It was almost a week ago that America learned that its Democratic House had rolled over to a Bush Administration that was already counting on a late-term defeat and voted for immunity for telecommunication companies for any violations of Americans’ privacy they may or may not have committed at the behest of the President and his team. Most Democrats shrugged and dejectedly kicked the dirt at their feet, conceding that this bill smelled like John Daly after 16 holes on a hot August Saturday, but what could they do? You go to the floor with the bill you have, not the bill you want.

To hear some Republican lawmakers tell it, the outgoing Bush Team was very nearly stunned at their good fortune. Said Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, “I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped.”

The Senate vote wasn’t due to take place for a week or more, but there was no shortage of acquiescing Senate Dems lining up to stand before the steamroller, even if it wasn’t going to get there for awhile.

Front and center–the center being where his pre-election summer ideological travel plans seem to be taking him–was Senator Obama. The Dem nominee was as tepid in his endorsement as many of his fellow exoskeletal lawmakers. “I do want accountability, and making sure, as I’ve said before, someone is watching the watchers,” Obama said. But he’s voting for the bill anyway.

This is the unfortunate kind of equivocation that takes hold when you’re running for President, just like a few hours before closing time at the tavern, when you make your eleventh hour calculation and decide you’d rather wind up with the zaftig gal in the Journey tee-shirt smoking GPCs rather than heading home and finishing the night with your dick in your hands. It’s not pretty, it’s not dignified, but you’ll take the sloppy win over a principled loss. Besides, like that tavern cruiser, the closer you get to Presidential campaign closing time, you’ve been downing highballs of perceived power for a long time, and your judgment just isn’t what it was when you sat down at that barstool so many hours ago.

Then there are others who can hold their liquor and their ground on their personal convictions at the same time. One of those was Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold.

While Obama flipped on his promise of just a few months ago that he would filibuster any bill that offered immunity to the telecoms, Senators Christopher Dodd and Russ Feingold have stepped up and vowed to hold their own against this vote for as long as they can sustain it. When the House passed their bill last week, he called it “not a compromise. It is a capitulation.”

“This bill will effectively and unjustifiably grant immunity to companies that allegedly participated in an illegal wiretapping program–a program that more than 70 members of this body still know virtually nothing about. And this bill will grant the Bush Administration–the same administration that developed and operated this illegal program for more than five years – expansive new authorities to spy on Americans’ international communications . . . There is simply no question that Democrats who had previously stood strong against immunity and in support of civil liberties were on the losing end of this backroom deal.”

Now that’s some campaign trail newsreel shit. It’s just a shame that Senator Obama is spending more of his time punching buttons on the electoral calculator than standing up for his erstwhile positions.

Russ Feingold doesn’t own a calculator, it seems, and that’s served him well. He’s stood against the Iraq War since Day One, and in deciding against running in 2008, urged voters not to support anyone for the President in 2008 who ever supported the war, whether they eventually claimed to regret their vote or not. That may have explained why Hillary didn’t spend a lot of time in the Badger State leading up to February’s primary.

He’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch. He has the same fearlessness and contempt for Executive Branch arrogance as Virginia’s Jim Webb. In early 2002, when the Bush Administration hadn’t yet squandered the goodwill America had gained from 9/11, and was using the sympathy dividend to ram the Patriot Act through Congress, Russ Feingold was one of the few senators who had the clarity to see and the courage to pound the podium and announce that the President was using the legitimate fear and outrage over the terrorist attacks to put a few too many bootprints on America’s civil liberties. (“Protecting the safety of the American people is a solemn duty of the Congress; we must work tirelessly to prevent more tragedies like the devastating attacks of September  11th. We must prevent more children from losing their mothers, more wives from losing their husbands, and more firefighters from losing their brave and heroic colleagues. But the Congress will fulfill its duty only when it protects both the American people and the freedoms at the foundation of American society. So let us preserve our heritage of basic rights. Let us practice that liberty. And let us fight to maintain that freedom that we call America.”)

There are a lot of people who wished that Senator Feingold had tossed his hat in the ring this year, or that he’d even made himself available as the Dems’ running mate. Even if Senator Feingold were willing, Obama would be a fool if he were to squander a potential Senate surrogate and waste him on the Vice Presidency. On the other hand, it would be hugely entertaining, and with the steady stream of hectoring and reality checks coming from the other office in the West Wing, a President Obama with a Vice President Feingold would have a new appreciation for the term “Badger State.”

