http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/77138/ Bush and the immunity for telecoms addressed by Olbermann. Nails them again.
I was howling by the end of it - way to go, Keith!
Saw this last night, and he had me up and cheering by the end of it!
Although I still think the most powerful point was the Kennedy quote
“Think about what we’ve been hearing from the White House in this debate. The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no new FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he is willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.”
You should read the whole statement. You can find it here
Very powerful stuff.
I can’t believe the majority of Republicans and The Bush Adm. can maintain a straight face any longer.
And really, you have to wonder why Bush wants the bill at all, since he was so willing to ignore the FISA courts before this.
are you serious? W/o the bill, the telecoms would be dragged into court(s). Once in court, info about who was tapped would come out. I’ve always assumed that since FISA existed and would actually allow tapping of anyone where there was a shred of evidence, a hint of an idea could possibly be a bad guy, that the only reason one would go to such lengths to avoid having to prove to a court/judge that it really was a bad guy, was, well, 'cause there wasn’t any evidence of it.
REmember J. Edgar’s lists?
The telecom immunity is EXACTLY why he wants the bill. All the rah rah terrorists 9/11 security stuff is for show, and to have something to throw at the Democrats in November.
Actually, the government could scream “national security” and shut down a court case fairly easily, I do believe. Presumably, if the next POTUS is relatively honest (or at least as honest as politician can be), he/she will expose all the wrong doings by Bush & Co. and clever lawyers will be able to find ways to sue no matter what immunity grants have been given.
And if we truly did have a “liberal media”, Olbermann wouldn’t be the only one expressing his outrage with such force and eloquence.
It’s not an “Ex Post Facto” law.
Hmmm, long clip, short comment–was there nothing else you objected to in Mr. Olbermann’s speech?
My neighbors must think I’m crazy 'cause almost every night when I watch the show at 12:00 midnight, I find constantly something he is spot on about, to clap for or exclaim out loud (I know, redundant). The FISA rant left me with tears in my eyes.
Even during the times I he think he is telling the truth but is so over the top, I realize he is truly that angry and truth is truth.
Keith is my favorite biased, left-wing media figure and, yes, I’d do him.
The whistleblower who did the dirty work ,said they can get every phonecall ,every internet activity. Look at a naked person on the internet ,they have it. Pay your bills they have it. Donate to the Democrats ar Sierra Club ,they have it.Say Bush is a fascist ,they have it.
Some of us believe they have no right to our private information.
Oh, come on gonzo!
This is the government.
They’re here to help.
The right understands that, why not you? 
Wait a minute, I thought that one of the tenets of the GOP was that government wasn’t very good at doing anything, and now you’re saying that they believe the government can help? 
I expect this kind of utter bullshit from Republicans. Turning a blind eye while this President breaks the law is turning into their defining moment.
What REALLY pisses me off is the Democrats in the Senate, who bowed to Bush’s lies and passed a bill with the immunity in it. Those fuckers are the one who currently have the bulk of my hate right now.
Because he hit a crossroads. He had to put up or shut up. Courts started to rule against him and his policies, so, to try and foreclose having the courts tell him to his face his legal arguments are completely baseless (again), he decided to do what, had he an ounce of respect for the Constitution and law, he should have done years ago, change the law instead of break it in secret. So he needs the new bill to avoid the sunset provisions of the temporary one, and he needs the telecom immunity to make sure the truth doesn’t come out.
Have I mentioned this entire FISA thing infuriates me to no end?
Yes it is.
Your turn.
Yeah, but the only reason we know about this is because someone spilled the beans to the NYT. It’s not like Congress get’s a report entitled Questionable Activities Undertaken by the White House, That Are Probably Illegal, But Since We Don’t Give a Shit About the Constitution, We’re Doing Them Anyway, ya know?
Depends on how narrowly one wishes to define the term “ex post facto”. A literal translation “after the fact” would seem to make it effectively synonymous with “retroactive”. But in the sense of the Constitutional prohibition on laws that would retroactively criminalize heretofore legal activity, Bricker is probably accurate, and this provision is no more a prohibited “ex post facto” law than any grandfather clause in any other legislation.
Bricker (shrewdly, IMHO) does not point out that there is more than one way to interpret the utterance of the words, (apparently) chooses the interpretation that is erroneous, and ascribes it to Olbermann. For that matter, I’m not persuaded that Keith didn’t intend for the term to carry the rhetorical baggage of unconstitutionality, yet reserve the more colloquial* meaning for any challenges that might crop up. I guess you win some, you lose some.
So, well spotted, Bricker! Anything else there that you’d care to disillusion us about?
*to the extent that a fancy-schmancy Latin phrase can be said to have a colloguial meaning, that is.