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Telecom lobbyist John Ashcroft is back on the influence circuit again, trying to admonish us that refusing the telecoms immunity will kill people. Only he usually doesn't refer to telecom immunity as such. Instead, he calls on Congress to "terminate" the lawsuits against the telecom companies. There are many complex and difficult issues associated with thesedebates, but whether to terminate the huge lawsuits that have beenfiled against the nation’s major telecommunications carriers

I haven't seen any bears. I found a few beers, though. Here's a quick hits list of things I may return to on Wednesday, when I resume normal blogging.The Pats beat the Colts ... ugly. Shane Harris reveals that the rationale for asking Qwest to break the law before 9/11 was hackers.

David Kurtz reports that the Mukasey nomination will come down to the Senate Judiciary Committee vote (and TPM is tracking votes so far). I believe this sets up some really interesting tension between Bush and Chuck Schumer. You see, events thus far have made it very important for Bush to get Mukasey approved.

Here's an interesting question from Dick Durbin to Mukasey. It addresses whom the Administration felt it needed to give buy-in before nominating Judge Mukasey: 11. According to the Washington Post, before you were confirmed you "spent part of the weekend meeting with leading figures in the conservative world, seeking to allay their concerns about [your] philosophy and suitability for running [the] Justice Department." a.

One of the sub-scandals that came out as part of the USA purge is that DOJ recently revised the manual on Election Offenses. Gonzales' DOJ basically removed the language restricting indictments just prior to elections--precisely the restriction that Hans Von Spakovsky violated when he brought indictments against former ACORN workers just before the 2006 elections.

Here's the letter from Ashcroft, Comey, Goldsmith, and Philbin that came up so often in today's SJC hearing. The key graf is this one, in which four top lawyers say, "to hell with the Courts, we've got two branches plus Cheney, who needs a third?" Finally, we note that we are familiar with the legal analysis conducted within the Executive Branch of intelligence activities allegedly connected to the lawsuits against telecommunications carriers

I've imagined (and it's largely imagination) that Condi's little PR campaign of the last week was a desperate attempt to stave off DOD control over State's bodyguards--an attempt to retain an army for the exclusive use of the State Department. Condi went to (for her) unheard of lengths to try to play nice and pretend that State could manage a very large band of mercenaries. Is it just coincidence that that effort

Buried in this article on Democrats compromising with Republicans, I noticed this paragraph: And as Democratic leaders push their own legislation to rein in the wiretapping program, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) has been quietly exploring avenues of compromise with Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.),the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee. CentristDemocrats hope those talks can dovetail with the Senate intelligencecommittee's own bipartisan measure on surveillance of suspectedterrorists. Jane Harman, of course, is a

I pointed out the other day that several of the Blackwater guards involved in the September 16 shooting have left Iraq. Now bmaz points to this AP story revealing that all the guards have been given immunity from prosecution. The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunityfrom prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shootingof 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned. [snip] Three senior law enforcement officials said all the Blackwaterbodyguards