Or so I thought. The new Democratic majority checked their testicles at the door. I understood Nancy Pelosi’s “No impeachment” pledge–even though there was far more than a blowjob they could have taken to the well to urge the removal of an immoral President who had no compunction about scattering fradulent intelligence toward bringing us into  a war that we had no business fighting, against a miserable dictator who was already marginalized. Yes, we removed his boot from the throat of his people, but we didn’t do a hell of a lot to lift their quality of life. It’s a sad testament to our purported might that the Iraqis had more electricity each day under Sadaam, as rotten as he was, than under our occupation.

But that’s a discussion for another blog. The new Democratic majority came into power with a proclaimed restraint towards punishing the excesses of the Bush Administration, but they proved themselves absolute cowards in even holding their ground against his abuses of his office.

They wiggled their dicks pretty good in the fight over the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Until they fell like a house of cads.

The Bush Administration was demanding exoneration for telecom companies who eavesdropped at the behest of the President and his agenda (allegedly in the interests of national security). And they got it. Bush’s team couldn’t believe their good fortune when the House folded like a Chinese menu.

So, in essence, sorry if they got your emails and phone calls for the last several years, but it was in the interests of national security. And, if you didn’t do anything wrong, you shouldn’t be worried, right? But I’m kind of wondering, on your 3/13/04 email to your neighbor, did you really refer to your 13-year-old niece as a “cute”? I know we were looking for terrorists, and your reference may have been completely harmless, but…well, we’re just asking. Only because you mentioned in your earlier email that you and your wife were having problems, and, well, it’s just understandable how that kind of sexual frustation can be channeled. That’s the only reason we’re curious.

This is where we are right now.

We’ve had a pretty good FISA law in place. This is how it plays out: We have a Chicago man with Peshawar connections. We’d like to see what he’s doing. Is it okay if we check if he’s making calls to America, or that someone from Pakistan is making calls to him? Thank you, your honor.

That wasn’t good enough for the Bush Administration. They decided to use the NSA and the major telecommunications companies like AT & T and others to sidestep the FISA law–even though there had never been a FISA warrant refused by any judge–and monitor the communications activity of anyone deemed sufficiently suspicious. As a result, AT & T was–until Friday–facing some 40 lawsuits for warrantless wiretapping on citizens.

I’m monumentally disappointed in my Congress today. The House of Representatives collapses on FISA. This was a real pissing match that they set up early. letting the current FISA law lapse, which sparked the ire of the GOP, who said that the Democrats were leaving us vulnerable to the worst terrorism we’ve ever known.

And then…crickets. We didn’t die.

That’s why I’m first mystified that they caved. “This isn’t a compromise,” said Senator Russ Feingold, as he saw this measure heading toward the Senate. “It’s a capitulation.”

And I’m second disappointed with the Change Candidate for President, Barack Obama, who says he’s going to vote for this abomination of a law when it comes before the Senate.

Obummer.

“It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives – and the liberty – of the American people. “

That is pandering at best, and political cowardice at worst.

The GOP won’t make much of it, because they’ll get better traction from Muslim accusations and race-baiting, this isn’t a moment of courage and priniciple for Barack Obama. He offered a tepid promise to try and remove some of the more onerous provisions from the bill. Too little, too lame. He just voted against the $87 million before he voted for it.

This is a far cry from February when he declared, “I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty.” It’s really a shame for those among us who thought this was a Democrat with a backbone, but I guess it’s too much of a political gamble to break the party’s exoskeletal tradition.

I can forgive bowling a 37, but this is a step too far. Turn in your Man Card, Senator.

First, let’s dispose of this canard: There is no ban on offshore oil drilling, at least not one that the federal government has any control over. There was a year-to-year moratorium imposed on new oil drilling leases by the Congress in 1981–and signed each year by President Ronald Reagan as part of the federal budget. President George H.W. Bush in 1990 issued a moratorium prohibiting the extension of new leases and pre-leasing activities to oil companies, and this was renewed by President Clinton in 2000. But again, this was a moratorium on new leases. According to the Tampa Bay Online, roughly 81% of the nation’s offshore gas and oil reserves are legally available for drilling.

