The United States Constitution and America itself is at a crossroads.
The American people can stand up at this critical time and defend our system of freedom and democracy or we can bow down formally at the feet of corporatocracy and neo-fascism.
Anyone with a brain knows that George Bush and Dick Cheney have used terrorism as political barter and it resulted in a million dead Iraqis.
Anyone with a brain knows that they have particularly utilized 9/11/01, when thousands of Americans died at the hands of Bush's Islamic contemporaries, as political capital to be spent whenever their poll numbers have been down; maybe when there was a particularly important vote at hand, a threat would surface: in other words, George Bush Jr. uses terror to cow Americans and particularly Democratic politicians.
Now is the moment when the Bill of Rights are rendered, in Abu Gonzales' words "quaint" like those pesky Geneva Conventions... OR NOT.
Now there's news from Newsweek that says Dems may be prepared roll over on the 4th Amendment to the Constitution due to, get this, LOBBYIST pressure:
Case Dismissed?
The nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with the White House, have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits against them for assisting the U.S. intelligence community’s warrantless surveillance programs.
The campaign—which involves some of Washington's most prominent lobbying and law firms—has taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco is poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed.
Go read the article and read the slapdown near the end by one of the three judges hearing this case.
The lawyers for the law-breaking corporations claim that they will go bankrupt and they claim that even discussing whether the Constiution has been flushed will hurt national security.
In other words, they are saying that the Constitution is quaint and that we should just let them do whatever the hell they want so long as they throw around the term "national security."
So this judge breaks it down for the warrantless wiretappers and simplifies the matter when one of the attorneys for the warrantless wiretappers whines about how "complicated" the law is here:
"Can’t be any more complicated than my phone bill."
So now while our system of justice is running its course according to established laws, our very own Democrats appear to be jumping ship on democracy and appear to be poised to take part in the formal shredding of the United States Constitution:
Congressional staffers say that Democrats are likely to go along with some version of the proposal. But Democratic leaders, who say they were stampeded into passing the law last summer, are insisting on having more thorough hearings and forcing the administration to turn over documents on the surveillance program. If the telecoms want immunity, some Democrats say, the White House should at least say what it is they need immunity for.