Login Here(Pach is off to New York where his dad is very very sick. Please keep him in your prayers -- jh)
Steny Hoyer is reported to be working with Jay Rockefeller to achieve George Bush's fondest wish, to give retroactive immunity to the telecos (and members of the Cheney administration who worked with them). Only they plan to call it a "bipartisan" agreement, immunity that isn't immunity -- and then pat themselves on the head for their big victory.
Their strategy is to craft a bill that they can pretend is something short of amnesty for telecoms but which, in every meaningful respect, ensures an end to the telecom lawsuits. It goes without saying that no "compromise" will be acceptable to Rockefeller or the White House unless there is a guaranteed end to those lawsuits, i.e., unless the bill grants amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms.
As Glenn goes on to note, every House Democrat with the exception of five Blue Dogs rejected the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill. And why Chris Carney wants to walk straight into the meat grinder is anyone's guess, but there he is in The Hill:
Vulnerable freshman Democrats and Blue Dogs say the issue demands action.
"Overall, it's very important," said Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.), a freshman member of the Blue Dog Coalition who often votes against his leadership.
Carney said that a compromise should protect national security and also respect civil liberties. "I've been in favor of the Senate bill. We'll see what happens," he said.
There is no public outcry to "free Dick Cheney." There is no constituency ready to storm the halls of Congress unless the telecoms are given immunity, just a lot of K Street money pouring into the coffers of the Blue Dogs. If Steny, Jello Jay and Carney have their way, it will be virtually impossible to discover the extent of the crimes of the telecos (and the Bushies) for spying on American citizens.
We've now raised over $64,000 for an campaign to push back against the fearmongering ads targeted at Democratic freshmen on FISA (see YouTube). If you'd like to contribute to the campaign which we'll be launching soon, you can do so here.
We're not stupid, Steny. We get it.
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so!
(((Pach)))
Steny,
Please pay attention to these two names:
Al Wynn
Donna Edwards
Get the picture?
Sending White Light to Pach’s dad.
(((Pach)))
Thinking good thoughts about Pach’s dad.
Did I miss the vote on which bushdog was going to get a personal come-to-Jesus meeting? who won? carney?
Who do we know who can primary Steny.
And that Carney nitwit
purple cloud of headling for Pach’s dad
Sorry about your dad, Pach. Hope everything works out in the best possible way for him.
I just have to remember that while we are doing a happy dance that a seat that was Rethuglican just went to the Dems, in Cazayoux we are very likely welcoming our very next Blue Dog!
OT…Laura Bush is berating the government of Myanmar for their response to the cyclone…irony of ironies…
I have called Pelosi’s office and Hoyer’s office, as well as the office of my Congresswoman, and voiced my concern that the telecoms must not get immunity. I urge everyone to give a call.
Metinks that will backfire on her.
“So many of the people on the islane are porr anyway. This is working very will for them.”
(I know that was Babs, but still…)
Ad paid for by Defense of Democracies. Terrists Surveillance is crippled. Senate Democrats and Republicans voted overwhelmingly in favor of tapping your phones and retroactive immunity for Telcos. Tell Murphy to vote to stop the boogeyman. The one in Pakistan that Dubya first ignored and then let get away.
“poor”
(preview is my friend…)
I guess she noticed that none of their leaders had guitars.
best wishes to Pach’s Pop.
Which creep suggested that the Katrina victims were having fun? Was it Tom Delay?
I don’t remember that one. It wouldn’t suprise me.
Honestly….what is the super-duper secret society these Congresscritters all join when they get elected…there must be several…I’m starting to think the tinfoil hat stuff is real..or maybe it’s just the cocktail party schmoozing…Maybe they have secret handshakes and stuff…maybe they have secret rituals in the backrooms…Maybe somebody hypnotizes them the minute a new member joins them…
Oh yeah, Jay “Rockefeller”….
Ever read or hear what Nicholas Rockefeller told Aaron Russo about the plans…?
not to mention Babs Bush: “so I guess this is actually working out pretty well for you folks” or words to that effect.
Barbara Bush
A lot of it is about who shows up with a camapign contribution. I have been following the Tony Rezko trial pretty closley and Rezko, like Abramoff, used his abitliy to raise cmapign contributions as a currency to get elected officials to allow him to have power over who got gov’t jobs, who got gov’t contracts, etc.