Off-coast drilling is the purview of the directly affected states. And most coastal states don’t want to leave their beach tourism vulnerable to the drunken missteps of a Joseph Hazelwood and have their ocean destinations on heavy rotation on CNN and MSNBC for weeks while unwashed and unshaven kids embarrass their state by scrubbing harmless, stricken, and pathetic fowl.

The oil companies have leases on 68 million acres of land that aren’t being drilled. That’s an area the size of Colorado. Colorado. Have you ever driven across Colorado? It takes awhile. We’re not talking Tuvalu.

Congress last year–a Democratic Congress, no less–opened 8 million acres for drilling in the Gulf Of Mexico. We’ll go ahead with our tree-hugging hippie initiatives to encourage cars that run on brotherly love and hemp seeds, but we’ll be the bigger person and give you the oil. Go ahead and drill already.

And to date the industry hasn’t done boo. With hurricane season coming up, I can understand their trepidation, because there’s a lot on investment in infrastructure, and…no. A thousand times no. You have the leases, you have the drilling capacity, you have the largest quarterly profits in corporate history. You don’t need any more leases. Drill. Use it or lose it.

For all of us taking a wallop at the pump every week as a gallon of gas goes up five or ten cents, this is a bowl of thin gruel. Most Republicans last week left their integrity at the door and voted down the the windfall profits bill, which also would have killed the Enron loophole and put a Denver boot on oil futures speculation. There’s a lesser but still significant provision in the farm bill that had enough votes to quash a Presidential veto this week, so some relief might be on the horizon, but if you’re a betting man, you’re smarter to take the Miami Dolphins for a playoff spot next year.

The GOP’s solution is to open up the Alaska Nationan Wildlife Refuge for drilling. To hear the conservatives tell it, all we have to do is stick a big straw in our backyard and slurp, and we’ll have a belly full of cheap oil that would resuscitate the flagging SUV market and ignite talk of a 105 MPH federal speed limit.

An analyst from that liberal fish-wrapper, U.S. News and World Report, said to that Rachel Madow-on-Botox, Greta Van Susteren, on that socialist echo chamber, FOXNews, on Wednesday night that tapping ANWR would probably bring us…$1.44 off a barrel. Just for the sake of math, and assuming that the oil companies would pass the savings onto the consumer, oil closed today at $131.93, and if we pop that gusher in ANWR and oil plummets $1.44 a barrel, that’s going to mean 1.09% off at the pump. The station I buy my gas at is currently pumping regular at $4.24. If this happens…Jesus, that’s going to be almost, like, $4.19 a gallon. I can’t remember the last time I paid $4.19 a gallon. Oh wait, it was last week. Actually I paid $4.13 last week, but that was Tuesday. If I’d gassed up on Thursday, I would have paid $4.19.

In any case, it’s done. I’m buying that Hummer.

Wait. What? We’re not going to see any of that oil for ten years? Well, what the hell is up with that? How hard can it be? It’s like popping a zit. You just have to have a bunch of barrels ready to fill up with that cheap, delicious black gold.

The buzzkill about the ANWR motherlode is that when it does hit the market in 2018 or so, it’s only going to be 800,000 barrels a day. We’re currently devouring 20 million barrels a day. That’s a whole 4% of our daily fix.

There are a lot of gripes on the right that even though this payoff might be ten years or more off, we have to do something else, because if Bill Clinton had allowed offshore oil drilling eight years ago (again, it was a moratorium on new leases–repeat, repeat, repeat–and it was President George H.W. Bush’s Executive Order that set that in motion), we wouldn’t be in this mess right now, and we wouldn’t be slave to Middle Eastern oil.

President Jimmy Carter had a similar mess during his administration and helped initiate tax credits for people purchasing and installing solar panels on their homes, and even installed solar panels on the White House. That was 30 years ago. What did Ronald Reagan do almost immediately upon taking office? “Get those goddamned things off of my White House.”

Yeah, well, solar’s for hippies. And Carter and his dumb sweaters and turn-down-the-thermostats schtick. Heh. “Solar.” Fag.

I suppose I could just drink the Kool-Aid and stand by my President and mind the ramparts. Oil’s down, but it isn’t out, right? After all, nuclear’s almost in vogue, and there’s even talk of asbestos making a comeback. I could get behind that and meet the President halfway. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to buy a ten-speed to get there.

