We found this transcript of a David Welna NPR broadcast via Lexis-Nexis. And while the transcriber appears to have mis-heard "Defense of Democracies" as "Defensive Democracies," there's some perverse ring of truth to that malapropism.
WELNA: Already a group calling itself Defensive Democracies [sic] is airing this ad on TV stations across the nation.
(Soundbite
of TV ad): Senate Democrats and Republicans vote overwhelmingly to
extend terrorist surveillance, but the House refuses to vote and
instead goes on vacation, so new surveillance against terrorists is
crippled.
WELNA: In the ad's kicker, the group targets House Democrats in specific districts such as Minnesota Freshman Tim Walz.
(Soundbite of TV ad): Tell Tim Walz that Congress must do its job and pass the Senate's Terrorist Surveillance bill to keep us all safe.
WELNA: But Walz
appears unbound. Outside the House chamber he declares he's confident
he won't be punished at the polls for opposing retroactive immunity.
TIM WALZ
(Democrat, Minnesota): I think that the confidence comes from the fact
that we know what they're saying is untrue and I know that the
administration has tried to spin this issue that's reckless and
dangerous because there's many of us who have concerns with updating
FISA, having the ability to listen to those who want to do harm to us,
but we also know what they're saying is simply not the truth. So I
think many of us are reflecting a confidence in that this crying wolf
thing isn't sticking anymore.
We can think of one Minnesota Congresswoman who is stuck to that rhetorical fly paper. Joe Bodell at MnCR easy dispels her Crying Wolf, version 34567.2. Particularly cutting:
Bachmann continues:
Since 2001, attack after attack has been averted
-- including a plot to destroy American-bound airliners with liquid
explosives. Indeed, last year, the Heritage Foundation compiled a list
of 19 confirmed terror plots against American targets that had been
thwarted.
This sounds nice, except that the Protect America Act was the
temporary legislation, put into effect last August, that expired this
month. That's about six and a half months of life for that legislation,
which Bachmann tries to turn into the sole barrier standing in the way
of terrorist attacks against American citizens for the past seven
years. Every one of those 19 attacks was thwarted before the passage of the Protect America Act.
Do you suppose Congressman Walz had Bachmann's particularly bogus talking point on his list when he said "What they're saying is simply not the truth"?
"I'm very uncomfortable with an issue of this importance entering such
a political realm, but I don't see us pulling it out of this mess
either," said Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), a swing-district freshman who
shrugged off a barrage of advertisements that accused him of
jeopardizing national security.
Indeed. The general reaction in the First to the ads has been greater respect for Walz in standing his ground.
This respect doesn't stop at the district's borders. Over at DailyKos, Mcjoan writes of the vulnerable House freshmen:
Particularly deserving of thanks, though, are those Freshman Dems
who would not be intimidated by everything being thrown at them by the
Republicans--the robocalls to their constituents saying they were with
the terrorists, the deceitful and inflammatory Defense of Democracy's
crazy television ads. Particularly of note are Mike Arcuri who managed
the Rule on this vote, and Nancy Boyda, Carol Shea-Porter and others
who stood on the floor during these debates and strongly stood up for
our civil liberties. You can show your support for them here.
The Freshmen who voted for the bill are being called the "hang-tough Dems."
Revised: C-Span has just carried the final vote on the FISA revision (Roll Call 145): 213 for, 197 against, with one voting present. Republicans who voted stuck together as a party. Walz voted yes.
Fewer Democrats than anticipated voted against it: only 12--a mixture of conservatives and hard core progressives like Dennis Kucinich.
Minnesota's delegation voted along straight party lines, with Oberstar, who just underwent hip replacement surgery at the Mayo Clinic, not voting.
Update: The EFF has issued a statement on the vote here and the ACLU here. House Democratic leadership statements and some video clips from the debate are found here.
We've been enjoying a lazy morning with a very affectionate kitty; however, golden boy Oscar de la Hoya has been banished from the studio. Here's what we're reading in our rare closed door session.
The Washington Post reports that Bush Calls Surveillance Bill Inadequate. On C-Span right now, the bill is being debated; there's rowdiness in the chamber. This bill will be the final debate and vote before Congress recesses for the Easter district work break.
It's a good thing that people in New Ulm will have a day to recuperate from its St. Patrick's Day parade. The New Ulm Journal's Kevin Sweeney reports on the event in When Irish people are celebrating:
. . .the 43rd annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New Ulm will take place on
Monday, March 17, with the blessing of diocesan administrator Msgr.
Douglas Grams, according to parade organizers Tom Donnelly and Bill
O’Connor.
The annual parade will take place at 5 p.m. It will
proceed, as usual, the wrong way up Minnesota Street from Third South
Street to Fourth North Street. All who are Irish and who appreciate the
Irish are invited to participate.
According to O’Connor and Donnelly, Grams had no problem with the celebration.
“He knows it is first and foremost a religious holiday,” said O’Connor.
“We have a parade, prayer, a meal, and then we go home.”
“The Monsignor knows our parade, and the love we Irish have for the Germans, and vice-versa,” said Donnelly.
Our Irish Catholic relatives in Watonwan County never told us there were Irish people in New Ulm. The article continues:
. . . As usual, St. Patrick’s Day will feature a number of events designed to
stimulate the minds and bodies of the normally stolid German citizens.
The annual rope-pushing contest will be held in German Park at 2 p.m.
The traditional medallion hunt will be held as well, though in all the
years it has been held no one has ever found it. This year the
medallion will be 8 feet in diameter, painted bright green and will be
hidden in the Wal-Mart parking lot with a bright red light blinking on
the top. . . .
