No shock here, but it turns out that the Congresspeople most likely to have voted for telecom immunity were those who got the most dough from the telecoms. On average, the representatives who supported immunity got twice as much money from telecom PACs as did those who did not support immunity.

I saw the headline at TPM, which linked to a story in The Hill, which links to the original report at maplight.org (a policy organization/data group based in Berkeley, that uses data to show how money affects politics).

More after the jump...

A while back -- a long while back -- I wrote to the Senator regarding her vote on the FISA bill, specifically with regard to telecom immunity (this following two previous letters to her wrt FISA issues. Her responses to those letters were weak. While relevant, that's not the issue here).

Finally, today, I get a response that leaves me not just underwhelmed, but kind of annoyed. I'm wondering now if she lied to me. Or at least tried to play me for a fool.

How? Well, let's see...

Check out the future/past tense shifts in this debate preview posted by the AP today. The debate's not starting for hours from the story's posted time of 11am PDT, yet 3/4 of the text is past tense, including the lede..

MANCHESTER, N.H. - The Iraq war was the dominant issue confronting Democratic presidential candidates Sunday night at their second televised debate of the campaign, this one in the leadoff primary state.

All the major candidates planned to participate in the two-hour debate, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), Chris Dodd and Joe Biden; former Sens. John Edwards and Mike Gravel; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

More after the jump...

Ah, our mass media, particularly the AP. They never fail to disappoint.

Check out how AP and Reuters both headline and lede their stories on Gonzales at the House today...

Yes, I'd expect the more liberal bloggers to cover it with a bit more of an adversarial tone than mass media, but at times it's like the wire service reporters watched a different hearing than the one I kept abreast of from the blogging of it all day, mainly at TPM.

The headlines and lede paragraphs after the jump....

Wow, this is a surprise, coming right in the middle of the Prosecutor Purge scandal, the Libby fallout, the Plame hearing.. (/sarcasm)

FBI: Extremists seek school bus work

Wow, you mean the government, and an arm of DoJ at that, is trying to scare the pants off people? Right when things look bad for the administration? But wait, should we be scared or not?

The answer after the jump....

Now how about this for a great idea? An Attorney General fiercely dedicated to the rule of law, politics notwithstanding?

Sounds good? Well, read more in today's entry on the Washington Post's Bench Conference blog.

...select quotes after the jump...

In a surprise development today, an outdoorsman was shot in the face and the Vice-President was not involved.

EUGENE, Oregon (AP) -- A snorkeler who was shot in the face after he was apparently mistaken for a swimming rodent was in good condition after surgery, a hospital said Saturday.

John William Cheesman, 44, of Springfield, underwent eight hours of surgery Thursday to remove bullet and bone fragments from his face, said his wife, Shelley Cheesman.

It is believed that Vice-President will spearhead the diplomatic attempts to get Cheesman to apologize to the alleged shooter for swimming in his line of sight.

I just sent this note to the Edwards campaign at about the same time as they released this statement. Didn't see the statement before I hit "send". So while the intent has more or less been carried out, it's still important to give them support, not only to continue to support their bloggers but to turn the spotlight on the hate from the right.

I have no idea if my note will be read by anyone there. I think it's important to encourage them to stand up, keep Marcotte and McEwan and more importantly to work to expose the hypocrisy of the right wing hate mongers. If you're an Edwards supporter it's incumbent upon you to contact the campaign. Even if you're not in the Edwards camp you should let him know how much it means that he's stood up, because although now it's Edwards they come for, they'll be after your guy or gal next.

Anyway, the letter after the jump...

howie, how you diappoint me in your column today...

great, so you want to congratulate your fellow journalists for the investigative work they sometimes do. great, you want to claim that part of the decline in good investigative journalism is due to cutbacks in news operations at print and cable/broadcast outlets, but that hard-hitting and important stories emerge despite the conditions of the industry.

you use the curt weldon story as a good example. and then you let fly this stink bomb as example #2, before the duke cunningham example(after the jump)

at the risk of conjuring up an old chestnut, let me appeal to common sense, good taste and decency with respect to putting words like "fuck" in a diary title. look, it's not that i have some virgin mouth or prudish nature. i've cursed up many a storm...it's more that there's a time and place for everything. and a big, bolded "fuck" across my computer screen when i click on a story or have the top diaries in bold on the sidebar and lots of "fuck (so and so)" blaring in bold orange...well, that's not the time nor place.

why? after the jump...

