Unqualified Offerings

Looking Sideways at Your World Since October 2001
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July 8, 2008

We Understand Your Lusts for the Future – of Freedom!

Thanks to "History’s Greatest Monster," Jimmy Carter, for inspiring our title.

Via Libby at Newshoggers, I give you "Strange Bedfellows," devoted to focusing "on what’s important to white middle-class people," such as the pathetic FISA bill, ending the PATRIOT Act and generally trying to pants the national-security state. Money Bombs are involved!

Libby also suggests that the "Bingaman Amendment" is the best available fallback for the forces of courage and a sense of proportion. Bingaman would, per Glenn Greenwald, "merely postpone the granting of telecom immunity until 90 days after Congress receives the Inspector General’s audits of the President’s NSA spying program which the new FISA bill mandates, and would freeze the telecom lawsuits in place until then."

She also links to phone numbers. So does Thomas Nephew. Nell gets nostalgic:

Ah, 1974-75: our own little Prague Spring.

Posted by Jim Henley @ 9:32 pm, Filed under: Main

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11 Responses to “We Understand Your Lusts for the Future – of Freedom!”

  1. Comment by mds —
    July 9, 2008 @ 12:37 pm

    Hey, where’s joe? I have an official permission slip from Thoreau:

    Let’s wait to see what happens before we unleash the curses, mds.

    Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment to strip retroactive immunity went down 32-66.

    Bingaman’s amendment to hold off until the IG report tells Congress what the immunity is for needs 60 votes to pass. I’m not holding my breath.

    That’s why I need joe the cheerleading stupid asshole here, to tell me how it’s actually brilliant jiu jitsu for the Senate to pass the House bill, sending it to Bush’s desk for his prompt, eager signature. Yeah, that’ll show him.

  2. Comment by Jim Henley —
    July 9, 2008 @ 12:46 pm

    I certainly think joe merits some ribbing, even criticism, on this issue, but speaking personally I hate to see the A-word hauled out for him. He’s a generally agreeable fellow who allows himself to sink into shill mode occasionally.

  3. Comment by mds —
    July 9, 2008 @ 1:58 pm

    speaking personally I hate to see the A-word hauled out for him

    Hey, now, Mr. Henley, whose blog is this, anyway?

    And I’d have given joe the benefit of the doubt, except:

    (1) he was throwing comments from back in March in our teeth, which isn’t very Marquis of Queensbury, and

    (2) if I didn’t fly off the handle and liberally spout profanity, I wouldn’t be mds.

    Really, though, joe was just too perfect a surrogate for all the Team Blue fanboyishness and pooh-pooh’ing of our concerns about gutting the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law. Like all this is just meaningless arcana, not something to hold politicians accountable for.

    Oh, well. Come the revolution.

  4. Comment by Jim Henley —
    July 9, 2008 @ 2:00 pm

    Well, I guess my standard of comparison is now Rich Puchalsky’s claim on AOTP that concern about FISA is just a white middle-class thing.

  5. Comment by Eric the .5b —
    July 9, 2008 @ 2:14 pm

    You know, I don’t get how the basis of private property is invalid and the entirety of libertarian thought “implicated” in some peculiar way by the dispossession of aboriginal Americans. Particularly because I don’t recall any Team Blue movement to kick all you lily-white folks and other immigrants out and restore the country and its assets to me and the other descendants of the dispossessed. :)

  6. Comment by Thoreau —
    July 9, 2008 @ 2:21 pm

    The Bingaman amendment failed, according to Greenwald. Obama did at least vote in favor of it.

    Now that we know the bill will indeed include immunity, Obama had damn well better vote against it.

    I still hold out hope that somehow The Dodd (who abides) will pull out some procedure-fu and delay this thing at the 11th hour and 59th minute, but I’ll probably be disappointed.

    If Obama votes for a bill that includes immunity, well, I know exactly what I’ll say in my post on the topic….

  7. Comment by mds —
    July 9, 2008 @ 3:10 pm

    Bingaman amendment fails 42-56.

  8. Comment by mds —
    July 9, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

    Gear up your posting fingers, Thoreau, because the final, unamended Enabling Act just passed 69-28, with Obama voting in favor, as he said he would when praising the excellent compromise of this bill needed to protect America.

    And the McCain campaign issued a statement this morning, proactively drubbing Obama for being an unprincipled flip-flopper:

    “A few short months ago, Barack Obama outwardly opposed terrorist surveillance legislation, saying that he would filibuster any bill that includes immunity for American telecommunications companies that had been asked by the government to participate in the program. Today, the U.S. Senate will approve legislation providing the immunity Barack Obama supposedly opposed, and despite his promise, he will not support a filibuster. What Barack Obama will do is show that he’s willing to change positions, break campaign commitments and undermine his own words in his quest for higher office.”

    Well played indeed, Senator Obama. See how well-insulated from Republican attacks this whorish maneuver made you?

  9. Comment by Thoreau —
    July 9, 2008 @ 5:16 pm

    Link, mds?

  10. Comment by Frank —
    July 10, 2008 @ 9:35 pm

    What makes you think it was about avoiding attack by Republicans, rather than going where the money is, or just not voting to reduce powers that he is just about to wield?

  11. Comment by Jim Henley —
    July 10, 2008 @ 9:44 pm

    No, those seem like perfectly good theories.

    12. (Comments automatically closed after 21 days.)