Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Republicans want to perform an end run by asking the U.S. Department of Justice to look into the Ohio voting issue. At stake are 200,000 voters who have minor discrepancies between their registration and the voter database.

As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., used as an example, if he signed his driver’s license Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., but the database had his name as Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., then he would be disqualified to vote. Voting is the primary privilege of a citizen of a Democracy. The Republicans would like to take this right away from as many voters as possible. 

For the White House to use the Department of Justice to interfere with voting again, just as in the last election, is an outrageous act that only Republicans without any sense of shame would dare pursue.  This will end badly for Republicans.

The White House has asked the Department of Justice to look into whether 200,000 new Ohio voters must reconfirm their registration information before Nov. 4, taking up an issue that Republicans and Democrats in the battleground state have been fighting over in court for weeks.

The voter names are in dispute because their registration information conflicts with other official data.

The action comes a week after the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by the Ohio Republican Party over the same issue. Republicans have argued that the mismatched information could signal fraudulent registrations, but Democrats have countered that eligible voters could be knocked off the rolls over discrepancies as minor as a transposed number in an address or birth date.

Voting rights advocates, however, immediately raised concerns. “This is taking the politicization of this to a new level, and the last thing we need is for the elections officials and voters of Ohio to be put in a chaotic situation in the last days before the election,” said Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Brunner this week directed local elections boards not to eliminate voters solely on a mismatch, and yesterday issued orders urging boards not to force voters to use provisional ballots over minor issues.

“The statewide voter database was never intended to be a litmus test for voter eligibility,” said Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for Brunner. “Every Ohioan must provide ID to prove their identity before their vote is counted. Ohioans can be completely confident in our preparations for a successful November election.”

Intervention on election matters has been a troubling issue at the Department of Justice and figured in the controversy over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

t r u t h o u t | White House Asks DOJ to Intervene in Ohio.

This is a non-partisan issue. Left-wing and Right-wing groups have come together in support of this effort, hence the name, “Strange Bedfellows”.

Please visit Accountability Now PAC and sign up for your pledge on August 8th, 2008. Even $5.00 will make a difference, so do not think that any amount is too small to give.

August 8, 2008—this is the date for our Strangebedfellows MONEYBOMB on behalf of constitutional rights and civil liberties in America. Let’s remove from power the key enablers of the tyrannical and lawless FISA ‘compromise;’ we can end the Patriot Act—and so much more. Join with us by pledging now—right here at AccountabilityNowPAC.com. Become a part of our transpartisan alliance of freedom lovers! Be a Strangebedfellow!

Who Are The Strangebedfellows?
Strangebedfellows is a unique and diverse left–right coalition which has come together to put a stop to the eradication of civil liberties in America. Modeled on a similar group in Britain, the initial Strangebedfellows group encompasses Ron Paul supporters (BreakTheMatrix.com, Rick Williams and Trevor Lyman), leading bloggers from the left (Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, Jane Hamsher of firedoglake.com) and many more who share the view that warrantless surveillance, telecom immunity and other such outrages of the lawless surveillance state MUST END—AND END NOW.

Our group of Strangebedfellows is organizing a moneybomb on behalf of AccountabilityNowPAC, and we’re reaching out to friends and colleagues from across the political spectrum who believe in the Bill of Rights and freedom in America. So join us– become a Strangebedfellow! Add your name and group to our list of backers, and enter your pledge today to donate to AccountabilityNowPAC. Let’s reverse these police state sellouts by our political leaders—FOREVER.

Here’s What We’re Asking You To Do
Strangebedfellows has retained BreakTheMatrix to serve as our moneybomb organizer and service provider for a massive donations collection effort on behalf of AccountabilityNowPAC. Remember the giant moneybombs from the Ron Paul presidential campaign? Well Trevor Lyman was the man behind those efforts, and he and his BreakTheMatrix colleagues are the leading experts in the world in online moneybomb fundraising. Here’s how it works:

You enter your pledge today—RIGHT NOW– by clicking the “Pledge” button on the side of this website screen. This pledge becomes your commitment to contribute (maximum donation $5000) to AccountabilityNowPAC on August 8, 2008—the moneybomb collection day.

Visit our website often over the next month to watch the pledges mount and to learn about the growing array of supporters and groups who are choosing to become Strangebedfellows with us. Then the key event—you COME BACK on August 8, 2008, and make your actual money contribution through our online collection service right here at www.AccountabilityNowPAC.com. The force and power of a moneybomb is simple and straightforward.

