[Will Clinton, Obama, and Biden help Dodd filibuster? As they promised?]

Reid’s actively working to give retroactive immunity to the telcos. And lying about it. Glenn:

The summarized version is that there were two competing bills which Reid could have brought to the floor — the Senate Intelligence Committee version engineered by Jay Rockefeller and Dick Cheney which gives the administration most of what it wants, and the Senate Judiciary Committee, which does not contain telecom amnesty and contains far more extensive oversight protections. Reid could have brought the bill to the floor using whatever process he wanted, and he has decided — contrary to weeks of assurances — that the SIC bill will serve as the “base” bill, meaning that improving it (by removing amnesty and increasing oversight) will require 60 votes, rendering such efforts virtually impossible. In doing so, Reid is brazenly ignoring the demands of 14 Senators — including all of the Democratic presidential candidates — to have the Judiciary Committee bill be the base bill.

Worse still, Reid is completely disregarding the “hold” placed by Chris Dodd on any amnesty bill — simply refusing to honor it, even as he respectfully honors literally scores of “holds” from GOP Senators such as Tom Coburn. And while Dodd is interrupting his campaigning to fly to Washington to lead the filibuster he vowed, Reid has ensured with scheduling manuevers that the filibuster will take place only over the weekend — when all of the members are away raising money anyway and journalists aren’t paying attention — with the intent to try to force cloture once everyone returns on Monday.

Harry, Nancy: Nice work. And Booman:

The reason Reid is doing this in a way that requires 60 is because he wants to pass something. And the only way he can pass something is to pass exactly what the president wants…which includes immunity. So, he has decided to choose a path that will deceive us about whether or not he is honoring Senator Dodd’s hold, and deceive us about whether he made a good faith effort to prevent immunity.

I am not happy to come to these conclusions, and the reality probably is that Harry Reid doesn’t have the support within the caucus that he would need pursue a strategy of not passing a new FISA bill. The law will sunset in February and too many within the caucus are afraid to let the law sunset.

Nevertheless, we are being set up to not recognize this capitulation for what it is. And I am not happy about it.

Please, no Process Dodge comments? I’ve had enough of that.

NOTE Call Harry Reid and tell him to honor Chris Dodd’s hold. He honors holds for Republicans, so why not for a Democrat? Here’s the 800 number for the Hill. The Capitol switchboard number is 1-800-828-0498:

Carson City
600 East William Street, #302
Carson City, NV 89701
Phone: 775-882-7343 / Fax: 775-883-1980

Las Vegas
Lloyd D. George Building
333 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Suite 8016
Las Vegas, NV 89101
Phone: 702-388-5020 / Fax: 702-388-5030

Reno
Bruce R. Thompson Courthouse and Federal Building
400 South Virginia Street, Suite 902
Reno, NV 89501
Phone: 775-686-5750 / Fax: 775-686-5757

Rural Nevada Outreach Contact
Matt Tuma
Phone: 775-686-5750 / Fax: 775-686-5757

Washington
528 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-3542 / Fax: 202-224-7327
Toll Free for Nevadans: 1-866-SEN-REID (736-7343) -Restricted to calls originating from area codes 775 and 702

Reid Newsroom
Sen. Reid’s Nevada Press Office 202-224-9521 (for inquires about Nevada issues or from Nevada media).
Senate Democratic Communications Center 202-224-2939

UPDATE Scarecrow reminds us of all the crap the Democrat leadership fed us about fixing that really, really bad Republican-drafted fill that Leader Nance got panicked into passing, at midnight, before blowing town on vacation:

Recall that the August legislation that gutted FISA and the Fourth Amendment was stampeded through Congress under the pretext that the FISA Court had unexpectedly issued still secret opinions requiring NSA to obtain FISA Court warrants before intercepting strictly foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through US facilities. Until then, everyone thought such strictly foreign-to-foreign communications were outside FISA’s requirements.

NSA and the Justice Department complained that the paper work for getting Court warrants was too burdensome for such communications, and the result, NSA claimed, was a loss of such intelligence for some unknown period. Everyone panicked and agreed we should fix FISA to exempt such communications. The “fix” with the Orwellian title of “Protect America Act” (PAA), was a travesty, and the Democrats vowed to repair the damage before the new statute expires in February, 2008.

The PAA went beyond the foreign-to-foreign issue and instead gutted FISA. It stripped the FISA Court of its ability to oversee some foreign-domestic communications, and it transferred oversight authority in some cases to the Attorney General and/or Intelligence Director. The fix may also have weakened the protections for minimizing intelligence collection and dissemination following broad sweeps or data mining, even though Congress had twice prohibited such data mining. We still don’t know what NSA does, and most in Congress don’t know either. The Hill reviews this sordid history.

UPDATE drational at Big Orange:

Reid intends to bring a motion to proceed under regular order for the Intelligence committee’s FISA bill. The Judicary bill is pending legislation. Since Senator Dodd has a hold on the intelligence committee version of the bill, there will be a motion to invoke cloture. The cloture vote is expected to be held one hour after the Senate begins on Monday (since Saturday will be a work day for the Senate, and there is a 2 day wait after filing for cloture). 60 votes will be required for the cloture vote on the Intelligence bill Monday. If it passes, then amendments will be considered (Senator Specter’s bill, the Judiciary Bill, and/or others). Controversial amendments will require 60 votes to pass. 30 hours later, on Wednesday, the final vote will be taken.

eid’s concession to Dodd is Monday’s Cloture vote.

This means that Dodd’s filibuster is on.  The Senate will need 60 votes for cloture before they can start to debate the SSCI bill’s Amendments.  This means the GOP needs Lieberman plus 9 Democrats to start for getting a bill that includes Amnesty.

If they get it, stripping Amnesty as an amendment (Such as the SJC version, or Specter’s semi-amnesty amendment) will require 60 votes.  If cloture is reached Monday over the objection of Dodd and the Dem Leaders, then Amnesty is a done deal.

Because all the Dem presidential candidates have publicly objected to Amnesty, this blockage of cloture will be a MAJOR test of the leadership of Dodd, Clinton, Biden and Obama.

I laughed at this optimistic comment below, but maybe, just maybe, this is a stunt to prove that Democrats can unite behind the presidential candidate leadership and Defeat cloture.  If SSCI version is defeated, then perhaps the SJC version will be advanced next and Amnesty will be defeated….  Could this be political maneuvering to prove the Democrats have spines after all?

Well, that would be keen.