Impeach Bush and Cheney…Here We Go Again With “The I Spy Game”!

Wolfowitz Back In Action And A Note From Michael Moore.

Pick Up The Link Here Easily

http://labexperiments.blogspot.com/2008/01/stop-spying-now.html

It's Time to Hold Democratic House Leaders in Contempt
NY,USAHuffington Post - New York,
Within weeks, the few brave members of the House Judiciary Committee who were apparently still sentient and still aware of their role as Americans

ACLU condemns Senate action on spy bill
Austin American-Statesman, TX - Jan 24, 2008
The Senate voted 60 to 34 today to reject a bill from the Senate Judiciary Committee that would not offer the telecom industry legal cover for participating ...
Senate Gives Bush Initial Victory In Domestic-Wiretapping Program Wall Street Journal
Filibuster Threatened Over Wiretap Law CBS News
With “Protectors” Like This… Tort Deform

Senate spy bill still shields telecoms
Los Angeles Times, CA - 16 hours ago
As part of that program, the Bush administration convinced AT&T, Sprint and other major telecommunications companies to allow US spy agencies extensive ...

Authority To Spy: Forever nosy
Seattle Post Intelligencer - 23 hours ago
It looks like a bill expanding oversight of the program failed, which means the only version of the bill before Congress is the White House's version. ...
Cheney: Telecoms deserve immunity for NSA aid CNET News.com
HOMELAND SECURITY UPDATE: The Nation’s Surveillance Law (FISA) Helicopter
Association International

FISA 2.0 Called 'Atrocious' Privacy Violation Crosswalk.com'

Senate spy bill still shields telecoms
Los Angeles Times - CA,USA
The White House praised the vote, which effectively killed a rival bill that had been endorsed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Bush administration is ...

LET’S SPY RIGHT BACK ON THE GOVERNMENT AND REPORT IT!

Open Discussion Thread: How we can Save our Country from Fascism
OpEdNews, PA - 9 hours ago
If Government infiltrators are going to spy on our college kids on campus, we can spy right back on them. And report what they are doing to the local .

Washington notebook Senate blocks suits against phone firms
Houston Chronicle, United States - 18 hours ago
In a victory for the Bush administration, the Senate on Thursday blocked legislation that would have cleared the way for lawsuits against phone companies ...

Spying Showdown Pushed to Hours Before State of Union Address; No Civil Lib Amendments Allowed

By Ryan Singel January 24, 2008 | 5:37:14 PMCategories: NSA

The Republican leadership in the Senate made their move early Thursday evening, successfully blocking any votes on amendments to the intelligence bill and forcing the Senate to vote only on the Administration-approved bill worked out by the Senate Intelligence committee. That vote will come on Monday at 4:30 just hours before the President delivers the State of the Union address from the Senate floor.

The Intel committee bill expands the government's wiretapping authority and gives immunity to the telecoms that helped the government secretly spy on Americans without getting the warrants required by law.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) railed and whined about the tactic and said he would vote against 'cloture' -- which would have limited the debate time and the possible amendments.

His comments prompted a postponement of the cloture vote until Monday at 4:30. If the Republicans win that vote, the Senate will have until 6 pm Tuesday to debate the bill as it currently stands and then vote on it.

In the meantime, the Senate will be open for business, but no amendments to the spying legislation will be voted on or introduced.

The move also places the vote just four and a half hours before President Bush delivers the State of the Union address on Monday night at 9 p.m., when he is expected to forcefully argue for Congress to give him the spying powers.

Reid castigated the Republicans for not allowing debate and discussion on amendments that would have required reports on the goverment's secret wiretapping program, re-affirmed that spying could only happen by following wiretap law, and strengthened bans on the government finding loopholes to target Americans for surveillance without getting warrants first.

"We offered an extension of the current law for a month, several months, a year, 18 months," Reid said. "But the Republican leadership don't want to extend the program."

"It is really not fair we be asked to accept this without being able to vote on a single amendment," Reid complained.

The current law, known as the Protect America Act, expires on February 1. The measure gives the intelligence community wide powers to unilaterally order domestic communication companies to help the government spy, a power the Administration says it needs to snoop on foreign terrorists.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) countered that the Intelligence bill was the product of months of bipartisan work -- essentially a known quantity that could be ruined by amendments.

"We do know the pres will sign the Rockefeller-Bond proposal before us," McConnell said, referring to the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat and Republican respectively.

Dick Durbin followed to second Reid's disappointment and to clarify that no amendments would be voted on in the meantime.

"They want the president's version of the bill -- take it or leave it," Durbin railed of the Republican leadership. "They would run the risk of shutting down the program."

The Center for Democracy and Technology's Greg Nojeim described the move for cloture as a way for the Administration to pass the measure without civil liberties amendments, many of which were being pulled piecemeal from the Judiciary committee version of the bill that was voted down earlier Thursday.

