While you may believe that the flame wars are over, I have never been one to let sleeping dogs lie...in fact I like to tickle them just under their chin and run away REALLY FAST.

Anyway, in a sincere belief that those who have disagreed with me on the sheer disaster that is the unraveling of the rule of law are simply unaware of the power the government has been handed, I have decided to do a little background.

Since the tinfoil hat brigades fall under the purview of the tin hat mafia, I will begin with the 'I told you so' of conspiracy theories: COINTELPRO

In the words of The Church committee:

"Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence."
[emphasis is of course mine...]

At Netroots Nation, I got a chance to talk to Kevin Powellrunning against Ed Towns in New York's 10th Congressional District Primary on September 9. I would not say meet because I met Kevin about 13 years ago in Little Rock Arkansas at National Youth Council Against Violence Conference. I have a signed copy of his poetry book somewhere in my boxes of books.

Before about two weeks ago, I knew very little about Ed Towns other than I thought he was a good Democrat and that Kevin Powell did not have an Act Blue Page. Well, that being said, I've learned about Ed Towns and why Kevin Powell would be a "Better Democrat".

Let's say that it didn't take long when reviewing this race that I decided  to put Kevin Powellon Two for Tuesdays Act Blue Page. We get fairly in-depth into Towns expenditures and find some pretty remarkable stuff. You have got to read this.

With the sting of telecom immunity still in my mind, this was the first thing I heard on yesterday's Democracy Now broadcast.  As a progressive, I am very concerned with the continued direction of my party's leaders, including Senator Obama.  After hearing yesterday that Obama was not in support of investigating the Bush administration for illegal activities, I went to the Green Party website and signed a petition to allow it to be on this November's NC ballot.

If a Democratic president were to do what Bush has done, that Democrat and his minions would already be swinging from a rope.

When are the Democrats going to stand for something other than big interest money?

The only time we "regular" people get even a small influence is during elections.  I won't vote for a candidate that doesn't reflect my value that the Constitution and our nations laws mean something. Nobody, including the President, is above the law.

We are important when politicians want to get elected. But we are like being "Second Choice" when you take someone to the big dance and "First Choice" shows up alone...

They'll come here and put out pronouncements about what they hope is our 'ethanol'. Of course, our 'concerns' somehow become Purity Trolling by election day. Anybody remember the big promises about "Net Neutrality"? How about "Accountability"? How about "Investigations"? "Impeachment?" "Supoenas?" "FISA?"

Well, "First Choice" showed up... lobbyist money. And the netroots is finding out AGAIN, what politics is like.

Yesterday, the first trial ballon went up about NOT EVEN PROSECUTING thugs that Bush fails to pardon, from somebody in the OBAMA campaign, NOT the McCain campaign. And THIS TURD was dropped while all the OPTICS are on how presidential Obama looks overseas. Keith Olberman had Jonathan Turley on last night about just this subject.

Obama is going to be like every other politcian in the modern era... WE, THE PEOPLE are going to have to make sure there are enough progressives in Congress to force attention to be paid to OUR concerns for the health, safety, welfare and economics of WE, THE PEOPLE.

The lobbyists have Steny Hoyer representing them, we need a few too.

RMD

As happens oftentimes in my life, I found the answer I was looking for from a question I had not asked.

I was reading a bedtime story to my oldest daughter.  I had chosen this particular book for bedtime because she was in a "why me" mood.  The story contains three classic zen koans, modified for better understanding by young readers.

And while I intended to get her to think about how the "bad luck" of her broken arm opened up an opportunity for the "good luck" of meeting a very dear camp counselor, I found a moment of insight in my own troubled mind later in the book.

And this is how I resolved my anger at Congress (especially Nancy Pelosi) regarding FISA...

It isn't surprising that Sam Nunn is rumored to be on Obama's short list for VP. He is a moderate Democrat with serious national security credibility, his Georgia background would help balance out the ticket, and he is one of the co-chairs of Nuclear Threat Initiative. Perhaps most importantly for Obama's candidacy, he could help reassure older white Democrats that Obama will look out for their interests, too, and not just those of the black and younger white voters who constitute his base.

However, I think it is very unlikely that Obama will pick Nunn as his running mate, for one major reason: the former Senator currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Chevron and General Electric.

This is a different diary for me.  It's not link heavy, but rather is a written exchange between Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who I proudly voted for, and myself regarding his February 12, 2008 vote and his July 9, 2008 vote on FISA.  Rather than editorialize (I'll leave that up to you all) and rather than attempt to paraphrase Senator Whitehouse (I want to avoid miscommunicating his response to me), I will simply present the written, unedited exchange between his office and myself below the fold (in the spirit of my right to privacy, however, I have chosen to delete my actual name and my address).  As I promised the senator, I said I would attempt to teach others what he has taught me about his FISA voting record. So, class, here's your lesson:

Update: The constitutional concerns always override campaign concerns. But since the constitutional and legal side has been discussed so extensively (greenwald, etc), I wanted to argue the case from a different angle.

I concede that my diary might seem cynical without that explanation.

[Disclaimer]

I am an Obama supporter and have been from the beginning. Obama claims to run a people-powered campaign and that, to me, means that his supporter should make their opinions heard, especially if they disagree with him.

The wider point here is an attempt to highlight how we put ourselves in a bad position and then wonder how we got there. It happens one step at a time.

One commenter said that everyone is sick of fear-mongering and that we decided to stop pissing ourselves and work and vote towards change. That is, emphatically so, my point. That is what obama is working towards, but this vote was a step backwards. Instead of standing up to the fear-mongering and proudly exclaiming that we don't need to burn the constitution in exchange for some fleeting sense of safety, he voted for political cover.

