On C-Span.

Intelligence Chairman Reyes is giving a pathetic speech to support the bill.

Republican argument? President Bush wants it. And the kicker, the Repoublican argues that EVEN THOUGH the Dems are capitulating today, they still are emboldening the terrorisits because they did not immediately cave in. Dems will never learn. Idiots.

The Capitulation enters its final stage.

Live blogging on the flip. It is only a 30 minute debate. The House adopted a special suspension for this with only a simple majority needed to pass the bill, whereas the Dem bill required 2/3 passage. A complete capitulation.

Jim Webb likes to project "toughness." But when it came to FISA, he cowered before Bush. Here is his "explanation":

Yesterday I supported two measures to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These measures were considered against the backdrop of heightened concerns from our nation's intelligence community abut the threat of international terrorism. The ramifications of the two amendments before us last night were not political. Instead they related to the urgent demands of national security. I chose to heed those warnings. We now have six months to work in earnest to bring full accountability to the process. This distinction and the threats to national security were stated clearly by Admiral McConnell as well as four of the eight Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. These members, Senators Feinstein, Mikulski, Bayh, and Bill Nelson, have extensive experience on intelligence matters and are respected champions of civil rights and liberties. They chose to give significant weight and deference to the intelligence community on FISA reform, and so did I.

The Rockefeller bill took care of the problem. What Webb is saying is he voted for the MCConnell bill because Bush threatened to veto the Dem bill. In short, Webb cowered before Bush's veto threat. Some tough guy. Showing the way to capitulation to Bush.

NYTimes:

They have got us in a vise,” Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the Rules Committee, said as she left a Saturday afternoon meeting where senior Democrats were debating how to handle the issue in the final hours before recess.

If there is one thing Bush knows how to do well it is how to intimidate the useless Democrats in Congress. I have never ever seen a more pathetic group of negotiators in my life.

Congresswoman Slaughter, have you ever thought of actually just demonstrating some public resolve? Even if you plan to cave in later, do you think you MIGHT act as if you might stand up to Bush? He might give you a concession once in a while. Apparently getting pre-punked, as Sen. Obama was on the Iraq Supplemental (remember the not playing chicken remark?), is the SOP for Dems.

This quote is as pathetic and incompetent a piece of bargaining that I have ever seen.

Let's face it - Congressional Democrats stink at politics and stink at political bargaining. Utterly incompetent.

The Senate's pathetic performance last night really did not come as a surprise. It has proven time and time again to be filled with Democratic members who talk tough and then capitulate at the first resistance (Senator James Webb comes to mind as possibly the biggest tough guy phony in that body.) Unlike many folks, I know that Leader Reid has no hand to play in the Senate.

To me the only hope for resolve against Bush comes in the House. But there is little evidence for my hope. Consider this from today's Times story on the FISA Capitulation:

The House is expected to take up the White House-backed measure on Saturday morning before going into its summer recess. Democratic leaders acknowledged that the bill would probably pass.

The question is why? Why can not Democrats in the House just say "Mr. President, we have offered you a bill that addresses the problem." Sign that bill. This is, of course, a reprise of the Iraq Supplemental Capitulaton.

More.

The Dem House version failed to get 2/3 votes needed, under the special rule to provide for immediate consideration. The Senate completely caved in to Bush and passed the McConnell-Bond-Bush version with the requisite 60 vote total. The Dem version, the Levin-Rockefeller bill, is presently in the process of failing to get the requisite 60 vote for passage.

What does it mean? That the just passed Senate GOP version will be offered in the House tomorrow and pass and the President will sign it. It is amazing how a President with a 25% approval can roll this Congress so easily. Pathetic.

Now guess what? This bill will sunset in 6 months. We'll be in an election year. Are you confident that these spineless Congresspersons and Senators will have more guts then? Me neither.

This ranks with the torture approving bill passed with the support of many Dem congresspersons prior to the 2006 election. Later we will provide the names of all the Dem Senators whose cowardice allowed this to happen.

It appears that the latest developments are pathetically bad for Democrats on President Bush's FISA amendment. The latest in the rumor mill is that there will be side by side up or down votes on a Dem alternative (Levin-Rockefeller Amendment) and a Republican alternative (McConnell-Bond amendment) and the Republican alternative is likely to pass.

No details on what is in the legislative proposals but one expects the Republican alternative is precisely what Bush wants.

A pathetic display by our Democratic Congress. Good thing they are not showing for Yearly Kos, they might get run out on a rail. Just pathetic.

We know that our Unitary Chief Executive is The Decider of all questions in the executive branch. Now it appears that President Bush is also The Decider of issues before the legislative branch.

President George W. Bush said Friday that Congress must stay in session until it approves legislation modernizing a U.S. law governing eavesdropping on foreigners. ... The president said that lawmakers must not leave for their August recess this weekend as planned unless they "pass a bill that will give our intelligence community the tools they need to protect the United States."

They must, must they? What constitutional provision empowers the president to order the legislature to remain in session so that it can enact another one of his bad laws?

President Bush insists that it should be Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, not the FISA court, that should review the Administration's surveillance program.