. . . An ice fishing contest will be held on Lake Hanska. The person who
catches the biggest bullhead will get a six-pack of Schell’s Beer.
Second place is two six packs of Schell’s.
Must be the low end Deer P**s, and not the boutique brews like the Pils. There are also some political shades of green in the article:
The Irish are steering away from presidential politics, however. They
will not be endorsing a candidate. The only candidate with an Irish
name is Sen. John McCain, a Republican, and the Irish are all confirmed
Democrats, except for Terry Dempsey. O’Connor has long claimed
Dempsey’s Republicanism is a result of being dropped on his head as a
baby.
The Rochester Post Bulletin reports Drive to lower blood donor age to 16 succeeds. Blooming Prairie high school student Joe Gibson has earned universal respect from legislators on both sides of the aisle for his leadership.
But Rochester residents like Shakur dispute the notion that their
support for Obama rests solely or even primarily on his African family
history and background.
The key, they say, is not only who he is, but what he stands for.
And what Obama symbolizes, in their eyes, is hope -- the belief that
their children can achieve like Obama and reach the highest political
office in the land. If a man one generation removed from his African
ancestry can become president, why can't their own children one day do
the same?
"He shows that in America you can be whoever you want to be," said Abdulkadir Hussein, an anchorman for Rochester Somali TV.
The Rushford Tri-County Record notes that the Minnesota Environmental Partnership seeking local activists. The MEP has opened four field offices in Greater Minnesota, three in the First: Rushford, St. Peter, and the Albert Lea-Austin area.
A former state
legislator has been joking to people that he stayed warm this winter by
burning books written by Al Gore. After experiencing a good,
old-fashioned winter in Minnesota, many people probably share his
sentiment.
However, there is climate and there is weather and
one can't base global climate theories on local weather. If that were
the case, then people in Scandinavia, which experienced one of its
warmest winters ever with many record high temperatures, are likely
fanning the pages of Gore's books to not only keep cool, but also learn
more about just what is going on in our world. . .
Rep. Tony Cornish lends his support to Demmer's congressional endorsement bid, according the St. James Plaindealer. Cornish joins Rod Hamilton and other First Disitrct Republican House members in endorsing Demmer. While Cornish stresses Demmer's support for gun rights, readers should know that all candidates, and Congressman Walz, support gun rights.
Finally, another video from the Drum major Institute:
House Democratic leaders have agreed to the GOP's request that the
chamber go into secret session today to discuss terrorist surveillance
legislation. The session will last one hour, with the time equally
divided between the majority and the minority. [end update]
The House is debating other matters right now, so it's good time to gather some background reading about the new House version of the FISA bill ( H.R. 3773) in anticipation of the projected vote later. The latest wrinkle is a call for a secret session, requested by House Republicans. The House has not yet voted to go into a secret session..
House Republicans planned to seek a rare
closed session Thursday to debate a Democratic leadership-backed
rewrite of electronic surveillance law.
Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio said the House needs to have an “open and honest debate about
some of the important details about this program, that don’t need to be
heard in public.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she was still evaluating the request and expressed
concern that it might be the latest in a series of Republican
procedural moves to delay consideration of the bill.
President Bush meanwhile said he would veto the bill, which is not expected to advance in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the fate of the legislation
hinged on 21 conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats who endorsed the
Senate’s version of the surveillance law overhaul in January. They have
been targeted by liberal activists who want them to reverse their
position and appeared to be weighing whether the new House measure
would bring the contentious issue any closer to being resolved.
A senior Democratic aide said party leaders were “whipping pretty aggressively,” and a ringleader of the 21 Blue Dogs, Leonard L. Boswell , D-Iowa, said he was prepared to support the new legislation.
If that’s what comes up, I’m prepared to stand up and support it,” he said.
House Republicans said Thursday that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
(D-Md.) has agreed to a GOP request for a secret House session to
discuss the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA).
House
Republicans had been seeking the closed session to delay a vote on a
new Democratic FISA overhaul, unveiled Tuesday, and discuss its
national security implications. A Democratic leadership aide, however,
said Hoyer is discussing a closed session, but has yet to agree to one.
The last closed House session was held in 1983. Only three have ever been held.
Closed sessions are more common in the Senate. The last time the Senate went into a secret session was in November 2005, over "an inquiry into the Bush administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to the war," the Washington Post reported at the time.
"There is nothing that hurts the truth so much as stretching it,"
the Kansas Republican said. He referred to Democrats' use of a rarely
invoked rule to shutter the Senate as a "stunt" at least half a dozen
times.
"As far as I'm concerned it was a blindside attack,"
Roberts said. "That's not the way to run the intelligence committee. We
really politicized it, and I think that's most unfair."
CNN reported at the time that Senate Rule 21:
. . .has been invoked 53 times since 1929, according to the Congressional Research Service.
It
was invoked six times during the impeachment trial of former President
Bill Clinton for senators to organize the proceedings and deliberate on
his eventual acquittal
Bonus: the Washington Post reports Report: FBI Misused Power: Agency continued to improperly obtain private data 5 years after powers were expanded under Patriot Act.
Congressman Walz just concluded his weekly press call. He talked about the new House rule that created the independent House ethics panel, the new house FISA bill that will be voted on later today, and (briefly) the Farm Bill.
Walz stressed that a vote against the new House rule shouldn't be politicized to suggest that a "no" votes was a vote against ethics, but that representative's concerns about the rule. He disagrees (obviously) with their position, but respected that difference.
