To make a living people do many things God doesn't do.

I'm just going to do post covering all the stuff that's been on my mind and "clear the decks" in in a sense.

WEASELS - We were never going to win on FISA. If you think about it it's been Democrats that have allowed this to come close to passage each time until the netroots screamed bloody murder. I don't have a shadow of a doubt that party leaders decided after the last go round to spike it until the presidential primaries were over in order to give whomever our nominee was cover. Disgusting.

ET TU, BARACK? - A professor of constitutional law that doesn't understand the constitutionality of ex post facto law. It feels so great to see him trying to hide behind the skirts of the Dodd amendment to pull retroactive immunity. The chances of that passing are about as good as me flapping my wings and flying. Filibuster or die Mr. Obama.

DEVIL'S BARGAIN - With FISA in mind we get to vote for the President that will appall us regularly in the tradition of George W. Bush or the President that will disappoint us regularly in the tradition of Bill Clinton. Yay democracy!

THIS LITTLE PIGGY - Swinebread has outed himself as a looming papa. I know Mr. and Mrs. Swinebread in real life and I can tell you that little boy (they know) is going to have GREAT parents. Can't wait to meet the little bugger.

PALACE COUP AT FABER - Overdroid took advantage of the fact I was on vacation to utilize his long forgotten administrative rights to throw a wild Tom Tommorrow party at my blog. Lucky for me the damage was minimized when Overdroid got a spur of the moment job teaching improv to trial lawyers at Pepperdine at an event hosted by the infamous Ken Starr. I am not making that up.

LIKE A PACK OF WILD DINGOS - Ever watched one of those nature programs where a pack of dogs take down a gazelle? That's sort of what Franiam does with James Dobson. She doesn't even leave enough meat on the bones for the jackals.

SEVEN DIRTY WORDS - I have little to add to all the great eulogies of George Carlin but I admired the guy for the simple fact that he lived by nobodies rules but his own. He didn't broker bullshit and he didn't suffer fools. He'll be missed greatly.

TOLD YOU SO - Don Imus is a racist. Anybody with half a brain that listened to his show could tell you that. People with half a brain don't listen to his show so there you are.

IS HE PLUGGED IN? - I'm surprised John McCain is offering a prize for car battery. If anything I see him hoping they develop a better battery for pacemakers.

GOOD NORTHWEST POL - Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio has reintroduced his windfall profits tax on the oil industry bill. Among other things his bill would allow oil companies to avoid the tax if they spent some of any windfall profit on researching alternative energy sources or increasing refining capacity. It would also ban the export of any oil obtained on U.S. soil. Naturally the oil companies are against his bill.

BAD NORTHWEST POL - Washington state congressman Brian Baird who I listened to in an interview this morning. Among other acts of wankery he completely ignored a caller's point on FISA that the domestic spying had begun before 9/11 and argued that the surge was a success. Vancouver dems do us a favor and get rid of that asshole.

WORSTEST NORTHWEST POL- Senator Gordon Smith is a lying asshole. Smith says he's "one of the first to stand up to George Bush and other Republicans to end this war." Yeah, four years after the fact when he grew a spine. Shame on you Elizabeth Furse for going along with this crap.

I DID NOT KNOW THAT - Liberality hates flooding and rap music. If you rap about flooding she'll probably punch you in the face.

HELTER SKELTER- Joe the Troll wonders if Charles Manson associate Susan Adkins deserves freedom because she has six months to live. Only if she carves a little peace sign into her forehead.

COOL! - If I use a list of links to link to a dr. zaius list of links will it collapse the universe? I hope so.

I told you I had a lot on my mind.

If God didn't want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.

Like much of the progressive side of the web I don't hold out much hope that congress will hold firm in the face of a tantrum by President Veruca Salt screaming for retroactive immunity for telecoms. Having said that; one of the things that strikes me as more than a little odd about the current situation is that the House is currently the voice of reason while the Senate has become a rubber-stamp for the passions of the moment.

Isn't this the diametrically opposed to the framer's intentions with our two great legislative bodies?

Where do you think big words come from?

Headlines that make more sense without a colon--

"Bush: Inaction on FISA endangers U.S."

I like my privacy.

Fourth, and most importantly I don't think a retroactive grant of immunity to telecoms is the least bit constitutional.

"Ex post facto" law and all that.

Big John, do you think this boy is a hustler?

Of course the Democratic cave-in to Bush on FISA this weekend made my head explode. I'm still looking for my left ear. I suspect the Chihuahua might have gotten it in which case there go my hopes for the really cool Terminator-style shades I was planning on wearing through the rest of the summer. I'll just tell people I had a run in with Mike Tyson.

I don't think I have to say much about what happened with the Democrats, particularly in the Senate, because most of you probably agree that they once again demonstrated their proclivity for spineless political cowardice.

