Getting access to FDL's site has been tough this afternoon. I've not seen it, but a flag at the bottom of a previous FDL post, says they have a new post up that petitions Harry Reid to join Chris Dodd in his filibuster. Heh. Reid is on the record as saying he *opposes* telecom immunity. Let him put his vocal chords on the line, eh?

That petition is Glenn AND Jane's. Not just Jane's.

My comment:

Senator Reid, your choice in bringing the Senate Intelligence Committee's bill to the floor as the "base" to be amended suggests to me that you are in full agreement with the lawlessness of the Bush administration. Your willingness to join Senator Dodd in his efforts to filibuster this horrible bill would suggest to me that your position is more nuanced. At the moment, I am left to conclude that you stand with President Bush and Vice President Cheney's assault on our constitutional freedoms. Your joining Senator Dodd's filibuster would tell me something else. Toward that end, I strongly encourage you to directly support Senator Dodd's filibuster by standing with him in this effort.

Not related. Didn't even know a Chris Floyd person existed until he substituted for Glenn, here. I am anxious to get his CD. Multi-talented he is. I should be so lucky to be related to such a soul... except through "the family of man" (and woman).

It's confusing to me too. There are a couple of good diaries at Kos that work through some of the time lines. Kagro X seems really astute at parsing out the state of play and has this post:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/17/135942/98/733/423374

And, packerland progressive put up this one:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/16/3140/5458

selise had some questions about packerland's. I don't know if those got resolved.

The short answer to your question is, We're *very* early in this game and the filibuster (to my knowledge) has not yet begun - and, might not for awhile.

I defer to anyone else who knows more.

ps. That first link looks like it will run off the page (God, I hate that) so, I'll link it again at my sig.

Whoa... took a break and all hell broke loose. YAAY for Dodd! YAAY for Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher and Crew, Kos, and the DFHs of the left blogosphere! YAAY for us. A delay is a wonderful thing as compared to outright defeat. I'll take it. This may be a damned difficult ship to turn but at least we discovered that we could knock it off course - if only a little. Yes [insert fist pump here]!!!

From Dodd's blog:

Some Stats on FISA Activism

posted by Matt Browner-Hamlin, Campaign Blogger on December 17, 2007 - 8:43pm

Matt Browner-Hamlin's picture

I thought you might be interested to read some of the statistics for what people have done through our site to lobby the Senate to stop retroactive immunity.

11,300+ people emailed the Senators (16,000 people visited the page, a 75% follow through rate)...

506,000+ emails were sent to the Senate...

5,700+ comments were submitted through the website (350+ were posted on Twitter) in 7 hours...

135+ people joined the Facebook group since 11am...

340 people reported the phone calls they made to the Senate...

Quite simply, between Chris Dodd's leadership and your activism, we were able to stop retroactive immunity today. The fight will continue next month, but with support like this I am confident that we can resume this fight and move towards victory.

you know... you're okay... I don't always agree with you... but you make some solid points.... fwiw, I'm glad you're here.

Obama and Krugman have been trading arguments around health care and social security for weeks. I have to admit, when it comes to public finance I give Krugman a *lot* more credibility than I do Obama. There are also a *lot* of Obama supporters out there who have taken Obama's side in these arguments. Some have defended him more ably than others.

Atrios, the master of pithy and trenchant, put it this way:

Shorter Candidates

Obama: The system sucks, but I'm so awesome that it'll melt away before me.

Edwards: The system sucks, and we're gonna have to fight like hell to destroy it.

Clinton: The system sucks, and I know how to work within it more than anyone.

But, on matters related to health care policy Ezra Klein is awfully good. His take on Obama vs Krugman can be found ... Well, crap. Ezra moved his site over to The American Prospect and it appears the search function to his archives isn't available (yet?). On most things related to health care policy, Ezra is as knowledgeable as they come. I'd keep an eye out for him to sanely interpret this dust-up.

Generically, Ezra's link is here: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein

Using Google, I found this older analysis Ezra did on Obama's health care approach: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_lack_of_audacity