He's pleased with seeing the reform move from a small "lonely" group of ten supporters last April to being a rule in the House. Since minority leader Boehner and Speaker PElosi both need to agree on all six panel members, it may take time for the panel to be up and operating, but Walz hopes it will be at work in two months.
Some Minnesotans are being asked if they'd like to serve on the panel, Walz said, though he mentioned no name for potential nominations. A press member brought up one former elected official, but we'll let our colleague pursue that lead.
The 2002 Farm Bill has been extended until mid-April; Walz hopes that the new bill will be completed by then since many constituencies around the country have worked to get the legislation to this point.
Most importantly, Walz said he will vote for the new FISA bill when it comes to the House floor, mostly likely this afternoon. We'll post more about this important legislation in a bit.
On blanket immunity, Walz and his colleagues are open to such a
provision, but they can make a fair assessment only if the Bush
administration discloses information about its past dealings with
telecommunications companies -- which it has refused to do.
If we understand the discussion correctly, some House members on the Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of these matters, has indeed been given a chance to review the Bush administration's case.
According to our source for the statement below, for
the last few weeks, House Judiciary Members conducted classified
hearings in which they listened to telecom and administration
officials.
The House Judiciary Committee
was recently given access to classified documents regarding the actions
of telecommunications companies and the President's Surveillance
Program--the same documents that the Senate Intelligence Committee and other committee reviewed. While the Senate committee used these
documents to support its position that the telecom companies
acted in "good faith" deserving of retroactive immunity, members of the House Judiciary Committee have concluded otherwise after looking at the same material.
Based on their review and hearings, they have endorsed the House proposal and rejected the Senate bill's blanket immunity. They've now issued a statement about their findings.
Here is their statement:
Today, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and 19 Members of the House Judiciary Committee issued a statement regarding telecommunications immunity, as the House prepares to consider the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Following a review of classified information relating to the warrantless surveillance program and immunity for telecommunications companies, the Members reported their conclusion that the Administration has not established a valid and credible case to justify granting blanket retroactive immunity at this time.
The following Members joined Chairman Conyers in signing on to the statement: Representatives Howard L. Berman (D-CA), Rick Boucher (D-VA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Robert C. Scott (D-VA), Melvin L. Watt (D-NC), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), William D. Delahunt (D-MA), Robert Wexler (D-FL), Linda Sánchez (D-CA), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Betty Sutton (D-OH), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Anthony D. Weiner (D-NY), Artur Davis (D-AL), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), and Keith Ellison (D-MN).
The full text of the statement follows below the fold (we'll have a copy with citations available here asap).
We know the government's listening. We sure hope they're reading letters, too, like the one in this morning's Post Bulletin:
Walz wasn't defending lawyers. Paul Scott of Rochester writes:
The author of a recent opinion column is mistaken in claiming that
Rep. Tim Walz voted to protect trial lawyers instead of
telecommunications firms.
The problem with the bill extending
the government's authorization to spy on international calls was
twofold: It appeared designed to hide spying still not known to us on
the part of the Bush administration, and it took the unprecedented step
of stating that something that happened in the past -- in this case,
telecommunications firms breaking the law under pressure from the
administration -- was not in fact illegal at the time, even though it
was.
That would be as if we were to pass a law today which
stated that driving drunk was not in fact illegal five years ago. One
can imagine why the bill's defenders might be eager to blame its
opposition on the trial lawyers.
House Democrats plan to take up
surveillance legislation this week that would reject White House
insistence on retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications
companies that have cooperated with the government in warrantless
wiretapping.
The draft legislation also would establish a
bipartisan commission to investigate the president’s warrantless
surveillance initiative, according to a House Democratic official.
House
Democratic leaders, under election year pressure from the right to give
in to the White House and from the left to stand firm, hope to pass the
draft bill before they leave for the two-week spring recess.
The latest proposal would sidestep stalled House-Senate negotiations over an overhaul HR 3773
of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA, PL 95-511). But
most aspects of the new legislation were developed without Senate
consultation, so it is unlikely to break the logjam.
Details
of the new bill, and the House Democrats’ plan, were still tentative
late Monday after House leaders met to discuss how to proceed.
The
White House and congressional Republicans have pressed House Democrats
at every turn to take up the Senate version of FISA legislation, which
would grant the telecommunications companies legal protections. House
Democrats have resisted providing retroactive immunity.
A
new ad campaign by an outside group is the latest in a volley of
Republican efforts to batter House Democrats into submission and raise
the stakes in an election year. . . .
The Republican front group, Defense of Democracies, is behind the ads:
Defense of Democracies, a newly created
advocacy organization that is an offshoot of the neoconservative
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, kicked off a new ad campaign
Monday designed to pressure Democrats into taking up the Senate bill,
this time criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The group also has run ads in the districts of freshmen Democrats.
Democrats plan to unveil their new legislation Tuesday.
After months of partisan sniping, the great earmarks debate in Congress
may be collapsing in a marriage of political convenience between
conservatives and leading Democrats.
Late Monday, presidential candidate Barack Obama, quickly followed by
rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined Senate efforts to ban all such
home-state projects next year, and the anti-pork camp also hopes to
pick up some unexpected help from a third Democrat: House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi.
The back-to-back endorsements mean the entire presidential field will
be on board the budget amendment already co-sponsored by the likely
Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain. Pelosi has
not yet gone so far as to embrace such a broad moratorium on earmarks,
but she also has signaled a growing weariness with the debate and a
desire to take the issue off the table going into the November
elections.
