A few days ago, I asked the following question in regard to the House Democratic leadership's decision to go on recess and let expire the FISA legislation that allowed our intelligence agencies to monitor foreign terrorist conversations that happened to pass through US switches:
...whose interests are Nancy Pelosi and company serving here: the American people's as a whole, or the narrow interests of their big donors in the "trial lawyer community?"
Well, now we know, and the truth reveals how petty and contemptible Nancy Pelosi is. Robert Novak provides the answer:
A closed-door caucus of House Democrats last Wednesday took a risky political course. By four to one, they instructed Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call President Bush's bluff on extending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to continue eavesdropping on suspected foreign terrorists. Rather than passing the bill with a minority of the House's Democratic majority, Pelosi obeyed her caucus and left town for a 12-day recess without renewing the government's eroding intelligence capability.
Pelosi could have exercised leadership prerogatives and called up the FISA bill to pass with unanimous Republican support. Instead, she refused to bring to the floor the bill approved overwhelmingly by the Senate. House Democratic opposition included left-wing members typified by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, but they are but a small faction. The true cause for blocking the bill was the Senate-passed retroactive immunity from lawsuits for private telecommunications firms asked to eavesdrop by the government. The nation's torts bar, vigorously pursuing such suits, has spent months lobbying hard against immunity.
The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party's most important financial base, is more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the phone companies for giving personal information to intelligence agencies without a warrant. Adm. Mike McConnell, the nonpartisan director of national intelligence, says delay in congressional action deters cooperation in detecting terrorism.
Big money is involved. Amanda Carpenter, a Townhall.com columnist, has prepared a spreadsheet showing that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in the telecommunications suits have contributed $1.5 million to Democratic senators and causes. Of the 29 Democratic senators who voted against the FISA bill last Tuesday, 24 took money from the trial lawyers (as did two absent senators, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama). Eric A. Isaacson of San Diego, one of the telecommunications plaintiff's lawyers, contributed to the recent unsuccessful presidential campaign of Sen. Chris Dodd, who led the Senate fight against the bill containing immunity.
(Emphases added)
Via Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard, here's a link to Carpenter's article: Obama, Hillary, Dems Take FISA Trial Lawyer Cash.
The Senate passed the reauthorization bill by a large, bi-partisan majority. All sides, Democrats and Republicans, liberal and conservative, the Senate and the White House, made painful concessions to put the nation's interest and the protection of American lives first.
Not so Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership. For them, keeping the spigot of trial-lawyer cash open was "job number one."
Ahead of your safety.
LINKS: More at Ace of Spades, Captain's Quarters.
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