Even if the Senate passes the Intel committee bill on Tuesday, it will need to work out a compromise with the House, before sending the bill to the president for signature. The House version, known as the Restore Act, doesn't include immunity for telecoms and severely constrains when the government can spy in America without warrants -- essentially blocking bulk collection activities allowed in the Protect American Act and the Senate Intel bill.

One possible scenario: the House bows to pressure and quickly passes whatever the Senate passes, thus making a conference and re-votes on the compromise legislation unnecessary.

WOLFY’S BACK; NEOCON PACK LEADER IN ARMS HEN HOUSE; HE LIKED THE WAR AND HE WANTS SOME MORE!

Wolfowitz Returns to US Government as Adviser
New York Times, United States - 15 hours ago
By Mike Nizza Paul D. Wolfowitz, who resigned as World Bank chief after serving as second-in-command at the Pentagon, has returned to the Bush ...

Wolfowitz appointed chairman of arms-control advisory panel
Boston Globe, United States - 17 hours ago
Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (center) attended an arms-control meeting earlier this month in Seoul. (yonhap/associated press) WASHINGTON ...

Wolfowitz named to State Dept. arms-control panel
USA Today - Jan 24, 2008
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has appointed Paul Wolfowitz to head a State Department arms-control panel. Wolfowitz, the No. ...

Wolfowitz named to head US security panel
AFP - Jan 24, 2008
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the war in Iraq in the Bush administration who became World Bank president only to resign in a pay ...

"Sicko" Gets the Oscar High-Five ...a note from Michael Moore

January 25, 2008

Dear Ed.,

I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know (if you didn't already) the good news that "Sicko" has been nominated for this year's Academy Award for Best Documentary. It was a pleasant surprise when we got the news on Tuesday.

Of course, every reporter who's called me in the past few days wanted to know if I plan on giving an "anti-war" or "anti-Bush" speech, should "Sicko" win, as I did when we won the Oscar for "Bowling for Columbine" in 2003. (As you may recall, it was the 5th day of the war when those Oscars were held, and I said from the stage that, while I enjoy making nonfiction films, we live in fictitious times with a man of fiction in the White House. A ruckus ensued with a loud roar of cheers and boos, then someone cued the band to get me off the stage. As host Steve Martin said a few moments later, Teamsters were out back loading me into the trunk of a car.)

Well it's five years later and we are still at war. But there's no booing these days. 65% of the public is now opposed to the war and to Mr. Bush. The Academy, instead of cutting off the microphone, now nominates anti-war films for Best Documentary. That's right, three of the five nominees this year are Iraq War films!

I am very honored to be in this group of documentaries, three of which I brought last summer to our film festival in northern Michigan. "Taxi to the Dark Side" is a brutal examination of U.S. torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Operation Homecoming" has actors reading letters from soldiers in Iraq. "No End in Sight" has ex-Bush administration officials admitting how they messed up the occupation, lamenting how things would have been so much better if only Bush had put people in Baghdad who knew what they were doing (and wouldn't we all have loved to see THAT? Hahaha). And "War/Dance" tells the moving story of kids in a dance competition in war-torn Africa. A diverse group of films, and proof that nonfiction movies are stronger than ever.

A lot of people ask me, 'how does this whole Oscar voting thing work?' Well, actors nominate actors, directors nominate directors -- every branch essentially votes to nominate their own (including documentary filmmakers in my branch) -- and then all 6,000 Academy members vote for the Best Picture nominees. After the nominations are announced, then all 6,000 vote for all the categories.

Documentaries, though, have one special rule: The voters have to verify they have seen all five nominated films. As some of these films, unfortunately, don't have the distribution they deserve, special Academy members-only screenings of all five nominees are set up for this very purpose in the next few days in New York, and in the next couple of weeks in L.A. and elsewhere, and that's when any Academy member can vote for Best Documentary.

But will there be an Oscar show this year? As you know, the Writers Guild (of which I am a member) is on strike and the Oscars are a union show. If the strike isn't settled, they won't be able to put on the typical telecast as no actor, writer or anyone I know will cross the picket line. This is all happening because a couple of hotheads at the studios (some would say union-busting knuckleheads) have walked away from the negotiating table in what seems like an attempt to simply get rid of the union. What do they think we are, air traffic controllers?

The writers are only asking for about 2.5 cents out of every dollar made on Internet sales (that's right, not even 3 pennies!), a small pittance compared to what the studios or networks rake in. That's it. The union has dropped the demand to unionize the reality shows (in 1993, I created the first unionized reality show, "TV Nation," but the Writers Guild unfortunately wasn't able to build on this).

I would like to believe that the honchos will come to their senses and settle this strike. Otherwise, I won't be able to talk to Joan Rivers on the red carpet or attend all those Oscar parties afterward! Don't make me suffer like this! My wardrobe and stylist people are already in tears.

In the meantime, I'll send you some pre-Super Tuesday thoughts next week. Thanks again for all your nice comments on the Oscar nod and I hope this extra attention on "Sicko" will help to push for the day when every American can go to the doctor or the hospital and never be asked "what's in your wallet?"

Yours, Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com

THE END IS IN SIGHT; BUT OF WHAT FOLKS?