With the Climate Security Act, the nation’s first real attempt to curb carbon emissions, a distant and evidently unpleasant memory, Congress has now resumed debate of how to increase the nation’s consumption of oil.  Republicans have sacked the House of Representatives to pressure Speaker Pelosi to allow a vote on revoking the moratorium on offshore drilling.  Alone in a darkened House chamber (at first) without C-SPAN or, well, legislative significance, their speeches have ranged from vitriolic to simply ludicrous (that is, in the words of The Economist).  The Republicans and some in the press have tried hard to gin up the significance of the debate: Politico even ran a headline declaring that the 13-day (including weekends) debate has reached its "third week".

The last week was the perfect storm for exposing the duplicity of the media and the Republicans. In media news, the "liberal" bias ruse was again debunked by a another study. In the midst of that, the media was busy piling on Barack Obama for some sort of faux "arrogance" when the guy was just making a simple speech.

The GOP did its part by disingenuously promoting oil drilling legislation while at the same styming any sort of progress on energy bills in the house.

Pretty much a normal week for both of these entities, actually.

This diary is a reaction to a story on the Huffington Post titled Dems will gain seats this fall - - but how many.  It was teased on the front of the Politics Page as

Dems close in on Holy Grail: 60-Vote Majority

Of course we would all love it if the Democrats got up to 60 seats, but headlines like this are misleading.

We should not be looking to 60 seats as a magic number that will allow passage of progressive measures without fillibuster.  The switch from minority to majority party was huge, but 60 is just a number.

In particular, if the Democrats are so fortunate as to gain exactly 9 seats, I still want Joe Lieberman tossed out of the caucus so fast he bounces.  Let's see exactly how much seniority the Republicans are willing to grant him.

Update: FISA abomination passed the US senate. The rollcall can be found here.
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Original diary follows:

In a few hours from now, at about 11:30 ET today, the US Senate will start voting on the FISA amendments bill H.R. 6304.

Let's make one last effort to stop this bill from passing.

Okay, some of you have forced me to make MetaJesus cry.  I've seen argument after impassioned argument grace the recommended diaries list for the past two days excoriating Obama's supporters that are revolting his revolting decision to go back on his word and not filibuster the FISA bill if it contains immunity and I can no longer keep my virtual mouth shut.

This is DailyKos, whose stated mission is to elect Democrats.  Most people here - especially Markos - want to elect Democrats - especially Barack Obama - and will continue working very hard to do so.

Those of you that are upset about the revolt are misdirecting your anger.  The argument against those revolting seems to go something like this: Obama may have done a bad thing by changing his position on whether or not he'll filibuster FISA but even if that is legitimately worthy of criticism, we should all pull our punches to keep from doing anything that might make Obama look bad before the election because this could cause him to lose the election.

I, and I think many others, see this quite differently, follow me below the fold if you care to hear about it...

This time, he’s absent not for America’s Post-9/11 Veterans, but for Seniors, the disabled and military families who will lose their access to health care.  

He failed to show up for the vote and was the only Senator other than the recovering Sen. Ted Kennedy, for this all-important vote that would extend Medicare provisions, improve access to preventive and mental health services, enhance low-income benefit programs, and maintain access to care in rural areas.

Follow below to learn more about McCain's absence, and the GOP’s "Corporate Welfare and Giveaway Program for Insurance Companies."

As a loyal supporter, as a donor, as a (trying to, anyways) fundraiser, as someone who has been shooting down smears about you at work, amongst friends and family, and anywhere else I hear them, as all of these things, I am writing to you to tell you: You had it right the first time on FISA.  

"Crossword Tommy" Coburn, scourge of bathroom lesbians everywhere, is notorious among his colleagues for being a serial abuser of the Senatorial "hold," used to block legislation from coming to the floor for a vote.

Lots of people have wondered how it is that Coburn is able to hold up so many bills, many of them extremely popular on both sides of the aisle. Well, the truth is that a hold by itself doesn't actually stop legislation. A lot of other factors have to come together to make it work, but that's a subject for another day.

Today, let's just enjoy the anticipation of seeing what happens when those other factors begin to unravel:

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning a "Coburn Omnibus" for July that would wrap most if not all of the bills held by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) into one large measure to be voted on by the Senate, according to a Coburn aide and two Democratic leadership staffers.

Coburn is blocking roughly a hundred bills that are generally non-controversial or have broad support. By placing a hold, Coburn prevents the bills from passing quickly through the Senate under a unanimous consent request. With floor time at such a premium, Reid would have trouble bringing up each bill for an individual debate and vote.

But in a stroke of legislative creativity that may have no precedent, Reid could lump all of the bills into one package and bring up the Coburn Omnibus for a single vote. Coburn can still object, but the broad popularity of the bills means that there would likely be more than enough support for veto-proof passage.

Ha-ha!

This would really be a terrific play by Reid. Individually, these bills -- though they enjoy popular, bipartisan support -- aren't by themselves a high enough priority for the use of Senate floor time to justify jumping through the hoops of Coburn's objections, motions to proceed, cloture votes, etc. But lumped together, they can all be moved at once, and lean on one another for the support of a large majority of Senators, many of whom have had e-friggin'-nuff of Coburn's shenanigans.

