I'm proud to say Henry Waxman is my congressional representative and rest assured, he is moving towards whatever legal remedies are available to him, be it lawsuits, sanctions or withholding of congressional funds.

He's carried the torch for the last six years, and will not stop until he gets a satisfactory answer, even if it means continuing the investigations after 1/9/2009.

I mean, why even pretend that there is any barrier between the two? To them, this is merely an accounting issue, not a conflict of interest as they are same entity for all intents and purposes.

And he's doing everything he can to bring it into the national consciousness. The first thing you have to do is hold hearings and file a report that brings the issue into focus, so citizens and other legislators can use it as a point of reference in demanding meaningful accountability.

It's up to us and the other members of Congress to take the ball and run with it. One man can only do so much, be he's been carrying the torch on a number of important issues for over six years.

I'm sending them money every time they produce an ad like the one responding to Rush's BS. It's by far the best bang for the buck that you will get in terms of political effectiveness.

I also encourage everyone to visit www.votevets.org and watch the media clips of appearances by Founder Jon Soltz, Major General (Ret.) John Batiste, and others. Soltz is particularly effective as he succintly articulates his position and takes NO shit from the whiners on the other side.

If you want some results for your $$, send some to VoteVets.

Not one single criticism of the MoveOn ad got past the headline and addressed its core substance: that Petraues has a history of giving unduly optimistic reports which later turn out to be false. It cites sources (at least in the online version) and provides a compelling case for its assertions.

The spirit of America to me is the right of any citizen to face its government officials and call bullshit. It shouldn't matter if the official happens to wear a military uniform.

But we knew that. It's just that Ron Paul actually defers to the constitution from time to time, whereas the others just pay it lip service whenever it suits them.

Paul is the least scary because there is a possibility that congress could reason with him using conventional political givens, but I would never vote for him.

Anonymous is right. To have voted for that inflammatory resolution means you're OK with Iraq War, Part Duex. And if Bush launches preemptive strikes against the Revolutionary Guard, she'll say she voted to give him leverage with Iran at the negotiating table. Yeah, right.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, . . .

I love how he refers to Fredo as "Judge" Gonzales, like we're supposed to forget how he was the AG in the middle (and responsble) for all this. Forgetting is Fredo's forte.

The telecoms are guilty of invading the privacy of millions of citizens through granting unlimited governmental access to massive datastreams of information. Nobody outside the inner circle knows what the Bush administration has done with this data, but it has likely been stored as terabyte-sized files for future access and manipulation.

The crime the telecoms committed was deeming the violation of the constitutional rights of millions to be subordinate to the President's alleged needs. No citizen should be allowed to violate the Constitution because "the President said so." THAT is un-american. If they want to plead a defense, they will need to testify as to specific actions by the Bush adminstration which might mitigate the severity of their crimes. You got to squeeze lemons to make lemonade.

To me, this issue cuts to the core of the Bush administration's objectives: subordination of constitutional rights to executive power. If congress grants the telecoms immunity from their transgressions (which they've already admitted to by claiming they were acting on orders of the President), then it's prima facia evidence (to me) that the corporations truly own all branches of the government.

I can't think of one issue that more singularly defines the right-wing agenda against individual constitutional rights and on that basis, my primary vote is with Chris Dodd until someone else comes through with stronger action on this issue. I sent him cash when he announced his opposition to retroactive immunity and will continue to do so if maintains that position.

AL,

You've just described the latest splinter in my brain. It used to be just Bush & Co. impaling my cerebellum, but now some Democrats have decided to take up the cause.

There's only one thing that can explain a Democrat voting for corporate retroactive immunity: corruption. This should be a litmus test for 2008.

Thank god for Dodd. He's the only candidate right now who is showing something real to me.

By endorsing immunity, you condone and enable the systematic violation of constitutional rights = Treason. AS to possible blackmail, I can't think of anything a Democratic senator has done in the past that exceeds what has already come to light with many of their Republican counterparts.

Corporations (and any individual for that matter) should know enough about the Constitution to know when they're being asked to violate it. Especially huge corporations with huge legal staffs.

Case in point: in December, 2003, the FBI issued an NSL to casino operators in Las Vegas requesting all transactional data during the holiday week in order to counter a perceived terrorist threat. The casinos, to their credit, refused.

I'm not saying it wasn't out of self-interest (they would have faced massive class action suits if it had gotten out), but they did have the resources and ability to know when they were being asked something that exceeded the normal boundaries of authority and resisted the request.

Presidential authority does not exceed the Constitution, and they should know that.