The Bill and the Capitol Hill Mine Disaster

Maybe the House Democrats should bring a canary in with them before their cave-in.

In a 31-67 defeat, the Senate voted to approve the FISA extension bill with immunity for the telecom companies intact. In Republican World, this is known as tort reform because it essentially would render invalid 40 lawsuits pending from irate Americans who’d been spied on at the behest of the Bush administration by these same companies. It was already a given that you can’t take City Hall to court. Now you cannot even take their partners in crime there, either.

In a separate voice vote Tuesday, the Senate expanded the power of the court to oversee government eavesdropping of Americans. The amendment would give the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court the authority to monitor whether the government is complying with procedures designed to protect the privacy of innocent Americans whose telephone or computer communications are captured during surveillance of a foreign target.

Well, gee, that’s all good and well but what good does it do our 4th amendment rights if Bush’s parallel spying setup bypasses FISA, which it’s been doing since the beginning?

Here are your 19 traitors (18, if you automatically expected Lieberman to side with his Butt Buddy George, 20 if you expected Hillary to miss another vote). Pay careful attention if any of these clowns represent your state and remember them the next time they're up for re-election.

Bayh (D-IN)
Carper (D-DE)
Conrad (D-ND)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD) Perhaps Tim never completely recovered from his brain hemorrhage.
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA) After Hurricane Katrina 2½ years ago, I can perfectly understand why Proud Mary would want to discharge her debt of gratitude to Lame Duck George.
Lieberman (ID-CT) There’s a fucking shock to my system.
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO) This one really hurts. The progressives of Missouri just voted her in and she pulls this shit.
Mikulski (D-MD) Another newcomer Democrat who stabbed us in the spine they don’t have.
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE) The Nelson Brothers strike again.
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Webb (D-VA) This one really hurts perhaps most of all. I was really beginning to think this former Republican piece of shit was for real.

Take those 19 Nays to strip immunity, turn them into Yeas, throw in a Yea from No Show Hillary and you have a 51-48 vote to complement the current House version that also does not grant immunity. Lindsey Graham, it ought to be noted, also did not vote. Why aren't we capable of hard-line party votes when it counts like the GOP?

Hillary Clinton, once again, couldn’t be bothered to vote. At least Barack Obama showed up for work this time and voted to strip immunity. Here’s the entire voting record on the amendment that would’ve stripped immunity for the telecom companies.

Now, I’m accepting bets for a pool I’m starting as to what exact minute the House Democrats will cave in to this lame duck propeller head that we call Dear Leader.

To the rest, let’s give these invertebrates a hand…

one finger at a time.