The Politico's David Rogers notes that a one-year moratorium may be
something of a freebie politically. Bush's vow to veto spending bills
that exceed his budget targets, combined with the elections, appear to
set the stage for the Democrats to extend the 2008 budget year into
2009 without new appropriations bills and new earmarks, though they
will likely pass defense spending bills.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., last week raised the idea of the
House also forgoing earmarks as a way to pay for a big infrastructure
stimulus bill, to muted response so far. Rep. Tim Walz, D-Mankato, said
Thursday he would look at the idea but said he had not registered his
support or opposition with Pelosi.
CQ Politics notes that the Senate has had little enthusiasm for earmark reform, but the dynamics of a presidential election may spur its attention:
Many senators, particularly appropriators,
have shown little interest in an earmark ban, arguing that it is
Congress’ job to decide how federal money is spent, and that
eliminating earmarks cedes too much power to the executive branch. But
with McCain, Clinton or Obama on track to be the next president, that
dynamic could change.
Walz voted for earmark reform early in 2007 and publicly disclosed his earmark requests last summer in an effort to make the process more transparent; he did add two later that dealt with the costs of the August flooding in SE Minnesota. Those who chide Walz about earmarks neglect this history, favoring instead a Club for Growth scorecard of "gotcha" votes (we critiqued the conservative group's approach here when the scorecard was released last August).
We're not sure if a gimmick like a moratorium is such a good idea if it
means delaying projects like the Lewis and Clark Rural Water system--true earmark reform would make sure the projects like the water system, which received high scores by independent reviewers, are not dropped in favor of other projects with less merit.
Democratic leaders of the House Energy
and Commerce panel, citing new domestic spying claims, are urging
careful examination of surveillance overhaul legislation that may delay
progress on the measure.
Retroactive legal immunity to
telecommunications companies being sued for helping with a government
spying program is the major sticking point on legislation overhauling
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act currently in negotiations
between the House and Senate.
In a letter to lawmakers Thursday, panel Chairman John D. Dingell of Michigan, and two subcommittee chairmen, Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Bart Stupak
of Michigan, said claims by the chief of security at an unnamed
wireless carrier that the company may have given a government entity
access to all of its customers’ communications, justified further delay
in considering the legislation.
And the details, from the article:
Babak Pasdar, chief executive of a
security firm who was hired to upgrade security at the unnamed
telecommunications company, said he discovered a third-party security
breach traced to a governmental office in Quantico, Va., home to a U.S
Marine Corps base and the FBI Academy, the letter said.
Pasdar’s
allegations are similar to those of Mark Klein, a former AT&T
technician whose claims support a lawsuit against the company being
advanced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an internet privacy
advocacy group.
Republicans have been pressing the White
House-backed Senate version of the bill, which passed Feb. 12. The
Senate version effectively authorizes warrantless surveillance with
additional court oversight and grants retroactive immunity to private
companies that cooperated.
The House version passed in
November does not grant retroactive immunity and imposes tighter
controls on surveillance. House leaders have refused to take up the
Senate version, and the extent of the Bush administration’s
surveillance initiatives has been a major concern in their decision.
That's the sort of activity from which the telecoms seek immunity. And yet one of Randy Demmer's supporters would have readers think otherwise in his monthly column in the Rochester Post Bulletin, The lawsuit business is out of control in the U.S. Dr. Araoz equates the lawsuit brought against Randy Demmer in the mid-1990s (a case which was found to have little merit in other venues until filed--then settled out-of-court) with the troubles facing the telecoms:
But there are obstacles to change, namely trial lawyer special interests and politicians beholden to them.
For an example, look no further than our current U.S. Rep. Tim Walz.
In August 2007, Walz voted for a bill to allow the U.S. government to
wiretap foreign nationals making calls to the U.S. But when it came
time to renew the legislation in February 2008, Walz voted against it.
Why? Because the most recent legislation protected
telecommunications companies from frivolous lawsuits. And in case
you're wondering, trial lawyers suing those telecommunications
companies have contributed $1.5 million to Democratic causes.
Ah yes, Dr. Araoz: all lawsuits are equally suspect, and those who seek to protect civil rights in the courts are engaged in "frivolous lawsuits" no different than that filed against a NAPA store in Hayfield a decade ago. Nice smear if you can get away with it. Look like others have already raised objections here and here.
Those who want to decide for themselves how "frivolous" the lawsuits are can read more here and here. We're wondering whether Dr. Araoz himself actually ever looked at any of them, or if standard-issue NRCC talking points were good enough.
. . .Congress now is hotly debating domestic spying powers
under the main law governing U.S. surveillance aimed at foreign
threats. An expansion of those powers expired last month and awaits
renewal, which could be voted on in the House of Representatives this
week. The biggest point of contention over the law, the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, is whether telecommunications and other
companies should be made immune from liability for assisting government
surveillance.
Largely missing from the public discussion is the role
of the highly secretive NSA in analyzing that data, collected through
little-known arrangements that can blur the lines between domestic and
foreign intelligence gathering. Supporters say the NSA is serving as a
key bulwark against foreign terrorists and that it would be reckless to
constrain the agency's mission. The NSA says it is scrupulously
following all applicable laws and that it keeps Congress fully informed
of its activities. . . .
It's a must read for those interested in the discussion of setting boundaries for domestic spying and civil rights.
