Letters to the Editor
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Post Mortem
While we may rant that we need a 60 or 90-day mourning period, I seriously doubt that a man of the character of ondelette and others in the commentariat will need more than a few days or hours. There is no quit in this group. The bigger the challenge, the more determination they will exhibit.
What I have learned from watching this FISA drama play out (and we still have the House) more than anything is how the congress, especially the senate, has operated in the dark for so long and how seemingly arcane parliamentary rules can obscure what is really going on. How a vote can’t be evaluated based on yea or nay. Calculating senators know in advance how a vote is going or they wait to vote late to see how it will go and when their real intention is to vote nay and they know their vote is meaningless in determining the outcome, they vote yea so their vote will not sting them later when campaigning.
What is exhilarating to me on this dark day is that we have Glenn and the Internet available to bring all this darkness to light. How a guy like Jim White who started all the Dodd bandwagon days is already providing another route for us to go, “it is time to begin the framing to prevent a Bush pardon of those in government who were involved in the illegal warrantless wiretapping.”
Too much group despair can seep into the soul and cause us to lose hope. We can’t let that happen. Even if Obama becomes president and is more talk than bite, we can’t quit.
For the first time, I have been involved seriously in grass roots politics and it feels good and I want more. We can prevail. Our country is too important to let us do us in.
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An Email from the Telecoms
Somehow, I just got copied on this email to Rockefeller, Kyle, Bond, and McConnell:
February 12, 2008
Dear Jay, Jon, Kit and Mitch,
You guys are great!! We’re having a little get-together at the club next Tuesday to toast this historic event. Bill, Jamie and the rest of the K Street gang will be there. Plus, Tommy D. is going to stop by to talk about his great efforts on the Hill. Unfortunately, Dick and Dave won’t be able to make it. As you know, Dick just got back from his hunting trip in Fla. They’ll both be busy, in the bunker, setting up the next STP (Screw-The-Public) plan. Those guys are fantastic. I call them the “Backroom Boys”. They can get anything done, with barely a whiff of MSM attention. Anyway, they both wanted to extent a big “High-Five.”
Hey Kit, your floor speeches were right-on message. For a moment there, I thought you were reading directly from the RNC memo that Eddie G. sent us all. A few times you did stray into areas that may have ruffled a few “Joe Public” feathers. But, as Tommy D. always says, “the masses are asses.” Dick and GB have gotten them so scared by now, they have no idea what’s going on here in DC.
Keep an eye on your Cayman accounts toward the end of the week. You’ll see that little “Thank You” note we discussed earlier.
Anyway, Thanks again guys. We couldn’t have done it without you.
As always,
Johnny Telco
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Resolute Reptiles on the Ramparts….
Has anyone else noticed (perhaps I’m imagining it)the slightly veiled embarrassment I detect on the faces of those two lizards (Bond & Rockefeller) as they bravely rise in opposition to certain amendments?
Do lizards actually have consciences?
To hell with PETA! Where’s my pitchfork?
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Thanks, sysprog
The two biggest lies spouted by the Republican Party that ordinary people need to wrestle to the ground and kill dead (or drown in a bath tub) are that any majority which may form in opposition to a tyrannical minority is simply a rabble of "special interests," and that that rabble could only be successful by relying on predatory "trial lawyers."
Of course, a great, growling, unwashed lump of "special interests" could not afford well-heeled and well-connected corporate lawyers, such as those representing telecom interests. They have to take what they can get, like young smart-aleck law school graduates, or maybe ambulance chasers just out rehab.
The Washington Post (10/19/07) said House Democrats don't understand "exactly what conduct they are shielding" when they oppose telecom immunity. For the Post, even if "the administration has balked at providing such information" on the conduct of telecoms and federal investigators, all is well - "... the telecomunications providers SEEM to have been acting as patriotic corporate citizens in a difficult and uncharted environment."
Seems? Can you spell "proof"?
Well!!! A proof on these matters would SEEM to be moot anyway. It doesn't matter, because, according to the Republican Party: "the terrorist threat to America never expires."
Is that to be written into law too? There'll be no statute of limitations for the "war on terror"?
Big Daddy will scare you, literally, to death; and tell you how to make your bed, tie your shoes, put on your clothes, and brush your teeth (with an embedded digital chip - at no extra charge! - just so you know you have to do it right).
No thank you.
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Excuse me, anon
but 9/11 needs to be a false flag op to explain the rape of FISA no more than Pearl Harbor had to have inside help to explain the Pacific War and the double nuking of Japan.
Let's focus, here.
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One Important Caveat
Glenn,
I would add one important caveat to your statement of:
...thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans....
For the rest of this Administration is not forever.
Junya and Deadeye may think that giving retroactive immunity to the Telcos (as is likely with our cowering Congress) provides an impenetrable shield against this Administration’s criminal behavior, but soon there will be another Administration!
The next Administration will be a Democratic Administration, and will have the powers to declassify anything Junya and Deadeye have classified.
Junya and Deadeye’s attempt to shield themselves from FISA criminal violations by invoking State Secrets at the Judicial level and by intimidating Congress to pass Telco retroactive immunity ain’t gonna be sufficient to cover their asses.
Junya may even grant blanket FISA violation pardons to his underlings on the way out of office, but he can’t grant one to himself.
Folks who think the war is lost when Congress finally caves on Telco retroactive immunity mistakenly conflate it as losing the war instead of the truth, losing a battle.
I’m not suggesting that losing the battle is my preferred choice, but instead pointing out that the war will continue.
We ain’t surrendering anytime soon! Our cause is just. We will prevail!