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September 20, 2006

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The good news, of course, is that the hairier things get, the more likely it is that nothing will pass, which is the best possible outcome.

I was going to say, won't they filibuster him right back?

On habeas, everyone: I'm hearing rumors that both the House and Senate judiciary committees are considering amendments to removed the habeas stripping provisions from various versions of the bill. Votes could happen as soon as tomorrow. Now is the time to call your Senator or Rep especially if s/he is on one of the judiciary committees. If you call your Senator, refer to the "Specter-Levin amendment to preserve habeas corpus," or something. In the House I believe it's the "Meehan Amendment." I don't have any of the idea of the vote counts, but there are rumors of at least some Republican support. Definitely worth a call. Here is a list of Senate Judiciary members. Here is a list of House Judiciary members.

Katherine: I, too, have been hearing those rumors, but have not yet heard back from the Congressperson I emailed asking for confirmation. But, yes, if your Congresspeople are on the judiciary committees, call them up.

Anyone out there from the districts of Henry Hyde or Jeff Flake, for instance? she mused aloud...

Kevin Drum found this comment on McCain's efforts:

"This very definitely is going to put a chilling effect on the tremendous strides he has made in the conservative evangelical community," said the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, one of several conservative activists who support Bush's proposal on interrogation techniques.
Well, I suppose torture is a traditional value, for some values of "tradition".

But if we can have the legislation killed along with McCain's presidential aspirations, I'd say that's a two-fer. Keeping my fingers crossed, since I have no one to write.

It seems all the reactionaries are waxing romantic about traditional medieval values.

"This very definitely is going to put a chilling effect on the tremendous strides he has made in the conservative evangelical community," said the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, one of several conservative activists who support Bush's proposal on interrogation techniques.

This makes perfect sense, if the conservative evangelical community's deity is _eorge _alker _ush.

Could Frist lose his physician's license for this?

The good news, of course, is that this would seem to kill much chance of any of the bad bills passing, and thus We Win. (For now, up to a point. One and a half cheers.)

Well, I just wasted 10 minutes e-mailing my senators ... Cochran and Lott.

Cochran has the distinction of being one of 9 senators who voted against the McCain torture bill. Not even Lott sank that low.

If you have a Republican senator or rep, below's what I wrote, if you can't stomach composing anything.

Dear Senator Lott:

You had the courage to vote against torture. I hope you will have the courage to vote against depriving any prisoners, wherever they're held by the U.S., of habeas corpus, a right so fundamental that it dates back to Magna Carta.

Without the right to habeas, wrongly-detained persons must wait to be put on trial to challenge their being wrongly detained. But if the Executive chooses *never* to put them on trial, they can be held forever, with no remedy.

That's not the way to fight the war on terror. Habeas petitions will serve a good cause by speeding up the process of sifting through our detainees to see who's really a terrorist and who's been mistakenly detained. There have been plenty of examples of people wrongfully imprisoned as "terrorists" who turn out to have been innocent (most recently, the Canadian citizen Maher Arar). As a conservative, you must be ready to accept that no government is perfect.

And needless to say, locking up *anybody* indefinitely is not the American way. I was brought up to think that was how communists and tyrants treated people---not the way Americans do.

Please vote for the Specter-Levin amendment. America will be great only so long as America is good.

Does Frist understand that if he filibusters the Republican compromise for gutting the Geneva Conventions, there will be NO bill passed, and The Chimpretzeldentwill be forced to tell the professionals they can't waterboard for fun and profit any longer?

there will be NO bill passed

No bill passed, no commissions, no hearings for the prisoners, who continue to rot at Gitmo.

I'm sure Bush is crying his eyes out.

No bill passed, no commissions, no hearings for the prisoners, who continue to rot at Gitmo.

Beg to differ. If no bill passes, there WILL be commission, hearings, possibly prosecutions, cause illegal actions have occurred and the laws are on the books (Geneva and War Crimes 1996).

If the Republicans cannot forestall by changing the requirements ex post factor, the cases winding their way to the Supreme Court will hoist these bastards on their own petard.

As Justice Kennedy said to the ABA conventino last month:

The rule of law is binding upon the government and ALL OF ITS OFFICIALS.

It don't come any clearer than that - and he's got 5 votes on his side.

No bill passed, no commissions, no hearings for the prisoners, who continue to rot at Gitmo.

