FISA Fallout

Submitted by stormbear on Fri, 02/15/2008 - 9:52am.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

I must say, I have to giggle at the utter silliness of the GOP these days. Yesterday was a prime example of their staged fake rage.

During the FISA fracas, the House Republicans got up and left. They claim it was spontaneous, but how spontaneous could it have been when they walked out, en masse, to an awaiting press corps, with cameras already set-up, microphones prepped and the sat trucks standing by to beam the new fake rage to media satellites for global broadcast?

Regardless of what they want you to think, in actuality, this was planned, schemed and orchestrated well in advance.

I hope that pig of a bill is buried forever. The GOP can weep all they want.

5

I thought Boehner really was going to cry again.

Submitted by Linda on Fri, 02/15/2008 - 10:16am.

But I guess he decided to just take his ball and go home. After a lengthy press conference, of course. Idiots.

Great strip, Stormbear. That's the way I like Congress, too.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi

Gordon Smith's picture

Shuler Is With Bush and Boehner on This

Submitted by Gordon Smith on Fri, 02/15/2008 - 11:51pm.

Shuler's in for immunity for telecoms. The details here:

I just got off the phone with the Shuler folks, and they’re set to vote for immunity for big telecom companies who wiretapped for the Bush administration. Their rationale as I understand it is this:

1. It’s unfair to punish companies for responding to a request from the White House and Justice Department. They were asking for companies to help fight terrorism, so why subject them to lawsuits for being patriotic?
2. It would place an undue economic burden on the telecoms to fight off lawsuits regarding the illegal wiretaps.
3. They’re just ready to move past this, get a FISA bill passed, and get to work on other legislation. Because the Senate keeps sending a bill without immunity to them, it would just be kicking the can down the road to disagree again.

Then today I wrote:

"Heath Shuler is on President Bush’s side in this fight. Congressman Shuler, like George W. Bush, believes we ought to put corporations above the law. His rationale for the Bush alliance is explained in this post from earlier this week. Heath Shuler, his Blue Dogs, Congressional Republicans and George W. Bush are all together on this."

The truly sad thing about this is that it has nothing -

Submitted by Linda on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 12:29am.

NOTHING to do with national security, and everything to do with protecting private interests from lawsuits because they collaborated with Bushco. Bushco never needed this law, previous FISA laws gave them everything they needed. This always was just a power play to expand the power of the Executive Branch. I'm glad that our Democrats in Congress shut them down.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi

Another thing to consider..

Submitted by denno on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 6:55am.

The At&T technician, who came forward against this bill, knows much, and is willing to spill the beans. I did this same work for Verizon for many years, and you never did these things without a court order. He suggests that this was going on before 911, so their explanation of being patriotic seems to be in question. If this retoactive immunity is passed, it not only throws out the fourth amendment, but we lose any opportunity to find out about the gov't spy program on citizens.

This guy who came forward is as much of a hero

Submitted by Linda on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 10:01am.

as the men and women in uniform who are putting their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the other places we don't know about or I can't think of right now.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Syndicate content

Since When is Campbell Brown My Hero?


Trying to get a straight answer out of McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

BTW: I'm glad that Talking Points Memo posted this excerpt on Youtube, but since when does TiVo'ing something allow you to brand it with your logo? That's the Wild West...