Strangebedfellows and AccountabilitNow PAC — Update
(posted by Mona)
AoTP participated in announcing the Strangebedfellows coalition and the AccountabilityNow PAC when we interviewed Richard Williams and Trevor Lyman, the geniuses who propelled Ron Paul’s campaign into the spotlight via “money bombs.” Bob Barr has now endorsed the PAC, and Glenn Greenwald has a great post explicating both why this coalition is crucial, and why we must be targeting certain vulnerable Democrats where there is a viable, Constitution- and civil-liberties-respecting Democratic primary challenger (or a Republican who is willing to break from the even more hopeless GOP hordes, a la Ron Paul):
Since that overwhelming Democratic victory [in the 2006 election], this is what the Democratic-led Congress has done:
Repeatedly funded — at the White House’s insistence — the Iraq War without conditions;
Defeated — at the White House’s insistence — Jim Webb’s bill to increase the intervals between deployments for U.S. troops;
Defeated — at the White House’s insistence — a bill to restore habeas corpus, which had been abolished by the Military Commissions Act, enacted before the 2006 election with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support;
Enacted — at the White House’s insistence and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous Republican support
– the so-called Protect America Act, vesting the President with extreme new warrantless eavesdropping powers;Overwhelmingly approved the Senate’s Kyl-Lieberman Resolution, to declare parts of the Iranian Government a “terrorist organization,” an extremely belligerent resolution modeled after those which made “regime change” the official U.S. Government position towards Iraq;
Deleted from a pending bill — at the direction of the House Democratic leadership and at the insistence of the White House — a provision merely to require Congressional approval before the Bush administration can attack Iran;
Overwhelmingly enacted — at the White House’s insistence, and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support — the “FISA Amendments Act of 2008,” to vest the President with broad new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, all but putting an end to any chance for a real investigation and judicial adjudication of the Bush administration’s illegal NSA spying program;
Confirmed, with the indispensable support of two key Democratic Senators, Bush’s nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, despite his support for radical Bush theories of executive power and his refusal to oppose torture;
Stood by passively and impotently while Bush officials flagrantly ignored their Subpoenas and refused to comply with their investigations.
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
=)