Shocker: Dems Take Big Money From Trial Lawyers Seeking To Sue Telecoms Over Wiretaps

Gee, if we actually had a functioning adversarial press, this might actually rate as news beyond a small online outfilt like Townhall.

As Congress debates giving immunity to phone companies that assisted the government in tracking terrorist communications, trial lawyers prosecuting those phone companies have poured money into the coffers of Democratic senators, representatives and causes.

Court records and campaign contribution data reveal that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against these phone companies donated at least $1.5 million to 44 different current Democratic senators and Democratic causes.

All of the trial lawyers combined only contributed $4,250 to Republicans in comparison. Those contributions were made to: Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), Rep. Tom Davis (Va.), Sen. Lindsay Graham (S.C.), Sen. Mel Martinez, and Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.).

One maxed-out lawyer donor, Matthew Bergman of Vashon, Washington, has given more than $400,000 in his name to Democrats. In the 2008 cycle alone he donated $78,300 to various campaigns.

Culture of corruption? Nah, they're Democrats! Everything they do is as pure as a snowflake's hymen.

Entirely unrelated:

Here is the bottom line: The legal authority for the United States intelligence community to collect foreign intelligence — information that protects Americans from terrorist attacks and that our soldiers in harm’s way rely on to do their duty — will expire at midnight on Friday. And Democrats are perfectly willing to allow that to happen.

...

We simply cannot allow intelligence collection to shut down while our soldiers are at war abroad. Nor should we forget that the enemy they confront on the battlefield has shadowy allies around the world, supported from abroad, whose fondest goal is to reprise 9/11 on an even more barbarous scale.

Yet House Democrats — doing the bidding of the MoveOn.org crowd — are courting just that risk. They are playing roulette with our security for no better reason than to preserve the ability of the ACLU, CAIR, and other anti-Bush activists to press their lawsuits.

On paper, of course, the president still has his constitutional authority. In practice, however, if Democrats allow the Protect America Act to expire, why would the telecoms honor warrantless requests for cooperation? By politicizing our national security, Democrats have turned patriotism into a legal liability and signaled loud and clear their willing complicity in scapegoating the companies for a trumped-up “scandal.” Cooperation would only lead to more lawsuits — which is always good news to the trial bar and the campaign warchests of its many congressional beneficiaries. As a practical matter, then, if the House does not act to pass the Senate bill, we will be deaf to the deadly machinations of our sworn enemies.

Finally, it’s worth noting the stands taken by the Democrats’ two remaining presidential contenders. Barack Obama was one of 29 senators to vote against the Senate bill, aligning himself with a hard Left prepared to leave America defenseless. Hillary Clinton, who has indicated the same sympathies, was one of three senators who did not even deign to show up for the most important votes of her Senate career. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee and among the majority of 68 senators who supported the bill, must make sure, over the course of the continuing presidential campaign, that Americans understand how unfit his opponents are to protect this nation.

posted by Ace at 03:49 PM

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