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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Why would the Democrats want to take this horrendous law and extend it by 30 days? The best case for the Democrats may be to pass an extension and then have Bush veto it, but the best case for America is for this thing to expire Friday and be remembered as a dark time in our national history.
Let it die, walk away. That's the answer.
.... in the Orwellian Derby?
Dodd!!!
That regardless of these votes or whatever anyone says or does, someone is listening in on whatever they want to listen in on. And will continue to do so.
I mean, to let Bond & Coreyn to get away with such blatant fibs without a point-by-point breakdown of their lies is almost criminal. Bond just claimed that, and I'm paraphrasing, "because the bill says a warrant is needed if an American is 'possibly' targeted, and it is impossible to determine that at the time the call is being made, then ALL foreign calls require a warrant!"
What? That has never been the case. That will never be the case. It is a Flat. Out. Lie. And he shouldn't be able to get away with that.
I heard Senator Kit Bond say something to the effect of:
"Telcos did nothing wrong, nothing illegal, they don't need amnesty. We should therefore give them legal immunity for breaking the law. Requiring (retroactive) warrants makes intelligence gathering impossible, we will be flying blind!"
He then scolded people who oppose the bill as being "lacking in knowledge."
How do these people sleep at night?
The accompanying claim that companies should never "second-guess" the "judgment of the President regarding what's legal" -- which I just heard from John Cornyn and Saxby Chambliss -- is equally creepy, and is the crux of the authoritarian case for telecom immunity.
Hear, hear. In some circumstances, we even expect soldiers to second-guess their commanders when their orders are illegal. That after all is the precedent of Nuremberg. So why can we not expect civilians to sometimes second-guess the requests of the government? Reasonable deference to the expressed legal judgments of the administration is appropriate. But we should not let private actors off the hook no matter what they did just because as the government paid them it also said, wink wink, this is all legal.
What a loser this clown is.
A total f***ing loser.
Bond: I think you’ll find regrettably a few in the Congress and some on the outside who are vocal who think there is no such thing as a good corporate citizen. They view any business that creates jobs and provides goods or services to be inherently evil. But I think the point of the matter is, that the carriers – telecommunications companies – are a vital link in our national security, both working with us when ordered to listen in on communication from terrorists abroad, and for the longer term, in working with us to ensure cyber-security – protect not only our government but private institutions and individuals from hackers.
So, we have many areas of cooperation with carriers and others. And if anybody who cooperates with the government can be sued by the radical fringe, so-called public interest groups that contend we shouldn’t have any secret intelligence, we ought not to do anything that isn’t totally disclosed – thus, in my view, (will) leave us totally vulnerable to the kind of attacks like the disaster of 9/11.
http://blog.nam.org/archives/2008/01/fisa_and_the_go.php
I believe that there is a phrase that is used to describe when someone deliberately misrepresents ones opponent's view in order to argue against the misrepresentation but unfortunately that phrase is not "Lying sack of shit"
It should be.
Because you managed to pass a Republican bill, I have to listen to Repulican thugs mouthing "Protect America Act" over and over again.
'Scuse me, got to go vomit now.
Thanks Glenn, for your diligent and informative work on the vitally important debate on this egregious bill. It seems the Democrats have found some spine for once! However, the real topic here should be that the criminals in BushCheneyCo are trying to secure themselves immunity, not just for AT&T, etc... They know they're guilty and also know that the public is waking up to the extent of their lies and crimes against America and our Constitution. It seems Dubya, Dick and the rest of them are getting a bit nervous by making this such a huge priority with the very real chance of getting publicly embarrassed by having to contradict themselves and recant the veto threat on this "vitally important" security bill...
"Bipartisan... Bipartisan.... Bipartisan... Bipartisan..." Oh, and "Daddy won't sign that anyway".
However, just because they can't doesn't mean that they should assume nobody else can.
It's a mark of exactly how unintelligent they both are that they are not embarrassed to flaunt their lack of reasoning ability on the Senate floor.
Although, now that I think about Bush, whom even his admirers call "incurious," perhaps lack of intelligence is a requirement for Republicans...sort of like supporting the Iraq war.
...these companies weren't EVEN "being good patriotic corporate citizens." They were doing it because the feds are their CLIENTS! And when the bills didn't get paid, the companies cut off the wiretaps! Grrrr. Someone please tell me that's making its way into the debate somewhere.
I really wish this were a real debate, so that someone could ask, say, Senator Chambliss (who regrettably is one of MY senators), how he factors that in. If they're so darn patriotic, why didn't they do it for free?
CSPAN keeps quitting on me for some reason.....argh!
...if the next president told the telecoms that they should record all phone conversations of our Senators and Representatives, that they would suggest that the telecoms "second-guess" that order right quick.
And he will vote yes. That is a good step to take today, especially if Obama or Clinton show up.
It was frustrating to miss so much of the lead-up, but I finally made it home and it looks like we haven't started voting yet.
Pass the popcorn.
I hope that Senator Dodd receives the credit that is due to him if the SIC bill goes down today.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
