« Stimulus Grades | Main | The Foreign Policy Issues That Really Matter » Filibuster Follies23 Jan 2008 11:08 pm Having let Republican filibusters stymie a frighteningly large proportion of the Democrats congressional agenda, Harry Reid's finally had enough and is going to try to curb abuse of the process . . . to try to stop Chris Dodd from blocking bad FISA legislation. Reid's office is organizing some kind of progressive media event on Monday and I imagine he'll hear a thing or two about this. Comments (40)
Harry Reid is worse than Bush. Bush isn't too bright and he actually believes what he is doing is right. And we all know that no one is more dangerous than someone with, gasp, convictions. 
I remember being mildly impressed with Reid in the early days of his majority leadership. That seems like so long ago. In a different and better version of this world, Dodd would ignore Reid and lead the filibuster, which would lead to some sort of huge political battle, in which Dodd would topple and replace Reid, and dance on his political corpse with hob-nailed boots.
Can we start a fundraising drive to get Reid a spine transplant? This guy is pathetic.
"Reid's office is organizing some kind of progressive media event on Monday and I imagine he'll hear a thing or two about this." One of the more pleasant side effects of electing John Edwards as President would be to show the Harry Reids and Chuck Schumers of the world that you can be a Democrat with a little backbone and still win elections.
One of the more pleasant side effects of electing John Edwards as President would be to show the Harry Reids and Chuck Schumers of the world that you can be a Democrat with a little backbone and still win elections. You know what really showed backbone? When he fired his bloggers because people who wouldn't vote for him anyway were making a stink. How's that working out, anyway?
I'd kinda like to wait and see what actually happens with this issue before hammering Reid. There's a lot of rumor and innuendo and it's hard to tell what Reid is planning to do. It's hard to believe that he will capitulate to Bush on this issue that is so important to progressives. We shall see.
I used to get killed at TPM Cafe for saying how ineffectual Reid is. I'm glad that it's now obvious to so many more people, even though I wish that realization had never been necessary.
"You know what really showed backbone? When he fired his bloggers because people who wouldn't vote for him anyway were making a stink." But, of course, he didn't fire them, as I assume you already know. ----- Unlike Clinton and Obama, Edwards has come out in support of Dodd's efforts here on filibustering the FISA bill. (FWIW, I think that when Edwards decided not to fire Amanda and Melissa, that was the crucial moment for the campaign in terms of deciding to stand with progressives.)
It's hard to believe that he will capitulate to Bush on this issue that is so important to progressives. You're kidding, right? Or have you been living in a cave in New Zealand for the past year? Capitulating to Bush is what Reid does. Always, and without exception. Sen. Dodd, challenge Reid for Maj. Leader! Please!
I think Reid has been too obsessed with "getting something accomplished" and has let the repubs control too much Senate business. It is false to say he "always" capitulates to Bush. I'm not defending Reid's recent running of the Senate, because it sucks, but I don't think he's evil either like some seem to believe. Like I said, on this issue, wait and see what happens and not have premature hissy fits. If this bill gets passed giving telecoms a free ride then Reid has to go.
Umm, this is a pretty pathetic thread. By this stage of the game, you would think that most people would have realized that Reid does not "lack a backbone;" he just happens to support an appalling range of policies. He is not capitulating to Bush; he is agreeing with Bush. Grow up people.
(FWIW, I think that when Edwards decided not to fire Amanda and Melissa, that was the crucial moment for the campaign in terms of deciding to stand with progressives.) That is some pretty heavy spin. The two of them "quit" -- you really don't think Edwards was behind that? Give me a break, please.
Sen. Dodd, challenge Reid for Maj. Leader! Please! Reid couldn't do what he's doing if most Democratic Senators objected. Or if even half of them objected. Sadly, Dodd hasn't got a chance in hell of winning that challenge.
