Game On

Congressional Democrats finally stood up to Mr. 24% and his lackeys in what could be a turning point for the Constitution, a document that has withstood a battering from this White House for seven long years.

Let's be clear here, it is not FISA that is under consideration but the Protect America Act, a piece of legislation so hastily and clumsily contrived that the house only gave it a six month life span. FISA will go on and our intelligence agencies, by statute will continue to be able to carry out their operations well into the summer and in most instances to the end of 2008.

The PAA, that has just expired, and the extensions and amendments to it, so important and aggressively sought by this WH, enables the NSA to expand warrantless spying on a whole new category of American citizens and gives immunity to Telecom companies for their past illegal complicity in warrantless wiretapping operations. And, it is this part of the PAA that has been so contentious and so spun, that may spell its doom. By giving the telcoms immunity, the administration and the sponsors of this bill in the Senate and the House are tacitly admitting that what occured in the past was illegal but somehow those illegal actions, through the PAA amendment, could be wrapped in an implied patriotic shroud and the whys and wherefores could be argued later in the high courts. Ultimately, it all goes back to the White House and there in lies the rub. Without telcom immunity the illegality in question bounces back to them, with the telcoms as only unwitting accomplices.

High crimes and misdemeanors? For sure... impeach!!!!!!