More and more people recognize that the Democrats are no opposition party.

It’s outrageous. One word, it’s outrageous. And I rarely use that word, because it’s such [hyperbole]. And the Democrats didn’t join, the Democrats led, because — let’s be very clear. The House leader and the Senate leader, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid, could have stopped that legislation from happening. They were the ones who handled the calendar of Congress. As the party in power, they could have stopped it from being enacted. And let’s be very clear that it’s not just joining or being complicit. It’s leading, of sorts, I guess. And further, this FISA fix and this change further even more greatly guts the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero on today’s Democracy Now! regarding the Democratic support for legalizing spying by American telecommunication corporations (audio, video, transcript)

More on this issue from:

• Marjorie Cohn—the new law requires telephone companies to collect data and turn it over to the federal government. It also grants immunity against lawsuits to these companies, many of which are currently defendants in civil cases. and her recent DN! interview
• Dave Lindorff—Make no mistake: the Democrats did not have to pass this latest piece of legislation, loosing the NSA spies on us all. They had the power to kill that bill in its tracks. Instead, they succumbed to the President’s empty threat to label them all “soft on terror” if they didn’t give him what he wanted: a blank check. They caved, just as they did when they had the power to end the war in Iraq last April by cutting off funding for it, and instead, voted to fund it in full.

However I should note that, unlike Lindorff, I do not believe that “The Democrats in this Congress are a bunch of spineless cowards”. I believe this kind of agreement comes doing precisely what their parties are designed to do—benefit their paymasters. Perhaps Lindorff and I don’t really disagree on this point. Lindorff’s “The Case for Impeachment”, raises another point of shame for the party in power and the progressive Left: who is holding the Democratic candidates feet to the fire on impeachment?