We all donate on the SAME DAY, and working together we send our political leaders (Democrat and Republican) a freedom message they will never forget. So help us make it work. Pledge today; then come back and donate on the 8th. Let’s show our leaders once and for all that there is a POWERFUL movement here that will settle for nothing less than constitutional governance in America.

Why August 8th?

That is the day in 1974 when Richard Nixon was forced to resign from office for his lawbreaking and surveillance abuses. That day illustrates how far we have fallen in this country in less than 35 years, as we now not only permit rampant presidential lawbreaking and a limitless surveillance state, but have a bipartisan political class that endorses it and even retroactively protects the lawbreakers.

Accountability Now PAC | StrangeBedfellows.

Early next week the U.S. Senate will vote on an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with a few small amendments intended to immunize telecommunications corporations that assisted our government in the warrantless and illegal wiretapping it has grown to love.

That such a gutting of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution even made it out of committee is yet another stain on the gutless and seemingly powerless Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

That a majority on both sides of the aisle — not least of them the presumptive nominees for president of both political parties — intend to vote for such a violation of Americans’ right to privacy and of the sanctity of their personal communications is a stunning surrender to those who want us to live in fear forever.

We are living in a time when the right of habeas corpus — which simply put is your right to be brought before a proper court of law where the government is made to prove that there is good and legal reason to detain you — recently survived by a margin of only one vote at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now these bad actors are prepared to set aside your right to privacy — written into the Constitution as a key part of our Bill of Rights — with hardly a nod in the direction of the true patriots who rebelled against an English king and his army to guarantee those rights.

That they will do this while the last empty phrases of the political windbags at the Fourth of July celebrations are still echoing across a thousand city parks and the bright red, white and blue bunting and blizzard of American flags still flap in the breeze is little short of breath-taking.

How dare they?

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 07/03/2008 | Commentary: How dare they rip the Fourth Amendment?.

Here is an excerpt of his take on the weak effort by Obama to justify his support of FISA.

Barack Obama has issued a new statement on FISA in response to the growing number of his supporters objecting to his position. Genuine credit to him for being responsive this way and for having his site be a forum for disagreement among his supporters and himself. Providing a forum for those sorts of debates is a sign of a secure and healthy campaign.

Despite that, the statement contains many dubious claims and, in a couple cases, outright misleading statements. Worse, Obama’s statement only addressed the objections to the telecom immunity provisions of the bill, while ignoring the objections to the (at least) equally pernicious new warrantless eavesdropping powers the bill authorizes. Taking Obama’s claims in order:

“It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That’s why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.”

Obama says he will vote to remove immunity from the bill but knows full well that this effort will fail, and that the final bill will have telecom immunity in it. The bottom line is that he will nonetheless end up voting for this bill with immunity in it even though he previously vowed to support a filibuster of “any bill” that contains retroactive immunity. Put another way, Obama claims he opposes telecom immunity but will vote for a bill that grants it.

“But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year.”

Whether it’s better than the Protect America Act (PAA) is irrelevant. The PAA already expired last February. If the new FISA bill is rejected, we don’t revert back to the Protect America Act. We just continue to live under the same FISA law that we’ve lived under for 30 years (with numerous post-9/11 modernizing amendments). So whether this bill is a mild improvement over the atrocious, expired PAA is not even a coherent reason to support it, let alone a persuasive one.

UT Documents: Obama’s new statement on FISA.

There is no Telecom Constituency. There is no Telecom Immunity movement. There is no Telecom Immunity voting block.

Here is Chris Dodd’s statement regarding the move to consider the FISA legislation:

“I am deeply disappointed that the Senate has voted to move forward with the consideration of this misguided FISA legislation. If passed, this legislation will ratify a domestic spying regime that has already concentrated far too much unaccountable power in the president’s hands and will place the telecommunications companies above the law.”

“I stand ready to offer an amendment that strips the retroactive immunity provision out of the bill. I implore my colleagues to support of the rule of law and join me in voting against retroactive immunity.”

The President of the United States has only one oath, and that is to protect and defend the Constitution. Everything else is secondary. Everything.

Senator Obama, you know you will not get the Telecom Immunity stripped from the FISA bill. Your statements in the past say that passing a bill like the current FISA legislation would be wrong.