"That is some pretty heavy spin." If you think there is any doubt about which of the three candidates has been most willing to proudly stand with progressive causes, you're nutso. There's a reason Edwards was the only one willing to stand against Lieberman-Kyl, just as there's a reason Edwards seems to be the only one willing to stand with Dodd here. My original point remains: one pleasant side effect of electing Edwards President would be to show the Reids and Schumers of the world that you can stand with progressive causes and win. Reid's not a bad guy. He just has a certain idea of where Democrats have to stand to win elections. It's time to show him a better way.
There's a reason Edwards was the only one willing to stand against Lieberman-Kyl, just as there's a reason Edwards seems to be the only one willing to stand with Dodd here. Ooh, ooh. I know the reason... because he's not a Senator anymore?
"…Reid does not "lack a backbone;" he just happens to support an appalling range of policies. He is not capitulating to Bush; he is agreeing with Bush." LarryM has his eye on the ball here. Harry Reid has no distinguished track record as a progressive so why expect that of him now? Reid invokes the Spirit of Bipartisanship™ in order to align to media talking points and distract the public from the fact that this is a terrible thing to do to our civil liberties. The fact remains that the Bush Administration is trying to legalize their lawlessness while providing blanket immunity for those who aided and abetted their crimes. As majority leader he could've done a number of things to alter the outcome here but chose not to. The telling point for me has been his being such a hardass on Dodd's filibuster when it offers no advantage politically or otherwise. Dodd's gone way up in my book for honoring his word and the good people of Connecticut should be proud of their senator right now. Sorry I can't say the same Nevada. b4d
Unlike Clinton and Obama, Edwards has come out in support of Dodd's efforts here on filibustering the FISA bill. Blatantly false. All three have done the same amount of work on Dodd's efforts — which is to say, nice enough talk, but no action. Edwards is unable to take action because he is no longer in office, but we don't live in bizarro world where that means that he has somehow taken action. I love having a solidly progressive voice now in former Senator Edwards. I wish this side of him was around when he was in Congress and a decidedly unprogressive, corporate Southern Democrat, or when he was running for President the first time. Sadly, it wasn't in either case.
Somebody should start looking into Reid's background and finances. Clearly the Bushies have something on him he can't afford to have exposed.
Reid is done as far as I'm concerned.
There's a reason Edwards was the only one willing to stand against Lieberman-Kyl, Obama stood against Lieberman-Kyl every bit as much as Edwards; he spoke out against it, as did Edwards. His explanation as to why he wasn't there for the vote is that Reid told him there wasn't going to be a vote, he left town to campaign, and Reid scheduled a vote before he could get back. (Scroll to comments. Given the subject of this thread, does anyone doubt that Reid would do that to him?
Matt writes: [Obama's] explanation as to why he wasn't there for the vote is that Reid told him there wasn't going to be a vote, he left town to campaign, and Reid scheduled a vote before he could get back. Well, that's sorted, then. I really don't see how we could ask for a better example of effective leadership than that... But let's look on the bright side! If Professor Obama doesn't show up, on the Senate floor, to help Dodd out, instead of issuing sternly worded statements from far away, at least we'll have heard the last of the "Constitutional scholar" talking point! I mean, what's the point of teaching about the Constitution if you're not going to defend it?
Reid is right. Most of the threat to the nation's economy, safety and well-being comes from Dodd and his ilk. Crush the threat. Let Bush thrive.
If one Senator - just one - up for election in 2008, 2010 in a state with a Republican governor, would threaten to resign if Reid does this - just one - that would destroy this depressing endgame. Just completely overturn it. And Harry Reid would turn his position around, probably. Two or three, that chance rises to near 100 percent. I know I might as well be asking for the moon here - but Chris Dodd, you could become a legend with that move. And even better, you'd probably win. A genuine threat to lose the Senate majority would do the trick. Failing that, someone needs to *promise* to support a third-party candidate in Nevada. And create an organization for it.
