Sessions on the floor of the senate

Dodd (4.00 / 5)

is fine with me. Right now, he has taken time off the campaign trail to dispute the blanket pardon they want to hand to the Telecoms for their part in the illegal spying scheme that was perpetrated on American citizens.

His Dad was a Nuremburg Trial judge, so I imagine he cut his teeth on,

"I vas only following orders."

go get 'em, Chris. 

When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.---Mark Twain

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by: julie @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 13:10:42 PM CST

YES (4.00 / 4)

It was in this very context (TELCOM IMMUNITY) that Sessions made this ridiculous statement.  I hope Viv is paying attention.  I think taking a stand against this cowardly and Unamerican stance would make her look very tough and strong in contrast.  I know it is a longshot, but if he gets mired with Pryor in the post seigelman aftermath and if she plays just right she might at least make him spend a ton of money that might have gone elsewhere.  Cross your fingers.   

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by: chap @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 13:33:01 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Another classic Sessions (4.00 / 5)

statement, also on the Floor, was during the Haliburton/KBR profiteering hearings. All this terrible stuff was being brought to light, including the many and various ways these companies put soldiers' lives at risk in the interest of earning an extra buck. All Jeff could come up with was, (are you ready?)

"Can't we all just get along?"

^o^ 

When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.---Mark Twain

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by: julie @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 13:44:58 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Indeed (4.00 / 3)

Such sublime hackery. Just a ridiclulous embarrassment.   

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by: chap @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 13:50:22 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Yes, Chris is the Man! (4.00 / 3)

More than ever, this nation cries out for the kind of courageous leadership Chris Dodd has shown.  We need to get those pseudo-leaders (yes, Reid and Pelosi, I'm talking to you!) out of the way and let him continue to lead this nation back to our civil liberties and to reclaim our nation before it is too late. 

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by: blueskygal @ Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 19:21:17 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Why does Sessions hate the Constitution? (4.00 / 4)

Didn't he take an oath to uphold the Constitution when he became a Senator?  Did Mr. Sessions actually understand what he was saying at the time?

Why not ask him?

The contact information for Sen. Sessions' offices is listed below:  (hat tip to brianinca for this list)

   

Birmingham
Office of Senator Jeff Sessions
341 Vance Federal Building
1800 Fifth Avenue North
Birmingham, Alabama 35203-2171
(205) 731-1500 - Phone
(205) 731-0221 - Fax

 

Huntsville
Office of Senator Jeff Sessions
AmSouth Center, Suite 802
200 Clinton Avenue NW
Huntsville, Alabama 35801-4932
(256) 533-0979 - Phone
(256) 533-0745 - Fax

 

Mobile
Office of Senator Jeff Sessions
41 West I-65 Service Road North
Suite 2300-A
Mobile, Alabama 36608-1291
(251) 414-3083- Phone
(251) 414-5845- Fax

 

Montgomery
Office of Senator Jeff Sessions
7550 Halcyon Summit Drive, Suite 150
Montgomery, Alabama 36117
(334) 244-7017 - Phone
(334) 244-7091 Fax

 

Washington, D.C.
Office of Senator Jeff Sessions
335 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-0104
(202) 224-4124 - Phone
(202) 224-3149 - Fax

 

I'm not short.  I'm fun size!!

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by: countrycat @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 14:11:21 PM CST

Bravo (4.00 / 3)

Why not indeed?  I would also encourage you to call Viv's office to talk her into using this.  I emailed her through her site this morning.

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by: chap @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 14:25:04 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Oh and. . . (4.00 / 3)

Thanks for the promotion, CC.

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by: chap @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 14:37:01 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I jumped over to post it myself (4.00 / 2)

and saw your coverage.  Good catch!

I'm not short.  I'm fun size!!

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by: countrycat @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 15:31:36 PM CST

[ Parent ]

A Progressive Libertarian's take ... (4.00 / 3)

The Mad Patriot thinks Sessions is full of it, too.

Work harder and work smarter!

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by: mooncat @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 22:34:32 PM CST

Sessions Stupid on the Senate Floor (4.00 / 3)

It's happened before, hasn't it.

Chap, I'm with you on Dodd for Majority Leader.  When I heard Dodd was running in the primary, my reaction was "Who? Who does he think he is?"

After seeing him in the debates and especially this occurence of breaking out in leadership, I have a much higher opinion of him.

All Democrats have to do is get up on thier hind legs and holler "BullSh!t".  How hard can it be? 

"The War in Iraq is not the disease. The War in Iraq is a symptom. Arrogance is the disease" - Bill Richardson

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by: herding old cats @ Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 23:19:27 PM CST

Where's your source? (0.00 / 0)

I tried to find the quote in news reports or the floor speech on C-Span without success.  I did find this quote, which doesn't match yours:

"We ought to send President Bush a letter thanking him for the program and apologizing for accusing him of violating our Constitutional rights."

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by: Brian @ Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 05:57:49 AM CST

Source and accurate quote (4.00 / 1)

Here is the text of Sessions's comments:

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague, Senator Feingold, and his passionate argument, but I am going to tell my colleagues that this Congress and this Government of the United States are capable of overreacting. We are capable of getting excited about an issue and taking theoretical positions that end up, as a practical matter, leaving our country at greater risk. This is not just an item of discussion; it is very real.

