Republicrat Faces Some Sort Of Punisment

thoughtone

thoughtone

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She should join Lieberman as a pseudo neocon.

source: The Huffington Post

Feinstein Faces Dem Censure After Backing Mukasey

One day after voting to elevate a divisive conservative judge to the federal appeals court in New Orleans, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein was the president's guest aboard Air Force One. She had been invited to survey the damage from the recent spate of Southern California wildfires.

The senator later remarked privately that she found her conversation with Bush aboard Air Force One "illuminating," a source close to Feinstein told the Huffington Post.

Two weeks later, Feinstein was one of two Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee to vote to send Michael Mukasey's nomination to be the new attorney general to the full Senate. Her support helped turn the tide in favor of a nomination that faced an uncertain future after Mukasey refused to say whether waterboarding was torture.

When the full Senate voted, Feinstein was one of only six Democrats to vote in favor of confirming Mukasey.

Now, a coalition of progressive Democrats upset with Feinstein's controversial votes will ask the California Democratic Party to censure her at its executive board meeting this weekend, the Huffington Post has learned.

The move comes as Feinstein again finds herself under fire for saying Thursday that she now supports granting legal immunity to telecom companies that shared customer email and phone messages with the federal government as part of the warrantless surveillance program.

"Dianne Feinstein does not listen to the people of California," said Rick Jacobs, president of the Courage Campaign, a progressive organization in California. "She supports George Bush's agenda time after time."

Feinstein's office did not respond to messages seeking comment.

East Bay For Democracy, a chartered Democratic Club outside San Francisco, will introduce the censure motion on Saturday at the state party's executive board meeting in Anaheim. The Governing Board of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party and the Progressive Democrats of America are also backing the measure.

In addition to her move to back Mukasey, critics have lashed out at her decision last month to vote to confirm Judge Leslie Southwick to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Southwick's opponents charged that his record on the bench in Mississippi demonstrated that he was both racist and homophobic. The Congressional Black Caucus, Human Rights Campaign and People for the American Way opposed his nomination.

The censure resolution faces an uphill battle. In order to be considered by the full executive board, it must first make it through the party's resolutions committee, which must approve the text unanimously.

The text of the resolution is below:

Whereas Senator Dianne Feinstein voted to support the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey as United States Attorney General, thereby elevating to the highest position in law enforcement a man who refused to renounce the right of the President to resort to torture and who refused to recognize waterboarding as a form of torture, and by this action Senator Feinstein failed to oppose President Bush and failed to stand for the ideals of the Democratic Party, which abhors torture and stands firmly against its use by the United States at all times and places; and
Whereas Senator Feinstein voted to confirm Judge Leslie Southwick for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit despite his clear record of racism and gender discrimination, thus failing to stand firmly with the Democratic Party, which supports gender equality and opposes racism in any of its manifestations; and

Whereas these examples are far from the only instances where Senator Feinstein, after seeking and securing the support and endorsement of the California Democratic Party, has failed to support the policies and principles of our party

Therefore be it resolved that the California Democratic Party expresses its disappointment at, and censure of, Senator Feinstein for ignoring Democratic principles and falling so far below the standard of what we expect of our elected officials.
 
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Cali needs to vote this bitch out of office

Feinstein backs legal immunity for telecom firms in wiretap cases

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, November 9, 2007
Sen. Dianne Feinstein could tip the vote on the Senate Ju...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Thursday that she favors legal immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly shared millions of customers' telephone and e-mail messages and records with the government, a position that could lead to the dismissal of numerous lawsuits pending in San Francisco.

In a statement at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering legislation to extend the Bush administration's electronic surveillance program, Feinstein said the companies should not be "held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially a complaint about administration activities."

She endorsed a recent statement by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that companies assured by top administration officials that the surveillance program was legal "should not be dragged through the courts for their help with national security."

Feinstein, D-Calif., plays a pivotal role on the Judiciary Committee, which has a 10-9 Democratic majority. If she joins committee Republicans in voting next Thursday to protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits for their roles in the surveillance program, the proposal - a top priority of President Bush - will become part of legislation that reaches the Senate floor.

The immunity measure would require judges to dismiss suits accusing companies of collaborating illegally in the surveillance program if the government declared either that a firm had not participated or that its participation was authorized. Lawyers for the companies' customers would be excluded from the hearing and the reason for the dismissal would not be made public.

After Thursday's hearing, Feinstein spokesman Scott Gerber released a statement from the senator saying the legislation was "a work in progress" and that she was "open to evaluating all suggestions for improvement."

Opponents of immunity for the telecommunications companies said they would try to persuade Feinstein to change her mind.

