There used to be a major American political party known at the Democratic Party. Today, it is being renamed the “Don’t Call Me Soft on Terrorism and Keep that Telecom Money Coming Party”. The founder of the party comes from a familiar American family: the Rockefellers. The Rockefellers are best known as the most famous of the Robber Barons. It must truly be the dawn of a new Progressive Era.
As Greenwald has noted, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia is now openly playing for the wrong team.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) is predicting the Senate will grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies as Congress takes up reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). . .
“I think we will prevail,” Rockefeller said on Wednesday, adding that he hoped the Senate will finish the bill by next week. The FISA legislation expires in February, and both President Bush and GOP congressional leaders have demanded new legislation be in place by that time.
“It’s a pretty bad idea to appear cocky,” Rockefeller noted. “I am not pessimistic.”
Has a Rockefeller ever been pessimistic in the entire history of the family? Maybe about the weather.
What we are witnessing is an obstruction of justice under the cover of law. There is no reason to immunize the telecom corporations because they are already immunized if they had a good faith reason to believe they were following the law. The only reason to immunize them is to prevent the truth about the extent of the lawbreaking from coming to light. Watch how many Democratic senators vote for cloture of Dodd’s filibuster. It will not be a small number, and may even be the majority of the caucus.
There will be other votes today, and I’ll try to get up to speed on the procedure and pending amendments. In the meantime, if you’re a Democrat, you no longer have a party. They will officially cease to exist today. Yes, the party will still be called the same thing. But it won’t be the same. It will be complicit in the worst domestic crime of the last thirty years.
