so then that would fall under

Quote :

"b) did not read it before voting"

They were packing up and leaving for vacation and couldn't be bothered to work a little overtime.

as for who voted for what, i was curious myself.

Courtesy of senate.gov

Dems who know "yea" means yes and "nay" means no

Akaka		(D-HI),	Nay
Baucus		(D-MT),	Nay
Biden		(D-DE),	Nay
Bingaman	(D-NM),	Nay
Brown		(D-OH),	Nay
Byrd		(D-WV),	Nay
Cantwell	(D-WA),	Nay
Cardin		(D-MD),	Nay
Clinton		(D-NY),	Nay
Dodd		(D-CT),	Nay
Durbin		(D-IL),	Nay
Feingold	(D-WI),	Nay
Kennedy		(D-MA),	Nay
Kohl		(D-WI),	Nay
Lautenberg	(D-NJ),	Nay
Leahy		(D-VT),	Nay
Levin		(D-MI),	Nay
Menendez	(D-NJ),	Nay
Obama		(D-IL),	Nay
Reed		(D-RI),	Nay
Reid		(D-NV),	Nay
Rockefeller	(D-WV),	Nay
Schumer		(D-NY),	Nay
Stabenow	(D-MI),	Nay
Tester		(D-MT),	Nay
Whitehouse	(D-RI),	Nay
Wyden		(D-OR),	Nay

Bayh		(D-IN),	Yea
Carper		(D-DE),	Yea
Casey		(D-PA),	Yea
Conrad		(D-ND),	Yea
Feinstein	(D-CA),	Yea
Inouye		(D-HI),	Yea
Klobuchar	(D-MN),	Yea
Landrieu	(D-LA),	Yea
Lincoln		(D-AR),	Yea
McCaskill	(D-MO),	Yea
Mikulski	(D-MD),	Yea
Nelson		(D-FL),	Yea
Nelson		(D-NE),	Yea
Pryor		(D-AR),	Yea
Salazar		(D-CO),	Yea
Webb		(D-VA),	Yea

Boxer	(D-CA),	Not voting
Dorgan	(D-ND),	Not voting
Harkin	(D-IA),	Not voting
Johnson	(D-SD),	Not voting
Kerry	(D-MA),	Not voting
Murray	(D-WA),	Not voting

8/15/2007 3:18:06 PM

ok. i was wrong about the numbers. that still doesn't change that it was only democrats (edit: and one independent) who voted against this bill (and most of them did vote against it). the leadership fucked up. plain and simple. i have a feeling if they hadn't waited until just before recess to debate this bill, then the whole thing would have played out differently.

also: just as many republicans were "too stupid" to vote on this bill

[Edited on August 15, 2007 at 3:25 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on August 15, 2007 at 3:27 PM. Reason : .]

8/15/2007 3:24:42 PM

The leadership fucked up and didn't tell their robot senators how to vote? Is that how this works? They cant figure it out on their own? Can I get a robot senator so I can have them auto vote for what i want?

I guess there is plenty of failure to spread around, but if your excuse is "we didn't have time to read the new version because we had to go on vacation" then i think we should probably have another election.

Quote :

" just as many republicans were "too stupid" to vote on this bill "

but the difference is they're republicans. These are the almighty democrats elected by the will of the people to take the country back and turn things around.

8/15/2007 3:35:17 PM

Quote :

"I guess there is plenty of failure to spread around, but if your excuse is "we didn't have time to read the new version because we had to go on vacation" then i think we should probably have another election."

that's not it at all. there was pressure from all directions to fix fisa because of some new (mind you classified) threat that had just become evident by some classified court case. bush threatened to keep call congress during its recess if they didn't pass a fisa bill. so the house and senate took this seriously. everyone was working together on language that would please most everyone. and then bush introduced new language. i think it just took people off-guard. they didn't necessarily want all of what was in the new bill, but they also didn't want to go home not having passed a new fisa bill.

to claim that i'm saying that they're robot senators is obviously flawed because the senators didn't follow the lead. the leadership of the republican party obviously knows how to keep their block together so that they are not vulnerable to maneuvers like the one that bush pulled.

Quote :

"but the difference is they're republicans. These are the almighty democrats elected by the will of the people to take the country back and turn things around."

what good is this tone doing you?

