As the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, Senator Obama is the de facto leader of the Democratic Party. Senator Obama was selected as editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review; he later taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago for twelve years. So why has Senator Obama now caved in the fight to defend the Constitution and the Fourth Amendement from the
Where's Obama the Constitutional Law lecturer?
As even Harry Reid and no-table Nancy Pelosi know, the Democratic Party controls the legislative calendar and agenda in the House and Senate. The Dem leaders have the same power the Rethugs once had to dtermine what legislative vehicles are allowed to drive onto the calendar. Today that power allowed no-table Nancy and the other Dem leaders to chose to bring FISA to come to floor and limit time for "debate" to an hour. Even though I'm reading sixty Senators may be so in the telcomms' pockets that they would support a cloture motion to close off a filibuster on FISA amnesty, Senator Reid can still keep the damn thing from the Senate floor.
Where's Obama?
As soon as no-table Nancy succeeded in getting the House to replace the Constitution with corporate sovereignty pass the FISA amnesty, the Great Smiling Hope from Chicago stepped up to the plate...and pissed on both the Constitution and any pretense that criminal law applies not only to us proles but also to the megacorps who own the Village pols.
[The FISA amnesty] does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward.....
It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise.
Sure. Because we can all trust the secret findings of the IG's who work for the State criminals security services who spent years listening to us on in violation of Federal law.
The day before Obama tugged his forelock in deference to his corporate masters, Kagro X pointed out Senators have great power to slow down the Dem leaders' despicable scramble to sell the Constitution to the telcomm megacorps:
[If] one Senator attempted to "hold" the bill, the bill's supporters would make a motion to proceed, which can overcome the "hold" (which is itself just another form of objecting to unanimous consent). The motion to proceed, however, is itself subject to a filibuster. And if a Senator did in fact begin a filibuster of the motion to proceed, although a cloture motion could shut him or her down, the Senate by rule must wait two days before voting on cloture, and even if cloture is invoked, it still allows for 30 additional hours of
