This is certainly good news. I don't know if it has a snowball's chance in hell of passing, but you never know:

Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced today that they will introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act, which eliminates retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly participated in President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.

“I believe we best defend America when we also defend its founding principles,” said Dodd. “We make our nation safer when we eliminate the false choice between liberty and security. But by granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies who may have participated in warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, the Congress violated the protection of our citizen’s privacy and due process right and we must not allow that to stand.”

Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said, “Last year, I opposed legislation that stripped Americans of their right to seek accountability for the Bush administration’s decision to illegally wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Today, I am pleased to join Senator Dodd to introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act. We can strengthen national security while protecting Americans’ privacy and civil liberties. Restoring Americans’ access to the courts is the first step toward bringing some measure of accountability for the Bush-Cheney administration’s decision to conduct warrantless surveillance in violation of our laws.”

“Granting retroactive immunity to companies that went along with the illegal warrantless wiretapping program was unjustified and undermined the rule of law,” Feingold said. “Congress should not have short-circuited the courts’ constitutional role in assessing the legality of the program. This bill is about ensuring that the law is followed and providing accountability for the American people.”

When Jeff Sessions speaks, weird things happen.

He was talking to Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, about scheduling a Senate Judiciary hearing on the disparity of the penalties for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine

Sessions said he and Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had been talking about it. "Senator Leahy and I were talking during these hearings, we're going to do that crack cocaine thing you and I have talked about before," Sessions said.

The hearing room cracked up.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., looked over at Sessions. "Please rephrase it, Senator. Please rephrase," he said.

Sessions laughed along with the crowd. "I misspoke," he clarified. "We're going to reduce the burden of penalties in some of the crack cocaine cases and make them fair."

The video I selected has nothing to do with the Sunday shows, just one that I thought was cool. In truth, it's the same people having the same conversations with the bobbleheads this morning. Quite literally. With the media panic over the H1N1 or "swine" flu in overdrive, we are being treated to appearances by Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano, New HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Acting CDC Director Richard Besser on not one or two but FIVE of the morning shows. Will they be asked why we should be so scared of H1N1 when regular flu kills 20,000 a year without closing borders or mandating flu shots? Or the almost 15,000 people who died of AIDS? No? Well, then how about how Canadian pigs actually contracted swine flu from a farm worker? Not to be outdone, newly minted Democratic Senator Arlen Specter shows up on two shows and is a planned subject of at least one other. Considering the kind of Republican he was, I don't think we should anticipate such great shakes from him switching parties.

ABC's "This Week" — Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; acting CDC Director Richard Besser.

CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.; Besser; Sebelius; Napolitano.

NBC's "Meet the Press" — Sebelius; Napolitano; Besser; Specter.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Joe Klein, Kelly O'Donnell, Kathleen Parker, Howard Fineman. Topics: Will Arlen Specter provide Obama a reliable 60th vote in the Senate? Will the Republican Party adjust to regain national prominence? Meter Questions: Will Republicans genuinely reevaluate? YES: 4 NO: 8; With Specter joining the Dems, will health care pass? YES: 7 No: 5.

CNN's "State of the Union" — Leahy; House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va.; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; Napolitano; Sebelius; Besser.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - This week on GPS, Fareed sits down for an exclusive interview with Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon. Gates is the guest for the hour and the discussion covers the world: the current crisis in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, global nuclear proliferation, and U.S. imperialism.

"Fox News Sunday" — Napolitano; Sebelius; Besser; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and John Ensign, R-Nev.

What's catching your eye this morning?

I think this is hysterical. I mean, progressive Pennsylvania Democrats were pretty pissed off when the Beltway pols made the deal that put the anti-choice, radical centrist Bob Casey in the Senate, and over Ed Rendell promising Specter he wouldn't face a Democratic primary challenge. These backroom deals are how a state with a large liberal voting bloc keeps ending up with conservative representation:

Senior Senate Democrats are objecting to the deal Majority Leader Harry Reid made with Sen. Arlen Specter, saying they will vote against letting the former Republican shoot to the top of powerful committees after he switches parties.

Several Democrats are furious with Sen. Reid (D-Nev.) for agreeing to let Specter (Pa.) keep his seniority, accrued over more than 28 years as a GOP senator. That agreement would allow Specter to leap past senior Democrats on powerful panels — including the Appropriations and Judiciary committees.