Senator Obama, will you vote for a bill you yourself said was wrong?

By the way, we are way too knowledgeable to be hoodwinked by generalizations like “this is an improvement over the Protect America Act”. That does not make it okay to gut the Fourth Amendment. FISA has worked and will continue to work, without these proposed changes. You said so yourself.

Here are your words from January 28, 2008:

“I strongly oppose retroactive immunity in the FISA bill.” “Ever since 9/11, this Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.”

“The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.”

“No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people — not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed.”

“That is why I am co-sponsoring Senator Dodd’s amendment to remove the immunity provision. Secrecy must not trump accountability. We must show our citizens - and set an example to the world - that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient.”

Talking Points Memo has the complete rundown on Obama’s changing positions on FISA. It is well worth reading.

People ask, what is the big deal about FISA?

Without every part of the Constitution intact, we do not have a representative government. We have at best a benevolent dictator, who can change his intentions on a whim, if he so chooses.

Why are we reacting to the prospect of Barack Obama voting for FISA?

In Barack Obama’s own words:

“I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington… I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

Well, too bad for you Senator Obama, we believe.

I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to those of you who oppose my decision to support the FISA compromise.

This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn’t have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush’s abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping.

This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That’s why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.

But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any President or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court.

In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited. As I’ve said many times, an independent monitor must watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people. This compromise law assures that the FISA court has that responsibility

The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted. It will allow a close look at past misconduct without hurdles that would exist in federal court because of classification issues. The recent investigation uncovering the illegal politicization of Justice Department hiring sets a strong example of the accountability that can come from a tough and thorough IG report.

The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I’m persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe — particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer. Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I’ve chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention — once I’m sworn in as President — to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.

Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the current bill, and I’m happy to take my lumps on this side and elsewhere. For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions. No tool has been more important in focusing peoples’ attention on the abuses of executive power in this Administration than the active and sustained engagement of American citizens. That holds true — not just on wiretapping, but on a range of issues where Washington has let the American people down.

I learned long ago, when working as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, that when citizens join their voices together, they can hold their leaders accountable. I’m not exempt from that. I’m certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too. I cannot promise to agree with you on every issue. But I do promise to listen to your concerns, take them seriously, and seek to earn your ongoing support to change the country. That is why we have built the largest grassroots campaign in the history of presidential politics, and that is the kind of White House that I intend to run as President of the United States — a White House that takes the Constitution seriously, conducts the peoples’ business out in the open, welcomes and listens to dissenting views, and asks you to play your part in shaping our country’s destiny.

Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That’s ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have. After all, the choice in this election could not be clearer. Whether it is the economy, foreign policy, or the Supreme Court, my opponent has embraced the failed course of the last eight years, while I want to take this country in a new direction. Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change. But if we come together, we have an historic opportunity to chart a new course, a better course.

So I appreciate the feedback through my.barackobama.com, and I look forward to continuing the conversation in the months and years to come. Together, we have a lot of work to do.

For those of us who thought the days of the weak, co-dependent Democratic politicians were coming to an end, Barack Obama has not only resurrected that rotting corpse, but he plans to parade around Washington D.C. with it for the next four years.

I hear some people saying that this was a politically savvy move. What is politically savvy about cheating on those to whom you have made a vow, and they in return?

Barack Obama just jumped in bed with a woman who cares nothing about him, leaving the one he went to the altar with in tears. Can it be forgiven? Yes. Do things ever return to the way they were before the infidelity? No.

So, all this support from the Democrats that care about the Constitution has just been thrown away. And for what? Approval of the Republicans that *might* cross-over and vote for him? The shameful behavior of Democrats seems to never end. They never fail to disappoint.

Even now, the Republicans are laughing at this once principled man, and taunting him like some Republican bully in the school-yard. From the Huffington Post:

In a press conference call this morning, John McCain surrogate Sam Brownback (R-KS) pointed at Barack Obama and essentially called him a spineless panderer — and welcomed it, saying he expected Obama to cave in on Iraq withdrawal next. McCain senior policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, with tremendous self-assurance, described Obama’s support for the FISA bill — a bill McCain also supports! — as an example of Obama’s supreme commitment to his own “political fortunes” above all else. And then, to underscore how weak they now consider Obama to be, the McCain campaign then issued an “In Case You Missed It” press release with a transcript highlighting these statements.

