More Obama Substance - A Card Carrying Civil Libertarian

[sloppyjoe25s]

Another in the huge list of subtance and principles for Obama - but also again highlights senaor Clintons willingness
to side with the repubicans, and total lack of principle, if she calculates some political gain:

-snip-

Mr. Obama made his name in the Illinois Legislature by championing historic civil liberties reforms, like the mandatory recording of all interrogations and confessions in capital cases. Although prosecutors, the police, the Democratic governor and even some death penalty advocates were initially opposed to the bill, Mr. Obama won them over. The reform passed unanimously, and it has been adopted by four other states and the District of Columbia.

In the Senate, Mr. Obama distinguished himself by making civil liberties one of his legislative priorities. He co-sponsored a bipartisan reform bill that would have cured the worst excesses of the Patriot Act by meaningfully tightening the standards for warrantless surveillance. Once again, he helped encourage a coalition of civil-libertarian liberals and libertarian conservatives. The effort failed when Hillary Clinton joined 13 other Democrats in supporting a Republican motion to cut off debate on amendments to the Patriot Act.

-snip-

Full article from New York Times...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/opinion/01rosen.html?ex=1205038800&en=b34125e4b337cc2c&ei=5070&emc=eta1

[Dogmudgeon]

1. It's an op-ed get-Hillary hit piece

For "balance", I guess.

--p!

[sloppyjoe25s]

5. pretty lame rhetoric

It sites plain historical facts.

And yes it points to implications that even a 5 year old could see.

The facts are hard to take i guess? When what they tell is so clear.

[Alexander]

6. From the very newspaper that endorsed her.

Gee, maybe they're just stating facts?

Nah, couldn't be. They're all sexist Hillary haters at the NYT.

[mmonk]

23. A hit piece would be dishonest. Are you saying this is a lie

or false insinuation?

[dogman]

2. Seems funny that a card carrying civil libertarian could not make a call on National ID card.

I attended a town hall meeting with our Senator where he was asked if he supported a National ID card bill that was coming up for a vote soon. He sat on the fence. It seems like a card carrying civil libertarian would have had an immediate response.

[sloppyjoe25s]

9. Except that he has fought national ID cards, but also knows...

That to be effective, you have to win over alot of people who - sadly - think a national ID card is a fabulous idea.

After all - only criminals should be against large databases of our personal information right?

Sadly - too many people think that way - Mr. Obama has worked his entire LIFE on these issues - and has
consistently built real political support for civil liberties.

The story of how he got all interrogations to MANDATORILY require video taping in illinois is actually pretty extraordinary.

People on both sides opposed him.

Sadly - on these issues - you cant just "shoot off" flip answers - on national ID cards or anything else.

To build support and win, and actually change things, you have to carefully explain sometimes complicated issues to
people - and show them the common ground between securities and liberty. Unfortunately all too many people have been "brought up" on the right-wing dogma of the security/liberty tradeoff, and are trained to be willing to sacrifice the later for the former.

[dogman]

15. Isn't that called triangulation?

So politicians other than HRC do this.

[sloppyjoe25s]

16. It's called consensus building on tough issues

He has fought consistenly on these issues.

He has also sought to educate & build understanding on these issues.

He is very sincere when he answers. Yes - it is dealing with existing perceptions - and sometimes that is necessary - but it is a question of the total %. Mrs. Clinton does "calculation" and absolutely nothing else.

If Mr. Obama occasionally takes a subtle tack - i know where his heart is, because his whole record speaks to a life of
deep principles, and working to balance interests on tough decision.

[dogman]

17. As a constituent, I feel otherwise.

It is not occasionally, but it is consistent. His record, like HRC's, speaks to ambition and ego. I do realize these are necessary traits for a successful politician. Which brings me to my point, he does not bring change, only hope of change for those who feel repressed. Their lot will not change after he has bargained their dreams to realize his own. It is odd how the same traits are viewed differently, based on personal preference alone.

[sloppyjoe25s]

21. yep... probably result of defending your views...

it tends to make everyone believe the are more right than they are *lol*

actually - it's one of the thinks I like about Obama - I think he knows he's not always right.

[BlueManDude]

3. Every "libertarian" I know is a right winger with real "black people" issues

they're always prattling on about Jesse Jackson and Sharpton and how much of a burden it is for them to refer to blacks as African Americans.

