From the Associated Press at 5:46 p.m. this evening:

Senate Republicans blocked Majority Leader Harry Reid's attempt Tuesday to extend the life of a surveillance law due to expire Feb. 1, raising the stakes for a vote expected later this week on a new version of the law.

Reid, D-Nev., failed to get the unanimous consent he sought to extend the Protect America Act... [snip]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., objected to the extension, saying there was enough time before the law expires to pass a longer-term renewal of the government's terrorist surveillance authority.

Reid plans to bring to the Senate floor on Thursday competing versions of an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. If a bill is not approved then, Reid said he would require the Senate to work through the weekend to get a bill passed.

http://www.startribune.com/nation/13998146.html

Harry Reid is forever threatening to work through the weekend to get Senators to back off their objections [a bunch of Senators are hoping to jet off to Davos, Switzerland to attend a conference], but very rarely carries through. Reid's obviously not going to wait around, though, for opposition to build to his stampede, or for support for Dodd's filibuster to increase, nor, critically, is he prepared to force McConnell's hand by threatening to let the PAA expire on schedule.

Tables turned: McConnell is suddenly the majority leader, and benefiting from the built-in expiration date of the PAA that should be the Democrats' ace in the hole in pursuit of a sane revision of FISA.

In reality, the telecom immunity issue is not a “controversial issue”. In fact, by saying that it is “controversial”, we find ourselves playing into a trap established in the Karl Rove playbook. According to Rove Rules, if you have an issue that you want to push that, on it’s face, is to idiotic for the public to accept, you don’t get your Republican surrogates to actively push it, you just get the naïve Democrats to ignore it. The way you do that is to arrange for key media “experts” to inform the public that the issue is ”publicly controversial.” Because it is so idiotic, however, many in the public will still push their democratic representatives to oppose the issue. Unfortunately in doing so, they will thank them in advance for supporting such a “controversial” issue. The candidates, of course, will key in on the “controversial” aspect of the issue (which, in reality, isn’t controversial at all) and decide it’s just not worth the risk to take a stand on anything that’s so “publicly controversial” during an important presidential campaign.

Works every time! At least it has been working well for the last seven years.

Let’s not use the “controversial” term in our discussions on this issue. There is no controversy. The telecom immunity issue is a “public travesty”. The only controversy involves the thinking of the select few who are pushing for it to take place.

Here's what I wrote to Mr. Edwards:

Dear Mr. Edwards:

The American people stand to collect billions of dollars in damages caused by George Bush's illegal spying on them.

America's top intelligence boss has said so. He claims to be worried that America's phone companies will go bankrupt because of the damage wrought against Americans, damage now coming to light in a handful of lawsuits against U.S. phone companies, damage they inflicted because the Bush administration paid them to do it.

Over the next several days, the Senate will decide whether to sweep these damages under the rug and change the law so the phone companies' illegal activities are no longer illegal.

Sen. Chris Dodd has promised to fight this change in the law.

As a plaintiff's lawyer, I'm sure you understand how unfair it would be to have Congress change the law in the middle of one of your lawsuits. It would be particularly unfair to your client, of course.

Perhaps someday it will be necessary to grant these phone companies some relief. But maybe the truth about their activities and the damages they caused should come out first.

I hope you will make sure this issue is debated in the presidential campaign.

Very truly yours,

overlander

The hard thing is finding a way to put pressure on the Democratic leadership. The game that they are playing is that most Democrats will vote against telecom immunity and blanket warrants because they know it's unpopular with the base, but they'll select a few secure incombents who are willing to take the political hit for voting with the Republicans. The party leadership arranges for a handful of people to cross over, and that way they ensure that Republican legislation passes pretty much every time, while most Democratic representatives cannot be blamed individually. So what's the leverage you have as a voter? You can't vote against your own Democratic representative because chances are that they voted the right way on the issue. And you cannot directly vote against the Democratic leadership. So what can you do?

The only effective thing to do at this point that I can think of is publicly pledge that, if the Democrats allow telecom immunity and blanket warrants to become law (even if they pretend to be sorry for it), you'll vote against the Democratic party in the presidential election. If enough people pledge to not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate, seriously, no compromises or second thoughts, if telecom immunity passes, the leadership and the campaigns will get the message, at least if the pledge is well organized and communicated effectively to them. But you'd have to mean it and truly be willing to risk another four years of a Republican president. If you don't you won't be credible. You'd have to work to ensure that the Democratic candidate loses if they pass the immunity bill. Whether you are willing to do this depends on how important basic liberties are to you, balanced against other issues. I wonder whether anybody might be willing to organize a web-based pledge campaign to not vote for any Democrat in November if the telecom immunity bill passes.