Today in Washington D. C. - Feb 15, 2008

On The Floor: NADA, ZILCH, NOTHING - Congress recessed without fully protecting the United States! The Senate did take necessary action on FISA but the House Democrat leadership blocked taking up the Senate-passed FISA reform bill even though a majority of the House supported the bill. This means that the temporary FISA modifications passed last August will expire at midnight tonight. The United States is now more at risk to terrorists. Yesterday, after failing again to address FISA, the Democrats took time to vote to hold White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers in contempt and passed a number of "noncontroversial" bills.

The Senate will reconvene today as a pro forma session at 10 AM today as a means to block the President from calling them back into session and to prevent recess appointments. They will repeat this devious practice again on Tuesday and then on Friday. The Senate will return on the Feb 25th. With the House dragging behind and failing in their efforts on matters of substance, the Senate will resume consideration of the American Indian health care bill (S. 1200). One wonders what other items the Democrat leadership will schedule to damage the American people or to fill their time.

From Senate & News Sources: Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Chariman of the Senate Intelligence committee on the Senate floor yesterday said , “What people have to understand around here is that the quality of the intelligence we are going to be receiving is going to be degraded. It is going to be degraded. It is already going to be degraded as telecommunications companies lose interest.” Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee summed up the absurdity of House Democrats’ priorities this week at a press conference yesterday, saying, “Perhaps if Al-Qaeda were actually on steroids, then the House leadership would be more interested in dealing with them.” Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell called “an act of extraordinary irresponsibility” the House of Representatives left town last night without taking up the Senate-passed FISA reform bill

What’s more, the House spent its time yesterday passing “unprecedented” and “outrageous” contempt citations against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said of the vote, “It is astonishing and deeply troubling that after months of delay on passing a bill that will help our intelligence professionals monitor foreign terrorists who want to kill Americans, the House has instead turned its attention to the silly, pointless, and unjust act of approving these contempt resolutions.” Fed up with the irresponsible and partisan actions of House Democrats yesterday, House Republicans walked out of the House in protest before the vote on the contempt citations. House GOP Leader John Boehner said, “we will not stand idly by and watch the floor of the United States House of Representatives be abused for pure, political grandstanding at the expense of our national security.”

In an op-ed for The Washington Post today, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell warned that: “Some have claimed that expiration of the Protect America Act would not significantly affect our operations. Such claims are not supported by the facts. We are already losing capability due to the failure to address liability protection. Without the act in place, vital programs would be plunged into uncertainty and delay, and capabilities would continue to decline. . . . The Protect America Act . . . temporarily closed the gaps in our intelligence collection, but there was a glaring omission: liability protection for those private-sector firms that helped defend the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks. . . [L]ong-term legislation that modernized FISA and provided retroactive liability protection was vital to our operations. The director of the FBI told the Senate that ‘in protecting the homeland it’s absolutely essential’ to have the support of private parties.”

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