"Hopefully, since the case is in her own backyard, she won't want to foreclose people's opportunity to have their day in court," said Caroline Frederickson, lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"There are compromises possible here," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a lawyer for AT&T customers in a surveillance case before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. One suggestion that Feinstein previously indicated she was considering, Cohn said, would be to allow the suits to proceed but set limits on damages against the companies.

The AT&T suit, filed in January 2006, is the lead case of nearly 40 filed around the country accusing telecommunications companies of allowing the National Security Agency to intercept customers' phone calls and e-mails and examine their records without a warrant. The suits have been transferred to a federal judge in San Francisco.

Bush acknowledged in December 2005 that he had ordered the agency after the 2001 terrorist attacks to wiretap phones and read e-mails of communications between Americans and alleged foreign terrorists without the court warrants required by a 1978 federal law. With lawsuits pending against the government and the companies, Congress authorized the surveillance program in August but did not immunize the companies for their past conduct.

The Judiciary Committee is considering immunity for the companies as part of a bill to extend the program past February. Feinstein, in her statement Thursday, said the suits are unfair to the companies, which are "unable to defend themselves in court" because the government has insisted that their activities be kept secret.

Although suits against the companies are "not the right remedy," Feinstein said, the administration should be held accountable through an audit of the surveillance program by the Justice Department's inspector general, as proposed in the Senate legislation.

Cohn disputed Feinstein's assertion that the companies could not defend themselves in the lawsuits. She said federal law allows such defendants to present secret evidence in private to the judge, a practice she said has been carried out for decades without any leaks.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/09/BA13T97BN.DTL
 
source: msnbc.com

Lieberman to endorse McCain
One maverick due to get behind another on Monday

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Sen. John McCain, trying to build momentum toward a reprise of his 2000 New Hampshire primary victory, is piling up high-profile endorsements, including one from another political maverick, Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

The Connecticut senator, an independent who was the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential nominee, was scheduled to announce his support for McCain at a town hall meeting Monday morning in Hillsborough.

A Lieberman adviser said the senator decided to back McCain despite being a Republican because he believes his colleague from Arizona "has the best chance of uniting the country in its fight against Islamic terrorism."

The adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of the formal announcement, said Lieberman would continue to caucus with Senate Democrats, and said his decision was not a reflection of any lingering tension with his old party after high-profile Democrats abandoned him when he lost the Democratic primary during his 2006 Senate re-election campaign.

One 2008 White House contender, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, supported Lieberman in the primary, but said after he lost, "I'm going to just hope Senator Lieberman will take a hard look at this and do what is best for Connecticut and the Democratic Party."

Another leading Democratic candidate, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, donated $5,000 to the Democratic nominee, Ned Lamont, and sent an e-mail just before the general election saying, "Please join me in supporting Ned Lamont with your hard work on-the-ground in these closing weeks of the campaign."

Lieberman subsequently won re-election with an independent candidacy and has since been the darling of many prominent Republicans, including former White House adviser Karl Rove, for pushing a hard line in support of the country's war in Iraq. McCain also supports the war, calling it a critical battlefront in the fight against terrorism.

‘Very good friends’
A top McCain aide said: "They are obviously very good friends. McCain helped him in his re-elect, and the significance of the support he will help attract to McCain cannot be overstated."

The aide also spoke on the condition of anonymity prior to the Monday event, which the campaign generically advertised as "a major new endorsement."

Word of the endorsement follows several other high-profile announcements for McCain, including weekend endorsements by The Des Moines Register and The Boston Globe.

McCain has largely ceded the Iowa caucuses to front-runners Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, but the Register said, "McCain is most ready to lead America in a complex and dangerous world and to rebuild trust at home and abroad by inspiring confidence in his leadership."

The Globe, while not based in New Hampshire, circulates in New Hampshire's vote-rich southern tier. McCain has focused his campaign on the Granite State, hoping to repeat his 2000 victory over George W. Bush.

"The iconoclastic senator from Arizona has earned his reputation for straight talk by actually leveling with voters, even at significant political expense," the Globe wrote.

McCain has also picked up endorsements from The New Hampshire Union Leader, the state's largest newspaper, and The Portsmouth Herald.

"U.S. Sen. John McCain will tell you the truth, even if it costs him the election," the Herald wrote.

McCain, campaigning Sunday in Florida, said he expected the endorsements would help him with undecided voters, especially registered Republicans.

"All of them say the same thing -- that I have the experience and the judgment to lead this country and that I have been the one who is presidential," the senator said. "Obviously that will help me as we get down in the last few weeks before the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary, Michigan and South Carolina primaries and the Florida primary."
 
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