The Democrats lining up against telco amnesty continues to grow,
from these three long-time, respected members to the newest Democratic
Congressman, Bill Foster, to the group of Freshman Democrats who have been specifically targeted by the Republicans with robocalls and fearmongering.
This is not going to be an election year issue. The Republicans have
done their worst against Democrats on the issue and it hasn't worked.
There is no need to cave on telco amnesty.
Update: John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, have launched a grassroot letter writing campaign at Fix FISA.. For those who use this tool to write letters to local newspaper in the First, we recommend that they write original letters, rather just copy talking points. Care enough to write the editor? Then share your own insights.
Local veterans now have a better idea of what
congressman Tim Walz is doing to support them in Washington... this
after a stop at the VFW in Mankato today. Local veterans filled up the
hall to listen and discuss issues important to them.Congressman Tim
Walz listened to the concerns veteran's have on topics important to
them.He also discussed the legislation passed in 2007 and talked about
new ideas he plans on pushing in 2008.One World War 2 vet says forums
like these help keep veterans in the loop."I think these forums are
very good because it helps us veterans know what's going on and when we
should apply for things."Congressman Walz will hold other veteran's
forums during the month of March in New Ulm and Waseca.
We'd hoped to have our head cold clear up and write more substantial pieces today, as there's much analysis to be made, but we're still under the weather. Here's a collection of commentary from around the blogosphere. Over at DailyKos, Maura Satchell, of the Veterans and Military Families for Progress, promotes three veterans running for office, including Tim Walz. The pitch is all her personal iopinion and not a plug by CMFP:
Tim Walz MN-01
Congressman Walz brings sorely needed expertise in a number of areas
to the House including China, Education, Military, Veterans, and Native
American affairs to serve not only the first district of Minnesota but
the entire country. Co-president of the 110th Congress’ freshman class,
his colleagues recognized early on this retired National Guard CSM’s
wisdom and earnest desire to restore America to its former glory.
Karl Rove drew a bullseye around Walz's district determining it one
of the highest priority seats to recapture, and Tim is currently under
attack by a well-funded group, Defense of Democracies. That lobbying
organization can take unlimited amounts of money from corporations and
is using the House's sundowning of Bush's illegal wiretapping program
against the Congressman through fearmongering TV and radio ads throughout his district.
And yes, the Defense of Telecoms Democracies group is running another round of ads in Minnesota's First, this time on radio. Walz's reponse is mentioned in CQ Weekly - Democrats’ War of Attrition. Closer to home, the Locust of Evil looks at a column in the Post Bulletin by a Randy Demmer supporter in It's the Lawyers Fault. . .
MN-1 is another district where I think they are wasting their time, Tim
Walz is a hard and smart campaigner who defeated a longtime incumbent
in 2006. He's not going down this year.
Since Walz has a battle to fight in the First, he's not expected to give to the party coffers. The St. Paul Pioneer Press's Party Animal look at the giving in Ponying up for parties.
Winona Radio reports about the Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act vote:
Minnesota First District Congressman Tim
Walz says he is proud to have supported the Paul Wellstone Mental
Health and Addiction Equity Act which the House approved on Wednesday
by a wide margin. Walz told Minnesota news media today it's all about
creating fairness in the insurance industry and in coverage for persons
with a mental illness or chemical dependency.....
The
bill was several years in the making. It was first proposed by the late
Senator Paul Wellstone about a decade ago. Walz said the House approved
the measure with a veto-proof majority.
A friend sent us the YouTube above that purportedly documents Marty Seifert's leadership style in dealing with the Transportation Six who voted with the DFL majority. We are reviewing it for authenticity. Hal Kimball looks yet another element in the complicated web of elephant-rhino ecology in Brian Davis Hires Liberal Blogger As Consultant.
We had a chance to investigate the donkey party's cordially last night, and enjoyed ourselves immensely at the Winona County DFL Banquet. We didn't get a chance to meet blogger Ron Amundson, who posted about the event in the post Winona County DFL Banquet:
. . .One fellow I ran into was Victor Vieth of the National Child Protection training center.
They are rolling out some new programs in the near future, and their
work looks to be pretty amazing and they most definitely fill a
critical need. It was also cool to learn of Mike Ciresi’s involvement
in getting them funded.
I also talked engineering with a couple guys, and met a number of
interesting folks from a variety of walks of life. Everything from
biodiesel conversions to pathology to folks involved in foster care. A
most diverse crowd indeed. . . .
. . .Tim Walz sent a representative, and they talked a bit about the FISA bill which I blogged about previously. His staff seem to really be on top of things. . . .
That's pretty much our experience as well, down to the chat with Victor Vieth. A good time and a long drive home as "the weather went south fast."
We weren't much impressed by the Strib article Big spenders go after causes, not candidates. The story came a week after the FISA fear-mongering ads. Diaz focuses most of his attention on a rally and ads to pressure Sixth District Republican Michele Bachmann to vote for SCHIP funding than the Defense of Democracy ad directed toward Walz.
The watchdogs at Firedoglake have been keeping an eye on developments in the House's coming action on the spying bill. Jane Hamsher bird-dogs the apparent deal over FISA that Democratic House Leadership is cooking up in Operant Conditioning: Live It, Love It, Learn It. On CNN:
It was disconcerting, to say the least, to hear Sylvestre Reyes on CNN this morning talking about retroactive telecom immunity:
Reyes, D-Texas, said he was open to
that possibility after receiving documents from the Bush administration
and speaking to the companies about the industry's role in the
government spy program.
