Day: July 9, 2008

Obama Votes for FISA and Immunity for Bush, Telecoms – Clinton Votes Against It

Jon Ponder

Inexplicable:

More than two and a half years after the disclosure of President’s Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program set off a furious national debate, the Senate gave final approval on Wednesday afternoon to broadening the government’s spy powers and providing legal immunity for the phone companies that took part in the wiretapping program.

The plan, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, marked one of Mr. Bush’s most hard-won legislative victories in a Democratic-led Congress where he has had little success of late. Both houses, controlled by Democrats, approved what amounted to the biggest restructuring of federal surveillance law in 30 years, giving the government more latitude to eavesdrop on targets abroad and at home who are suspected of links to terrorism.

The issue put Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. After long opposing the idea of immunity for the phone companies in the wiretapping operation, he voted for the plan on Wednesday. His reversal last month angered many of his most ardent supporters, who organized an unsuccessful drive to get him to reverse his position once again. And it came to symbolize what civil liberties advocates saw as “capitulation” by Democratic leaders to political pressure from the White House in an election year.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill.

Unintended Irony: McCain Operatives Expel Protester with ‘McCain = Bush’ Sign

Jon Ponder

Operatives for the John McCain campaign expressed their displeasure at a protester who carried a sign that equated McCain with George Bush by behaving just like operatives for George Bush and having her forcibly removed and threatened with arrest.

The incident occurred outside a McCain townhall meeting in Denver on Monday when Carol Kreck was ticketed for trespassing and escorted off the sidewalk at the behest of the McCain campaign.

Ironically, Kreck’s sign said, “McCain = Bush.”

It is revelatory that McCain operatives see the sentiment expressed in Kreck’s sign as an insult. If her sign had read, “McCain = Reagan,” they probably would have given her a front-row seat.

But in silencing Kreck, the McCain operatives underscored and even compounded Kreck’s message. McCain is indeed just like George Bush, whose minions routinely silence dissent by carefully screening out attendees at public events who might not agree with Bush’s policies.

Bush’s tolerance of opposing views is so low that his handlers often wade into crowds to shield him from seeing protesters by surrounding them with large pro-Bush signs. White House operatives also reroute Bush’s motorcades so that he won’t see protesters who line the streets.

Ironically, one of the most egregious episodes of Bush goons silencing dissenters also occurred in Denver, in March 2005, at a taxpayer funded townhall session to promote Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security.

Volunteers at the event tossed out Leslie Weise, Karen Bauer and Alex Young because they had arrived in a car that bore an anti-Bush bumpersticker. Known as the “Denver Three,” testimony given during their civil trial against the government in 2007 revealed that White House officials on the scene had ordered their removal.

The group ProgressiveNowAction has set up a defense fund for Carol Kreck.