The Senate recently passed a bill that if enacted would raise car, truck, and SUV milage standards nationwide to 35mpg by 2020. In a surprising turn of events President Bush said that if the bill, in its current form, is sent to his desk he will SIGN IT! That is pretty amazing, does he even remember how to sign bills? I like now the New York Times phrases it as “Bush Won’t Veto…”
But all is not well, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid broke with the party line and introduced the bad FISA reform bill to the senate floor over the objections of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joseph Biden, and Chris Dodd. This is the bill that I praised Chris Dodd for “putting a hold on” a while back. More on the story is here. Luckily Dodd is still on the right track and has pledged “to filibuster any legislation that does include retroactive immunity” for the telecoms involved in the NSA wiretapping.
Well, Dodd’s threat of a filibuster has postponed this debate until next year. It seems that the traitorous majority leader has decided that he’d rather try to pass other laws than spend the remainder of the year’s session listening to Chris Dodd talk. I have to add that the bill is also sponsored by a democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and for him I don’t have words. I would like to point out that “Dodd was the one Senator currently running for the White House who left the campaign trail to debate the” measure. You would think that just maybe the other 3, or is it more, current senators could take some time off from the campaign trail to help defeat the disaster that is this new surveillance law designed to replace the expiring Protect America Act. What we need is not more surveillance powers, unless they are surveying the executive branch’s overreaching power grab, and most certainly not immunity from past infractions against the rights of the public. End Rant (at least until January).