"We are talking to the representatives from the
communications companies because if we're going to give them blanket
immunity, we want to know and we want to understand what it is that
we're giving immunity for," he said. "I have an open mind about that."
Regarding a compromise deal, Reyes
said: "We think we're very close, probably within the next week we'll
be able to hopefully bring it to a vote."
She spells out the situation that may be facing Tim Walz. Having grown a spine over the attack ads, he may not got the back-up he needs from House leadership:
I hope before the Democrats decide to cave on this they think very
carefully about the message they're sending in the wake of huge ad buys
against their freshmen by a GOP attack outfit. Jim Klobuchar writes about the ads taken out in Minnesota against Tim Walz (and Walz's admirable response):
His supporters are responding with
their dollars. But the question he raises hangs, ominous and taunting,
over the 2008 elections.
How much have the voters actually learned from the corruptions of
decency and truth that emasculated John Kerry’s campaign in 2004?
One thing we probably haven’t learned is how easily it was done.
The architects of it were shadowy surrogates of the real political
hatchetmen and corporate pirates who brought the Bush government to
power. In the middle of it some credulous Democrats actually asked
George Bush to disavow the Swift Boat fraud.
Were they serious?
If House Democrats back down now, it worked. And it will keep happening, again and again and again.
This is one of those issues that House Leadership doesn't get. In the First, Tim Walz talked back to the ads almost immediately and his constituents, sick of the administration's lies and fear-mongering, cheered.
At last night's banquet, word was that Walz planned to stick to his guns about retroactive immunity and insist on a new surveillance bill that retains protections for civil rights. Constituents should call their congressman this week to let him know they want him stand his ground.
I tuned in and listened intently to hear FOX defend our liberties and
attack these liberal Democrats … but alas, it was just mindless babble
about next November’s election … not only from Durbin and Feinstein …
but also from Karl Rove. IF Karl Rove doesn’t feel the threat, what is an ordinary citizen to conclude ?
Was this just an exploitive commercial to attack First District Congressman Tim Walz ? [end update]
The Albert Lea Tribune reports that Congressman Walz will be speaking to the local Kiwanis club today (in keeping with the animal motif, he'll be at the Elks Club):
U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, a Democrat from Mankato, will speak Monday to the
Albert Lea Noon Kiwanis Club. Walz was to speak Feb. 4, but a snowstorm
dashed those plans. The visit is not a political speech. He will give
an update on the second session of the 110th Congress and take
questions from the audience.
The public is invited to attend.
The club meets at noon Monday at the Elks Lodge in Albert Lea.
We're running a bit late, so this won't be as developed as we'd like. Walz supporter and the reader who catches more typos and flubs at BSP than anyone, GAC prof Max Hailperin has a LTE in today's Mankato Free Press about the FDD smear ads against Walz:
A lobbying group is
running an ad that turns truth on its head, falsely accusing our
congressman, Tim Walz, of refusing to grant intelligence agencies the
powers they need to intercept al-Qaida communications.
Painting Walz as the obstructionist is the
exact opposite of the truth. Walz and his colleagues in the House
passed a bill that would modernize communications intelligence, and
President Bush obstructed that bill, with the aid of allies in the
Senate.
For a lobbying group to try to pin the
blame on those, like Walz, who voted for the RESTORE act is cynical. Do
they think that we, the constituents, were not paying attention Nov.
15, when the vote was taken? Or do they think that we were not paying
attention more recently, when Walz did everything in his power to see
that bill reconciled with the Senate’s version?
The ad also would have us blame Walz for
insisting on a permanent upgrade to the law, rather than another
temporary “Band-Aid” extension. It is worth noting that on this matter,
Walz was in complete agreement with the Republican leaders who insisted
that national security should not be legislated a couple weeks at a
time.
Now we are subjected to an ad that is
highly misleading about the consequences of the lack of extension.
Intelligence agencies retain their full legal authority to intercept
al-Qaida communication. For a year, even the extra powers they had
temporarily been granted will not lapse.
Call his office and let Walz know you appreciate his courage in the face of such unprincipled lobbyists.
Tim Walz supported Flex Farm legislation that would allow farmers to go beyond the "corn base." In yesterday's New York Times, Rushford organic farmer wrote about his Forbidden Fruits and Vegetables.
"Deceptive exploitation of Americans' fears of terrorism has been a
central weapon in the GOP's campaign to prevent phone companies from
being held accountable for lawbreaking. Two weeks ago, EFF looked at
the evidence and concluded that this strategy would fail to sway voters.
Today, events have borne that prediction out. From the subscription-only Congress Daily newsletter:
House Republican attempts to gain political traction
against Democrats on the delayed overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act aren't having the impact GOP operatives had hoped for.
Despite past political success pushing it as a national security issue,
Republican and Democratic lawmakers and senior aides said privately
they are surprised by the limited response. "It's almost got no traction,"
said one surprised senior aide to a Democratic lawmaker. The chief of
staff to a southern Republican added: "We're not hearing much of
anything on FISA. Clearly it is something folks have concerns about,
but I thought it would have been a bit louder." . . ."
That is what we're hearing. People are mad, but not at Congressman Walz. And the EFF reports that Walz responded aggressively:
While these ads won't sway voters, it's less certain whether they'll
sway Congresspeople. Many of the targeted Representatives have kept
quiet so far. But many have responded brilliantly. . . . . . .. . .Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Rep. Mike Arcuri of NY have . . . made strong and smart statements.
Whoever your Representative is, it always helps to phone or email them and tell them where you stand!
