Scum. Primary challenges needed:
Some House Democrats were prepared to support immunity, regardless. In a Jan. 28 letter, 21 Democrats in the conservative Blue Dog Coalition sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., supporting [retroactive] immunity and listing other provisions that they believed were needed in a FISA bill.
They wrote that the Senate bill “contains satisfactory language addressing all these issues, and we would fully support that measure should it reach the House floor without substantial change.”
Meanwhile, Steny Hoyer says:
“There will be little, if any, time for conference,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , D-Md.
In anticipation of Senate passage of the legislation, House and Senate Intelligence Committee staff began negotiating Thursday over how much spying authority to give the administration, said the House panel’s chairman, Silvestre Reyes , D-Texas.
However, the talks did not address the biggest dispute between the chambers: whether to grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their alleged role in Bush’s warrantless surveillance program.
The Senate bill, which the White House favors, would provide retroactive immunity; the House bill would not.
Amazing. Or not. So far, Harry and Nancy have given Bush more than he got when the Republicans were in the majority. No wonder their approval rating is in the toilet at 24%.
Harry, Nancy, good work. I’m proud of you.
Front page
It's not even the Dogs so much--they take what Reid/Pelosi feed
them. Those 2 have to stop giving the GOP what they want—and to stop hurting all of us.
If we had actual opposition or leadership from those 2, the Dogs would be under some sort of pressure and discipline and not allowed to dictate this craven shit. Amendments for immunity wouldn’t even come to the floor at all. Nothing that hurts us would come to the floor.
related, i think--how do you counter "tyrants"?
— Alterman— http://mediamatters.org/altercation/2008…
I was thinking just the same thing today
It’s like I was saying awhile back:
Bush operates on the extremely Constitutional Theory Of We Get To Do Whatever The Fuck
We Want.
What do you do when Mukasey just says, I’m going to do what I want, so fuck you?
Impeachment, maybe, if fucking Leader Nance hadn’t taken that off the table. Note please, that elect more Democrats is not the answer, because once that powers are out of the box, you can’t put them back in the box.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
the list of signers
do you have the list of the 21 reps who signed that letter? my congressman is a blue dog and I want to be sure he didn’t sign it.
the thing that is important about this fight
is how much we have slowed them down. imho, it has always been inevitable that the telcos would get their immunity. the “law” hasn’t applied to anyone but us Little People for a while now, and the dems know where their bread is buttered. we’ll never be able to raise enough to compete with big corporate money, and until the system is changed that will always be the deciding factor.
still, i take heart that the little old blogosphere, shat upon and shunned by the Village, directly told to “fuck off!” by congressional votes to condemn us, still has The Power to shame them into extending the kabuki on is this issue, and pretending to care for the law. and hey, i could even be wrong, and they could end up not giving in after all. wouldn’t that be something.
but be proud of yourselves for being the david against this particular goliath. now may not be the time for the crucial ’five stones to the noggin’ moment, but we got a blow or two in, and that’s something.
Does she have the right?
Does Pelosi have the right to take impeachment off the table? Isn’t she bound by her constitutional duty to conduct such hearings if evidence warrants it? Where is the house ethics committee? She’s not doing her job.
The whole show is completely corrupt, isn’t it?