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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
EJ
Published Letters: 486 Editor's Choice: 1
Supplemental action on the House floor
The House will shortly reconvene (there's a problem with the voting machines -- shock!) to vote on a Republican motion to instruct conferees, directing them agree to include the Lieberman FOIA amendment (exempting detainee photographs from the Freedom of Information Act) in the conference report. Democratic House leaders, of course, have pretty much settled, at least for the time being, on the position that the provision needs to come out in order to get enough votes to pass this bill in the House. That's because Republicans are now balking at supporting the supplemental...Democratic defections can make or break the bill, and many Democrats are balking at either the IMF provisions, the Lieberman FOIA amendment, or both.
The White House, which actually supports the Lieberman amendment, is trying to mitigate these defections with various sweeteners in the bill, such as the addition of the "cash for clunkers" legislation, various defense procurement projects (targeted, of course, for the districts of wavering Members), etc. It looks like they'll succeed in rounding up enough votes to get the bill through with the IMF provisions, but only if the Lieberman amendment comes out.
http://www.congressmatters.com/story/2009/6/11/1110/-Supplemental-action-on-the-House-floor
The motion passed (conferees can follow or ignore it), with 95 Democrats voting YES: http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2009&rollnumber=329
Also see: Jane Hamsher's
Rahm’s Game Plan: Blackmail Progressives With “Cash For Clunkers”
Sources on the Hill say they've never seen anything like it coming out of the White House. Rahm is dealing as furiously as he did during NAFTA, and will stuff everyone with so much pork that they have to vote for the supplemental.
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/06/11/rahms-game-plan-blackmail-progressives-with-cash-for-clunkers/
McCain would go all unitary-executive on the photos...
McCain urges Obama to classify detainee photos
Republican Senator John McCain urged President Barack Obama on Thursday to classify photographs said to depict the abuse of terrorism suspects to ensure they do not become public.
Obama is fighting release of the photos in the courts but has not declared them secret.
"All he has to do today is use an executive order to declare these photos classified material," said McCain who lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama.
"That's all he has to do," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11508907.htm
ersatzdavid, I don't suppose this was mentioned?
But Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd insisted the move does not represent a "policy change" and that no "blanket instruction" was given to the FBI to Mirandize detainees. Officials said it was a practice that began under the Bush administration.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/11/combatant-criminal-reading-miranda-rights-detainees-draws-criticism/
No, the Lieberman/Graham detainee photo amendment didn't make it into the FDA bill.
See (or sig): http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/10/foia/permalink/64807ade590781339456a62ebe6434d5.html
I was going to yell at you for not being positive, then I saw this...
War-Funding Talks Among Congressional Negotiators Collapse
Efforts by House and Senate negotiators to reconcile different versions of a war-funding bill ground to a halt Thursday after House Democrats stripped from it a provision that bans the release of photos that potentially show detainee abuse at the hands of U.S. troops.
"The provision just needs to stay in," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told FOX News.
Senate Democrats headed immediately into closed-door talks with Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. President Obama got personally involved via speaker phone.
Obama "gave us his word he will not allow the photos to be released," Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said.
House and Senate negotiators plan to reconvene Thursday night.
One option, according to a Democratic senator at the war-funding negotiations, is to have the photo provision voted on as a stand-alone bill.
But Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., told FOX News he does not think there is time to pass the stand-alone bill, and many members are unsure of where the votes would go on the House side, where Democrats oppose blocking the release, which was mandated by a federal court under the Freedom of Information Act.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/11/congressional-negotiators-strike-war-funding-deal/
Looks like the detainee photo amendment is out of the supplemental after all, due to the 2nd Circuit Court's decision.
9 minutes ago
Democrats Reach Agreement on War Funding Bill
Congressional Democrats today reached agreement on a war-funding bill that had been stalled, as the Obama administration dropped its request for a provision that would bar the release of photos that show abuse of detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The agreement was reached only after a letter from President Obama to a congressional committee saying that his administration would appeal to the Supreme Court to keep the photos from becoming public, rather than try for a Congressional ban as part of the war funding bill. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York on Thursday stayed an earlier order that the photos be released immediately, so the government will now have time to appeal.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/06/11/democrats_reach_agreement_on_w.html?hpid=moreheadlines
"If Greenwald's premise...Greenwald can't have it both ways."
It's not Glenn's premise, it's the premise of "top military officials." And it's not Glenn who wants it both ways, it's Lieberman & Graham (and those like them). Glenn supports the closing of Guantanamo AND the release of the photos. But you knew all that, didn't you?
That should be "It's not Glenn's premise, it's the premise of Lieberman and Graham." [that Guantanamo should be closed in spite of the fact that top military officials say that Guantanamo endangers the troops]
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