PAY TO PLAY, baybay
must put it to you bluntly Rep. Carney: Have the telecoms companies recently contributed to your campaign? Is there any other legitimate reason you have for lying about who donates to your campaign? Are you aware that the telecommunications industry has rejected immunity for themselves out of hand?
I must insist that you are taking money and voting according to that company’s wishes sir. This makes you a criminal. Resign.
While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots.
The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, “Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?”
They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.
http://blogs.chron.com/domeblo.....vacue.html
Delay:
I know, I know…tinfoil…blah, blah, blah…but..we are talking about a “Rockefeller” in Congress..right now..making a deal to get away with the spying crappola, so maybe what I’m posting here “sounds” tinfoily…all I can say is..hellooo…it’s happening..
“Russo states that Rockefeller told him, “Eleven months before 9/11 happened there was going to be an event and out of that event we were going to invade Afghanistan to run pipelines through the Caspian sea, we were going to invade Iraq to take over the oil fields and establish a base in the Middle East, and we’d go after Chavez in Venezuela.”
Rockefeller also told Russo that he would see soldiers looking in caves in Afghanistan and Pakistan for Osama bin Laden and that there would be an “Endless war on terror where there’s no real enemy and the whole thing is a giant hoax,” so that “the government could take over the American people,” according to Russo, who said that Rockefeller was cynically laughing and joking as he made the astounding prediction.”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ar.....ergoal.htm
yeah, but where’s your fancy formatting, hmmmm? :~)
Definitely!!!
Just got off the phone with someone in the Majority Leader’s office. I gave her this message:
The woman took my call said Steny had information about FISA on their web site. I found this Scare Tactics and Our Surveillance Bill from February which contained this clever camouflage.
Prior to reading FDL, I use to buy this crap.
It’s not a super-secret club per se.
The telcos have ALL the goods on any official if they’ve ever done anything untoward, remember that.
And I’ll bet they can manufacture what they need if it’s not enough to check an elected official short.
Conyers, for example, may not have pursued impeachment for this reason; there’s enough dirt on Conyers that would give the average American pause about his credibility, while damaging his entire family even if only part of the dirt were true.
Just imagine what the telcos are holding against elected officials in order to blackmail them into compliance.
Someone ought to tell Laura Bush to turn over in bed sometime and look at her husband and she will see the person who is responsible for mishandling the response to a hurricane that left over a thousand dead and a major US city irretrievably altered. They might also advise her that if the hurricane had occurred a few months earlier, that is before the election, she would not be sleeping in the WH right now! She should be saying, “There but for the grace of God go I!”
True.
Hmmm…it is a controversial enough statement for her to make that could be used to bring Katrina back into the news….
Maybe Georgie Porgie married a girl just like the girl that married dear ole dad!
Someone has to capture this CNN story right now on the cyclone stuff…
Yours is prettier than mine. (Not making excuses, but I had a time finding that piece on teh google - had to customize the search - its almost lost in the ether, funny isn’t it?)
OMG…Myanmar “must” accept aid from the rest of the world…ummm…Laura???? Remember when you wouldn’t accept Cuban medical assistance during Katrina..ahem…?
Telecoms have large numbers of lawyers on staff, who know the ins and outs of every law, every regulation, and every bit of administrative ”guidance” related to their industry.
Rule number one for every one of these lawyers can be spelled out quite simply: if the government presents you with a warrant signed by a judge, you have to comply with it AND you cannot be held liable for doing so. If the telecoms want immunity, all they have to do is ask for a warrant first.
Note that last word. That’s the critical piece.
In senior year high school, the National Honor Society (I was secy) wrote a musical comedy of Oedipus Rex, prominently featuring that song.
Jane, for what it’s worth, I think I prefer the title embedded in the URL to this thread over the one you used as the headline above the photo.
These bastards just won’t quit. This is going to be the administrations one priority until they are out of office.
LOL!
and agreed!
Why is it that the supposed Dems. Hoyer, jelojay etal are seemingly more concerned with protecting the effing pres and darth than they are about doing something about the damned economy, invading Iran, the housing mess, the infrastructure, Israeli belligerence, etc bloody etc. Where the hell are these peoples priorities? What is it that drives them?
Yup. They just all have their knickers in a twist because they blew it and “knowingly” participated in an illegal “scheme”..and they got caught…and they should be held accountable…all of them. There is absolutely no other explanation for the need for immunity.
