Boulder Dude

So, with the help of another Stupid Salazar (John Salazar, the Idiot brother of Ken) it looks like the House is caving into Mr. 19% approval rating on granting Amnasty to the Big Telecoms that aided and abedded the Bush Regime undermine the Constitution, and thus protecting Bush from any unsightly investigations into what he had been doing with all that information gathered since before 9/11 (Qwest was approached in 02/00, weeks after Bush took office). That is the real reason that George II is pushing this, not because the Telecoms might loose some money....no...the reason is because it could show all the folks that the Current Regime was spying on...people that are U.S. Citizens....people that are Politicians.

Really, I see no difference between a Dictatorship and a "Democracy" in which the Congress refuses to do it's job.

Kenneth Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security, said at the same meeting that key issues surrounding the legislation had been hashed out in a "long and tedious" but "healthy" process, aimed at updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Aides said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) has been polling his party's divided caucus the past few days about the immunity issue, with the liberal camp pushing to do nothing and the moderate wing supporting a provision in Senate-passed legislation granting immunity for the telecommunications industry.

Highlighting the party's struggle to heal its internal fractures, today's meetings will involve Democratic staff from the House and Senate intelligence and Judiciary committees, the House Democratic leadership, and then the House Democratic caucus. The dilemma faced by Democrats is that Republicans and the administration oppose any bill other than the measure passed by the Senate that includes full retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies.

"This is not amnesty," Wainstein said at the meeting. "This is targeted immunity" for companies who meet requirements specified in the Senate bill that include having received an attorney general's certification that their assistance was determined to be lawful.

A group of several dozen moderate to conservative House Democrats, known as "Blue Dogs," has pushed Hoyer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to approve the Senate bill. Some aides on Capitol Hill were discussing the potential for the House passing the Senate version but breaking it into two votes: one on the portion of the bill that deals with revising FISA provisions and a second on the immunity measure.

This procedural move would allow many Democrats to vote against immunity but still make its approval all but certain, since almost every Republican and some centrist Democrats would vote in favor.

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"This provision is yet another example of the executive branch 'just trust us' mentality when it comes to intelligence matters," said Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.