Kudos to Reid for the idea, and a backhanded thanks to Crossword Tommy for illustrating for us why, once upon a time at least, Senators didn't just put holds on everything under the sun.

The common wisdom in the media is that Sen. Obama is showing strength by "standing up to the left" by signing on to the FISA compromise. Like so much of what passes for intelligence on the idiot box this is a bunch of hooey. The charitable reading is that it puts a fig leaf over a very obscene part of Obama’s campaign. If it weren’t so logically flawed and the stakes were not so high, then it would be mildly amusing. But, that presupposes it’s a political fight, like some dustup over whether to do away with Social Security, and it presupposes that this was a left-right, liberal/conservative issue. Of course, neither of those premises holds.

But, I find myself somewhat less than surprised over Obama’s position and hardly outraged. After all, we all knew he was a politician, and we’ve learned that can be an epithet as well as a laudatory label. In the event, he may be irrelevant to the discussion. It would be good to know that someone about to take the oath of office would mean the words they speak, but is that ever the case?

Subtitle:
Why filibustering FISA is smart politics.

I don't think it is being overly dramatic to say this is a crucial moment in our history.

You won't find a bigger Obama fan than myself.  Because of my state's late primary actually being in play this year, I came to this position over time.  The way he has handled the media and the Right Wing Noise Machine, with the former's facination with gossip and empty, vapid personality issues and the latter's deranged mudslinging, Obama has consistently demostrated his unique combination of intellect, wisdom, courage, and, sure, charisma.  

This is a once in a lifetime candidacy, and we certainly need an Obama Administration to begin to steer us out of the unbelievable mess the Bushies have made of not only this country but the entire world.

Despite the fact that I am someone who has defended, and will continue to defend, the right of Ralph Nader, Cynthia Mckinney, and Cindy Sheehan to run for office, I can't be more sincere when I say I will be proudly voting for Obama in November.

But that doesn't mean we should hold our collective tongues.  More below the flip.

UPDATE x2
Please Unrecommend. This ended up being a fine speech by Senator Dodd, but not the filibuster it was reported to be by Rawstory. My apologies to all, and especially to those that got knocked off the rec'd list.
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Not much to say, the good Senators are now standing up and filibustering on the floor of the Senate.

The link to CSPAN ll is here.

In an interview on Democracy Now! this morning, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) spoke about the FISA bill that passed the House yesterday:

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe the legislation that the Senate is considering, is expected to pass by Friday?

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, this is a great blow to the rights of the American people. And much of the publicity has been about a very important aspect: giving these telephone companies immunity that cooperated with the President’s illegal program. We think that should be decided based on current law, not some kind of a retroactive immunity. But that’s essentially what this bill does.

As I understand the bill that was passed by the House, it gives immunity to the Telecoms if they could proof that the companies required all documentation presented to them prior to any help to the government.   Now, as I read it, in order to expect immunity the Telcoms must show that they requested and obtained all documentation to spy on americans, terrorists, etc.  I believe the immunity here is to avoid going to trial, because let's face it, the spying program was meant to use information for political and corporate secrets to be stolen.

We obviously won't know for sure until FISA reaches the Senate floor, but two things spring to mind:  Pragmatism, and political showmanship.

Pragmatism is the safe bet.  Obama, Presidential nomination notwithstanding, is still the junior Senator from Illinois.  It's true that he has momentum going for him... but that's not the same as political capital.  

Bearing that in mind, it may be that he sees greater benefit to his election efforts by avoiding a fight now and biding his time until after the election.  At that point he would be in a position to not only revisit FISA, but to appoint progressive (and Constitutionally-minded) Supreme Court justices who could potentially strike it down on Constitutional grounds.  In any event, I for one am confident that it would be added to the laundry list of laws and executive orders that would be reviewed and likely  overturned in the first year or so of an Obama Presidency.

Any of you who have been following the FISA issue remember how Chris Dodd took an active, leadership role back in December, January and February to stand up to  FISA update legislation.

Although his filibuster threat in the Senate was overcome, House Democrats joined behind his leadership to reject any FISA legislation with TelCom immunity.  Democrats in the House stood firm against the Administration.

So where is the Dodd Filibuster threat now that the senate is poised to pass TelCom immunity?

Kossack, do not give up.  Our fight has only begun.  Barack cannot do this by himself, as much as we wish he could.  The Junior Senator from Illinois is just that:  A junior Senator who gets pretty good press.

[Updated:  see below]

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) claims to be a Senator who "brings people together to get things done."  I discovered a perfect example of the kind of leader that Norm Coleman is, but it requires a bit of splainin' or back story so that you can understand the entire context in which Norm took this bold stand which I will eventually get to.  I think after I am done explaining, you'll agree with me that Norm is a brave man who takes bold stands based on principles.

Not.

I know, I know...it's not likely, but a brother can dream can't he?

Following up on my post from yesterday and incorporating some of the suggestions/corrections from the comments made there, let's take a look at our best case scenario in the November Senate elections.

Right now, we're at 49 Ds, 49 Rs and 2 I's.  When the smoke clears on election night in November we'll be at 62 Ds, 37 Rs and 1 I.
Here's how it's going to happen....