This administration shouldn't be dictating anything to anyone. Congress should have Bush sit in the corner with a "dunce" hat on while they work. Instead they let him run rampant around the classroom screaming and braying like the spoiled brat he is.

Let me just sum it up this way; I'm trying to find a way to get into a high stakes poker game with Harry Reid, Ben Nelson and the rest of the Democratic Senators. I'm quite sure I could clean their clock. I would be a very, very rich man after that game.

These guys are a text-book demonstration of what poker "tells" one should try to avoid in a game. Look at the watch repeatedly? Check. Let your opponent know you're nervous? Check. Fold on every hand? Check. Never mix-up your strategy? Check.

These guys are home for the August recess and presumably facing their constituents. They're going to be standing in front of us naked, except for the fish barrel they'll be holding over themselves, Bush having taken them to the cleaners. They're going to be telling us what great players they are and how we ought to continue staking them. They want us to believe they're sharks.

It's going to pretty damn confusing to them when we laugh in their faces.

When I was a boy, just about every summer we'd take a vacation. And you know, in 18 years, we never had fun.

Let me see if I have this straight. President Lame Duck tells congress that they can't, not "shouldn't" but CAN'T leave for an August recess until they validate his illegal spying program through FISA reform legislation but he apparently doesn't have the same sort of problem with the Iraqi Parliament taking a similar recess while our soldiers are over there dying.

Take your proclamation and shove it where the sun don't shine, Mr. President.

You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude

It appears that all the celebrating regarding the administration's cave on FISA may be premature.

Ms. Wilson, who has scrutinized the program for the last year, said she believed the new approach relied on a blanket, “programmatic” approval of the president’s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants.

Administration officials “have convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president’s terrorism surveillance program,” Ms. Wilson said in a telephone interview. She said Congress needed to investigate further to determine how the program is run.

A blanket warrant issued to cover a program doesn't even sound remotely constitutional. Must be one of those liberal, activist judges on the FISA court that played along with the administration.

Oh, Snap!

Glenn Greenwald has the goods on the Specter bill. Harry Reid said on a conference call that - if it makes it to the floor - it will be fillibustered hard and rode home wet.

If you have the time you can read the bill (pdf) here. I've spend some time punching through it trying to see if the clearly unconstitutional retro-active application of the changes to FISA was still included but one passage from "findings" section where Specter is outlining the necessity of the bill really struck me. He is using the failure to nail Zacarias Moussaoui by the FBI as proof that the FISA law is to restrictive as stands.

"For days before September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation suspected that confessed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was planning to hijack a commercial plane. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, however, could not meet the requirements to obtain a traditional warrant or an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to search his laptop computer (Report of the 9/11 Commission 273-76)" (emphasis mine)

Specter sure makes it sound like the FISA court denied the FBI's request for a warrant, doesn't he? If one took the bill at face value and assumed the 9/11 Commission Report said exactly what they said then one would certainly be left with that impression.

I didn't. I read through the pages of the report covering Moussaoui and found this-

This set off a spirtited debate between the Minneapolis Field Office, FBI headquarters and the CIA as to whether the Chechen rebels and Khattab were sufficiently associated with terrorist a organization to constitute a "foreign power" for the purposes of the FISA statute. FBI headquarters did not believe this was good enough, and its National Security Law Unit declined to submit a FISA application."

Say it ain't so. Arlen "magic bullet" Specter isn't shooting straight in his FISA reform bill?

Next thing you'll tell me Brittany Spears is a bad parent or Colin Farrell has an anger management problem.

Fly my pretties!

If you're hankering to watch Russ Feingold tear apart a strawman faster than flying monkeys, then head on over to Crooks and Liars and watch Russ send the straw Chris Wallace throws at him in the form of "congress was briefed" nonsensicals.

...and hear the lamentations of their women.

This weekend's announcement by Senator Feingold of a motion for censure was great to hear. It brought the predictable "for us or agin us" blathering from Frist who claimed it sends the wrong message to our enemies at a time of war. The Righty rag The New York Sun referred to Feingold's announcement as "pandering." Is it possible to pander when you assume a position that most Americans share with regards to the NSA spying? From where I sit the real politicians that are pandering on this issue are the Republicans who refuse to even investigate the program thus caving to the wishes of Bush.

Of course their weenie-dom pales in comparison to the rest of the Democratic party. I see Ted Kennedy and possibly Barbara Boxer being the only other two Senators that will sign on to Feingold's resolution. Just another in a long line of examples of the party choosing an election strategy that amounts to "we're not as bad as those guys." I'd love to be wrong about this but the Democratic party if nothing if not predictable.

Predictably chickenshit.