In other words: it’s not just MoveOn.org and others on the left who are questioning Obama’s principles over the FISA flap; even his opponents are pointing the finger and laughing at him for being such a panderer and accommodationist. And Obama hasn’t even voted on the bill yet!

Brownback said Obama’s spinelessness on the D.C. gun ban, campaign funding, and, most importantly, on FISA, meant he probably would eventually cave in on Iraq. Brownback even “set down a marker” — dared Obama — to concede on Iraq just like he’s said he’ll do on FISA.

M.S. Bellows, Jr.: Republicans Taunt Obama As Spineless Over FISA Reversal - Off The Bus on The Huffington Post.

Here’s how it all went down. Over the weekend, Barack Obama announced that — although not in favor of the idea of retroactive immunity for the shady corporatations that helped our own government spy on us — he supports the FISA legislation that the Senate is about to pass that will magically make all the illegal wire-tapping that the White House did legal after all.

But it’s all alright, because he super double-dog swears that, as president, he won’t take advantage of the power to watch over all of America like Big Brother…

“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,”

Obama said in a statement hours after the House approved the legislation 293-129.

Oh, well, he seems like a nice man. How can you mind surrendering your Constitutional rights to someone so charming?

Anyway, uber-lib Glenn Greenwald over at Salon was quick to get all “Waa waa waa, I don’t want the Constitution torn to shreds” on Obama’s ass…

It is absolutely false that the only unconstitutional and destructive provision of this “compromise” bill is the telecom amnesty part. It’s true that most people working to defeat the Cheney/Rockefeller bill viewed opposition to telecom amnesty as the most politically potent way to defeat the bill, but the bill’s expansion of warrantless eavesdropping powers vested in the President, and its evisceration of safeguards against abuses of those powers, is at least as long-lasting and destructive as the telecom amnesty provisions.

The bill legalizes many of the warrantless eavesdropping activities George Bush secretly and illegally ordered in 2001. Those warrantless eavesdropping powers violate core Fourth Amendment protections.

And Barack Obama now supports all of it, and will vote it into law. Those are just facts.

Isn’t it just like a liberal to want to conserve our inalienable rights and keep the federal government from amassing too much power? F—ing predictable.

Barack Obama vs. Barack Obama Supporters | Indecision2008 | Comedy Central.

I support the Constitution and the rule of law – not a specific candidate. This week, in a stunning reversal, Barack Obama has said that the Constitution and the rule of law do not matter when compared to our security interests.

Gee, where have I heard that before? Thank goodness I’m from Wisconsin and can still look up to Senator Russ Feingold, who would tear his heart out before voting for laws like FISA that rob us of our Fourth Amendment rights.

For the Democrats who believe that Barack Obama is going to change things, like I did, perhaps his speech in 2002 was just a fluke. When push came to shove this week, he capitulated, compromised, ignored his base, and is now spouting Republican talking points. This is what we have come to expect from Democrats. It is apparently in their DNA to be invertebrates.

There is only one thing that the President of the United States has to defend: The Constitution. Everything else is secondary. Everything.

When it mattered most, Barack Obama failed to act. This will be remembered the same way that Hillary Clinton’s vote to proceed with the Iraq War has been, a craven, gutless attempt to gain power by abandoning the very principles people elected you to uphold.

Oh yes, I will vote for Obama, and yes he will be elected.  By the way, nice flag lapel pin, Barack.  So much for showing your patriotism in your heart rather than on your clothing.

Here’s more from the Daily Kos (emphasis mine):

In a reversal of previous policy statements, from October, 2007 and January, 2008, and again in February, 2008, Barack Obama now says telco amnesty just isn’t that important. Greg Sargent:

Asked specifically why he’s supporting the current FISA bill when he’d promised months ago to support a filibuster of an earlier version of the bill, Obama suggested flat out that “national security” overrides the question of telecom immunity… It’s true that Obama says mitigating things like we need to be “watching the watchers.” But here’s the key quote from him:

“The bill has changed. So I don’t think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people.”

Obama’s line on national security here seems to be affirmation of something that many understood already: That he will support the bill even if telecom immunity isn’t stripped from it, despite his promise to try to get immunity out of the legislation. If the issue of telecom immunity doesn’t override national security, he’ll of course vote for the bill with or without it.

