A Senate Mystery Keeps Torture Alive — and Its Practitioners Free

By Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor

With all the lawsuits over kidnapping and torture marching toward the Bush administration, you might think the top officials running the global war on terror would be worried just a little about the prospect that some day they might end up in court — if not having nightmares about getting measured for orange jumpsuits at Danbury Federal Prison.

Alas, no. Thanks to the legerdemain of Bush administration lawyers, a provision quietly tucked into the Military Commissions Act (PL 109-366) just before it was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 17, would ease any worries they might’ve had. It not only redefines torture upward, removing the harshest, most controversial techniques from the definition of war crimes, it also exempts the perpetrators — interrogators and their bosses — from punishment all the way back to Nov. 1997.

The deft wording is the Bush administration’s attempt at bringing the United States’ criteria for defining a war crime into line with the Geneva Convention’s interpretation of torture.

The Supreme Court in June had declared the administration’s hastily assembled military commissions unconstitutional, saying all prisoners in U.S. custody had to be held in accordance with the Geneva Convention’s Article 3, which prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.”

Renegotiating the Geneva Convention was out of the question. So the administration’s lawyers took what the president’s counselor, Dan Bartlett, later called “the scenic route.”

By way of the new Military Commissions Act, they effectively rewrote the U.S. enforcement mechanism for Geneva, the War Crimes Act, passed by Congress in Nov. 1997.

Never heard of this provision? That’s because coverage of the act focused more on its suspension of habeas corpus,barring anyone defined as an enemy combatant from filing suit challenging the legality of their detention or raising claims of torture and other mistreatment.

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in particular, must be pleased by this legal three-card monte.

So, too, must be President Bush.

Full story: http://public.cq.com/public/20061122_homeland.html

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GOP Rep. Cao Faces Recall Petition For Voting Against Stimulus

Bayou Buzz reports that Rep. Joseph Cao, the Republican who replaced scandalized Democrat William Jefferson, now faces a recall petition over his stimulus opposition by a group of ministers.

Cao had indicated that he would be voting in favor of the controversial legislation but instead voted against it.

Papers have been filed with the Office of the Louisiana Secretary of State which started the process requiring sufficient signatures to force a recall election for the office held by Representative Cao.

Rev. Toris Young, one of the leaders of the effort, said the stimulus vote was the "last straw."

Cao represents a majority African-American, and traditionally Democratic, district. However, the Times-Picayune says the ministers will have a hard time unseating him.

The Recall Anh Cao Committee faces daunting odds. The effort has 180 days from its filing Monday to gather 100,000 valid signatures from registered voters in the district -- a third of all district voters -- in order to get a recall vote. And even if they succeed at that, and voters approve the recall, it appears that Congress would not accept the result.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/19/gop-rep-cao-faces-recall_n_168403.html

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Ron Howard wants to talk about the election. So does Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler.

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Revisiting McCain’s Keating 5 history

The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association.

See the video here...http://www.keatingeconomics.com/

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