Friday, June 20, 2008

Not surprising but still depressing

Updated - Updated Again The FISA "comp-" craven capitulation has passed the House, 293-129.

It now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to pass with equal ease, after which it will be signed by King Shrub, no doubt with fulsome praise for this bipartisan act of betrayal.

"I was only following orders" is about to become a legal defense to civil charges of illegal spying.

I'll put up a link to the roll call as soon as I find one.

Updated with a link to the roll call.

Updated Again with the news that due to the opposition of Sens. Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold, a Senate vote has been put off until after the July 4 recess; it's now scheduled for July 8. There still seems to be little chance of stopping the bill, considering that the vote on cloture was a soul-searing 80-15 to limit debate (neither Clinton nor Obama voted). However, it does provide a tiny opening to build opposition and just like last winter, the longer a vote is put off, the better a chance there is to drag it out until it dies of its own shortcomings. Don't count on it, but a tiny chance is still better than none.

Oh, and by the way, there's this little tidbit:
House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last week’s FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision, according to an analysis by MAPLight.org.
Overall, those Dums who voted in favor of telcom immunity received double the contributions from the big three telcoms (Verizon, AT&T and Sprint) than those who voted against it.

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