Goddamn. That’s…okay, let’s see, $37.59 per paycheck and then the 1099 income I have each year, and factor in my deductions…$40,139,216,225.56 per year. Fuck. Pop bottles? Plasma? A few shifts at Applebee’s every week? I don’t know. I’ve got nothin’.

Doug’s problem in citing the Tax Policy Center’s report was that it wasn’t what the Tax Policy Center’s report said. The Tax Policy Center–a partnership between the Brookings and the Urban Institutes–said that, according to NBC’s Carrie Dann, “Obama’s plan would deliver three times the tax break to middle-class Americans than would McCain’s proposal.”

Doug said on a conference call today that many of the plan’s assumptions should be taken “with a grain of salt.” Ten million-fold taxation on taxpayers making under $250,000 is a pretty substantial grain of salt.

According to an analysis in the Boston Globe today, Obama’s tax plan would give families making between $38,000 and $66,000 a year an average tax cut of $1,042.00, compared to $319.00 under McCain. Families making between $66,000 and $112,000 a year would receive an annual tax cut of $1,290.00 under Obama and $1,009.00 under McCain, assuming both were able to push their tax plans through if they were elected President.

Taxpayers making over $2.9 million a year would pay $702,000 more under President Obama, but $270,000 less under President McCain.

I’m not seeing where Doug’s “10 million times over” is coming into play.

I don’t make $2.9 million a year. I haven’t made $2.9 million in my life. I don’t have a problem paying taxes. Applied effectively, it’s kind of nice to be able to drive down the road and not have to worry about falling into a pothole the size of an average Delaware county, or hoping that the man looting your dining room takes his time while the local police department finds an on-duty officer who is available to respond.

I understand it’s my bad for only going to work 40 and 50 and 60 hours a week, and not having had time to get smart enough to make my bones in commodities trading or oil futures. I’ve been a little too busy working to pay for food and rent and shit. I don’t really care about a tax cut, though, because I’m still lucky enough to have a job and a roof over my head and to be able to pay for food, and (barely) gas.

If I made $2.9 million a year, I wouldn’t have a problem tossing a few bucks back into the kitty of the government of the country that afforded me the kind of opportunity that allowed me to make $2.9 million a year. In my case, that would be called “empathy,” because I would remember what it was like to have to shop at WinCo for my own groceries because the house label chicken soup is $1.78 a can compared to the Campbell’s Chunky at the Haagen’s which is going for $3.29 a can, or driving 15 miles out of my way because I can get khakis at Target for $15 a pair cheaper than I can at Fred Meyer. I would remember that even though I don’t have kids, which would make today’s economic choices a lot more painful than they are for a single man with no dependents. And, really, if you have a heart, what’s $702,000 when you’re making close to $3 million a year–give or take $100,000.00, of course? But most people who make $2.9 million a year didn’t get their dragging the millstone of a social conscience with them.

Ronald Reagan used to ask, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” There aren’t too many people who aren’t making more than $50,000.00 who would make that claim.  Paying $4.13 a gallon gas sucks no matter who you are, and if you have to wrestle between that and buying groceries for your family, it really sucks.

When he was still running for office, George W. Bush made a policy of treating middle class voters as buddies who would rather have a beer with him, and tossed out the appropriate number of attaboys that more people voted for him than that lantern-jawed elitist John Kerry or that sighing, sanctimonious nerd, Al Gore. Well, congrats: Your taxes went up, poverty went up three years in a row just by 2003, Bush’s 2005 budget slashed $45 billion from Medicare, and implemented a five-year freeze on low-income child care assistance that would cut the number of recipients by 300,000 by 2009.

And he never did show up for that beer.

There hasn’t been a credible economist of legislator yet who has claimed that things will be better under a McCain Administration. Everyone says he holds a mean barbecue and he’s a hoot to hang out with, but while you pay $4 a gallon to get yourself there, all you’re going to get is barbecue–his $1.2 billion tax cut is going to Exxon Mobil.

The GOP is trotting out that old tax-and-spend saw again, and that Democratic tax and economic policies are going to hit the poor and middle class worse, but the last time I was better off four years ago was about six or seven years ago, so I think I’ll take my chances on the Marxist*.

*”He’s a Marxist until he proves me otherwise.” – Former House Majority Leader and future resident of the American penal system, Tom DeLay, on Barack Obama.