure when Swing State became so critical of some of our very best left bloggers. :shrug:
He does make some points though. He shows we have actually gone way way way backwards on this issue. On the issue of protecting the telecoms from lawsuits...or using retroactive immunity to protect Little Boots who worked with them.
WHY are we going backwards?
Who Changed Their Tune on Iraq Supplemental and FISAWhat interested me is that now we have a series of bookends, where we can measure how far we've come on changing the debate on funding the Iraq War and on FISA. Short answer, judging by the raw vote totals, is: not very far on the Iraq War, and we've gone way backwards on FISA. (Although comparing today's FISA vote against the "Protect America Act" from last August is kind of apples and oranges, as today seemed to turn more on the narrow issue of retroactive immunity for telecoms rather than the overarching issue of spying on American citizens. I'd guess that fewer Congresspeople were bothered by the idea of letting the telecoms skate than by the much larger issues that were at stake last August.)
He lists the votes changes from last year. He lists the 58 Democrats who changed from a NO to a YES vote on FISA. That is not just a drip...that is a whole flood going backwards.
FISA
2007 total: 227 aye - 183 no - 23 NV
Dems in 2007: 41 aye - 181 no - 9 NV
GOP in 2007: 186 aye - 2 no - 14 NV
2008 total: 293 aye - 129 no - 13 NV
Dems in 2008: 105 aye - 128 no - 3 NV
GOP in 2008: 188 aye - 1 no - 10 NV
The poster says it is hard to call this a long list of Democratic "defections"...since the Democratic leadership is included.
58 who flipped from no to aye (i.e. good to bad): Gary Ackerman, Mike Arcuri, Joe Baca, Brian Baird, Shelly Berkley, Howard Berman, Marion Berry, Sanford Bishop, Tim Bishop, Rick Boucher, Nancy Boyda, Corrine Brown, GK Butterfield, Dennis Cardoza, Kathy Castor, Emanuel Cleaver, Jim Clyburn, Joe Crowley, Norm Dicks, Rahm Emanuel, Eliot Engel, Gabby Giffords, Kirsten Gillibrand, Al Green, Gene Green, Luis Gutierrez, Jane Harman, Tim Holden, Paul Kanjorski, Dale Kildee, Ron Kind, Jim Langevin, Nita Lowey, Tim Mahoney, Carolyn McCarthy, Jerry McNerney, Greg Meeks, Dennis Moore, John Murtha, Solomon Ortiz, Nancy Pelosi, Ed Perlmutter, Nick Rahall, Silvestre Reyes, Dutch Ruppersberger, Adam Schiff, David Scott, Joe Sestak, Brad Sherman, Albio Sires, Adam Smith, John Spratt, Bart Stupak, Ellen Tauscher, Bennie Thompson, Mark Udall, John Yarmuth
9 Dems went from no vote to no; this includes some of our newest: Bill Foster, and Donna Edwards, on her second day on the job. 3 Dems and 1 Republican went from no to no vote; the Republican was Walter Jones. 12 Republicans and 6 Dems went from no vote to yes: the Dems were Don Cazayoux, Travis Childers, Ruben Hinojosa, Ron Klein, Laura Richardson, and Ike Skelton. 8 Republicans went from yes to no vote.
The poster also spends time on the Iraq Supplemental. We did not do so hot there either.
Kit Bond, Republican, said that
the president got a very good deal.Call it a “supercave,” in fact, if Kit Bond likes it this much:
“I think the White House got a better deal than they even they had hoped to get.”
..."About 45 percent of Democrats crossed the aisle, 105 in all, with just one Republican, Illinois’ Timothy Johnson, joining the 128 Democrats in opposition."
To those who ask why this is a bad bill...here is something I posted from the Open Left site the poster criticizes at Swing State. It is from fall, 2007.
Fisa Train Wreck is on the way.I just got off the phone with Caroline Fredrickson from the ACLU, and the news is about what you'd expect if you have witnessed Democratic House behavior over the past six months. The bottom line is that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are disorganized and giving no signals to members on the FISA wiretapping expansion and retroactive immunity to telecom companies, which is going to result in horrific legislation. In the Senate, Jay Rockefeller is once again inviting Mike McConnell into closed hearings on how to fix the FISA law, and the markup is next week. There are no drafts of legislation around, which is a bad The Senate Judiciary Committee is hamstrung by Dianne Feinstein, who prevents a majority, and by the instincts of Democrat leaders who, in a conflicts between Judiciary and Intelligence, will go with Intelligence because of a perceived fear of national security weakness.
Rockefeller, in order to get something 'bipartisan' that can pass the Senate, is working with Kit Bond to draft something that can get to 60 votes. Bond of course is close to McConnell, and so it's likely that the bill coming out of the Senate Judiciary is going to contain retroactive immunity for telecom companies (thank you lobbyist Jamie Gorelick) and a permanent fix to FISA that expands executive power. Reid and Pelosi, ironically, by ordering Democrats to move quickly so as to fix the problem they caused in July, are just accelerating the process of crafting this horrendous bill. This is complicated of course by the millions that telecom companies give to members on the Hill to prevent things like net neutrality from passing, though of course here too there's no logic since much of that money goes to Republicans.
In the House, the Intelligence Committee is slightly better, but we have no drafts of legislation and it's going to be marked up next week. Conyers on Judiciary, though opposed to FISA expansion, isn't doing anything about this through his committee. The alternative to 'fixing' this legislation is to simply let the six month FISA extension of authority expire in February, and go back to the regime we had prior to August. There is literally no reason to do what the Democrats are about to do in the House and Senate.
We went backwards on FISA, way backwards. Instead of asking what is wrong with the bill, then ask why is the ACLU planning a lawsuit on the grounds it is unconstitional....
Ask why 58 Democrats flipped from no to yes.