First District residents offended by the ad's insult to their intelligence and civil liberties should call his district office and let him know they want him to stand up to this fearmongering. He should stand with the RESTORE Act.
A widely-seen ad pushes a White House-backed
bill that would make it easier for the government to wiretap Americans.
It also would give retroactive legal immunity to telecom companies that
cooperated with Bush's secret, post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping
program.
Sponsored by Defense of Democracies, a group
with GOP connections, the ad takes the House to task for not passing
the bill, as the Senate has. The ad appeals to fear, with its image of
Osama bin Laden and similar ploys. But we find that it also makes
several misleading claims.
Specifically, the ad says that:
* "The law" allowing government eavesdroppers to intercept al Qaeda
communications has expired. But the main, 30-year-old law that lets
them listen in, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is still on
the books. It's a law amending FISA, making it easier for
intelligence-gatherers to eavesdrop on communications that might
include Americans, that has expired.
* "[T]he
House refuses to vote" to replace the lapsed law. Actually, the House
passed its own version of the legislation months ago. The House and
Senate are now in conference to resolve the differences in their bills,
which is the normal legislative process.
* "[N]ew
surveillance against terrorists is crippled." The administration has
admitted that surveillance authorized under the expired bill will
extend at least into August. It has also admitted that when a new
member of a known terrorist organization is discovered, that person can
be surveilled via authorizations granted under the expired law. And at
any rate, FISA itself hasn't expired, and any time the government has
strong evidence that someone is a member of a terrorist organization,
it can still get a court order to eavesdrop on that person.
Go read the entire four web-page article. Its detailed analysis confirms the reaction Southern Minnesotans have had to the fear-mongering.
"If you've seen the ads, you might agree with Walz's press secretary
that they're fear-mongering cheap shots, trivializing an issue on
which patriotic people on both sides of the issue can reasonably
disagree."
The Mankato Free Press editorial board decides Immigration not the issue in bus crash, rejecting attempts to use emotional appeals to sway the debate on immigration:
It was an unfortunate contribution to an already
awful tragedy when it was revealed that the driver of a vehicle that
slammed into a school bus, resulting in the deaths of four children, is
an apparent illegal alien.
Added to the grief was anger, fanning an already divisive immigration debate. . .
. . .As for the woman in the center of the
storm, she is now a reference point for those who argue she represents
a more compelling argument for the state to seek a more aggressive
solution to the illegal immigration problem. The bus incident does
serve to remind us that undocumented aliens pose a variety of risks.
How many drive without licenses? How do we measure the impact on
communities as illegals resort, essentially, to living underground —
avoiding contact with authorities, mistrusting them and many of their
neighbors to hide their illegal status?
Most do their best to fit in and become
valued members of the towns they live in. But as some among them avoid
the responsibilities of citizenship (continually aware that they are
not, after all, citizens), how do they increase the chance that an
incident of the type that occurred near Cottonwood last week, can occur?
These are hard issues to quantify.
Perhaps we should refrain from even
attempting to tie the bus-van accident to immigration issues at all.
There are enough bad drivers in this state for us to know that they
come in all shapes, sizes, nationalities, legal status and levels of
sobriety. Bad driving is no respecter of persons, on either the giving
or receiving end — as we were reminded again last week.
Read the entire editorial at the Free Press.
Sadly, there are people living in the district who began to tie the bus crash firmly to the debate over immigration policy rather rapidly. Take Ruthie Hendrycks, the leader of Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform, an incorporated association that's a subchapter of the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction.
Before the children were mourned and laid to rest, Hendrycks, a candidate for the GOP endorsement in Minnesota House District 21B, was already working to organize a rally exploiting the tragedy. From a posting on Saturday, February 23:
NEVER FORGET THE COTTONWOOD FOUR
Members - MINNSIR will be taking a leading role in educating the public to the "Human
Costs" of illegal immigration and this tragedy. We are also working with other organizations on this horrific, PREVENTABLE and senseless crime.
A rally in the wake of this tragedy is being planned.
MINNSIR will be working in coordination with another group on this rally and
information will be provided when all details are arranged. - Please
plan to attend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We can only hope that Republican activists in HD 21B have the good hearts and good sense to reject this style of "leadership."
Bachmann and O'Reilly's fevered vision of marauding illegals committing
crimes and endangering public safety all across the country stands in
stark contrast to the findings of a study released this week by the
Public Policy Institute of California. In culling through arrest and
incarceration statistics from the state, the authors found that
immigrants were far less likely to commit crimes than native-born
residents.
"For example," they write in the study abstract, "among men ages 18-40
- the age group most likely to commit crime - the U.S.-born are 10
times more likely than the foreign-born to be in jail or prison. Even
among noncitizen men from Mexico ages 18-40 - a group
disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally -
the authors find very low rates of institutionalization. Such findings
suggest that longstanding fears of immigration as a threat to public
safety are unjustified."
Just like the annoying "Defense of Democracies" fear-mongering ad that had played in heavy rotation on the First's television stations, the story of its sponsor and its motives keep going and going. About an hour ago, Newsweek's weekly Terror Watch column wrote up the story in Scare Tactics? Are White House allies playing election-year hardball on eavesdropping? A piece of the column:
. . .The group, run by Clifford May,
a former communications director of the Republican National Committee,
has not disclosed the names of its donors. May told NEWSWEEK that he
launched the campaign for the express purpose of ratcheting up pressure
on House Democrats. (The ads call on voters to contact specific
Democratic members and demand that they vote "to keep us all safe.") "I
think it's important for Democrats to hear from their constituents on
this issue," May said. "This is a national security issue."
