Apples and oranges

Oooops....

David Kurtz of TPM:

House Democrats have been loud and proud on how robust a public option they were going to pass, but in the last few days, starting with reports in The Hill and Politico last week, there have been rumblings that Nancy Pelosi doesn't have the votes she thought she had, or at least projected herself as having.

Today our old colleague Greg Sargent reports that the latest whip count shows more than 50 potential Democratic defectors on the robust public option -- far more than the 38 Dems she can afford to lose and still pass the bill with zero GOP support. That may explain the noises Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was making this morning about a less robust public option being able to garner a lot more votes, suggesting one possible route to a securing a majority.

And here is Harry Reid asking for backup....

Update: And the White House has some health care reform videos to choose from.

You backed the wrong man, Holy Joe...

So you get to deal with the consequences:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is scheduled to meet with Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) on Thursday to discuss his future in the Senate Democratic Conference, according to a Democratic Senate source.

A growing number of Senate Democrats have been pressuring Reid to penalize Lieberman for aggressively backing Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in this year’s presidential contest. At stake for Lieberman is his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and his place in the Democratic Conference.

It remains unclear what Reid will say in his upcoming meeting with Lieberman, but Democrats believe he is inching toward at least wresting the Homeland Security gavel from him. Lieberman, who sides with Democrats on most issues except the war in Iraq, became one of McCain’s most ardent allies and one of President-elect Obama’s vocal critics this presidential season.

Playing chess in Congress

Means you have to know how to make the rules work for you.

Via Atrios at Eschaton, Kagro X of the Daily Kos:

The RESTORE Act, H.R. 3773, passed the House last year without including retroactive amnesty for the telecom companies and sent it on to the Senate.

When the Senate took up the issue, it opted not to deal with H.R. 3773, but instead passed its Rockefeller-backed FISA bill (S. 2248) that did include retroactive amnesty. And there was a tremendous uproar among immunity opponents over the procedure the Senate used, making the Bush-backed Rockefeller legislation the base bill, and the immunity-free Judiciary committee bill the substitute, creating an uphill battle for the fight against immunity. That situation created a lot of ill will toward Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Everyone remembers that.

But here's the interesting part. Rather than send S. 2248 to the House once it passed, Reid sent the bill on a little detour. With the unanimous consent of the Senate, he stripped out the language of H.R. 3773 and substituted in the language of S. 2248, vitiated the passage of S. 2248, and sent the amended H.R. 3773 back to the House.

That put the House in the position of considering the Senate amendment to H.R. 3773, as opposed to the original version of S. 2248. What difference does that make? Well, it makes no substantive difference, in that H.R. 3773 as amended now included retroactive immunity, along with all the other garbage we didn't want the Senate to pass.

But as I've stressed a number of times, control of procedure can, in the end, control the substantive outcome.

So, what's a House that's opposed to retroactive immunity to do? Amend H.R. 3773 to take it back out, of course. And that -- along with a number of other substantive improvements -- is what Chairmen Conyers and Reyes plan to do, in the form of an amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 3773.

Sounds like a joke, doesn't it? The sort of thing people say when they make fun of the legislative process: the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 3773.

Only guess what's special about offering an amendment to the amendment that isn't true of just starting over with a new House bill that doesn't have immunity in it?

You can't move to recommit an amendment to an amendment.

So the House gets to strip immunity (and the other junk) back out of H.R. 3773, and the Republicans can't just undo that work with a motion designed to peel off Blue Dogs. If the amendment to the Senate amendment passes, it pops right back out of the House and goes back to the Senate on the express bus, no stops.

And there's more. It arrives back in the Senate in privileged form, as a message from the House (the message being: we amended your crap) the consideration of which is not subject to filibuster. To be sure, the Republicans (or anyone willing to stand in their shoes) can filibuster the actual debate on the House amendment to Senate amendment, but they can't filibuster the question of whether or not to even have that debate, as they can with most other legislation.

That doesn't mean we're out of the woods, of course. The Senate, at Jay Rockefeller's urging, can still decide it wants to overlook the ridiculous trail of surveillance overreaches and lawbreaking in the "administration's" use of surveillance tools that emerges with each passing day. The Senate, at Jay Rockefeller's urging, can still decide that it quite inexplicably continues to trust the Bush-Cheney "administration" with these tools and that they want to blindly continue in their almost childlike belief that they'll somehow be able to exercise oversight of these immense new powers, despite all of the roadblocks the White House routinely throws up in the way of even the most routine inquiries.

Wow.

What hangs in the balance with the FISA bill

As explained by the inestimable Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors.

What the hell is Bush blackmailing Reid and Pelosi with

That they fold like wet toilet paper each and every fucking time? WTF!

Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake:

Harry Reid once again used Senate procedure to tank retroactive immunity and other changes Democrats wanted to the FISA bill. George Bush gets everything he ever hoped for.

She then quotes Glenn Greenwald of Salon:

It seems rather clear what happened here. There are certain amendments that are not going to get even 50 votes -- including the Dodd/Feingold amendment to strip telecom immunity out of the bill -- and, for that reason, Republicans were more than willing to agree to a 50-vote threshold, since they know those amendments won't pass even in a simple up-or-down vote.

But then, there are other amendments which might be able to get 50 votes, but cannot get 60 votes -- such as Feinstein's amendment to transfer the telecom cases to the FISA court and her other amendment providing that FISA is the "exclusive means" for eavesdropping -- and, thus, those are the amendments for which the GOP insisted upon a 60-vote requirement.

The whole agreement seems designed to ensure that the GOP gets everything they want -- that they are able to defeat all of the pending amendments which Dick Cheney dislikes, and to do so without having to engage in a real filibuster. In what conceivable way is this an instance of "Dems not caving" or "holding tough?"

