Filibuster

Senator Dodd was successful in postponing until January a debate over whether telecommunications companies such as AT&T should be given retroactive immunity for aiding and abetting the Bush administration in their warrantless wiretapping efforts.

This from Wired.com :

The presidential candidate threatened to filibuster and hold the Senate floor if the Senate shot down his amendment to strip immunity from the bill. That threat moved Reid to postpone a vote on the bill, so that the Senate could take up war funding bills, a massive domestic spending bill and changes to the Alternative Minimum Tax before the winter break.

[...]

Dodd spent nearly 10 hours on the Senate floor Monday, assaulting the administration's secret warrantless wiretapping program and channeling Senator Frank Church, whose investigation in the 1970s of the nation's intelligence services clandestine led to Congressional limits on government spying.

The fight is obviously not over, but at least with this stay of constitutional execution, civil liberties activists (and ... ahem ... netizens) will be able to spread the word even louder to their neighbors about how their phone and cable companies are spying on them.

See more at The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Grouped By Vote Position

I came in just as the speaker read Lincoln Chafee's "Aye" vote for cloture.

Ben Nelson, Ken Salazar, Max Baukus and Joe Liberman have all voted for cloture. I am happy to say my senators, Clinton and Schumer voted "No".

Snowe, Hutchinson and Lincoln, all women, voted "Aye". All Republicans. Obviously none pro-choice.

In case you were wondering, I want to target the turncoat Democrats and target them hard. We need to get rid of these suckers.

Which Reid of Nevada voted "Aye" and which one voted "No"?

I wish I'd memorized all the senators names and affiliations.

BTW, my kids are watching now, trying to decide whether the milling about and calling out votes makes for good drama or not.

Senator Akaka ... from Hawaii? Just voted "Aye"

GOOD GRIEF! THIS IS LIKE WATCHING PAINT BOIL AND WATER DRY .... AAAAAAUUUGH!

The cloture has passed 72 to 25.

Jim DeMint has been given the role of soundbiter for the Republicans and they've come out swinging :

"DEMOCRATS SAY ANYTHING BUT DO NOTHING ...

THEY CANNOT ARTICULATE A CLEAR PLAN ON THEIR OWN ...

I swear, this is only for medicinal purposes. Penetrative medicinal purposes.

[via Penetrative sex the answer to speaking nerves - Yahoo! News]:

Volunteers who had had penetrative sex during the previous week or so had the least stress, and their blood pressure returned to normal fastest after their test.

Penetrative sex was far more effective in this regard than masturbation or oral sex. But those who had abstained completely from any sexual activity had the highest stress levels and blood pressure of all.

Brody also did a psychological profile of the volunteers to see whether they had an anxious or neurotic character, and evaluated their work stress and satisfaction with their partners.

But even when such factors were taken into account, sexual behaviour was clearly the best explanation for the stress responses.

So here's a bit of pondering : Does this mean that Bush don't get no action? Or more pointedly, does this this mean George Bush rarely experience the positive effects of oxytocin? There has to be an explanation for his horrid public speaking skills. Add to that the man has some serious empathy problems, I am going to take a gander that he's more into the blow the hand kind of thing than popping the mythical granadine.

Well, it seems like it's working. First The New York Times publishes an editorial where they proclaim, It is hard to imagine a moment when it would be more appropriate for senators to fight for a principle. Even a losing battle would draw the public's attention to the import of this nomination; but now word comes from Democrats.com that John Kerry is leading the way to a filibuster :

[via BREAKING: KERRY WILL LEAD FILIBUSTER!!!!! | Democrats.com]:

Update 4:23 pm: CNN confirms my report from 1 pm and says Ted Kennedy is supporting Kerry. The White House says they have 60 votes for cloture - but they also said Iraq had WMD's... and that Bush never met Jack. Go John Kerry!!!!!

I have confirmed reports that Kerry wants to filibuster Alito, and he is talking to his colleagues to round up the 41 votes he needs.

Three Democrats (Ben Nelson, Tim Johnson and Robert Byrd) support Alito. So right now, without the support of any Republicans, we still have 42 possible votes for a filibuster.

There are 4 moderate Republicans who should be targeted (Lincoln Chafee, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Ted Stevens).

Three Democrats (Mary Landrieu, Ken Salazar, and Dianne Feinstein) oppose Alito but also said they oppose a filibuster. So we must persuade them that a vote against Alito is meaningless if they don't support a filibuster.

The best way to persuade them would be for the Democratic leadership (Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Pat Leahy, and Debby Stabenow) and the five Presidential candidates (John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Russ Feingold, Joe Biden, and Evan Bayh) to form a Emergency Save the Constitution Committee and enlist the support of pro-choice, pro-freedom, and pro-democracy activists in Louisiana, Colorado, and California) to persuade their Senators to support a filibuster.

More details soon, but keep calling the Alito 8!

http://democrats.com/alito-8