I absolutely love Propagandee's Depends idea. Sending a box to every Blue Dog would probably do some actual good.

Cynic and borderline paranoiac that I am, I have to wonder: are these folks capable of a "false flag" attack on our own soil to make their point?

I'm much more interested in substance than process, and am sick over the substantive outrage that appears to be virtually inevitable.

But it is also worth noting that the impenetrable procedural thicket that is the Senate rule book has enabled these bootlickers to end-run the manifest wishes of their constituents via a process so convoluted that even avid followers lost the thread. They can claim to do the right thing even as they deliver the real goods to the forces of darkness.

We need to to derail this outrage for many reasons. Telecom immunity is, for me, still the big one. And I recently ran across an old story that added context to that issue. As reported by Think Progress back in 2006:

In recent days, AT&T, Bell South and Verizon have all issued statements denying that they’ve handed over phone records to the NSA, as reported by USA today.

There are three possibilities:

1) The USA Today story is inaccurate;

2) The telcos left enough wiggle room in the statements that both the USA Today story and their statements are accurate; or

3) The statements from the telcos are inaccurate.

Ordinarily, a company that conceals their transactions and activities from the public would violate securities law. But an presidential memorandum signed by the President on May 5 allows the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, to authorize a company to conceal activities related to national security. (See 15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A))

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/17/new-executive-order/

In other words, Bush has already authorized the telcos to lie about their FISA violations. That strongly suggests to me that they have in fact done so, and that the web of lies will shock even the most jaded observer once exposed.

And I have to say one more once -- the Republican framing ("Do they or do they not want our intelligence agencies to be listening in on conversations between terrorists in the Middle East who may be plotting to hurt America?") needs to be countered.

We don't need new laws to allow the CIA and NSA to listen when al Qaeda is on the phone. In 2001 they legally intercepted plenty of al Qaeda messages. What we need is a law requiring George Bush to listen when the intelligence community tries to tell him about those messages -- remember "bin Laden determined to attack in U.S."?

Democratic Senators Clinton and Obama are apparently sitting this one out. Democratic Committee chairs Rockefeller and Leahy are on the side of dictatorship.

Among presidential hopefuls, only John Edwards has spoken out.

What evidence supports a belief that any of this will get better next January?

And I want to keep hammering at this: the framing is wrong, wrong wrong.

Rove's way:

"Do they or do they not want our intelligence agencies to be listening in on conversations between terrorists in the Middle East who may be plotting to hurt America?" Rove asked.

The right way:

We don't need new laws to allow the CIA and FBI to listen when al Qaeda is on the phone. In 2001 they legally intercepted plenty of al Qaeda messages. What we need is a law requiring George Bush to listen when the intelligence community tries to tell him about those messages -- remember "bin Laden determined to attack in U.S."?

The Republican (and Vichy Democrat) framing is oh-so-familiar (courtesy Karl Rove):

"Do they or do they not want our intelligence agencies to be listening in on conversations between terrorists in the Middle East who may be plotting to hurt America?" Rove asked.

As usual, there is no effective counter-spin coming from the loyal opposition. But the right framing should be pretty damned obvious.

We don't need new laws to allow the CIA and FBI to listen when al Qaeda is on the phone. In 2001 they legally intercepted plenty of al Qaeda messages. What we need is a law requiring George Bush to listen when the intelligence community tries to tell him about those messages -- remember "bin Laden determined to attack in U.S."?

I vaguely remember a TV show from my childhood called "Time Tunnel," in which the two late-20th-century protagonists bounced around history, often trying in vain to prevent some tragedy then knew was going to happen. I think in one episode they ended up on the Titanic, trying to warn everyone the ship was going to sink. (That and "My Mother the Car" seem to be the only awful 60s TV shows that have not yet been made into awful movies.)

That is how we must seem to the passengers on this doomed ship of state -- we see the iceberg, we hear the tearing of the hull, but no one believes us. We bang on the stateroom doors, screaming "the ship is taking on water!" but neither passengers nor crew can be bothered to pay to attention.

9/11 is their bloody shirt. The Kean/Hamilton group is their Warren Commission. If this doesn't interrupt their narcolepsy, nothing will.

I'm banging on doors, too. But I'm betting on the latter. Somewhere, "American Idol" is on.