Jeff Merkley and President McCain

Jazz and I will be talking to Oregon US Senate candidate Jeff Merkley on Mid Stream Radio this morning at 10:00 PDT. You can call in at 646-595-3963. It has become even more important that Senator Gordon Smith be defeated in November since it appears that the Republicans have nominated the only Republican who could possibly win and that the Democrats will nominate one of the only two candidates who could possibly lose.

I don't believe that Hillary Clinton can win at this point. She was carrying a lot of baggage going into this campaign and has picked up a lot more. And is the US ready for a black president? Looking at the results of first Ohio and now Pennsylvania I suspect the answer is no. Obama will simply not get the vote of the white working class voter. I would like to blame Hillary's Rovian campaign for this but I can't. The Republicans would have played the card in the general election.

The only salvation for this country is for John McCain to have a very hostile House and Senate.

A bad day for al-Qaeda

If bin-Laden and al-Qaeda really hate us because of our freedoms they had a bad day today.
Democrats Delay a Vote on Immunity for Wiretaps

WASHINGTON — In a setback for the White House, Senate Democrats on Monday put off until at least next month any decision on whether to give legal protection to the phone carriers that helped with the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program.

The Bush administration had pushed for immediate passage of legislation to grant immunity to the phone companies as part of a broader expansion of the N.S.A.’s wiretapping authorities. But that will not happen now.

After daylong debate in the Senate on the wiretapping issue, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, announced at the end of the day that there would not be time to consider the legislation this week as he had hoped. With a dozen competing amendments on the issue and an omnibus spending bill separately awaiting consideration, Mr. Reid said he believed it would be difficult to give the wiretapping issue the close consideration that it deserved this week before the Senate leaves for its Christmas recess.

Of course the real reason it was delayed is this:
Dodd's Filibuster Threat Stalls Wiretap Bill

Senator Chris Dodd won a temporary victory today after his threats of a filibuster forced Democratic leadership to push back consideration of a measure that would grant immunity to telecom companies that were complicit in warrantless surveillance.

Yes, Chris Dodd really does love America. Now the battle is far from over. The spineless Democrats like Harry Reid and Dianne Feinstein are still looking for ways to buckle under to White House pressure. This is an excellent example of why it is necessary to get more freedom loving progressive Democrats in the Senate.

We have a chance to do that here in Oregon. Jeff Merkley had this to say today.

PORTLAND—Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley, Democrat for U.S. Senate, this evening praised Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Democrats in the Senate who successfully prevented the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act overhaul from being brought up for consideration today. The FISA overhaul includes provisions to grant immunity to telecommunications companies who participated in President Bush’s allegedly illegal domestic spying program:
“Senator Dodd, Senator Wyden and the Democrats did the right thing today by delaying action on the FISA overhaul. Only a handful of Senators have been given access to the classified information necessary to make an informed decision on the bill.

“Senator Wyden needs a partner in the U.S. Senate – someone who will stand up with him on issues that are so vital to the American people. Once again, while Senator Wyden is in the trenches fighting to protect our rights, Gordon Smith supported amnesty for telecom giants who turned over the private records of law abiding Americans.

“It is the sworn duty of the President and Members of Congress to uphold the constitution of the United States, including the right to privacy guaranteed by the fourth amendment. If the telecom companies violated the privacy of Americans, we must have a full public airing of the facts.

“It isn’t clear to most members of Congress, much less the American public, why exactly these telecom companies deserve immunity. Did they break the law? Did they help the President spy on Americans? And why should Congress give them a free pass if they violated the constitutional guarantee of privacy for ordinary Americans?

“Those questions absolutely must be answered by this administration before Congress acts on the FISA overhaul.”

Now the Oregonian is trying to convince you that Gordon Smith is a moderate but his voting record shows he's a wingnut who has supported George W. Bush 98% of the time. Gordon Smith may represent the Oregonian but he doesn't represent Oregon. Jeff Merkley will!

What to do?

I have spent a lot of time discussing the circular firing squad that is the Republican race for the presidential nomination. But what about the Democrats? A few months ago a Giuliani - Clinton race seemed almost inevitable. Well Rudy is sinking and Hillary is sitting a lot lower in the water. Matt Stoller reports that Hillary has a lower approval rating now than she did in 2000. Why is this? There is the irrational hatred of the Clintons on the right but that really hasn't changed any. Hillary is too hawkish and too corporatists for many on the left. Over at The left Coaster eriposte reports on attacks on Hillary from the left, much of it from the Obama campaign although they deny it. So what about Obama? As you know I am no fan of Hillary or Obama. Obama seems to be rising and Frank Rich looks at why.

This movement has its own religious tone. References to faith abound in Mr. Obama’s writings and speeches, as they do in Oprah’s language on her TV show and at his rallies. Five years ago, Christianity Today, the evangelical journal founded by Billy Graham, approvingly described Oprah as “an icon of church-free spirituality” whose convictions “cannot simply be dismissed as superficial civil religion or so much New Age psychobabble.”

“Church free” is the key. This country has had its fill of often hypocritical family-values politicians dictating what is and is not acceptable religious and moral practice. Instead of handing down tablets of what constitutes faith in America, Romney-style, the Oprah-Obama movement practices an American form of ecumenicalism. It preaches a bit of heaven on earth in the form of a unified, live-and-let-live democracy that is greater than the sum of its countless disparate denominations. The pitch — or, to those who are not fans, the shtick — may be corny. “The audacity of hope” is corny too. But corn is preferable to holier-than-thou, and not just in Iowa.

A majority of Americans remain religious/spiritual but after seven years they don't like the march to theocracy they have witnessed. Church free religion and a church free government is what many want - again.

Now I still see Obama as an empty suit. George W. Bush was an empty suit who surrounded himself with the craziest of the crazies - the neocons and the theocons. An Obama presidency would be determined by who and where he choose to get advice and policy. That at the moment remains an unknown.

So what to do? The most important thing to do is make sure that the House and the Senate are not full of members who will be little but sycophants for the President regardless of who that might be. Here in Oregon we need to make sure that we have a new Senator in 2008. One who will be independent of the President regardless of party. I see Jeff Merkley as the one most likely to make that happen.