Jail.
Catually they all have two priorities: gather as much plunder as possible and securing a blanket PResidential pardon.
Did you happen to see the Laurabot and Jenna signing their co-authored children’s book on CSPAN 2? Demure and coy they were.
Over seventy percent of 300,000,000 people (just in this country) not to mention the billions outside of this country…are really pissed off at these people. That is a lot of pissed-off people..
Now they can’t even run away to Paraguay with any security anymore…heh, heh.
All of these abuses are going to come back and bite them all in the butt eventually.
Gawd…at least Jenna said she wasn’t necessarily supporting McBush…
Thanks, gang. I’m on the Acela to NY. The last two weeks have been a roller coaster, and I just left NY last night thinking things may have stabilized a bit. Now we’ll just have to see, but everyone.s warm thoughts are greatly appreciated.
I think it is important that we take the telecom out of the immunity equation. I can guarantee that the telecoms are holding correspondence from this adminstration that absolves them of liability. The adminsitration has ordered the Telecoms to withold this information on state secrets grounds. This is a Bush Administration immunity deal and needs to be framed that way. It insults my intelligence to believe that multi-billion dollar organizations with virtually unlimited resources need protection from lawsuits. This is more Bush league antics.
Is “anyone” detecting the most subtle shift in the news lately…?? More footage of Iraqi casualties, etc…can’t put my finger on it, but they showed dead Iraqi children the other day…..
Oh yeah, I get it…they’re gonna spin it that the Iranians are causing it…D’Oh…
Wait until they attack Iran though…all heyall is gonna break loose if/when that happens…
Don’t be suprised when she does.
Yes, right on.
Absolutely.
The telcoms don’t have to worry, unless there is proof that they knew what they were doing was illegal. The judge in the AT&T case made a comment that suggested that whatever they were relying on from te govt’ (and I STRONGLY suspect that it is a another laughably craptastic Yoo memo, didn’t even pass the “blush test.”
Which is why I think it’s a Yoo memo.
I think the full court press is that Shrub (who after call has the ability to pardon the telcos) does not want the facts to come out and is blackmailing hte telcos to cover his own sorry ass.
So, Yes, the telcos are spending their lobbying money to buy some votes on the Hill, but the real imetus behind this is Darth nad Shrub.
Whatever they did must be incredibly explosive.
That’s suprising it’s evein in the news, considering that the Royal Wedding is coming up. I’m sure the wedding will soon sweep all the unpleasantness back under the table. A few calls from the Bush family and the Republics is all it will take.
Has it occurred to anyone that there could possibly be a large element of “psyops” involved in all of this???
It could make sense…knowing how incompetent they all are…that they really haven’t done 1/100,000,000 of what they want people to think they have done or are capable of…and that they need to cover it up, because they want to keep the “myth” of their ever expanding power going…sort of the Wizard of Oz stuff….
Is that even a possibility?
Maybe they need immunity, because they “want” people to think they are being spied on and controlled…that sort of thing…
I was watching “The General’s Daughter” last night, and it occurred to me…
Then maybe I didn’t age myself as much as I thought!
bmaz had a great post on this over at Emptywheel’s place earlier. One very nice piece to bring to the discussion here is this:
It’s all about BushCo CYA. And that’s all it’s ever been about.
That was in 1962!
I think there is an element of that. They delude themselves into thinking htat they are fooling Osama and co. That the rest of the world thinks the US can do all this techie crap.
They think that backward “feriners” will be intimidated by our modernity. WHich is just Shrub deluding himself that he is a manly man, instead of the National Guard deserter he really is.
Yeah BMAZ. Yeah Peterr.
Peterr;
You and bmaz have got it exactly correct.
This, like everything for the past almost-eight years, is about nothing else than Bu$h Co!
The figures bmaz includes speak for themselves, very clearly.
So you graduated a year before me!
Here’s a much better video, Jane
;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7X8u5IEEBc
So it would appear. Lots of “seniors” on this blog.
Yep.
Thus, my earlier comment at 41.
Exactly what I was thinking.
And, I think back to Dick’s “ominous” on purpose “dark side” statement. Bugga, bugga.
“Ridiculous” *G*
It would be really hilarious in the end if they were exposed as being technologically incapable of doing or “managing” anything remotely as enormous as we have been led to believe….heh, heh….and everybody found out that they were really only 6″ tall…how embarrassing…no wonder they have to hide it behind
the curtainstate secrets..Now, as far as torture goes…well, that’s a whole other matter…War crimes.
