Check this email from Conyers/Leahy

As the chairmen of the U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees tasked with modernizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), we are working hard in

Congress to pass a FISA bill that protects our national security, preserves our civil liberties, and denies the Senate's retroactive immunity to phone companies that participated in the Bush-Cheney Administration warrantless surveillance program.

Now we're at a critical juncture. The House and Senate have passed different versions of the new FISA legislation, and we are meeting to resolve those differences. The president and his Republican allies are using this opportunity to pressure our colleagues to give in and grant retroactive immunity. President Bush has been irresponsibly making false claims that we are more vulnerable to terrorism while this bill remains

That's why we need your help, right now, to push back against the White House while the final FISA bill is being negotiated. Will you write a letter-to-the-editor of your local newspaper to speak out and build grassroots support for fixing FISA the right way? Help us respond to White House scare tactics, preserve our civil liberties, and reject the Senate's telecom immunity.

Click here to send a FISA letter-to-the-editor to your hometown paper now.

A stinking letter writing campaign? Don't they know that "the public" is overwhelmingly AGAINST telcom immunity?

GET A GRIP, CONGRESS, act like vertebrates for once!

But I wonder if Leahy/Conyers, et al read the WSJ?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/

Thanks for picking up that ball and running w/ it (as I hoped someone "better informed" than I would do)... Brevity may be the soul of wit, but I can be brief to the point of cryptic, I realize - an artifact of my "in and out" relationship w/ this place. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it, anyway,

HRH: When are you gonna realize you're preaching to the choir here? Every damn post isn't guaged by how you perceive it's importance relative to the stinking Drug War.

Chuck Norris, Eliot Spitzer, and a $5500/hr prostitute walk into a bar...

Staggering hypocrisy aside (oh, and BTW, thanks a LOT Eliot, this is just what Dems need right now Mr. "Up-and-comer", you nitwit, WTF were you thinkin!? etc.) does the fact that he's accused (I believe) of violations of the Mann Act (i.e. a Federal? crime) factor into all the outrage?

No snark, honest question.

I amuse myself.

And nobody came up w/ a punch-line for my previous set-up (Chuck Norris, Eliot Spitzer, and a $5500/hr prostitute go walking into a bar...)

So I can't cast an informed vote.

Now, if you put Reyes, Pelosi, or Sen. Jello Jay on the list...

Sorry, but GG's comment reminds me just how apropos is that bumper sticker I saw...

Somebody give that *&^%$# in the White House a BLOWJOB!

I believe Glenn has previously cited any number of polls which show that the American public, by substantial margins, is AGAINST telco amnesty.

So "your" category is in all likelihood vanishigly small.

Talking Points Memo has a decent update

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/house_surveillance_bill_contai.php

or

http://tinyurl.com/2wb9ej

on this NYT FISA article

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/washington/11fisa.html?_r=2&ei=5088&en=5845d224f9e72156&ex=1362974400&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1205252498-MsuzU4g2H+ZOIkn7ydFDBg

or

http://tinyurl.com/2vnpdp

Check the final sentence from this ABC Spitzer story.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4429872&page=1

One source said prosecutors are focusing only on financial crimes involving alleged violations of the law in the way Spitzer moved money through a series of accounts to pay for his prostitutes.

An offer to resign as governor could be part of any negotiated package, according to former prosecutors.

IANAL. Does that sound "right" to those who have experience w/ this type of situation?

...on Glenn's link to the pic of the alleged escort.

I did.

to "second" what ondelette just posted.

Would that be more, or less, than the number of Dems in favor of telco amnesty because the majority of their constituents want them to be?

Just razzin'. 8')

Wouldn't they be better off if they could unionize orsomething? Do hookers in Nevada brothels have health insurance?

Hey, I don't patronize hookers for lots of reasons. I tend to agree w/ a number of the commenters who are uncomfortable w/ the interpersonal dynamic of it, and the fact that it may be degrading in a lot of cases.

I just don't see how making it illegal helps. At all.

omooex - you'd start by fantasizing women want to sleep w/ you?

No experience w/ that actual experience, eh?

Via TPM et al.

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/judiciary_immunity.pdf

or

http://tinyurl.com/2y6xb3

Statement of Undersigned Members of the House Judiciary Concerning the Administration’s Terrorist Surveillance Program and the Issue of Retroactive Immunity

As a result of our review of classified as well as unclassified materials concerning the Administration’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, we have concluded that blanket retroactive immunity for phone companies is not justified.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/78885/

L.W.M. plenty of salvia info on the web. Careful.

email me at bamage02atyahhoodotcom

I can at least steer you to valid info.

Is the letters thread on the last post closed?

Every time I try to post a letter, I'm told I have to "sign in". Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

http://tinyurl.com/2rgoku

I think he might appreciate my letter on the previous post. (Via Atrios)

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Antiwar_veterans_to_provide_grunts_eye_0313.html

I was tempted to post that letter meself.