And he will not sign a bill unless he gets his way. Bush makes the bizarre claim that having Gonzo, not the courts, review the program is necessary to keep us safe. Who in the heck believes that?:

The president threatened to veto any bill by the Democratic-led Congress that his intelligence director deemed unable "to prevent an attack on the country. . . McConnell and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would oversee the eavesdropping process, according to the White House plan. That prompted howls of protest from Democrats who distrust the attorney general to protect privacy rights. "We need a legal framework around this program," Reid said. "No more blank check for this attorney general, no more blank checks for any attorney general."

If the President seriously thinks this change is necessary, then he would accept court review, not the review of the most incompetent and discredited Attorney General since John Mitchell.

The President's attitude betrays either unseriousness on the issue, or dishonesty in his claims, or both. Probably both. He is the worst President in the history of the nation.

Tomorrow morning is the Yearly Kos "Ask The Leaders" Forum where the Democratic Congressional Leadership will meet with the 1,500 progressive bloggers convening in Chicago. The first question they should be asked is why are they caving on FISA? Rachel Perrone reports by e-mail:

Congress could vote as early as TODAY on a bill that many of them haven't even read. According to the most recent proposal we've seen, the new language would permit warrantless wiretapping of Americans so long as they believe the person on the other end of the line is in a foreign country, and/or that the foreign person is the target of the wiretap. I believe - but am not 100% sure - it also contains a six-month sunset provision - which, we know, worked out so well in the case of the PATRIOT Act.

Democrats are preparing to cave on warrantless wiretapping simply because they're afraid of being branded soft on terrorism. Whateverhappened to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?" Well, if that's the case, we ought to be petrified right about now, because it seems the sole motive on the Hill these days is fear. Well, politics and fear.

It goes without saying that this whole situation is about politics, not real surveillance needs. We're hearing that Democrats had hammered out a deal last night with Director of National Intelligence but had that deal voided by the White House. Why? The White House seems bound and determined to take the most confrontational, hard-line approach possible - civil liberties be damned.

Incredible.

Via Spencer Ackerman, Sen. Russ Feingold sees the cavein beginning:

Asked whether he would attempt to filibuster any bill that comes up prior to the Senate’s adjournment for the August recess, Feingold said he would prefer to be able to give his stamp of approval to the measure. “But at the moment I’m feeling a little worried that that isn’t going to be possible,” he said. “It’s not moving in the direction that I’m hoping, but I think it might be moving in the wrong direction, in which case the options have to be potentially utilized.”

I can tell you this, if the Democratic Congress gives Alberto Gonzles MORE power to approve warrantless surveillance, then there should be hell to pay with the progressive activists and bloggers. What I want to know specifically is who is supporting the Bush version of the FISA amendment. And if any of the Senator/Presidential candidates is. Senators Obama, Clinton, Dodd and Biden, if you vote for Bush FISA amendment, I hope to gawd you catch hell for it.

Why The FISA Amendment?

A special court that has routinely approved eavesdropping operations has put new restrictions on the ability of U.S. spy agencies to intercept e-mails and telephone calls of suspected terrorists overseas, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Russ Feingold has this to say on the proposed FISA amendment:

We need to wiretap terrorists, and we should address the problem that has been identified with FISA with respect to foreign-to-foreign communications. But the administration’s overly broad proposal goes far beyond that and would leave critical decisions related to surveillance involving Americans entirely up to the Attorney General. The proposal from the Democratic leadership is better and involves FISA court review from the start. But it does not have adequate safeguards to protect Americans’ privacy. The bill should also include a 90-day sunset to ensure Congress has the chance to identify and fix any problems with this new proposal

I am beginning to believe that regarding the FISA debate the Congressional Democrats are trying to stake a position unacceptable to the Bush Administration while covering their perceived vulnerability if a terrorist attack occurs during the recess.

The basic proposition is a 90 day approval but no Gonzales doing the review. But what if Bush plays chicken? I suspect, unfortunately, the Dems will crack. They are too fearful of Bush on the question of terrorism. I hope I am wrong. We'll see.

This seems insanity to me:

Under pressure from President Bush, Democratic leaders in Congress are scrambling to pass legislation this week to expand the government’s electronic wiretapping powers. Democratic leaders have expressed a new willingness to work with the White House to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on some purely foreign telephone calls and e-mail. Such a step now requires court approval.

How many times can the Dems be rolled on this? I hope the Dems are just kabuki-ing this thing. And there is only one hopeful sign that they are in this article:

One obstacle to a deal this week is a disagreement between Democrats and the White House over how to audit the wiretapping of the foreign-to-foreign calls going through switches in the United States. The Democrats have proposed that the eavesdropping be reviewed by the secret FISA court to make sure that it has not ensnared any Americans. The administration has proposed that the attorney general perform the review, but Democrats are unwilling to give that kind of authority to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who is under fire for what some lawmakers describe as his misleading testimony about the dismissals of federal prosecutors and the wiretapping program.

(Emphasis supplied.) There is no way that Dems can give in on this point. Trust Gonzales? On anything? Simply insane.