Now that the house has passed the disastrous Protect America Act/FISA replacment “compromise” bill, it goes back to the senate, where senator Feingold has promised to filibuster it. Of coruse, the senate already passed the origional replacment bill, so I don’t hold out much hope that they will stop it this time around. Exspecially with Senator Obama flip flopping to the wrong side of the issue. This excerpt from an interview by Democracy Now with Senator Feingold shows that at least someone has got it right:
AMY GOODMAN: Who do you feel is in charge right now? Is it the Democrats or the Republicans?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, you know, on the domestic issues, the Democrats are doing pretty well, except for when we run into a filibuster. So we have been able to get some achievements. But whenever you come up against one of these national security issues, the President and the fear of Democrats of standing up to the President and the Vice President still have the trump card, and they seem to always win, on whether it be the Iraq issue or the Constitution or the civil liberties issues, because Democrats are still afraid to stand up and say, “Look, we know you’re using fear as a tactic, and we’re not afraid of it.” But unfortunately, they still have the trump card, despite the very low popularity of the President and the fact that it’s a lame-duck administration.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Feingold, will you filibuster this bill?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: We are going to resist this bill. We are going to make sure that the procedural votes are gone through. In other words, a filibuster is requiring sixty votes to proceed to the bill, sixty votes to get cloture on the legislation. We will also—Senator Dodd and I and others will be taking some time to talk about this on the floor. We’re not just going to let it be rubberstamped.
AMY GOODMAN: Would you filibuster, though?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: That’s what I just described.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Barack Obama last year said that he was opposed to granting retroactive immunity to the telecoms, but he has now indicated support for the FISA deal. Your thoughts?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Wrong vote. Regrettable. Many Democrats will do this. We should be standing up for the Constitution. When President Obama is president, he will, I’m sure, work to fix some of this, but it’s going to be a lot easier to prevent it now than to try to fix it later.
I’m disappointed with Obama on this. It probably won’t come back to bite him because anyone who cares about this issue doesn’t really have any other choice to begin with. I realize that he needs to “sprint to the right” to pick up the votes of the mainstream Americans, who for some reason don’t want their rights to be protected as much as they want their bodies/lives to be protected. It’s still sad to see how willing he is to throw us all under the bus to accomplish this. Of coruse, McCain and Hillary don’t offer anything better, they voted wrong, or not at all last time.