Now combine this with the occasion, a few weeks ago, in which the Dems gave Reid the slot to reply to Bush's weekly radio address -- and he spent the entire period plaintively whining (there's no other word for it) about how he really "wanted" to get some good legislation up for a vote, but those mean old Republicans just wouldn't let him, and so there was no point even forcing them to stage a filibuster. This is the most pathetic excuse the Dems have had for a Senate leader since I can remember -- he makes Daschle look like a fearless firebrand by comparison, and given the dirtiness of Nevada politics I find myself wondering if there isn't some conspiratorial explanation. Whatever the explanation, it's time he was dumped. When GEORGE WILL starts writing about Dodd as a preferable Democratic leader, you know the time has come.
MY Having let Republican filibusters stymie a frighteningly large proportion of the Democrats congressional agenda, Harry Reid's finally had enough and is going to try to curb abuse of the process . . . to try to stop Chris Dodd from blocking bad FISA legislation. Matt displays simultaneous ignorance of the Senate process AND National Security. 1st, as Democrat Party leader, he cannot do squat about Republican filibusters without evoking the "nuclear option" OR do acts of PETTY collective retaliation. But on Democrats, who elected him leader, he CAN tell insubordinate Party members like Dodd to knock off certain antics. And while damaging and rarely done, he CAN cause Dodd serious problems by stripping him of committee assignments or funding earmarks for Connecticut. On the issue of National Security, imagine if the FBI had put most of the facts together about 9/11 and were on a feverish search for Arabs who went through US Flight Schools on fear that they didn't want to just hijack a jet, but maybe destroy a military target like a naval base, even smash it into the US CApital, unlikely as that appeared due to civilian lives affected... If the FBI had asked in 2001 or 1998 (when the 9/11 plot was hatched by KSM) - the Flight Schools would have leaped to comply with release of private records and names and adresses of 40-45 such Arabs, including Mohammed Atta and the other 3 killer pilots 5 others with terrorist links and 30-35 "perfectly innocent" Arabs. They would have leaped because the FBI would have said they were investigating them as a matter of national security, possible air piracy, and American lives were at stake and that they would not get in trouble for cooperating with the FBI if some Arab got pissed off and got his ACLU lawyer... What Dodd wants - would block any effort to stop terrorists in a 9/11 scenario - unless the FBI waited well beyond the "stories" of the summer of 2001 and developed probable cause beyond just "one Agents conjecture used to launch a fishing expedition" - to get a regular lawyer dressed in robes or a FISA one to issue a probable cause warrant with a supplemental finding that Arabs were not being "Profiled" simply for being fanatic Muslims from the ME interested in flying massive jets. Then the sacred Flight School records, candidate applications, correspondence, names and addresses would finally be allowed to have government look at them. Sen Reid is smart enough to know Dodd's whoring to trial lawyers would bury the Democratic Party. If it resulted in private citizens and companies coming forward after another terrorist attack or mass schoolyard slaughter and saying lives were lost, they wanted to fully cooperate with public safety officials, but couldn't take the risk. Because after the Democrat's Dodd Law - they knew that any cooperation with the government of America could potentially ruin them unless a convention of lawyers was summoned to OK it and declare they were immune to lawsuits. Sorry about all the dead students, the nuke plant radiation release after the explosive-packed boat hit it - but the lawyers needed more probable cause to be assembled before any private company or individual was ready to cooperate on fear the deranged gunman or the nuke attack squad involved US citizens or foreigners like Atta under a valid visa and entitled to all citizen's constitutional rights.... Nor is it simply a matter of "the voters of Connecticut" ultimately safeguarding all of America and voting out a Teddy Kennedy henchman if they fear he is going too far with terrorist rights. They are almost as bad as Massachusetts voters. Smug in suburbs and convinced they have nothing to worry about since the main targets of radical Islam are in other states. Dodd also opens up a can of worms for lawsuits by "associates" of foreigners here engaged in espionage.
Chris Ford is right. Crush the threat. If terrorists attack, Dodd makes the Dems look weak on terrorism. Crush the threat. Let Bush thrive.
