Thank you Chris Dodd!:
The first real Senate filibuster (as opposed to threatened filibuster) in 12 years starts today. It began because of an unprecedented decision by Harry Reid to ignore the hold placed on a bill by a member of his own party. It’s about granting huge corporations retroactive immunity for crimes committed against millions of American citizens.
Hear a peep about this on the news? No? Me neither.
UPDATE: (Thanks, ONT) — All but 10 Democratic Senators sided with President Bush on this one. I don’t know if my senators did but statistically they probably did.
People complain about having only a two-party system; I’d be happy if we actually had two full-fledged potent parties instead of one and a half, one and a pathetic shadow of a political party.
However, apparently the story’s not over yet — its future is just complicated and unclear. There is still some hope that we’ll find out exactly who was wiretapping whom and why, and that people in the telcos who knowingly committed crimes will be held accountable.
I’m grateful that Chris Dodd took a stand, and Reid, wherever he really stands, is being forced to talk about the issue and at least say that he realizes retroactive immunity is a bad thing.
You’ve probably already heard this, but the vote has been postponed until January. Looks like the filibuster worked!
I’m still confused about what happened, but I think the first vote was simply to end debate on the bill (but not to do anything about the filibuster). However, there weren’t enough votes to break the filibuster.
I’ve emailed Sens. Levin and Stabenow requesting that they 1) never vote for a bill granting the telecoms immunity and 2) replace Reid.