I agree with kos when he said that bad behavior needs to be punished no matter who exhibits it. And especially when it's someone you support.

[/disclaimer]

There has been a lot of praise for FISA and the FISA court here on kos. Many bloggers here think that FISA is a model in 4th amendment law and the rule of constitutional government. This alone shows us how badly the constitution has been degraded after 40 years of republican misrule. FISA itself is an unconstitutional sham that renders the 4th amendment meaningless. This simple fact raises the question of why Bush wanted to break the law, and wiretap without FISA warrants, since the FISA court would have granted him any warrant he wanted anyway.

In their book "free ride," David Brock and Paul Waldman spell out how the media, while downplaying critical stories, and applying differing standards, has given John McCain a relatively free ride on many issues that otherwise require far more illumination and examination.  

This trend of skewed coverage and factually off base, pro McCain commentary, is so prevalent in the media that oftentimes, even so called "media liberals" partake of it.  

It seems that the FBI feels too constrained by current policies regulating who they can and can not investigate. Currently they need such things as evidence, or allegations that wrong doing has been committed.

The gist is this:

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.

Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: root out terrorists before they strike.

Preemptive investigations hmm? More below jump/with action.

Even as we recover from the heavy blow of losing the legislative fight against FISA protections for spying telecoms, last weekend and other occasions have me reflecting about the battle for what Obama (ironically) calls our "progressive future," how it is far from finished, and how blogging can be a powerful weapon of choice for those on the frontlines. But we have got to remain serious about our work. Our momentum can't ebb and flow as we lick our wounds and wait for another FISA.

This isn't a rant. I've got a few ideas about how we can keep our tanks fueled (ugh--please excuse the sickening reference to that other topic we love to discuss).

As a follow up to the NN panel I organized--on the right's agenda for tort "reform" and why our civil court system should be a top priority to progressive bloggers, especially in the aftermath of the grueling FISA fight--here's my companion memo about continuing this conversation beyond the convention. More on this below the fold.

It is going to take a lot of hard work to restore all of our constitutional rights and roll back the abuses of power of the Bush administration over the last eight years.

Attending the Obama Listening Platform meetings and asking that these rights be restored is a good first step. The Get FISA Right group has created two fliers (one that covers constitutional rights in general, and one that covers only FISA) with 3 simple bullet points to be added to the party platform. Take these bullet points to their local platform meetings and ask that our party restore our constitutional rights.

Simple instructions and links to fliers after the jump...

We finally got a look at Barack Obama's June numbers and they are impressive but not unexpected. The 30 mil. reported by the WSJ was initially seen as disappointing. Once the actual numbers were released and it showed a 54 mil. haul, the MSM was obviously impressed. On all of the major news channels you heard the same thing over and over, that it appears Obama lost no support after his "move to the center". The media was also assuming that the FISA vote didn't have any effect on fundraising. Many pundits made statements that made it appear as though this was indeed fact based on the June numbers.

But hold on a second. Didn't the FISA vote happen in July?

From today's Beyond Chron.

It’s no surprise that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got a tough reception at Netroots Nation – as bloggers asked about the Iraq War, impeachment and (of course) FISA.  Pelosi passed the buck on all of these issues – saying that she’s let House Judiciary Chair John Conyers handle executive contempt, blamed Senate Democrats for selling out on FISA and said that only electing Barack Obama will get us out of Iraq.  When Al Gore popped in to make a surprise appearance, the crowd gave a hero’s welcome to the ex-Vice President – posing a sharp contrast with Pelosi.  Bloggers cheered Gore’s ambitious environmental agenda to make the United States 100% free of fossil fuel energy by 2019.  But nobody bothered to ask Gore why he didn’t push for this 15 years ago when he could have done something about it.  Meanwhile, Pelosi’s excuses frustrated the audience – but they each have an element of truth to them.  On the other hand, if Pelosi says she “doesn’t have the votes” in Congress to get what we want, she should start being more supportive of primary challenges that bloggers wage against bad Democrats.

Rewrite:  I've lost the bait and switch headline referencing Hillary's "I've got the popular vote so if I don't get the nomination, we're like Zimbabwe" line in May.

Because the real parallel between us and Zimbabwe is a lot deeper and more ominous than a toss-off line in a primary campaign.  It goes straight to the heart of who we are as a nation, and why that matters to the rest of the world.

A recent claim claim by Lawrence Lessig, a strong Civil Libertarian, made me stop and think.

[Obama's] vote for the FISA compromise is thus not a vote for immunity. It is a vote that reflects the judgment that securing the amendments to FISA was more important than denying immunity to telcos. Whether you agree with that judgment or not, we should at least recognize (hysteria notwithstanding) what kind of judgment it was. The amendments to FISA were good. Getting a regime that requires the executive to obey the law is important.

People on the left, people like Glenn Greenwald, Jonathan Turley, Russ Feingold & Chris Dodd keep painting the recent FISA as a false compromise, a capitulation to Bush, & a blot on the 4th amendment. So why do Lessig & former Constitutional Law lecturer Obama say that it is important? Who is right?

Well, either you can pick your authority figure & believe them—you pays your money & you takes your chances—or roll up your sleeves, wade into the bill & make your own decision. I never was the "argument from authority" type. So, why should I pick one camp or the other?

It seems to be more than a political analysis and political propaganda on the right; Obama is certainly shifting toward the center as his apparent constituents are ready to blow their tops.