House passes FISA bill..without Telco immunity.

Bush has of course threatened to veto it, and the vote total is below the amount needed to override a veto..but the House did send BushCo a hearty ‘kiss off’ before they left town for a two-week hiatus. The Rethug members of Congress, as usual, screamed the Democrats were undermining national security.

The Democrats, as usual, said the President and his boot-lickers were using fear-mongering as an election year tool. But the Democrats did cave in on an important issue, as usual. From the Reuters writeup:

While the House-passed bill would not grant immunity, it would allow phone companies to present their cases in a closed-door court, with the judge given access to confidential documents about the surveillance and the authorization for it.

The writeup is full of verbal bitchslaps of each other from both sides of the aisle. Slog through it if you must, but we are still in a holding pattern on this one folks..