The following California Democrats caved on retroactive immunity and disregarded their oath to, “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic”:

Joe Baca, Howard Berman, Dennis Cardoza, Jim Costa, Jane Harman, Jerry McNerney, Nancy Pelosi, Brad Sherman, Adam Schiff, Ellen Tauscher

Pete Stark did not vote. This is the list of those who are potential targets of the Blue America PAC vs Retroactive Immunity which as of now has raised $310,673 to, “fund accountability for congressmembers supporting retroactive immunity and warrantless wiretaps.” This money isn’t going to send thank you cards to the members who did defend the constitution, this is primary money and cold cash to dump Steny Hoyer from leadership (Rahm Emanuel also capitulated).

As the battle moves to the Senate, all eyes are on Barack Obama nationally and Dianne Feinstein locally [(202) 224-3841].

As for 2010 primaries, it will be interesting to see what comes out of this. Carole Migden’s 3rd place finish showed that entrenched politics matters less in a modern media environment. Ellen Tauscher is again practically begging to be primaried and in that district she’s walking on thin ice. Joe Baca deserves particular scorn as the only Californian to sign the Blue Dog letter to Pelosi pushing capitulation (and a primary of Baca could probably receive significant institutional support from former members of the Hispanic Caucus). McNerney has outdone himself in contracting a full-blown case of Potomic Fever during his first term, every time he makes a move I think about asking for a refund. And Harman and Berman voting to cover-up warrantless wiretapping isn’t going to do much to quell the rumors that they are pushing this because they are worried about their own culpability on the issue.

If you live in one of this districts, please call your member and ask them why. Comments and diaries with responses are highly encouraged.

Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

One day your website is yours, and the next day it is someone else’s.  Organizations, businesses and regular people are at the mercy of a confusing deregulated system.

A little over a week ago the Speak Out California website suddenly disappeared, and viewers instead saw a website full of advertisements.  

We had no way of even knowing what had happened.  It was just a surprise.  One day typing “speakoutca.org” into a web browser took viewers to our website, the next day it took viewers to an ad site that someone else managed.

Some of us are more sophisticated and internet-savvy than most citizens so we were eventually able to track down some information.  I’m not going into details here, except to say that no one at Speak Out California received any notice that this was going to happen.  It took several days to even track down where the domain name (this is what internet addresses like speakoutca.org are called) had been registered, who had registered it, and contact info for the registrar.  Then it took several more days to restore the domain name to us and get it working again.

Here’s the thing: the only way we were able to get this name back and get the site operating again is because some of us are much more internet-connected than most people.  Most people would have no idea where to even start to look for information and help solving a problem like this.

This is certainly not an uncommon problem.  My wife had a business named Dancing Woman Designs with a website at dancingwomandesigns.com, and then one day she didn’t.  She received no notice, nothing.  It was just there one day and gone the next and if she wanted it back it was going to cost her.  It was going to cost her a lot.  And so she doesn’t have dancingwomandesigns.com anymore and that address takes you to an ad site.  A whole business that took years to get going and build is history now.  It was wiped out in a minute because someone was able to get the web name.

A larger business is more likely to have the resources to hire the necessary experts to fight something like this.  But it can be an expensive proposition and it can take time.

This is the difference between regulation and deregulation.  Regulations protect regular people.  Deregulation enables and protects scammers, schemers, and cons.  The Internet is largely unregulated and is full of scammers, schemers and cons.  Most of the businesses and organizations on the internet are good, honest, credible and legitimate but regular people are also left completely at the mercy of numerous cons, scams, schemes and rip-offs and the burden is on us to find a way to tell the difference.

We got Speak Out California back up and running.  It only took us a week and a little money.  But we are sophisticated, internet-savvy and connected — and lucky.  Hmm … maybe some new legislation is warranted.

Click through to Speak Out California