If they're always lied to, and have become accustomed to it, why in hell do they -- and Pelosi specifically -- continue to treat this administration as if it were composed of honorable and well-intentioned people? Everybody in the country knows they're lying criminals -- even their supporters. What does it take for this simple concept to penetrate the skulls of the majority party?
As to "working in the dark" about "proofs of what Bush did," I think it's pretty clear that a total domestic electronic surveillance program -- which we were told was an outcome of "the events of 9/11(tm)," but which actually began sometime in February 2001 -- is proof of illegal behavior on the part of both the participating telecoms and the BushCo criminals.
Why is it so damned hard to bust them on this simple fact? IT STARTED IN FEBRUARY 2001 AND IT'S THEREFORE, BY DEFINITION, A FELONY, A CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT CRIMINAL ACTS AND MAYBE A VIOLATION OF THE RICO STATUTES AS WELL.
There was no patriot act to legalize their snooping. There was no constant fear-mongering to get us to gladly give up our rights in return for their protection racket's phony efforts to keep us safe. And shockingly enough, there haven't been any more "terrorist" attacks, at least since BushCo's criminals were able to parlay 9/11 into a full-scale war against the rights of the American people, a war that most of the amazingly stupid shits actually bought into.
Here's the main part of an email I sent to Reyes and the intel committee last night. There are some questions here they should be asking, if they haven't already done so:
Before taking the irrevocable step of allowing this obscenity to prevail, why not ask yourselves for what specific actions is the Bush administration requesting immunity? What is the administration afraid will be revealed if various law suits go forward? If the telecoms were acting as patriots just trying to protect Americans from another act of terrorism -- as Bush comically asserted yesterday -- why were they intercepting Americans' electronic communications as early as February 2001?
Who stands to benefit from immunity and the resulting dismissal of dozens of pending legal actions against these telecoms? Who stands to lose -- besides the American people, the concept of equal justice under the law, and the cause of truth? And why would you even consider bailing out the most unpopular president in US history, one whose most recent approval rating stands at a dismal 19 percent?
FISA has apparently been effective enough to remain the law of the land since 1978. Why is it suddenly alleged to be deficient? And the "terrorism prevention" excuse doesn't wash, given the administration's pattern of ignoring all the evidence that a major attack was imminent prior to 9/11/01.
The frustrations of FBI agents Colleen Rowley of Minneapolis and Kenneth Williams of Phoenix, who were impeded by the FBI and the Bush administration's DoJ in obtaining FISA warrants against Zacarias Moussaoui, do not indicate any problems with FISA as it now exists. Rather, their inability to obtain warrants speaks to problems in the FBI chain of command and Ashcroft's DoJ.
Telecom immunity will not fix these problems; it will, in fact, exacerbate them. Nor will they be corrected by the continuously expanding reach of the NSA into every facet of American citizens' lives, activities that used to be unconstitutional -- and still are, unless the Fourth Amendment, too, has been repealed.
And so on into futility land.
wp