President Bush will sign the new FISA bill into law today at a ceremony in the Rose Garden.

Just like when I watch the Bachelorette, I'm counting down to his final rose ceremony.

Hillary Clinton's campaign today announced the winner of their t-shirt contest.

(larger version here.)

I like it. The graphic is so Hillary. Especially the tiny heels. Every time I got to see her in person she was wearing shoes with those tiny heels. Go on over and buy one. It will help her retire her debt.

At Barack Obama's Unity Fundraiser in New York last night, filled with Hillary supporters who were being asked to contribute to his campaign, Obama finished his speech but forgot one thing: to ask them to contribute to retiring her debt. He stopped the music and returned to the stage to do his part.

Video here.

Your turn. Keep it civil.

This is an Open Thread.

Last night, on Countdown, Russ Feingold said we can fix it FISA if Barack Obama is elected President. Fine. Now here is what Obama can do now to help that happen.

Barack Obama can pledge, if he is elected President, to instruct his Administration to comply with FISA, as it existed prior to the passage of the Protect America Act and the most recent Amendment, passed yesterday. Barack Obama can pledge that in his Administration, the Executive Branch will comply with FISA (with the caveat that the one fix that was considered necessary, that telephone calls whose only nexus with the United States is the incidental passage of the communication through a United States based telecommunications node). Just because the Congress gutted FISA does not mean that an Obama Administration needs to act like the Bush Administration.

More . .

Democracy Corps:

It is important to note that this progress [for Obama] has been accompanied by some diminished enthusiasm and few gains among independent voters. . . . Obama’s campaign has only just begun to engage with the big issues before the country and to define the choice boldly in a way that engages voters, fully consolidates Democrats and wins over independents – though he clearly has the opportunity to do all three. . . . The Obama campaign clearly understands that it will have to be seen as leading the change in this change election.

. . . Not surprising is the drop in intense positives among liberals, liberal Democrats and white young voters, as we can see in the graph below. More worrisome is the broader drop in intense responses on key attributes –“on your side” (describes “very well” dropped from 27 to 21 percent), “strong leader” (dropped from 31 to 26 percent), and “will bring the right kind of change” (dropped from 28 to 24 percent). Overall, only 51 percent say Obama is “on your side” (down 4 points) and only 52 percent say he will “will bring the right kind of change” (unchanged). Obama seems to have lost some definition in this transition, and he has only just begun to articulate the change in ways that engage voters.

(Emphasis supplied.) [More...]

Dahlia Lithwick and Doug Kendall at Slate ask a good question:

Obama veers to the right, but did he have to take the Constitution with him?

They note:

It's not an overstatement to say that in the past month Obama has tugged the First, Second, Fourth, and Eighth amendments to the center. Not a day goes by, it seems, without a constitutional wink to the right on guns (he thinks there is an individual right to own one), the wall of separation between church and state (he thinks it can be lowered), the Fourth Amendment prohibition on warrantless wiretapping (he's changed his position on FISA), and on the death penalty for noncapital child rape cases (he thinks it's constitutional) as well as a possible shift this week on the right to abortion (which could further limit the reach of Roe v. Wade).

The point: [More...]

State legislators, always searching for a new punishment to show how tough they are on crime, find all kinds of reasons to suspend driver's licenses.

The folks I see [in traffic court] are cited because they neglected to pay a ticket, and were suspended. The folks I see are cited because they neglected to show up in court, and were suspended. The reasons for these scofflaws' non-appearance? They have no money. They are unemployed, poor, broke, foreclosed.

In Wisconsin, licenses are suspended for underage drinking. Legislators are quite certain that college kids won't drink until they turn 21 if they fear the loss of a driver's license for attending a house party. And that works ... not at all. Unfortunately, a policy's failure rarely motivates a legislature to rethink the policy. [more ...]

As an unusually long editorial in The New York Times expresses,

it was distressing — and depressing — to watch Congress wrench Americans’ civil liberties back to where they were in the days before Watergate, when the United States government listened to our phone calls whenever it wanted.

From Republicans (all of whom voted for the FISA bill except McCain who was too busy trying to be noticed to show up at the one place he might have been noticed today) this is what we expect:

Senator Christopher S. Bond, the Missouri Republican who is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there was nothing to fear in the bill “unless you have Al Qaeda on your speed dial.”

From Democrats we expect more. For Senators Baucus, Bayh, Carper, Casey, Conrad, Feinstein, Inouye, Johnson, Kohl, Landrieu, Lincoln, McCaskill, Mikulski, both Nelsons, Obama, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Webb, and Whitehouse, and for the United States Constitution, this is a dark day indeed.

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson....

....Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon.
Going to the candidate's debate.
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this you lose.

This is an open thread. [Hat tip to jawbone in the FISA comments]

Update: Here is the DA's official letter of apology to John Ramsey.(pdf)

The Boulder County District Attorney today issued a press release officially clearing John and Patsy Ramsey and their son Burke of involvement in their daughter's death.

DNA and genetic material found in JonBenet's underwear and longjohns was subjected to a new method of testing not previously available.

The method is "touch DNA." [More...]

At least the Senate did one thing right today. It passed the bill to restore Medicare funding that the House passed in June. And, it's veto-proof.

The vote was 69-30 -- "a veto-proof margin," said Paul Precht, spokesman for the nonprofit Medicare Rights Center. Pres. Bush had threatened to veto the bill if passed.

The cuts went into effect July 1. They included an $1,800 cap on outpatient physical, occupational and speech therapy.

I know about this because this weekend I got a letter from the TL mom's nursing home saying that her therapy would end July 1 unless she agrees to pay 100% of the cost due to the Senate not getting its act together before the recess to pass the House bill that would extend the deadline for the cuts to take effect. It failed to pass the bill then by one vote. The cuts were passed in 2005 but every year Congress has voted to extend the date the cuts take effect.

Other aspects of the bill: [More...]