...for sale and doomed to quick destruction, if it should ever find a buyer

Sen. Harry Reid is selling us out.

As Glenn Greenwald points out - Sen. Reid is actually stacking the decks so that Telco immunity can pass the senate easily.

Sen. Dodd is going to filibuster this bill, with help from Sens. Feingold and Kennedy - but it's an open question as to how long this will last - and if the cloture vote will get through.

Call your senators. Email your senators. Tell them this bill must be stripped of any immunity provisions.

We lose this one, and any public inquiry into what is being done ends. This administration and the telcos get away with it.

Glenn posts a comment that I'd wish I'd written from holly-go-lightly:

...here the Senate stands, poised to grant immunity to telecommunications companies for profiting from the warrantless and lawless spying perpetrated upon the law-abiding citizenry; here the Senate stands, poised to usurp the judiciary, the branch of government responsible for determining whether the laws of the land have been broken and meting out punishment where appropriate; and here the Senate stands, poised to usher in its own irrevelancy -- and, worst of all, in exchange for nothing: no promises that this flagrant lawbreaking will cease, no testimony to be offered in the course of real and rigorous investigation.

...

You who purport to lead, yet cower like beaten dogs before the President, as if he were king. You who vote upon legislation you likely don't even read. You who coif your hair into absurd, unmoving helmets and whiten your teeth and don designers suits and appear on TV, daring to tell me you represent my interests. You who pass pointless, meaningless resolutions condemning commercials and congratulating professional sports teams for winning while Americans go hungry, while Americans go without healthcare, while Americans work two jobs to make ends meet, while Americans die in Iraq and Afghanistan. You who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution and flatter yourselves by conflating your re-election with the interests of your country and constituency. You who fret about keeping your powder dry until the are barracks overrun.

...

And so here is the Senate in all its majesty. Where are the Patrick Henrys, the Benjamin Franklins? God save America from her greatest enemy: a pack of pathetic, self-serving cowards.

Damn right.