What kind of blackmail did the NSA uncover when they were listening to Congressional phone calls pre-9/11?:

Still, one thing that appears to be indisputable is that the NSA surveillance began well before 9/11 and months before President Bush claims Congress gave him the power to use military force against terrorist threats, which Bush says is why he believed he had the legal right to bypass the judicial process.

According to the online magazine Slate, an unnamed official in the telecom industry said NSA's "efforts to obtain call details go back to early 2001, predating the 9/11 attacks and the president's now celebrated secret executive order. The source reports that the NSA approached U.S. carriers and asked for their cooperation in a 'data-mining' operation, which might eventually cull 'millions' of individual calls and e-mails."

C'mon Reid and Pelosi. NOTHING could be that bad that you sell our country out to the worst... THE WORST.. administration in our country's history. Tell us what you are being blackmailed for and we will forgive you if you just stand up to this 24% supported Moron-in-Chief.

Do the right thing and stand up to this administration.

Bursting in on meetings?

Is this new weird behavior? Or just the usual weird behavior?

Washington (AHN) - President Bush interrupted a meeting involving White House officials and GOP Leaders Monday night to tell them he did not plan on giving in when it came to keeping troops in Iraq.

Officials said they were shocked that he came into the meeting. According to reports, Bush was friendly yet adamant about his message.

The incident came the night before a Senate meeting discussing troops in Iraq, which Majority Leader Harry Reid threatened to be an all-nighter.

Reid is expecting a test vote Wednesday on an amendment that would begin troop withdrawals before the end of this year and have most of them pulled by spring 2008. The amendment was proposed by Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed.

"We're going to work on this amendment until we get an up or down vote on it," Reid said.

According to reports, the meeting on Wednesday will be complete with roll-away beds in case it really does go all night.

The meeting interrupted by the president was attended by White House representative Tony Snow and another White House communication staff member Ed Gillespie as well as republican leaders.

They've been waiting a long time for this

And time is of the essence. looseheadprop at Firedoglake:

I suppose we should not blame the GOP too much: look at the example the President has been setting, treating the most important work in the world like a no show job. Which may explain why during the first quarter of 2005 the Republican dominated 109th House was in session a grand total of 164 hours over 27 days. By contrast Nancy Pelosi has kept the House members nose's to the grindstone for 407 hours over 49 days.

These folks were not just punching clock. The Pelosi-led Democratically controlled House of Representatives has already held 213 roll call votes and passed a total of 176 measures as compared to the 90 roll call votes held in the House during the first quarter of the 109th Cong. which managed to pass only 61 measures during that period. Can you say SLACKERS?

Over on the Senate side of the Capitol there are similar improvements. For example, Give 'em Hell Harry has presided over a Senate which has held a total of 230 oversight hearings in the first three months of 2007 (including appropriations and hearings devoted to the Iraq war), but the 109th Cong Senate held only 111 oversight hearings during the same period in 2005.

Harry Reid makes Georgie pout

Which is very satisfying:

A source familiar with the meeting -- at which no compromise of any kind was reached, though Speaker Nancy Pelosi said publicly today that it had been "productive" -- shares a few interesting tidbits. First, the source says, Bush bristled and was taken aback when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid compared the current situation to Vietnam; he also appeared irked by those who said the war couldn't be won.

Second, according to the source, Reid told Bush that he understood that the White House would come after Congressional Dems after the veto of the bill with everything they had; Reid vowed to respond every bit as aggressively.

"Reid talked about a recent conversation he had with a retired general where they talked about the similarities between the current situation and Vietnam," the source relates. "He talked about how the President and Secretary of Defense [during Vietnam] knew that the war was lost but continued to press on at the cost of thousands of additional lives lost."

"The analogy to Vietnam appeared to touch a nerve with the President. He appeared a little sensitive to it," the source continued. "And he clearly didn't like to hear people in the room say that the war couldn't be won militarily."

More: "Reid made it clear to the President that he understood that the President and Vice President after the veto would come after him and Speaker Pelosi with everything they have. Reid said that he and Pelosi would respond just as aggressively. He said he was convinced that they were on the right side of the issue."

Update: Think Progress has more:

New York Times: “Members of the group, which included four senators and six representatives, all spoke, including Mr. Reid, who compared the Iraq war to the Vietnam War and suggested to Mr. Bush that he should not continue with the war simply to protect his legacy. The president was visibly angered by the comment, according to aides, but he did not respond directly.”

Hey, 109th Congress! THIS is legislating!

Leahy introduces the War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007.

Congressional subpoena power! Waxman on the loose!

Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid send Bush a letter.

A Congress that actually ...you know... does stuff.

"Reid also said he's doing away with the ''do-nothing Congress'' that Democrats campaigned against this year as they ousted the Republican majority in both chambers of Congress. The Nevada Democrat, who is wrapping up his final days as Senate minority leader, will take control of the Senate agenda when the new Congress takes the oath of office in January.

''We're going to put in some hours here that haven't been put in in a long time,'' Reid said. That means ''being here more days in the week and we start off this year with seven weeks without a break. That hasn't been done in many, many years here.''

Because THIS is what the Republicans are leaving the Democrats to deal with:
" Even though the Do-Nothing 109th Congress has passed just two out of 11 spending bills, it has decided to put off the remaining nine until the new year, “dumping almost a half-trillion dollars of spending bills on the incoming Democratic majority.”

The conservative leadership is already making excuses. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) said he is looking into “what is feasible and achievable.” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) admitted that political considerations may be behind the inertia, stating, “I know a lot of folks just as soon not to see them done this year and let the Democrats struggle here next year.”"