Live from Austin!

So, in spite of earlier promises to try and bring down the FISA bill and stop retroactive immunity for telecoms providers who illegally wiretapped Americans, Barack Obama quietly avoided voting in the Senate, as did Hillary Clinton.

In the House, 94 Democrats had a sudden change of heart and voted the measure through.

Why did this happen? Well, it could be something to do with the average of $8,359 per politician that they received in "donations" from AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, compared to the reduced contributions seen by those who opposed the measure.

I must be old, I remember when you had to wait until after the election to see politicians abandon all their promises. So yeah, like many people I no longer expect much from Barack Obama. What will be the next position he abandons–opposition to torture?

“The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties.”

—former White House official Ann Lewis, Senior Advisor for Hillary Clinton for President.

[Washington Post]

Last week’s Hillary Clinton story in The Onion manages to be both hilarious because it’s so true, and deeply depressing because it’s so true.

And this week’s issue looks like a classic for much the same reasons, e.g. Point Counterpoint which looks like many online “debates” from 4 years ago. Some of the content is rerun, but still, it’s a cracking compilation.