“I won’t be happy if I don’t get to chair something because of Arlen Specter,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who sits on the Appropriations Committee with Specter and is fifth in seniority among Democrats, behind Chairman Daniel Inouye (Hawaii) and Sens. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.) and Tom Harkin (Iowa). “I’m happy with the Democratic order, but I don’t want to be displaced because of Arlen Specter,” she said.

Specter’s first full day in Washington after turning the Capitol upside down with his decision to switch parties suggested a lonely future awaits in the upper chamber.

While he received a formal welcome Wednesday to the Democratic Party at the White House from President Obama and Vice President Biden, senior Senate Democrats exchanged phone calls to voice their objections to Reid’s gambit and one lawmaker said Specter should be happy with a committee seat at the “end of the dais.” Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and two other members of the Senate Republican leadership asked Specter to refund campaign donations.

One senior Democratic lawmaker told The Hill that the Democratic Conference will vote against giving the longtime Pennsylvania Republican seniority over lawmakers like Harkin, Mikulski and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) when they hold their organizational meeting after the 2010 election.

Under his deal with Reid, Specter would jump ahead of all but a few Democrats when it comes time to dole out committee chairmanships and assignments.

“That’s his deal and not the caucus’s,” the senior lawmaker said of Reid’s agreement with Specter.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1693)

PLAYS: (9698)

(h/t Heather)

In this clip you can see how easy it is for conservatives to have their talking points easily slipped into the traditional media at the drop of a hat. Even when they are meaningless and laughable. Today's accomplice is Bob Schieffer from Face the Nation. Sen. Pat Leahy is getting very adept in catching this from the talking heads that are interviewing him.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, is there the risk? I mean, and you know the argument you-- we’ve been hearing it all that-- that we somehow criminalize our political system. I mean, you know, in banana republics one group throws out the other group and they put them all in jail and then they stay there till somebody else comes along and throws them in jail.

SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: (Overlapping) But I'm not--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Are we going down that kind of trail here?

SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: No. I think not. And I-- you know, I've heard the talking point that’s-- usually by people who are afraid they may be looked are the ones making that-- making that argument. But I'm not out for some kind of vengeance and, certainly, if you have people in the field who are told here are the orders from the White House, here is a legal memo telling you what to do and how to do it.

Now, nobody is going to prosecute them, although, I would note that when FBI agents were there and they saw what was being done, when they reported back to the headquarters, FBI director Mueller said, "No, you can't do that. That violates our own rules. That violates our understanding of the law. You have to step back" -- and they did, till word got around.

What I want to know is this: Who were the people in the Office of Legal Counsel, in the President's Council office, even in the Justice Department who knew this was against the law and still told people to go and break the law? I am far more concerned about those people than I am going after somebody in the field.

Does Bob Schieffer actually know what the term "Banana Republic" means?
From Wikipedia:

Banana Republic is a pejorative term for a country that is politically unstable, dependent on limited agriculture (e.g. bananas), and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy, and corrupt clique.[1] It is most commonly used for countries in Central America and Africa such as El Salvador, Belize, Grenada, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and South Africa. In some cases, these nations have kept the government structures that were modeled after the colonial Spanish ruling clique, with a small, largely leisure class on the top, and a large, poorly educated and poorly paid working class of peons, though it might have the (fake) trappings of modernity (such as styling itself a republic with a president etc.)

Frequently the subject of mockery and humour, and usually presided over by a dictatorial military junta that exaggerates its own power and importance—"the epaulettes of a banana republic generalissimo" are proverbially of considerable size, usually portrayed in satire with a pair of mops—a banana republic also typically has large wealth inequities, poor infrastructure, poor schools, a "backward" economy, low capital spending, a reliance on foreign capital and money printing, budget deficits, and a weakening currency. Banana republics are typically also highly prone to revolutions and coups.

And then Bob takes what Dick Cheney says as gospel about CIA memos that will exonerate4 him. Isn't it obvious to Schieffer that if there were any of these "memos," Bush would have leaked them already?

Continue reading »

January 13, 2009 C-SPAN

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said the report confirms some of Democrats worst fears about the Bush administrations political corruption of the Justice Department. He was particularly disturbed about the findings in the report that he believed showed that Schlozman had lied under oath to Congress.

Lying to Congress undermines the very core of our constitutional principles and blunts the American peoples right to open and transparent government, Leahy stated. Not only did he lie to me and the committee, but he then refused to cooperate with Justice Departments internal oversight offices investigation into illegal hiring practices in the departments Civil Rights Division.