[Edited on August 15, 2007 at 3:46 PM. Reason : .]

8/15/2007 3:45:44 PM

Quote :

"they didn't necessarily want all of what was in the new bill, but they also didn't want to go home not having passed a new fisa bill."

Then they shouldn't have gone home until they had a working bill. Saying "OMGARRR THERES A TURRRIST ATTAK INCOMING (but i cant tell you the details its classifed) GIVE DA PREZ MORE POWR" isn't an excuse for a half assed bill either.

What the democrats need to realize is that its ok for them to stand against the administration if they're doing the right thing.

Prez wont accept time table in war spending bill? Thats fine dont pass a bill. Troops come home problem solved.

Prez wants his illegal wiretapping legalized because of some upcoming threat he cant talk about? Thats fine dont pass the bill. We should not be giving up our right to privacy for some false sense of security.

Quote :

"to claim that i'm saying that they're robot senators is obviously flawed because the senators didn't follow the lead. "

what i meant was that you were saying these democrats that voted for it weren't smart enough to figure it out on their own. They should be very capable of reading ammendments to a bill and then saying "this is what my constituents want" or "this is not what they want". A central democratic party authority should not be required to make the decision for them.

Quote :

"what good is this tone doing you? "

leading up to this debacle, all we heard from the mainstream media and from the democratic leadership going into the mid term elections and after, was that the american people wanted a change and the democrats were going to do it. That the "culture of curruption" was a republican only thing and that the democratic party was going to put a stop to that, the war, and all these problems we have. But for all that rhetoric we have no meaningful change.

8/15/2007 4:04:03 PM

Quote :

"What the democrats need to realize is that its ok for them to stand against the administration if they're doing the right thing. Prez wont accept time table in war spending bill? Thats fine dont pass a bill. Troops come home problem solved. Prez wants his illegal wiretapping legalized because of some upcoming threat he cant talk about? Thats fine dont pass the bill. We should not be giving up our right to privacy for some false sense of security. "

i totally agree

Quote :

"what i meant was that you were saying these democrats that voted for it weren't smart enough to figure it out on their own. They should be very capable of reading ammendments to a bill and then saying "this is what my constituents want" or "this is not what they want". A central democratic party authority should not be required to make the decision for them. "

the problem with this bill in particular is that their constituencies CAN'T know all the details.

[Edited on August 15, 2007 at 4:09 PM. Reason : .]

8/15/2007 4:08:36 PM

why would the constituents need to know the details? they elect their representatives based on their own views and values so that they don't need to know all the details

8/15/2007 4:17:00 PM

well, some of the representatives themselves can't even know all the details. this is why the leadership is more to blame with this bill specifically.

[Edited on August 15, 2007 at 4:19 PM. Reason : .]

8/15/2007 4:18:47 PM

Biden chides Democrats for losing approach

Quote :

