41 folks that need to be replaced

Kagro X provides this update at Daily Kos:

In rejecting the Feinstein "exclusivity" amendment to the FISA revision considered on the Senate floor today -- an amendment that failed by a vote of 57 Ayes to 41 Noes, thanks to another "painless filibuster" of precisely the type we were promised would not be tolerated on this bill -- the Senate has voted to say that although they were passing a law governing surveillance, it was OK if the President decided that he really didn't like the law very much and wished to make up his own instead.

Exclusivity -- the purpose of the amendment that "failed" -- meant simply this: that the law they were passing was the law, and it was the governing authority for how surveillance could be conducted in America.

The Senate just rejected it, so that means that they're passing a law, but if a president decides later on that he thinks there's really some other controlling authority besides the law, that's OK.

As I was speculating earlier, might we not have been better off if the earth had opened up and swallowed all current office holders during the SOTU speech? Then we could start over again with a Constitution and new folks to uphold it.

WTF is with these "painless filibusters" where the Senate Majority Leader allows 41 folks to stymie legislation without actually forcing them to filibuster. If they are going to obstruct, goddammit, make them do it publicly and with real effort so the whole nation can see what assholes they are.

If things move forward as they are now likely to do, the President will have nothing standing in his way when he wants to play games and ignore laws. As Kagro X said in conclusion: "I don't know why these people come to work at all."

Oh, and here's a bit from Update 3 of mcjoan:

Dodd/Feingold on amnesty fails, 31-67. 67 Senators think telcos deserve more protection than U.S. citizens. Or the Constitution. Nice.

You may fill in your own expletives.
--the BB