Reader Zach wants Harry Reid to do his job — and make the GOP (the Grand Obstruction Party) stand up and filibuster the hard way.  If you agree, call Sen. Harry Reid today:  he can be reached at 202-224-3542 in DC and 702-388-5020 in Nevada.  For reasons why this is important, see here.  Or you can use the following toll-free numbers (H/T to katymine for these):

1 (800) 828 – 0498
1 (800) 459 – 1887
1 (800) 614 – 2803
1 (866) 340 – 9281
1 (866) 338 – 1015
1 (877) 851 – 6437

The folks at ThinkProgress agree.  As does Taylor Marsh.  And Miles Mogulescu at Huffington Post.  As does Crooks and Liars.  It is time to stand up to the Grand Obstruction Party — if they are going to block the will of the majority of the American public, then they ought to do it out in the sunshine, not sneaking around in the shadows.  You want to obstruct, hypocritical Republican party, then you get to do it the hard way.

While you have the phone in your hand, please make some calls on the Habeas Restoration amendment today as well.  (S.185 has morphed into S.2022 as a potential amendment to the defense bill currently under debate.)  I am told through the Congressional grapevine that a vote on the amendment is likely for Tuesday — that’s tomorrow! — and that pressure needs to especially be applied to the following Senators:  Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Hagel, Lugar, Craig, Collins, and Alexander.

Please, call your own Senators and voice your support for the restoration of habeas rights and respect for the Constitution and the rule of law.  And throw in an extra call or two for the Senators on the waffling list above.  For why this is important — and why it needs our support now — read here.  And here.  As I said before:

We are better than this as a nation. We either stand up for those ideals that our forefathers risked their lives to obtain for all of us – the right of habeas corpus being so dear to them that they enshrined it in the text of the Constitution itself, rather than leaving it to the Bill of Rights. Or we stand for nothing at all but whatever is expedient in the moment according to the whim of the imperial presidency.

Make no mistake, what the Bush Administration and its Attorney General are proposing under the fearful guise of a never-ending national security emergency is to collapse the three branches of government into one all-powerful executive during a time of self-declared, non-ending war of their own making.

I choose liberty. What say you?

Please, make calls to your Senators today. For your constitution, for your nation…for us all.