Ummm, I’m not familiar with the PrisonPlanet site. Is this like The Onion? Is this factual?
Seconded.
Well, no it is not a joke like the Onion. It is run by Alex Jones, who has some pretty extreme ideas, however, I’ve listened to him once in awhile since the 1990’s, and I know people who know him…a lot of what has happened is stuff that he was talking about years ago. He’s very intense, but in an awful lot of areas..he’s been right on. He was onto Blackwater stuff way before it came out into the open for example…and he predicted the loss of rights and the P.A., etc., he also spoke about an event like 9/11 happening that would allow an administration to grab power. I take him with a grain of salt, but the interview with Russo would be real…yes.
Watch this interview of Russell Tice
http://video.lisarein.com/pbs/.....ying-3.mov
The entire Now episode is here
http://www.onlisareinsradar.co.....php#002546
The ACLU invites us to contact our Congressional reps to insist there be no backdoor FISA agreement that would exempt telecoms from consequences of their illegal wiretaps.
Sign here to make a statement
Lott is only one of about a zillion lobbyists they’re paying. They’ve covered both sides of the aisle, including folks like Steve Elmendorf. Yes, that Steve Elmendorf.
There’s cash everywhere to grease these particular wheels.
The interview could be real, but the allegations strike me a dubious.
In reference to Lott–I had the opportunity to watch him on C-Span this afternoon. He was speaking to the young republicans and bragging about his and John McCain’s families going “way back”.
He said that their families had been in public service since the 1800s with Lott’s ancestors holding public office in Mississippi, and he mentioned there was a McCain county and that John McCain’s ancestor practically built the Naval program.
It was quite nauseating to watch, so I can’t give a comprehensive view.
I will say that the Lott and McCain families have had their day in the sun, so to speak, living off of taxpayer money.
This goes against the reasons for this country’s founding on getting away from families running the show for generations, as in the royalty of England.
and I’d like to add that these freshman Dems and Blue dogs wouldn’t be so vulnerable if *everyone* were on equal footing–that is, there would be term limits that would limit the amount of power one could wield, as none would be in Congress long enough to ingratiate oneself to the lobbyists and corporate influence.
The primary result of artificial “term limits” is the creation of a class of bureaucrat and lobbyist that maintains the power and institutional memory. That is what has happened in California and other states that did institute “term limits.”
The best term limits of all is elections. You know, how Carney got in office in the first place.
Thanks, Dakine, for the info. It’s so frustrating.
Realize that “Term Limits” is a creation of the right wing. It is an artificial solution to an artificial problem and the end result is every few years there’s a complete turnover in the various elected bodies that are bound by it.
Because of that, all the bad ideas that get thrown out, get to come back to life because the folks with the memories are gone.
It is a cliche but if folks don’t like their elected representatives, then work to get them defeated. But don’t deprive those who do like theirs of their choices to send someone back for years and years.
Yes, I can see that happening. I don’t know what the answer is, because the present scenario isn’t working, either.
Thanks for the info.
Yikes. To put it mildly. I’ve often wondered what the elite talk about when they meet and greet. I’ve been reading some books on the “Dark Ages”, “Middle Ages” — basically from about 400 to 1300 A.D. — and seeing a whole lot of parallels. The implications for our future in this country are horrific, from the point-of-view on the non-elite, anyway. Interestingly, we seem to have compressed the Fall of the Roman Empire as exprienced up in Europe into a couple of decades.
As both Obama and Clinton have spoken out against amnesty, it’s time they showed leadership over this. They should be pressing their backers to follow their suit. This goes for McCaskill as well!
There should be a standard that is upheld within party principles. If you believe the president is above the law, advocate torture, or disregard the Constitution, then you aren’t(or shouldn’t be allowed to be) a Democrat. Don’t try to be a wolf in sheeps clothing. You should announce to your constituents that you are a Republican but are ashamed to admit it.
Smacks of a loyalty oath. Am I allowed to be a Democrat because I may have religious scruples you may disagree with, for example?
Go get ‘em, Jane!
It doesn’t strike me as a loyalty oath at all. I believe that there are principles or policies that the party adopts. I think defending the Constitution is something all politicians swear an oath to uphold. I would have no problem in ousting any politician that chose to ignore that.