There are days when I don’t understand why elected officials call themselves Democrats; if they’re just going to align themselves with the Republicans, the Bush Administration, and Big Business in the form of telephone companies, why claim otherwise?

The Senate voted today to preserve retroactive immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that cooperated with a government eavesdropping program, decisively rejecting an amendment that would have stripped the provision from a bill to modernize an electronic surveillance law.
Senators voted 67 to 31 to shelve the amendment offered by Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). A filibuster-proof 60 votes had been needed for the amendment to move forward.

The Republican Senators voted entirely against stripping immunity, 48-0. The Democrats were split, 30-18. Here are the 18 sellouts to the Bush Administration; sadly, one of my Senators is included.
Evan Bayh, Thomas Carper, Kent Conrad, Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Inouye, Tim Johnson, Herb Kohl, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Claire McCaskill, Barbara Mikulski, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Kenneth Salazar, Debbie Stabenow, Jim Webb.
If your Senator is among those and you feel outraged, you might want to call his or her office to register your discontent. I intend to.
Glenn Greenwald has more.