Tuesday? Seems more like a Monday, doesn’t it? Anyhow, I guess we know a little bit more about why dubya had to resort to violating the US Constitution to get his spying done.

The FISA court has approved at least 18,740 applications for electronic surveillance or physical searches from five presidential administrations since 1979. In the 22 pre-dubya years, FISA judges modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications that were approved. But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for court-ordered surveillance by the Bush administration – 173 of those court-ordered “substantive modifications” took place in 2003 and 2004 (the most recent years for which public records are available).

The judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years — the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court’s history.

Bush wants to be big brother; the courts wouldn’t let him, so he blew off the courts.

For those of you who wonder why we should support Democrats when the don’t really represent us (and I’m with you there; I can’t begin to tell you how disgusted I am with my senators, Hillary Clinton Chuck Schumer), this is why: Bush needs to be impeached in the House, convicted in the Senate, and removed from office. This won’t happen with Republicans in control.

With Democrats in control here’s an example of who we’d have as committe chairmen:

Senate:
Judiciary: Pat Leahy
Armed Services: Carl Levin
Appropriations: Robert Byrd
Health, Education, Welfare & Pensions: Ted Kennedy

House:
Judiciary: John Conyers
Gov’t Reform: Henry Waxman
Ways & Means: Charlie Rangel
Intelligence: Jane Harman

Bush and Cheney must go. We can work on getting rid of the rest of these bastids – Republican or Republican-lite – after that.