J'ACCUSE... STENY HOYER HAS BETRAYED AMERICA-- AND THIS GOES BEYOND PARTISAN POLITICS

Please read Glenn Greenwald's Salon piece today on Steny Hoyer's despicable, anti-democratic role in undermining the Constitution and the rule of law and ensuring that George Bush and his cronies can never be charged for a broad array of crimes they committed. Why would the Democratic Majority Leader do such a thing? He feeds at the same stinking trough of corruption as Bush and the rest of the swinish insiders of both deplorable parties. It is less about Democrats and Republicans than it is about Establishment Crooks vs the American people. In those terms, Hoyer is every bit as bad as Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Rahm Emanuel, Roy Blunt, Max Baucus, and the whole K Street Congress Crowd.

It is now definitively clear that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is the driving force behind a bill-- written by GOP Sen. Kit Bond-- to vest the President with vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to vest lawbreaking telecoms with amnesty. Even as his office dishonestly denies that he is doing so, still more reports yesterday confirm that a so-called "compromise" is being spearheaded by Hoyer and the House Democratic leadership. The ACLU and EFF held a joint call today to denounce Hoyer's "compromise" as nothing more than disguised guaranteed immunity for telecoms and, further, because "the proposed deal could be used to authorize dragnet surveillance of Americans' communications in violation of the Fourth Amendment."

As a result, there is a major new campaign beginning today aimed at Hoyer and a handful of other key members of Congress who enable telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping. In order to raise as much money as possible for this campaign-- far more than the $85,000 raised (and still being spent) in Chris Carney's district as a result of his support for warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty-- we are working to create an alliance with numerous organizations and factions across the ideological spectrum which oppose civil liberties erosions, as well as with as many blogs as possible (modeled vaguely after the ideologically diverse alliance that has arisen in Britain in opposition to the sprawling and lawless surveillance state there).

Today we (our 1,850 donors) flew past the $100,000 mark and I suspect that by the time this is posted, we'll be closing in on $110,000. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. This is about the Constitution and the rule of law and it goes beyond party-- way beyond. Please help us hold congressional leaders who sell us out and do violence to the Constitution accountable.

As Glenn explains, Steny Hoyer's free ride is over.

This afternoon, The Hill reported that the telecom industry's best friend, corrupt Democrat Jay Rockefeller (WV) is crowing over how he, Bush, Cheney and Hoyer have been able to craft a deal to grant retroactive immunity to criminal telecom executives and to members of the Bush Regime who asked them to break the law.

The development comes after Rockefeller, Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and the Bush administration reached an accord late last week to break a weeks-long stalemate over balancing electronic surveillance with the right to privacy for American citizens, according to several people familiar with the talks.

The majority of Democrats in the House opposed granting above the law status to this pack of criminals. But Hoyer and a pack of insidious Blue Dogs worked with Bush and his rubber stamp Republicans to go around them and thwart their will. He should be replaced as majority leader, just as Dick Gephart was when he conspired with Bush to oppose the majority of House Democrats and promulgate the illegal attack on Iraq. That betrayal ended Gephart's political career, just as this should end Hoyer's.

This isn't something DWT, Glenn, Firedoglake, Crooks & Liars, and Digby can do without your help. We need your help too. It's time for Hoyer to understand he works for the American people.