The House passed a bill today that provides retroactive immunity for all telecommunications companies involved in President Bush's domestic spying program. You know why they need retroactive immunity? BECAUSE THEY BROKE THE LAW. The Bush administration, with the help of multiple telecoms, spied on Americans WITHOUT A COURT WARRANT. And now, the House has finally given in and decided to side with the most unpopular president in American history.

And where are the conservatives during all this? Where are the true conservatives who favor PRIVACY among all else, the ones who HATE it when government eschews the law in order to pry in on the lives of individual citizens? Why, they're all backing telecom immunity, too!  That hardly surprises me, given that the conservative movement has grown so limp in the face of the neoconservative minority that few if any have the backbone necessary to actually stand up for their original values. Why follow any laws when they can use the "Terrorist Bogeyman" to do anything they want?

Click here to read the case AGAINST retroactive immunity for telecoms. 

We should be proud today to be citizens of Wisconsin, to be represented by one of the few brave senators left in Congress: Russ Feingold. The guy with the guts to oppose the "Patriot Act" is the only one truly speaking out against this bill:

“The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation. The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the President’s illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home. Allowing courts to review the question of immunity is meaningless when the same legislation essentially requires the court to grant immunity. And under this bill, the government can still sweep up and keep the international communications of innocent Americans in the U.S. with no connection to suspected terrorists, with very few safeguards to protect against abuse of this power. Instead of cutting bad deals on both FISA and funding for the war in Iraq, Democrats should be standing up to the flawed and dangerous policies of this administration.”

We can still fight this. There are two things we can do right now to change things:

1. Contact Russ Feingold and express your support.

2. Contact Barack Obama and tell him to stand up and urge the Senate to vote down this bill. He has the power in the Democratic Party right now to kill this bill in its tracks.

 

Ken Brosky
 

 

Special thanks to our representative, Gwen Moore, for suporting the call by House Representative Dennis Kucinich's to impeach President Bush. Kucinich introduced 35(!) articles of impeachment against the president and Representative Robert Wexler called for judiciary committee hearings on the issue. Very few democrats in the House--17 total--have supported it thus far, despite the fact that our president has committed crimes, along with our vice president.

Click here to download and read all 35 articles of impeachment.

Call you senator at this number and tell him/her to support the impeachment: (202-224-3121)

Click here to send an email to your representatives and tell them how you feel.

 

You have everything you need right here. You have the documents, the phone number and the email address. Now make your voice heard! 

What's the point in having a Congress at all when President Bush makes signing statements on every single piece of legislation that crosses his desk? Let me explain in further detail for you with the help of Constitutional scholar John W. Dean:
 
"Suppose a new law requires the President to act in a certain manner - for instance, to report to Congress on how he is dealing with terrorism. Bush's signing statement will flat out reject the law, and state that he will construe the law "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."

The upshot? It is as if no law had been passed on the matter at all."

 This is especially troubling when it comes to torture, which you should definitely be upset about.

But most importantly, this has a giant impact on the occupation of Iraq. Bush's most recent signing statement suggests he might consider putting permanent bases inside Iraq in the future, suggesting he has absolutely NO INTEREST in bringing our troops home anytime soon, or ending this war. This is the same president who talked extensively about not "passing the buck" to the next president, and yet what we have now is an absolute quagmire and another state--Afghanistan--teetering on the brink, economic instability and a slew of other problems that the next president will have to tackle.

I say this with absolute confidence: The president is an authoritarian. He is a monarch. He does not care what laws Congress passes, because he will simply sidestep them when needed.

Click here to contact Gwen Moore, our representative. Tell her that she should focus on bringing this into the public light. Tell her this issue is important.

 
Want to learn more about Bush's many, many, many signing statements? Click here.

 

Yours,

 Ken Brosky