Democrats complain
that the administration is trying to politicize the electronic
surveillance issue and use it for partisan advantage this fall. "If you
look at these ads, they are not too different from the ads they ran
against Max Cleland in 2002," said Meredith Salsbery, press secretary
to Minnesota Democratic Rep. Tim Walz, whose district has been targeted
in the advertising campaign. (Those notorious ads impugned the
patriotism and national security credentials of the Democratic senator
from Georgia,
a Vietnam veteran and triple amputee who wound up losing his
re-election bid.) "To a lot of our constituents, these ads look like
fear-mongering and scare tactics designed to persuade the public that
the Democrats are soft on national security."
While we don't quite see so close a comparison with the old ad, the new one does utilize an unjustified appeal to emotion, with fear being the sole emotion played upon. We hearing that our reaction of disgust is pretty widespread.
Take GeistX's response in Rochester at CubeZoo:
. . .In politics, last night KTTC ran a commercial, and I really wish I
could remember the name of the organization that paid for this, it had
one of those innocent sounding names, yet the organization is pure evil
type things like Americans for a Democratic Society.
UPDATE: Found it, the group is 'Defense of Democracies'.
Here is the FUD ad. WARNING, this ad contains Fear, Uncertainty and
Doubt as well as unhealthy amounts of Jingoism with no facts. . . .
. . .The commercial is a FUD piece saying the Senate had shown true
leadership and concern for the safety of this country by voting FOR the
new FISA bill (which is the bill the Bush Administration wants that
include Telecom immunity), while the House ducked its responsibility
and went on vacation. It showed a whole bunch of scary images and
pro-American jingoism, terrorist bad bullshit common in these times
thanks to the Bush Adminisration. The end put up Tim Walz's picture and
contact information (which isn't on the YouTube version, and must have
been added regionally for each member of Congress targeted) and urged
people to call him and tell him to vote YES for security! Vote FOR the
FISA bill (now with new and improved Telecom Immunity!). I won't go
into why this ad is wrong on so many levels, as it makes me so enraged
I get even more incoherent. But sufficed to say, the new FISA bill will
not make us safer, the old FISA legislation (which had been updated)
protects us and our civil liberties by requiring judicial oversight and
review (even after the fact if time of the essence) and the new bill
weakens civil liberties and expands the power of the Administrative
Branch by weakening the checks and balances. The fact this ad could
give no facts and only provide push-button emotional rhetoric should
illustrate why everyone when they see something like this should, in
the words of Buffalo Springfield, 'there's something happening here,
what it is ain't exactly clear...stop children, what's the sound?
Everybody look whats goin down...'
Go over to CubeZoo, watch the ad, and let GeistX know your response while the Buffalo Springfield classic plays. Then, if you're one of Walz's constituents, call his office and tell him what you think about the ad, too.
We did catch an error of fact in the Newsweek column. It noted that Democratic board member "resignations were first reported by Spencer Ackerman in the Washington Independent." That article--which is very fine--was posted today.
Not quite first place. On Monday, Bluestem reported a tip from the ACLU about Eliot Engle's resignation, and moments later, Matt Stoller at Open Left was first to report Charles Shumer's departure from the board and to post Donna Brazile's statement condemning the ad and removing herself from the board.
A neo-conservative but ostensibly bipartisan
counterterrorism think tank has lost all its Democratic board members
by running an attack ad in Democratic congressional districts through
an affiliated enterprise.
The think tank, called the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies,
is a 501(c )3 -- meaning it was incorporated as a non-profit and
non-partisan organization, barred from political activity. Last week,
it established Defense of Democracies,
a 501(c )4 "non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization," that ran
an advertisement urging the House of Representatives to pass the
Senate's version of a bill providing retroactive legal immunity to
telecommunications companies that collaborated with the Bush
administration's constellation of warrantless surveillance programs.
The arrangement is probably legal, experts say, but the parent think
tank receives several grants from the State Department -- at least one
is worth $487,000 -- for democracy-promotion programs, making its
political activities questionable.
On
Friday, Defense of Democracies ran an ad in 15 congressional districts
that erroneously stated, "the law that lets intelligence agencies
intercept Al Qaeda communications expire[d]." In fact, the intelligence
community has the authority to intercept Al Qaeda communications under
other laws; the expired Protect America Act allowed the National
Security Agency to intercept communications between any two persons of
interest to a foreign intelligence investigation, even including U.S.
citizens, without a warrant. Featuring ominous music, it showed a
picture of Osama bin Laden before saying -- again erroneously,
according to members of the intelligence community -- "new surveillance
is crippled." In the 15 districts, Defense of Democracies got specific
about what it wanted. In one of them, for instance: "Tell Tim Walz that
Congress must do its job and pass the Senate's terrorist surveillance
bill."
The citizens of Minnesota's First Congressional district already have a means to promote democracy. It is called an election. We hope that the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies--and the taxpayer-funded grants it receives--butts out. Go read the details at MinMon.
We at BSP have had to watch the attack ad on Walz air repeatedly on KEYC-TV 12. To the station's credit, it ran Congressman Walz Strikes Back, a news story about Walz's pushback. Our more ambitious readers might consider contacting Defense of Democracies to share a piece of the District's views about the ad.
We found this transcript of a David Welna NPR broadcast via Lexis-Nexis. And while the transcriber appears to have mis-heard "Defense of Democracies" as "Defensive Democracies," there's some perverse ring of truth to that malapropism. 