Not that telco amnesty and national security really have anything to do with each other, or that this FISA bill actually does make us safer. It’s disturbing, to say the least, to see that Senator Obama has adopted the talking points of Steny Hoyer and the Right on the issue.

Daily Kos: Obama on FISA

It was only last October that TPM announced that Barack Obama had agreed to filibuster any legislation that contained immunity for the Telecoms.

What a difference eight months make:

It’s official: Obama will back a filibuster of any Senate FISA legislation containing telecom immunity, his campaign has just told Election Central. The Obama campaign has just sent over the following statement from spokesman Bill Burton:

“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

As we reported here yesterday, MoveOn and a dozen top liberal bloggers were preparing to wage an aggressive campaign today to pressure Obama and Hillary to say that they’ll support Chris Dodd’s vow to filibuster any Senate FISA bill containing telecom immunity. And late yesterday both Obama and Hillary put out statements saying that they’d back Dodd’s threatened filibuster of the current legislation that’s just come out of the Senate intel committee.

Those statements, however, lacked the clarity that immunity opponents have been looking for, so today the MoveOn and lib blogger campaign has been in full swing. MoveOn emailed members this morning urging them to call Obama and Hillary and…

Tell him/her the public is counting on him/her to filibuster any bill that gives immunity to phone companies that broke the law.

Now we have Obama’s answer: He’ll support a filibuster of any such bill.

When informed of Obama’s decision, MoveOn expressed relief. “Excellent — this is the kind of leadership we need to see from the Democratic candidates,” MoveOn spokesman Adam Green told Election Central. “Dodd, Biden, and Obama all agree. Will Clinton get on board?”

To hear Hoyer tell the story, one would think that he fought the battle of the Alamo, and survived! In reality, Hoyer was one of the men who left the Alamo before the battle began, accompanying the women and children who were also unable to fight.

Except that Hoyer was able to fight. Instead, he chose not to.  Hoyer willingly failed to stand up for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

As they have done so many times before, the Democrats have rubber-stamped Bush’s law-breaking by making every crime he has committed “legal”.  It is still unconstitutional behavior, no matter how Hoyer wants to portray it. The United States does not have just have a “Bush problem”.  We have a “Democratic enabler” problem as well, and these enablers are 100% as guilty (or more) as the Bush crime syndicate.

Glenn explains that the nature of a compromise, is, well… compromise – not total capitulation to the other side’s demands (emphasis mine):

Regarding Pelosi’s claim that the Democrats won “significant concessions” — a claim repeated by Hoyer in the Politico article — Ponnuru says: “If that’s what they want to tell themselves, fine. It sure looks like they got rolled.”

It looks that way because that’s what happened. Who exactly do Pelosi and Hoyer think they’re fooling with these self-glorifying claims that they stood down the Republicans and extracted concessions? Dick Cheney couldn’t wait to endorse the bill and GOP leaders and right-wing polemicists haven’t stopped boasting about how completely Democrats capitulated on what had been one of the most scandalous aspects of the Bush administration — the fact that he got caught breaking the law when spying on Americans.

Doesn’t it rather obviously compound, rather than mitigate, the Democrats’ humiliation to try to pretend this was some great victory when everyone can see how absurd — pitifully so — that claim is?

The Politico article (which, incidentally, misquotes this post of mine completely) also says this:

Despite those efforts, liberal activists were furious at what they view as a sellout by House Democrats on FISA, particularly on the retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

Two liberal groups, Blue America PAC and ColorofChange.org PAC, ran a full-page ad in The Washington Post spelling out their displeasure with Hoyer. But Hoyer has been targeted by the left in the past — MoveOn.org has run radio ads against him — but he was reelected with nearly 83 percent of the vote in 2006, and he’s never drawn less than 65 percent of the vote.

“I am aware of it,” Hoyer said of the loud criticism from progressive groups of the FISA agreement. “When you try to reach a compromise, the people on one side or the other are not pleased.”

Hoyer has this backwards. The nature of a “compromise” is that neither side is happy with the outcome. Where, as here, one side is ecstatic and the other side is furious, that, by definition, is not a “compromise.” It is, as Russ Feingold correctly says, a full-scale “capitulation.” Hoyer’s bill gives the two gifts the administration most wanted — the power to engage in “vacuum-cleaner” surveillance of communications over U.S. telephone and email networks with no warrant requirement (and no required connection to Terrorism) and a guaranteed end to the telecom lawsuits.

Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com.