Chris Dodd

After Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold issued a strongly worded statement opposing the FISA bill that passed the House of Representatives yesterday, rumors of a filibuster quickly began to circulate. But nowhere in the actual statement did it say that Dodd and Feingold would filibuster the legislation.

On Amy Goodman's TV/radio program Democracy Now, Goodman pushed for a clarification from Feingold:

GOODMAN: Senator Feingold, will you filibuster this bill?

FEINGOLD: We are going to resist this bill. We are going to make sure that the procedural votes are gone through. In other words, a filibuster is requiring sixty votes to proceed to the bill, sixty votes to get cloture on the legislation. We will also-Senator Dodd and I and others will be taking some time to talk about this on the floor. We're not just going to let it be rubberstamped.

GOODMAN: Would you filibuster, though?

FEINGOLD: That's what I just described.

Dodd and Feingold have their legislative bag of tricks out and they are going to make passage of the so-called FISA compromise as painful as possible. At the end of the 2007 Congressional session, Dodd ran out the clock on an earlier version of FISA that included telecom immunity.

Is there a bigger mortgage scandal a'brewin' in Washington? By now you've read about Senators Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who -- they say unknowingly -- received VIP treatment on their home loans from Countrywide. Now Politico is wondering how widespread the problem is. Politico has asked all 100 senators to reveal the details of their mortgages. "Seventy-seven senators have complied so far. Twenty-three have not."

Senate ethics experts say the controversy over the special mortgages received by Dodd and Conrad has opened a window into the clubby world where senators can dial up major banking executives and discuss their financial needs, as Conrad did.

"This short list of senators who did not disclose is where I would start an investigation," said Keith Ashdown, a vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. By failing to disclose, he said, senators are "not only in the cross hairs of investigators, but they're also making this a political issue in an election year, because it looks like they have something to hide."

Right now senators don't have to disclose home loan details unless they're getting rental income from the property, but now with the Dodd and Conrad controversies Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to change the rules and make such information public.

The Senate is debating a huge mortgage bailout bill this week amid fresh allegations that certain high-powered senators and former cabinet officials received preferential treatment from mortgage giant Countrywide Financial on their personal loans. Sen. Christopher Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and chief sponsor of the mortgage compromise legislation, received two below market loans from Countrywide in 2003 under its "friends of Angelo" program. "Angelo" is Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozillo. After first denying it, Dodd has admitted that he knew he was receiving special treatment on his loans as a "V.I.P.," but continues to deny that he sought any deal that would benefit him financially.

But Dodd's troubles are growing, and may eventually wind up killing the mortgage bailout bill he co-authored with Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby. A new examination of Dodd's campaign contributions reveals that since Dodd became chairman of the Banking Committee in 2007, he has received over $70,000 in contributions from Bank of America and its high-level employees. Bank of America recently bought Countrywide Financial and all of its existing loans. Since Countrywide held the most sub-prime mortgages at risk of default, Bank of America is potentially exposed to huge losses, unless a government bailout moves those risky loans off Countrywide's balance sheet. Dodd has written such a bailout, and some are now questioning whether his low interest loans and Bank of America's campaign money influenced that legislation.

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has decided to endorse Barack Obama today. In addition to the symbolic import of a nod from one of the most respected Democrats in congress--and a recent high-profile contender for the nomination--the endorsement means yet another Super-delegate is breaking Obama's way. More up-to-the-minute news of the Supers can be found here.

The Senate finally passed an update of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that includes immunity for telecommunications companies that aided government eavesdropping on American citizens. The resolution comes after a long struggle that featured internal party battles, threats of filibusters and presidential vetoes and a sustained online campaign by progressive blogs.

The battle moves to the House of Representatives, where the current version of the legislation does not include immunity. If the House version passes without immunity, the issue will be determined in reconciliation negotiations before it is sent to President Bush. Bush has vowed to veto any surveillance bill that does not include immunity for the telecoms.

They've become almost like distant family over this long year-and-a-half campaign that still has another eight months to go -- the kind of family you pray won't actually show up at Christmas or Thanksgiving, but family nonetheless. Many have already left the 2008 race, and many more will be gone come Super Tuesday.

For those of us who follow politics, we know at least some of them by first name: Rudy, Barack, Dennis, Hitlery. And we know one of them by two first names, because that's how much Ron Paul loved Freedom.

Others, we didn't really get to know at all. They were like the fifth cousin who calls at 3:46 a.m. from the pay phone at Lincoln County Jail. It was best to just pretend it was a wrong number and go back to sleep.

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." - Kevin Spacey as Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects

In this case, the Devil is the Mainstream media, and they're trying to convince you that Ron Paul and John Edwards don't exist. Coverage of the Iowa Caucuses has been replete with the usual spin, and Rumpelstiltskin couldn't unspin all of it, but to me, the spin on Edwards and Paul rings particularly false.

First, in the case of Edwards, although the final tally shows Barack Obama leading Edwards by almost 8 points, but keeping in mind the caucus rules and the fact that Edwards led in entrance polls, albeit by a slim margin, and it's hard to consider this a death blow for Edwards. How does he beat Hillary Clinton, yet she's considered "viable" by the MSM yet Edwards should pack up and go home?

Ron Paul is a different story. The Mainstream Media isn't even telling him to pack up and go home, because that would require them to say his name. Maybe they think they're protecting us, but that isn't their job. Perhaps their feeling, to paraphrase Mr. Kint once more:

Keaton always said, "I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him." Well, I believe in God -- and the only thing that scares me... is Ron Paul."

It is a well-known fact that Chris Dodd has my vote as long as he's in the presidential race, but I haven't really dug into his positions, so I'd like to do that now, much as I did with Ron Paul. The format of that story, I think, resonated with people. I'm not sure how much of that had to do with the zeal of Paul's supporters, but it makes sense to me to evaluate a candidate first on what he or she says. If they don't pass that test, there's little point in paying attention to gaffes and scandals and gotchas, oh my!

In the law, there's a thing called prima facie, on it's face. If a candidate's case is weak on it's face, i.e. their stated positions, there's no point in seeing if they can back those positions up. That's my premise, so let's take a look at Chris Dodd in his own words. I wish I'd had this idea earlier than this, but that's life, ain't it? Hopefully I'll get to do a bunch more of these. Once more, here's where my support of Senator Dodd began.

According to an article on Politico, John Edwards is now in a statistical tie with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the upcoming Iowa Democratic caucus, and has distinct advantages over the front-runners going into the home stretch. Not only is Edwards on the upswing in the polls while his opponents have stabilized, but he also has a lead in support from voters who actually showed up for the 2004 caucus. Perhaps more important than t

hat is Edwards' ground game:

Edwards' campaign boasts the most deeply rooted rural operation, allowing it to possibly win small precincts across the state that could prove crucial in the final tally.

"We have a really good ground game," Edwards' Iowa co-chairman Rob Tully said. "We have people that are seasoned from last time and we know what to do. If the weather is bad, our people are the most dedicated and we will win."

This is good news for voters and a lesson that surely will be lost on the GAHOPC. (Gaffe and Horserace Obsessed Pundit Class) To quote that great American political consultant Charlie Brown, "Tell your statistics to shut up!"

The internecine battle between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd over immunity for telecommunications companies involved in the NSA's domestic surveillance program started with a comment posted on a blog.

In a post on Salon.Com Glen Greenwald traced the idea that a single Senator could kill immunity by placing a hold on the bill to a comment written by a reader named Jim White in October.