I have a pretty simple question for our friend Chris Ford... Is there ANY evidence whatsoever that the Bush Administration and its neocon friends have the best interests of America at heart in their actions? Can Chris Ford please explain WHY the national security laws and procedures which remained in place during the entire Cold War with the Soviet Union have now become totally inadequate to protect America against the followers of some religious fanatic guy hiding in a cave somewhere? Offhand, I'd bet that America had had 1000 times as many Communist spies, agents, and fellow-travelers during that long period as we today have Islamicist agents, spies, and fellow travelers. Yet strangely enough, Truman, Eisenhower, and all subsequent presidents down to Reagan and Bush #1 seemed reasonably content with their existing Constitutional tools. Does Chris Ford believe that all these presidents and their national security staffs were incompetents, cowards, or disloyal traitors?
RKU, della Rovere- Let it go. He's a fucking troll, and the less people here respond to his trollery, the more likely he is to get bored and go somewhere else.
Well, that's sorted, then. I really don't see how we could ask for a better example of effective leadership than that... Dude, what do you want him to do? Stay around DC permanently just in case Reid decides to stab him in the back the moment he leaves? Reid lied about the timing of the vote and then pushed it through in half an hour once Obama had left town. How was he supposed to get back to the floor? Are you demanding that the next president have the power of supersonic travel? Cause that didn't work out too great in Heroes.
Reid is a true partisan and his job is to see the Democratic Senate grow by winning elections. The Leadership has concluded that opposing BushCo on Security issues is an unnecessary risk. Reid is willing to make the "minor" sacrifices now in order to enlarge his majority in the Senate and ensure a Democrat as President. Then, we can expect a liberal agenda. We live in a conservative country and Reid's caution is wise if unsatisfying.
"Dodd is undermining his fellow Dems on security by doing a whore job for trial lawyers with his filibuster." So i guess, in this metaphor, that responsibility is an STD?
LarryM is right. Leading Dems, including Reid, Feinstein, Rockefeller, Schumer and others want to give telecoms immunity. At other times they may pretend to be hamstrung by Republicans, but here they are hardly pretending. This is bipartisan corruption.
RKU- Offhand, I'd bet that America had had 1000 times as many Communist spies, agents, and fellow-travelers during that long period as we today have Islamicist agents, spies, and fellow travelers. Yet strangely enough, Truman, Eisenhower, and all subsequent presidents down to Reagan and Bush #1 seemed reasonably content with their existing Constitutional tools. From FDR listening to any phone call he wanted to and opening up all mail - up to Nixon, Presidents in the Cold War had a free had to monitor domestic and overseas threats that risked American's security. All your history pre-FISA is bogus. RKU. And post-Nixon period up until around 1997. Because after Nixon's detente and opening to China, all sides in the Cold War had pretty high confidence that the threat was confined to strategic and conventional forces that could be monitored by satellite and no nuke power was ever going to risk the peace attempting to insert "freedom fighters" armed with a suitcase nuke or a satchel of anthrax - into the Cold War enemy's territory. That all changed with our recognition that beginning with the African Embassy bombings - we now face a stealth enemy that does iniltrate, does not follow any law of Hague or Geneva or seek us out to negotiate mutually agreeing to both treaties as part of a war. That seeks civilian casualties. That does not take POWs. Now we do need to watch for the Attas, listen in to the calls of a Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as he makes calls to other radical Islamists from his N Corolina college dorm, and maybe drop a probe near a terror training camp in Pakistan that *shock!* violates the "privacy" of 3 of 530 there who happen to be texmailing US citizens! All the 4th does is protect against "unreasonable searches". Searching for Jihadis out to kill thousands of Americans, even millions - is quite reasonable to most Americans outside the Jewish intelligensia, the ACLU, and the Left part of the Ruling Elites.....even if the murderous Islamoid working to destroy Americans on terrorist Jihad happens to be a US citizen himself. To me, an American traitor working with radical Islamists does not have any right to more consideration than a foreign terrorist - they are far, far worse - in fact. Lefties ignorant of the nature of war, and fighting an enemy unrestrained by any law of civilization are free to obsess about terrorist civil liberties. Just as long as they are willing to accept the finger of blame if another huge pile of dead Americans is created by the people they wish to protect with ACLU lawyers. My basic feeling, RKU, is enemy sympathizers and terrorist rights guardians are perfectly welcome to go way out on a high limb. It makes the clean up of those who must be removed from positions of authority or influence.