"MANCHESTER – Sen. Joe Biden says the three front-runners in the Democratic presidential race are using 'Bill Clinton triangulation' and 'Karl Rove anger' to deliver a divisive message as they fight for approval of the party's liberal base. It's an approach Biden says will make it nearly impossible for the one who survives the nominating battle and the general election to govern effectively. Biden, a 35-year Capitol Hill veteran who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is fighting for even a small fraction of the media attention paid to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. Long known as much for being brutally honest -- sometimes to the point of verbal gaffes -- as for his foreign policy expertise, Biden, 64, was tough on Clinton, Obama and Edwards in an interview on Thursday. Biden also said the Democratic Party 'has lost faith in the American people in terms of leveling with them' [emphasis added]. And he gave a frank assessment of his own longshot chance of becoming the Democratic nominee. Biden acknowledged his words sometimes get him into trouble. It happened in New Hampshire 20 years ago, when he challenged a local man to compare IQs. 'I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do,' Biden said at the time. Now, Biden shakes his head and laughs. 'Right on the ball,' he said with self-deprecating sarcasm. 'I was ready to be President, huh? That's why I had two craniotomies. I had them go in and take out the temper cord.' Biden was hospitalized twice in 1988 for cerebral aneurysms. Biden said his primary rivals and the Democratic Party in general have learned nothing from 'the whipping we took the last two times' in presidential elections. 'I am, quote, liberal as it relates to social issues,' he said. 'But you've never heard me make a populist argument about the rich and the poor,' a key aspect of the Edwards-Clinton-Obama approach. 'I don't believe it, number one, and I don't think it's how you win. 'Rich folks are as patriotic as poor folks, but we (Democrats) don't talk that way,' he said. Biden said 'all of the candidates' of his party 'have cast their lot in a way that has increased the degree of difficulty of winning a general election in toss-up states' [emphasis added]. He said nothing has been learned from the fact that elections focused on energizing the two major parties' conservative and liberal bases, while ignoring the idea of building consensus, have led to virtual gridlock on major policy issues in Washington at a critical time in the nation's history. 'This tendency in American politics is that we learn the wrong lessons from one another,' Biden said. 'We pick up the tactical successes of the outfit before and it is just a race to the bottom. I mean, really and truly, it just keeps going. It's like a spiral. 'I talk about the fact that we've got to trust the American people more,' he said. 'I'm not acting like the honest guy in the corner. I'm a politician. But I really think my party kind of learned the wrong lessons. I think they really lost faith in the American people in terms of leveling with them. 'I think most of the major Democrats think the way to win is through Bill Clinton triangulation and Karl Rove anger,' said Biden. 'Go to your base. Get your base riled up. You go out and make someone the boogie man' [emphasis added]. Biden said such an approach will make Clinton, Edwards or Obama 'lightning rods' in the general election, while he, as a self-described consensus-builder, will have a '15- to 18-red state strategy. 'With any of the top three,' he said, 'you will see a 20-plus-five strategy, the same 20 states we won the last two times and five other swing states. 'My problem with that is -- and you're going to think this is pure political crap -- I don't want to be President if that's the way I have to win. Because if I win, I can't govern that way. How the hell do you establish a consensus?" But how can Biden, despite his lengthy Capitol Hill resume, become the nominee? He's consistently run in single digits in polls in New Hampshire, first-caucus state Iowa and nationally. His job as chairman of an important and powerful committee has kept him off the campaign trail more than he would like, and, he says, he is far from being a fund-raising machine. According to Federal Election Commission filings, as of Sept. 30, Biden had raised $4.5 million for his campaign and had less than $2 million on hand. Clinton, by comparison, had raised $73 million and had $50 million on hand. Biden said he lags behind because as a senator from Delaware who is routinely reelected, he does not have a large fund-raising network. And, he says, 'I'm not big on interest groups. 'I haven't met with a lobbyist in 35 years as a senator. I won't do it,' he said, acknowledging, however, that the ban does not apply to his staff. Biden also cited the 'phenomenon' that is Clinton and Obama, 'two people who have gotten an inordinate amount of free publicity, more than any two people have ever received in presidential history. That begets money.' Said Biden, 'People say, "You're the most qualified guy, but you can't win the primary. You can win the general election, but you can't win the primary." Why can't I win? Because I don't have any money. Why don't I have any money? Because they say I can't win.' But Biden said he hopes to raise enough money before Dec. 1 to purchase television advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire and begin to make headway. He said the rush by several big states to the front of the nominating calendar has made Iowa and New Hampshire's contests more important than ever, and so his fate lies entirely with those two states. 'If I come out of Iowa one, two or three, I'm in the game.' If not, 'I think I'm probably gone,' he said. 'If there's not a headline in the paper that says that Biden exceeded expectations, then I think it's probably over. But then again, if Richardson, Obama, Edwards or Dodd don't do that, then I don't think they're going to be the nominee, either.' Biden contended that the 'serious press' has already concluded that neither Obama nor Edwards is 'the courser that can carry the sleigh to beat Hillary. 'Everybody's looking for somebody as an alternative,' Biden said. 'I think I'm going to get my shot in the barrel here. If I come out one, two or three, I'm not likely to have to go through the prism of, is he capable of sitting behind the desk? That's not been my problem this time. I'm the guy who probably in the mind of a lot of Democrats, is, if not the most qualified, then qualified. It's a question of, "Can he win?"'"

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Biden+chides+Democrats+for+losing+approach&articleId=4a66eb35-c51f-418a-a239-35bfe94c1b78

11/12/2007 3:41:29 PM