Folks, it's time to move. It's time to write letters and call and demand that our elected leaders stand up for the constitution that they swore to protect and defend. Urge them to oppose the torture bill.

I've taken the step of writing to my CA senators, Boxer and Feinstein. Senators are our best bet, as they can filibuster.

The full text is after the jump. Feel free to use it as a template, or better yet, write in your own voice. But do it today. There is no time like now, in fact there may be no time tomorrow.

Apparently a group of people plotting to blow up parts of the New York transportation network have been arrested. That's great, right?

Well, check out this nugget from the story...

FBI agents monitoring Internet chat rooms used by extremists learned in recent months of the plot to strike a blow at the city's economy by destroying vital transportation networks, an official said earlier.

...more after the jump...

It's official now...the US is one step closer to being no better than those nations who openly and as a matter of policy defy human rights conventions.

Washington -- The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to military officials, a step that would mark a potentially permanent shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

The decision culminates a lengthy debate within the Department of Defense, but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed.

However, the State Department fiercely opposes the military's decision to exclude Geneva Convention protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, Defense officials acknowledged.

This last line says it all...(after the jump)

Oy. I know it's early in the news cycle, but that doesn't make it any more right for the Washington Post to allow the lazy "some people" reporting tool to be used without real evidence to back it up.

From Bill Brubaker's piece, posted at 6:04pm EST:

Some Democrats quickly sought to distance themselves from Feingold's request.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) said he would prefer to "solve the problem" rather than scold the president. A censure does not result in a sanction

More after the flip...

Charles Krauthammer often comes across as your nutty cranky uncle -- says things that make you laugh and shake your head at the same time. But usually he's tilting at hefty windmills, things that are important, even if he spouts utter nonsense about those things.

His column today takes on Hollywood in general, and the movie Syriana in particular. His main point is that the Oscars this year are doing a disservice to America by honoring the evils of the middle east. He starts out with:

Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign-language film is "Paradise Now," a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers. Nominated for best picture is "Munich," a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.

But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.

I think Krauthammer needs to have his perspective changed on the nature and purpose of art.

More after the fold....

For a guy who's supposed to be the guardian of our nation's secrets and intelligence, CIA Director Porter Goss seems to be out of the loop.

In this piece in today's NYT, a whinefest about intelligence leaks, he is both outright lying and disingenuously lying, committing lies of commission and ommission.

His point is:

Revelations of intelligence successes or failures, whether accurate or not, can aid Al Qaeda and its global affiliates in many ways. A leak is invaluable to them, even if it only, say, prematurely confirms whether one of their associates is dead or alive. They can gain much more: these disclosures can tip the terrorists to new technologies we use, our operational tactics, and the identities of brave men and women who risk their lives to assist us.

The head-shaking comes because of an example he uses to make his point, and an example he ignores, which would have more on target...after the jump...

Though he's considered the dean of Beltway pundits, Broder's toolery has been exposed before, most effectively by Eric Alterman.

So while it's a disappointment, it's hardly a surprise to read this little gem from his column today:

Every Democrat on the committee signaled in the hearing a readiness to make needed adjustments in the FISA statute, as Congress has done five times since 2001 to provide more flexibility. The Democrats clearly had heeded Karl Rove's recent speech to the Republican National Committee, signaling an intention to tag them -- once again -- in the 2006 campaign as being soft on terrorism.

They went out of their way to avoid that charge, with Ted Kennedy even applying some reverse English to the argument, by suggesting that al Qaeda suspects might beat the rap in court by their lawyers' successfully challenging evidence obtained through surveillance conducted under questionable legal authority.

More after the jump...

Carlson, via Kurtz...

Step back and think about this for a second. Indian tribes get a special pass from the federal government to run a high-margin monopoly simply because they are Indian tribes, which is to say, simply because of their ethnicity. This is the worst, least fair form of affirmative action, and it should be anathema to conservatives. Conservatives are supposed to support the idea of a meritocracy, a country where hard work not heredity is the key to success and everyone is equal before the law. Conservatives should despise Indian gambling on principal.

No, Indian gambling isn't simply about "ethnicity", it's a (misguided, IMO) make-good for years of being screwed by the US of A. Not that I'd expect Carlson to be capable of such nuanced and historically accurate thought, but to reduce it to ethnicity and call it Affirmative Action is just plain stupid and simplistic. Even for him.