Is this what you wanted?

FISA Fight Creates Coalition

Of Liberal Blogs, Paul Voters

By AMY SCHATZ

June 25, 2008 7:03 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- The fight over immunity for telecom companies in domestic-spying legislation is creating an unexpected side effect: unity among liberal bloggers and Ron Paul supporters.

Liberal activists and supporters of the Texas Republican and former presidential candidate plan to join forces Thursday and begin a "money bomb" protest of lawmakers who support telecom immunity in the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act. During a "money bomb," grassroots activists donate money during a short period of time -- usually a day -- to create buzz and raise money for their candidate.

The effort is timed to coincide with a planned Senate vote on the bill. Libertarians and liberal activists have blasted Democratic lawmakers, including presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, for supporting the legislation.

Both groups are upset about a provision in the bill that would provide retroactive immunity from civil actions for telecom companies alleged to have provided information to the government as part of its secret, warrantless wiretapping program. The House passed the legislation on June 20 and a Senate vote could come as soon as Thursday.

"There's entrenched power in Washington that protects itself and there are people on both sides who don't feel like they're having their rights protected," says Jane Hamsher, one of the organizers behind the effort and founder of the popular Democratic blog Firedoglake. "It's really about right and left coming together to fight the entrenched power and take their power away."

The fund-raiser represents a novel partnership between the two groups, which have separately proven themselves adept at organizing activists and readers to take action. If it goes well, organizers say it could mark the beginning of a more far-reaching partnership between the two groups, which agree on issues from ending the Iraq war to protection of civil liberties.

"For us, it's a natural alliance," says Trevor Lyman of BreaktheMatrix.com, and one of the organizers behind the famous Ron Paul "money bombs" which stunned the political establishment by raising about $14 million total for the Texas congressman's now-suspended presidential campaign.

"When it comes to civil liberties, we're absolutely aligned" with liberal activists, he says, although he notes the two groups remain far apart on other matters such as economic issues. "We stand so closely on this issue."

Mr. Paul missed the recent House vote on the domestic-spying legislation but later released a statement that he "strongly opposed every previous FISA overhaul attempt and I certainly would have voted against this one as well."

Discussions between the liberal bloggers and Mr. Paul's supporters for a joint venture only began about a week ago, but took off as anger about the telecom immunity increased in both communities. The two groups agreed to form a bipartisan political action committee, Accountability Now, and to use the Democratic fund-raising site ActBlue.com to handle the paperwork involved in legally processing political donations.

Beginning Thursday, blogs associated with both groups plan to begin plugging the joint-fundraising effort, asking their readers to pledge donations for the "money bomb" event.

Organizers say they'd like to raise "as much as possible," perhaps several million dollars, during their one-day "money bomb," which is likely to be held in August. They say they're not yet sure what they'd do with proceeds from the fund-raiser. Most likely it will be used to fund advertisements against Democratic and Republican lawmakers who supported the warrantless wiretapping legislation. It would also likely be used to fund ads supporting congressional challengers who are against the bill.

Write to Amy Schatz at Amy.Schatz@wsj.com

Oh really? Well if he doesn't consider caving in on the FISA bill as cowering to the GOP fearmongering on terrorism then what he must be telling all of us is that he too thinks the Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper.

So much for Change we an believe in.

I knew it wouldn't take long for the blind followers of Obama to rationalize his new position. Some of the comments I read through in this HuffPo piece were very depressing.

Obama On FISA: Security Trumps Suing Phone Companies

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/25/obama-on-fisa-security-tr_n_109257.html

Wise words.

After the FISA vote how much do you want to bet our glorious Congress and presidential candidate will go out of their way to immunize those in the Bush administration responsible for the "fraternity pranks"?

Someone on one of the blogs posted a comment yesterday about Obama's "change you can believe in" that said something like...The more things change, the more they remain the same.

It was so appropriate...I wish I knew who said it and where I saw it.

I'm very depressed over what happened so I'm trying to pump myself back up today because I just can't let the craven bastards win. I don't know what the right next step should be but I know the wrong step is to stop caring and drop out of the fight like so many have done over the years. I care deeply and I'll be damned if I let the unethical, power hungry bad guys run me out of the fight.