None of the "libertarians" I know will vote for Obama.

[Alexander]

7. A "civil libertarian" is not a "libertarian".

Libertarian = small government in every aspect.

Civil libertarian = small government when it comes to personal privacy issues.

Most Democrats are civil libertarians.

[BlueManDude]

11. But shouldn't every "libertarian" be a "civil libertarian?"

Just seems to me that all the "libertarians" I know are more uptight about things like smoking cigarettes in barrooms and the ban on trans fat than the governmnent's incursions on our freedoms.

[sloppyjoe25s]

13. You are right they should be

;) which is why being "civil libertarian" makes you stand out from the fruity "libertarians" - who do seem to fixate on
some particularly uninteresting examples of government intrusion.

Especially when our fundamental rights to due process, a fair trial, and protections from being hauled off in the middle of the night are under greater threat now than in quite some time.

[NYCGirl]

4. Wow..."Patriot Act Junior"

"The real concern about Hillary Clinton’s record on civil liberties is that her administration would look like that of her husband. Bill Clinton’s presidency had many virtues, but a devotion to civil liberties was not one of them. After the Oklahoma City bombing, the Clinton administration proposed many of the expansions of police power that would end up in the Patriot Act. (They were opposed at the time by the same coalition of civil-libertarian liberals and libertarian conservatives that Mr. Obama has supported.) The Clinton administration’s tough-on-crime policies also contributed to the rising prison population, and to the fact that the United States has a higher incarceration rate than any other country."

[sloppyjoe25s]

8. exactly... but the list goes on and on

wayyyy beyond what is even in the article...

Like Bill Clinton flying a mentally retarded death row inmate back to Arkansas in 1992 during the election
Quashing his final appeals
And making SURE he got executed in time for Bill to look "tough and conservative on crime" in the election.

What does it matter if you fry some mentally retarded dude - when so many electoral votes are at stake?

The guy had killed yes - but he was so mentally out of it that he asked for his dessert from his last meal to be saved
for him to have it the next day. An hour later they stuck the needle in his arm.

Nice work Clintons - politics above all else!!

[zabet]

10. Obama flunked class action reform.

"In 2005, Obama joined Republicans in passing a law dubiously called the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) that would shut down state courts as a venue to hear many class action lawsuits. Long a desired objective of large corporations and President George Bush, Obama in effect voted to deny redress in many of the courts where these kinds of cases have the best chance of surviving corporate legal challenges. Instead, it forces them into the backlogged Republican-judge dominated federal courts.

By contrast, Senators Clinton, Edwards and Kerry joined 23 others to vote against CAFA, noting the "reform" was a thinly-veiled "special interest extravaganza" that favored banking, creditors and other corporate interests. David Sirota, the former spokesman for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, commented on CAFA in the June 26, 2006 issue of The Nation, "Opposed by most major civil rights and consumer watchdog groups, this Big Business-backed legislation was sold to the public as a way to stop "frivolous" lawsuits. But everyone in Washington knew the bill's real objective was to protect corporate abusers."

Nation contributor Dan Zegart noted further: "On its face, the class-action bill is mere procedural tinkering, transferring from state to federal court actions involving more than $5 million where any plaintiff is from a different state from the defendant company. But federal courts are much more hostile to class actions than their state counterparts; such cases tend to be rooted in the finer points of state law, in which federal judges are reluctant to dabble. And even if federal judges do take on these suits, with only 678 of them on the bench (compared with 9,200 state judges), already overburdened dockets will grow. Thus, the bill will make class actions ­ most of which involve discrimination, consumer fraud and wage-and-hour violations ­ all but impossible. One example: After forty lawsuits were filed against Wal-Mart for allegedly forcing employees to work "off the clock," four state courts certified these suits as class actions. Not a single federal court did so, although the practice probably involves hundreds of thousands of employees nationwide."

Why would a civil rights lawyer knowingly make it harder for working-class people ( Or the people of Hunter Point suing Lennar) to have their day in court, in effect shutting off avenues of redress?"

http://www.counterpunch.org/gonzalez02292008.html

[sloppyjoe25s]

12. *LOL* pretty lame counterpunch

That is the best you can come up with?!?

Simply hillarious. You are funny as heck to consider that to even come close to being a reply to the thread.