I beg to differ as well. The status quo is that prisoners who had a habeas petition pending in 2005 will get a hearing.* This is everyone but the 14 new prisoners (I think). Those that the government wants to try for war crimes, it'll have to try under the UCMJ.


* The nature of that hearing is at issue in Al Odah/Boumedienne still at the DC Circuit.

So much for the filibuster being anti-democratic and everything deserving an up-and-down vote. Could Bill Frist be a bigger knob? Oh well, as you say, the best outcome is nothing passing, so I guess this could be a positive development.

Could Bill Frist be a bigger knob?

No.

"Could Bill Frist be a bigger knob?"

Bigger than Floyd's Knob, Indiana?

Could Bill Frist be a bigger knob?

Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?

Bill Frist doesn't care if you think he's a good human being or not. Bill Frist likes being the Senate majority leader.

This nonsense will change when these guys start losing elections. The nutcases will still foam at the mouth, but the ones who are just along for the ride and for whatever they can get out of it will get off at the next available stop.

Vote them out. Give your time and money to people who are running against them. Make them pay for supporting the kinds of outrageous nonsense they seem so fond of.

When it costs them something, it will all be much less appealing to them.

Thanks -

russell: thus, the post I wrote after this one. I had planned to write it for some time, but it was this that really set me off. I want Bill Frist to become the long-forgotten historical footnote he so clearly deserves to be.

Frist is not standing for reelection, and his personal hopes notwithstanding, I don't think he has a snowball's chance in hell of getting the Republican nod in 2008, so whether the Democrats take Congress or not, Frist will no longer be a member as of next January.

Frist will no longer be a member as of next January.

Could Bill Frist be a bigger knob?

Hey, just noting a certain trend in the choice of descriptors.

Andrew: true enough. But I have just two words for you: Mitch McConnell.

Or, more informatively: Mitch McConnell:

"The maneuver was typical of McConnell, the Senate Majority Whip, who over a 22-year Senate career has earned a reputation as a shrewd parliamentary tactician and a ruthless partisan warrior. Those qualities are a major reason why, while the outcome of the November midterms remains up in the air, one election has already been all but decided. In January 2007, Frist will step down, and for the last two years, almost below the radar, McConnell has had the race to replace him as Senate Republican leader—and if Republicans maintain control, Senate Majority Leader—virtually locked up.

That someone with McConnell’s political style stands to assume what is arguably the third-most-powerful elected post in the federal government speaks volumes about the state of the contemporary Republican Party—and about Washington in general. McConnell is a staunch conservative and a master of procedure, but no piece of landmark legislation bears his name. Almost the only issue on which he has a national profile is campaign-finance reform, and on that, he’s known as the man who fought it at every turn. Republican strategist Grover Norquist—who once compared bipartisanship to date-rape and played a key role in creating the system that uses corporate money to maintain Republican control—told us that if he could pick the president, McConnell would be among his top three choices. (Jeb Bush would be another, and Norquist was uncharacteristically coy about the third.)

Indeed, McConnell’s political persona—with its focus on bare-knuckled partisanship and support for a money-driven legislative system—embodies the very qualities that have helped reverse Republican political fortunes so dramatically over the last year and a half, and have led directly to a series of government scandals and slipups. In uniting around Mitch McConnell, Republicans are, in effect, doubling down on the governing style that got them, and us, into this mess in the first place. (...)

He’s a master of Senate rules and procedures, and he harbors no presidential aspirations that might distract him from his job. But unlike earlier leaders, he doesn’t keep score by legislative accomplishments. For the first time in recent memory, the Senate will be run by a leader with both the ability and the desire to use the institution entirely for partisan advantage."

Yep, I just posted about that.

"He has an unblinking, vaguely android-like stare"?

I've seen androids before, and you, Senator McConnell, are no android.

"I've seen androids before, and you, Senator McConnell, are no android."

How can you tell, short of ripping off his faceplate? Only a certain Cabinet member can get close enough to him to do that.

Journalist questions McConnell: "Senator McConnell, you're in a desert, walking along when you look down and you see a tortoise. It's crawling toward you. You reach down and flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that?"

Replicant!

Is McConnell likely to react in the same way as Leon?

"Is McConnell likely to react in the same way as Leon?"

Probably. It's a test more politicians should undergo.

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