Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., apparently trying to “avoid another edition of the (Bush) administration’s surveillance squeeze play,” according to the TPMMuckraker news Website, has filed another bill to extend the Bush administration’s ability to spy on Americans for another 15 days.

They quote Congressional Quarterly, which is not free online, saying:

To guard against the expiration of a temporary surveillance law Feb. 16, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., has filed a bill that would extend it for 15 days.

The Senate is expected to pass a six-year bill overhauling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Feb. 12, but that gives lawmakers little time to work out a compromise between the Senate bill and a House-passed version before the Presidents Day recess begins and the temporary law expires.

Reid filed the latest extension Friday “in case we can’t finish the conference negotiations in time,” spokesman Jim Manley said.

The Muckraker says, then:

Having given in once, the Republicans have vowed not to give in again. So no matter how justified the plea, this dog won’t hunt.

Get ready for another round of the GOP’s double-talk squeeze special, e.g. the Dem’s effort to extend the bill that must not lapse is unacceptable.

I’m not real clear on what that last sentence is supposed to mean, being from Alabamaland and all, yuk, yuk. Let me scratch my head for the Yankee bloggers here. Maybe I should put up a Webcam and I could show off my missing teeth and bare feet.

Take A Break

In any event, it’s the weekend, time to take a break from spying and shit.

I am back in the B’ham. Bunker and out of the glare of the University cop who, for a solid week, parked across the street from our secret compound from where we blog in T-Town. It’s also nice to be away from the police helicopter that hovers over the University of Alabama all day long, and all those cameras at every intersection in what is no doubt the most repressive police state in the United States of America.

It’s time for some Shrimp and Garlic Sauce from the only Chinese restaurant in these parts that passes muster after all our time living in bigger cities. Take a break people. Get outside. There’s a warming trend on the way, an early taste of spring, and we’ve already got one baby Carolina chickadee in the yard. There will be more great bird photo ops soon…

Another inside source from the CBS News ’60 Minutes’ magazine show just called from New York to confirm the accuracy of what has already been reported here. There is no truth to the rumor, traveling around the Net in e-mail and on the Web on some blogs, that “CBS corporate” is going to buckle under pressure and not run an investigative story on the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

“This happens all the time,” the official source said, who insisted on anonymity since the network does not comment on shows that are in the works. When a show is done and people find out about it and it doesn’t run right away, he said, people who do not understand the news process start rumors that the show is going to be “killed.”

“It makes a good blog,” he said, laughing. “You will see the show, probably in the next month. But I can’t guarantee that.”

It depends on a lot of things, including other breaking news developments.

Now, back to other important investigations. Real investigative journalism takes time and resources. Every investigative story that has ever appeared on a TV show started with a real reporter on the ground somewhere doing the real work to crack the story.

There are many novices out there in Blogland who want you to think they are doing that work. Some of them reside in New York and Washington and want you to think they have the scoop because they are there.

But for anyone who wants to see the definitive work on this story, we invite you into the archives here. And maybe this will help those other bloggers who can’t seem to nail down the timeline of events in this story.

Jill Simpson’s Affidavit May Help Justice Prevail in the Siegelman, Scrushy Case

Scott Horton: Justice in Alabama

Justice Off the Tracks in Alabama

The Nation: A Whistleblower’s Tale

If you just can’t get enough of the story, here’s the link to our entire archives on the case going all the way back to the Scrushy trial in Birmingham, which I covered for the New York Times.

I’ve been on the road today and didn’t get to catch the Webcast of the hearing, and it doesn’t look like anyone else on the Web is reporting much about this tonight. The video link doesn’t work on the House Judiciary Committee Website and no transcript has been posted yet.

But from talking to one eye witness, it appears only Birmingham Representative Artur Davis asked about the Siegelman case, and Attorney General Mukasey just mumbled something incoherantly and had no answers. So it appears the Newhouse DC bureau hype turned out to be nothing. They didn’t even blog about it…

Ad 1: Thank Dog for C-SPAN. I just watched the late night replay. Davis actually laid out a pretty good set of predicate questions for nailing down the attorney general for the record on the inappropriateness of a presidential, political aide such as Karl Rove to consult with U.S. attorneys in the prosecution of a governor such as Don Siegelman. But it was clear that Mukasey has done nothing yet to investigate this, and most likely won’t, until the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals makes a ruling – if then.

Considering the three judge panel will have to wait until the end of March for a trial transcript, it looks like neither the House Judiciary Committee, the new attorney general or the appeals court are anywhere near providing relief for a governor who sits in jail due to what was clearly a political prosecution.