f one Senator - just one - up for election in 2008, 2010 in a state with a Republican governor, would threaten to resign if Reid does this - just one - that would destroy this depressing endgame. Just completely overturn it. This is actually not true. The rules under which this Senate is organized keep Reid as Majority Leader and Democrats as chairs of their committees even if the Republicans gain a majority before the next election. I'm not entirely sure how they pulled this off, but they did.
Chris Ford: Interesting... And just who exactly decides who "the enemy" is? That's kinda important, seems to me... Let's put it another way. Suppose Henry Wallace had become president (as would have happened if FDR had died a little sooner), and he'd put in Hiss as National Security Advisor, Harry Dexter White as Treasury Secretary, the Rosenbergs as co-heads of Los Alamos security... Then, he announced that the Great Trotskyite Menace to America required that we invade and occupy Mexico (clearly a terrible threat since they'd given sanctuary to Trotsky) and we needed to launch a worldwide Crusade Against Trotskyism. Naturally, the vast number of Trotskyite agents and infiltrators required the complete sacrifice of the protections of our Bill of Rights and all of America's traditional Constitutional checks and balances. After all, extremism in opposition to Trotskyism is certainly no vice...
Antid Ono-- this is how the Senate operates. Jeffords' switch only mattered because he did it before the committees, etc. were settled. John Reed, several opinion polls show the majority of Americans disapprove of telecom immunity. IMO, it would be hard to spin wanting companies to obey the rule of law as a victory for terrorists-- it's too abstract an issue, and it's too retroactive.
Harry Reid has undermined the progressive caucus in the Senate over and over again. This isn't controversial. Any Majority Leader has enormous influence over which votes even get to the floor for a vote. Senate committees can vote to proceed to floor votes all they want, but if Reid (and McConnell) don't agree to take up the issue, it sits in legislative oblivion. This isn't rocket science. A commenter above speculated that perhaps Reid approves of all these awful bills. One can never truly know what someone else thinks. But the actions of this congress has shown that Reid is not interested in prioritizing the interests of its progressive caucus over that of vulnerable red state Democrats. If he's attempting to build a larger majority, I fear he's desperately misfiring. One can build, afterall, a majority built on absolutely nothing in the end.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized Chris Ford, when the government reads the emails and listens to the phone calls of Americans for whom there is no evidence of criminal activity, that's a violation of the right explicitly stated in the US constitution, which I have helpfully reproduced for you. You read that? We have a right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, and it shall not be violated. When you and your government search my emails and the content of my telephone calls, you violate that right. Unconstitutionally. They broke the law, and you're an apologist for criminal behavior. Not to mention a traitor to the US Constitution. To me, an American traitor working with radical Islamists does not have any right to more consideration than a foreign terrorist - they are far, far worse - in fact. You're an American traitor, and you're the most forceful advocate around of jettisoning your own protections. Luckily, your opinions are meaningless. We have a constitution, and it will be upheld. Even if retroactive immunity is passed, it will be overturned by the Supreme Court.
Mr. Klansman Ford, As if the US hasn't done its share of 'terrorism'. What do you call mining the harbors of Nicaragua? Giving sanctuary to the men who blew up Cuban airlines? Dropping napalm on little girls in Vietnam? If a decent government ever gets into power the first people it will 'clean up' is people like you.
Comments closed February 06, 2008. |
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Heads in the Sand
I wonder what makes Reid think the media event is a good idea. Does he even know he'll get his nuts roasted over the camp fire, so to speak? I hope the people at this event question him good and don't accept the usual BS. What kind of Democrat stabs his fellow party members in the back like that? Especially the Senate Majority Leader.
Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | January 24, 2008 12:00 AM