UPDATE: I realize I've been harping on this a lot lately but I know a lot of people share my frustration. The Democratic party is the only organization with enough financial and political clout to pull back the reigns on the reactionary craziness that poses as conservative these days. That so many of the leadership of the party seem to view "winning" as simply retainining their seats as oppossed to winning a majority and being able to affect REAL change just drives me absolutely crazy.

I want more leaders like Feingold. He isn't afraid to tell it like it is:

When the domestic spying story first broke, the President went from saying he wouldn't be able to talk about it, to suggesting there was no other way to wiretap terrorists, to implying that the FISA law is out of date. He went on to claim that sweeping inherent powers of the presidency or the authorization of force back in 2001 gave him such authority -- neither of which is legally or factually correct. While the President has cherry-picked information before, he cannot do the same with the laws of our land.

Censuring the President is not something that should be taken lightly. But the President has BROKEN the law and there needs to be action and accountability.

Which is why I'm off to put a call in to Wyden's office to urge him to support Feingold's motion.

I'm a Doctor, not an Engineer.

It's good that the Amazing Karnack, aka Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, has dusted off costume and begun performing again. There'd been some talk after last year's show in which he tried to miraculously diagnose the condition of Terri Schiavo from hundreds of miles away via videotape, while standing on his head no less, that Karnack had hung up his cape for good.

You'll recall that the ensuing performance debacle rivaled the Harry Houdini "I-can-take-a-punch-to-the-abdomen" trick, the Evil Knieval "I-can-jump-the-Snake-River-Canyon" stunt and the Steven Bochco "I-can-produce-a-show-about-singing-policeman" Cop Rock disaster. The resulting abuse hurled at Senator Frist caused many of us to worry we'd seen the last of his act, but he's back and he's back in form:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said President George W. Bush didn't need court approval when he authorized a National Security Agency surveillance program, and that the U.S. law establishing a special court to review national security wiretap requests doesn't need to be changed.

All in the absence of congressional hearings determining the legality of the wiretapping program under FISA and judicial review of the constitutionality of the program.

As a long time fan I'd like to send this out to Karnack: Bravo, sir! Well done!

I MEANT to do that.

Today's news that the Senate Intelligence Committee won't be investigating Bush's domestic spying program after all has to be a tremendous shock to all of us. Who would have thought that Pat Robert's committee, the same Committee that's continued to drag it's feet on "phase 2" of the use of intelligence by the Administration in the run-up to the Iraq War would spike a look at warrantless eavesdropping by this same Administration? Color me surprised.

I'm realizing that watching these guys squeeze and contort their way out of traps of logic brings out the same sick, strange mixture of feelings one gets watching an average episode of "Jackass." One part bemused awe, one part focused revulsion and a big part plain old embarrassment. (Whether it's embarrassment for the performers or ourselves I think is debatable.) We've all become perpetual rubber-neckers driving slowly by a horrible accident and trying not to look.

When this story broke two months ago it seemed once again like one of those "gotcha" moments in politics where a political party makes a misstep so enormous it falls well outside of the normal conventions of traditional political skullduggery. The language of the 1978 FISA law, not to mention the Constitution of the United States, seemed pretty unambiguous in it's language. In order for our government to intrude on the privacy of it's citizens it simply needs to acquire a warrant. The Administration refused to get such a warrant before initiating eavesdropping. They've clearly violated both the FISA statute and the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. Caught between an Administration who boasted loudly and publicly that they'd actually engaged in the spying and the clear letter of the law, the Administration's supporters in Congress were faced with Damocles Sword.

But then Roberts started his Contortionist act. This would be the biggest challenge of his career. (Admititedly made easier by his naturally spineless condition .) Could he worm his way between the letters of the 4th Amendment, up through the clauses in the FISA statute and still loop himself back around towards absolving the Administration of any wrongdoing? Was there ever really any doubt?

Thursday, they voted to forestall hearings in favor of developing White House-backed legislation establishing clearer rules for the controversial program. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, is drafting legislation that would exempt the NSA program from the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act but limit eavesdropping to international calls.

Get that? They're going to okay Bush's program retroactively. I stand in awe and deliver a hearty golf clap towards the sheer enormity of this bitch-slap to objective logic and the rule of law.

Of course they can't ACTUALLY change the FISA law after-the-fact. There's this tiny little clause in the Constitution that reads "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."

What they can do, what they WILL do, is change the law then say something along the lines of "We meant to do that but just never got around to it, therefore it's our fault Bush had to break the law. Sorry about that." It's simply a loophole that Congress forgot to consider when they drafted the FISA law 30 years ago.

As for the violation of the Constitution, ever heard of the term "Originalism?" Conservatives, who take an "original" approach to interpreting the Constitution, are obviously in the best position to inform us of what the Founders intended to include in the text but mistakenly let slip through the cracks. Perhaps it was an edit that just didn't make it to the publisher. I have not doubt that Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito will reaffirm this position shortly.