Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere: Special 4th Amendment Trampling Edition

Last week was one for the ages -- one in which our own team decided, just like George W. Bush, that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is just a fucking piece of paper, one that means nothing as compared to the siren song of campaign cash and the prospect of Joe Scarborough and Wolf Blitzer and Suckleupagus saying mean thing.

It's one thing to do what we can to elect "not just more, but better" Democrats, as Blue America PAC and Color of Change are trying to do. (And just as an aside, if any of the Alpha Dogs from said groups are reading this, you might consider a bit more inclusiveness of your lesser bloggren in this effort instead of having this be just another meeting of the Kool Kidz Klub -- we'd be happy to help if you'll just fucking ASK.) But if all of our civil liberties are destroyed by the time such Democrats are elected (even assuming that elections will last that long, which with this handing of ever more power to the executive branch remains questionable), will there be anything left for them to defend?

So while the Alpha Dogz and Kool Kidz are engaging in their laudable, if exclusionary, efforts to do something about sellouts like Steny Hoyer and get our nominee to do the right thing (and let's not talk about how Saint Hillary would have been any different, shall we? She wouldn't.), let's take a look at what some of us have to say:

First stop (as well it should be): Driftglass has a few words about the feckless "leadership" of Nancy Pelosi (which shows that just because an elected leader has a vagina instead of a penis doesn't by definition mean she'll be any less of a hack).

Hubris Sonic sez to Senator Obama, "You Don't Mess With the Netroots."

Carol Gee has an Ode to the Fourth Amendment.

Dave Johnson wants you to hear what Cenk Uygur has to say the Democrats' capitulation. (And I want you to hear what Sam Seder and Marc Maron have to say about it.)

I would SO buy one of these T-shirts if Batocchio has them made up.

Earth-Bound Misfit has some tips for writing your Senator demanding that they do the right thing and vote against this travesty.

Ornery Bastard writes his Congressman. (My Congressman is Scott Garrett, which means it would be a complete waste of my time. Still nothing from Dennis Shulman on his stand on telecom immunity.)

Another lower-case-o ornery lower-case-b bastard, PhysioProf, agrees with me that the wiretaps have been about first getting the goods on members of Congress, and wants to know what they have.

Doghouse Riley warns against assuming that OUR guy will only do GOOD things with this power.

I Can't Believe It's Not a Democracy promises to vote for Hillary in 2012 if she mounts a filibuster against this bill. (I for one am not holding my breath; see introduction.)

Even Jen Clark took time out from her sojourn around Europe looking for a place to settle that's more sane than the U.S. is at this juncture to weigh in.

What slim said.

OK, this has nothing to do with FISA, but Cookie Jill notes that missing hedge fund swindler Sam Israel has connections to ... wait for it ... the Bush family, through one John P. Ellis -- yup, the same Bush cousin who called the 2000 election for Captain Fuckup for Faux News.

This doesn't have to do with FISA either, except that the FISA foofarah is supposedly tangentially related to George W. Bush's War of Terror. But go read jurassicpork's post on other people's sacrifice today. Then think about the Orgy O'Grief And Self-Congratulation we've seen in the media this week by the members of the Timmy Cult. Then go watch this video of a 21-year-old Bergen County woman with a new baby whose National Guard unit is being sent to Iraq so that George W. Bush doesn't have to take the political heat of instituting a draft in order to have enough bodies to feed into the meat grinder of Iraq. Then think about Andrea Mitchell having the vapors on Press the Meat this morning because Barack Obama opted out of federal financing (mentioning nothing about how John McCain gamed the system for the primaries. Then put it all together and ask yourself what the fuck country we live in, how the hell we let it get this way, and if there's anything left for us to do to fix it.