House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided on February 13th, 2008, that she and her trial lawyer lobby knew more about national security than the Bush administration, all of the United States intelligence agencies, over half of the state Attorneys General, Democrat and Republican, the United States Senate, Democrat and Republican, and an overwhelming majority of House members, Democrat and Republican, and let the patch to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expire.  As of Midnight the following Sunday, any foreign to foreign communications that happen to go through American company switching can no longer be listened to without a court order, blinding our intelligence and military agencies from acting to prevent future terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. 

What has Speaker Pelosi done with her time since she single-handedly put the country at greater risk by intentionally weakening the national defense?   On February 14th, the House considered 8 suspension bills, and 2 motions to adjourn, about five hours work.  They then broke for ten days to celebrate President's Day. On the 25th, they took up 3 suspension bills.  On the 26th, they started to work on the public housing bill, but withdrew it before final consideration.  On the 27th, Pelosi actually passed something - the energy tax bill. On the 28th, 3 more suspension bills.  Total work week? 15 hours and 5 minutes.

This week, there were three more suspension bills on the 4th, six more suspension bills and the mental health bill on the 5th.  And then we saw today's antics.

The House scheduled amendments and debate to reauthorize Americorps for five more years.  After tediously working through a couple of amendments, former California Attorney General and current Congressman, Dan Lungren, took to the floor and tried to hijack the Americorps bill by instead demanding the House take up the Senate version of the FISA bill.  Even blue dog Democrats want to get this thing done before something bad happens and Nancy Pelosi politically ruins the party.  But no, leadership can't have this discussion now, not when there's lawsuits to be had against the telcos for cooperating with the U.S. government to catch terrorists. George Miller, acting as the chief stooge for Nancy Pelosi, sought and achieved a ruling from the chair that Lungren's amendment was not germane, and therefore out of order.  Lungren and the Republicans appealed the ruling, and forced a vote.  It was narrowly defeated. 

Next Amendment to the Americorps bill was another Republican-drafted amendment to recommit the bill unless all Americorps candidates would have to subject themselves to a background check.  On the surface, that doesn't seem like such a bad idea - we would typically not want to see criminals flooding the ranks of Americorps volunteers.  This amendment sent the House leadership into a frenzy, not wanting to see a vote on this amendment.  After a brief delay in the action, Pelosi and her gang ended up pulling the overall Americorps bill from consideration, and abruptly adjourned for the week.  Another ten hour work week, and foreign terrorists know that for at least one more week, we are bound to an arcane law that is 20 years behind our current technology, providing a loophole for them to plot and scheme.

It will have been 23 days of blinding intelligence to foreign terrorist communications before the House reconvenes next week.  And there is literally one person on which to lay the liability  - Nancy Pelosi.  But she is not the only person who should take the heat.  There are a lot of House Democrats who would vote for this bill in a second, because despite policy differences, they do recognize the importance of getting national security right.  But while many of them have quietly complained to Pelosi since the FISA patch expired, they have not twisted her arm enough.  House Democrats should demonstrate that they put the national security of the country ahead of their party's politics.  They should take the long walk to Speaker Pelosi's office and tell her this is not what they signed up for.  

Our intelligence service has a hard enough time trying to detect and prevent attacks without having to do it blindfolded, deafened and with one arm tied behind their back by one of Nancy Pelosi's trial lawyers.