Especially given Obamas entire life history on these issues. The case you are citing has very mixed issues on it. I know the entire legislation very well - and in fact Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards got it wrong.

It's technical - and you would probably not be able to understand it - but if you want - try reading deeper in to what was
going on at the level of actual statistics and facts.

The article you are citing is written at the level of a 5th grader, and by someone who obviously does not know the first thing about CAFA, or the surrounding law, (and how the actual system was working).

On balance Obama got that vote right too - and your post does NOTING to undermine his life history of leadership in this area.

[zabet]

19. LOL you call Couterpunch lame

when every Obama supporter
here was touting Drudge over
the previously released Obama
picture.
True to form of the more obnoxious
posters on DU, you resort to personal
attacks...
"and you would probably not be able to understand it"
I guess that is some of that
unity and hope talking.

[stillcool]

22. so many opinions...

[br />by Ed Murnane
President, Illinois Civil Justice League
February 14, 2005
Early in 2003, when a class action reform bill (SB 1158) was introduced in the Illinois Senate, I spoke with then-State Sen. Barack Obama about the bill and what it was intended to do: require that class action suits be filed (and certified, if merited) in appropriate venues. The bill does nothing more.

Obama, (who has gone on to bigger arenas, if you haven't followed his career) said he agreed that class actions had become a problem and that he thought he could support the principles of the bill introduced by Senators Kirk Dillard, Frank Watson, Kay Wojcik and Pate Philip.

He recognized that the proposed legislation did NOT deny anyone the opportunity to file, or be part of, as class action suit. It DID specify that class action suits should be filed in appropriate -- logical might be a better description -- venues.

Obama understood then, and he obviously still understands, that class action suits serve a purpose but the class action process has been abused.

Last week, in one of his first major actions as a United States Senator, Obama voted "aye" on the Class Action Fairness Act when it was called for a vote on the Senate floor.

It should be no surprise that he did. While generally considered to be a fairly liberal Democrat, Obama is not a knee-jerk "automatic" vote for any cause. He will consider the facts, listen to arguments, and come to a decision. In most cases, he probably will not be voting in favor of civil justice reforms because his instincts and his philosophical leanings will tell him to do otherwise.

But no one -- not the trial lawyers, not organized labor, not the Democrats who share the left side of the aisle in the Senate Chamber with him -- can assume they know where Barack Obama will be on every issue. He'll make up his own mind and do what he thinks is best and right.

That is in sharp contrast with Obama's senior Illinois Senator, Dick Durbin. There is no one more firmly in the pockets of the trial lawyers on the Senate floor than Durbin. Now in Democratic leadership, Durbin is in a position to be the primary spokesman for the trial lawyers on the Senate floor and there is no reason to doubt that he will fulfill that role.

Illinois citizens won't always be happy with Barack Obama's positions on issues, and he may never vote for a civil justice reform measure again, but we will know that he made his mind up based on his interpretation of the facts and arguments.

***http://www.icjl.org/archives/website05/commentary/commentary050214.htm

Attorneys at several Madison and St. Clair County law firms that handle class-action lawsuits did not return calls or declined comment.

However, Evan Schaeffer of the Schaeffer & Lamere, P.C. law firm in Godfrey, has a Weblog called Notes from the (Legal) Underground with his views of the legislation.

"The new law will mean a lot of work for federal trial and appellate courts. As has been reported, almost every class action will become a federal case," he said in a Feb. 10 posting.

He also said "plaintiffs' firms that specialize in federal laws and remedies" will not be affected because "the law only affects class actions based on state law."

Schaeffer also predicted some companies may rue the day the bill becomes law.

"Since defendants are almost always the party that proposes coupon settlements, big business will regret the day it supported the new law's barriers to coupon settlements. Since the law also makes class actions harder to settle, big business will also regret the way the law will mean many more bet-the-company class-action trials."

To read Schaeffer's full analysis, visit his Weblog at www.legalunderground.com
http://madisonrecord.com/news/contentview.asp?c=143909

[TexasObserver]

14. Obama actually understands and appreciates the Constitution.

Unlike Hillary, who understands being a errand runner for the likes of Walmart and the Insurance industry.

[cooolandrew]

18. HRC is always there to protect the documnet that is America. Erm maybe. I could be being gracious.

[anonymous171]

20. Good article

Obama's stance on civil liberties is one of the main reasons I support him.