   I would point out to my colleagues that we have made two dramatic errors some years ago in a situation just like this, on emotion driven by our civil libertarian friends, such that a wall was put up between the FBI and the CIA which barred the sharing of information between those two critical agencies.

   We also mandated that the Central Intelligence Agency officers could not obtain information from people deemed to be dangerous. Bad people. How do you get information in the world and protect America and our legitimate national interests without sources? Those became laws.

[Page: S15724]  GPO's PDF

   And what happened after we were attacked on 9/11? Both those rules that we imposed on our military intelligence agencies were deemed to be bogus, wrong, and mistaken, colossally so. Many Members of this body were warned when they were made the law of the United States, they were warned then that if we did these things it was not wise. But, oh no, the others loved the Constitution more, they loved liberty more, so these unwise laws were passed. And what happened afterwards, after 9/11? Well, we properly removed both of those silly rules. We have taken them off the books, in a bipartisan, unanimous way. They were never required by the Constitution. They were never sensible from the beginning. But we passed them on emotion not reason. Some ideas being promoted now are not sensible either and can leave our country in dangerous straits. So this is an important matter. These things are life and death issues.

   Last year, a Federal court ruled, based on changes in technology, that those laws we passed effectively limited the collection of critical communications of foreign intelligence. It was not the intention of Congress when we passed it, I am sure, that the law would, in effect, end up gutting perhaps the most important surveillance program we have against international terrorists, but that was the effect of it.

   Admiral McConnell was flabbergasted. He came to us and pleaded with us to give him relief. So what happened? Well, he said this to us. Listen to these words. Basically this is what he said: The United States was unable to conduct critical surveillance of ..... foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside our country.

   That is basically--that is what he said to us.

   That is a dramatic thing.

   So what happened? Congress went through an intense study, and we passed the Protect America Act this past summer. Some people said: This is a rush, though we spent weeks on it. Congress spent a lot of time working on it. But we said: OK, it will come back up for reauthorization in February. As of this date, there has been no example of abuse of that act.

   Senator Feingold says these intelligence procedures were illegal wiretapping. I think that is really not a fair thing to say. A court ruled that these procedures we had been using for some time, must, according to statutes we passed, go through a certain number of procedural hoops that, as a practical matter, would have eliminated the possibility of us continuing these surveillance techniques. That is what they ruled. I don't think we ever intended this to be the effect, but the court probably ruled fairly on the law. I am not sure. We are stuck with the ruling regardless.

   I don't think it is fair to say the program was illegal. But certainly the procedures were not unconstitutional because this summer, when we passed the Protect America Act, we effectively concluded the program was good and constitutional. We affirmed the program.

   I want to say, if we have any humor left on this subject, perhaps we ought to write President Bush a letter and tell him: Thank you. We are sorry we accused you of violating our Constitution and basic civil liberties. After the Congress spent weeks studying this, we passed a law that basically allowed the program to continue as it was.

   I urge that we do the right thing on this legislation and move forward to the Intelligence bill, not the Judiciary bill.

End Quote

This is from The Library of Congress and here is the link:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r110:5:./temp/~r110pfqu1g:e119229:

 

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by: chap @ Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 10:48:19 AM CST

Whoops (4.00 / 2)

I am now being told by people more knowledgeable than myself that these comments have been edited--that Senators have the right to do this.  I have been assured that what he said was closer to what was being reported in liveblog transcripts.  People keep telling me that they have it TIVO'ed.  I will be very interested to see how this all shakes out.   

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by: chap @ Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 12:04:29 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Congressional record is a sham (4.00 / 3)

Yes, members of congress can and do manipulate the Congressional Record as they see fit.  I blogged about it a while back.  Hopefully C-Span will put Monday's hearings on their site soon so that everyone can find out what he really said.

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by: Brian @ Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 12:47:47 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I went to the c-span (4.00 / 2)

Senate pages and what he said has been changed. I want to see it replayed.


"In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing."
Antonia Porchia

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by: bamablue @ Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 15:10:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I HEARD him on CSPAN (4.00 / 1)

I remember it well, because I started screaming at the TV - which my husband absolutely hates.

I'm not short.  I'm fun size!!

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by: countrycat @ Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 17:30:09 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I nearly fell outta my chair!! (4.00 / 4)

 I was listening to the Senate on the C-span and heard this smarmy little *&^%$#@ spout out this mouthful of slime and almost did not believe my ears. I promptly got the quote and called the local news stations. Unbelievable!!!


"In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing."
Antonia Porchia

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by: bamablue @ Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 12:05:51 PM CST

Sessions on the floor.... (4.00 / 2)

So what we seem to have is a Republican "leader" saying something incredibly stupid and then changing the official record to match what he woulda said, had he been smarter than an average snail darter. I'm sorry, I don't see where the news story is here.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead  

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by: piggieheart @ Wed Dec 19, 2007 at 15:01:37 PM CST

Well, norm, sometimes it isn't the novelty (0.00 / 0)

Sometimes, we're just documenting the atrocities, as they say.

"The War in Iraq is not the disease. The War in Iraq is a symptom. Arrogance is the disease" - Bill Richardson

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by: herding old cats @ Fri Dec 21, 2007 at 22:25:36 PM CST

[ Parent ]