John McCain

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09.22.06

Screwed Again

Digby evaluates the torture-bill “compromise” between the Bush Administration and McCain-Graham-Warner (via Atrios):

The “compromise” will, as I predicted, allow the “tough interrogations” by amending the war crimes act. And they will reportedly create a new JAG office to review classified information and determine if terrorist suspects can see it if it’s being used against them in a trial. We already know they have devised some habeas corpus loophole to keep innocent people imprisoned without any due process.

Democrats allowed this to happen by not calling attention to the fact that the McCain-Graham-Warner bill did away with habeas corpus for terror suspects. Interested more in the spectacle of Bush being handed a “defeat” by members of his own party than they were in critiquing the flaws in the actual piece of legislation M-G-W proposed, they stood silent. They forgot that Cheney-Bush-Rove never truly compromise: they ask for everything they want, knowing that they’ll wind up with most of what they want. And, as Digby notes, they look all the better for having “compromised” to get the legislation through.

The words “habeas corpus” were not even part of the public debate.

Now we are going to be, by fact and law, a nation of torturers. The day that bill passes will be a day of infamy not soon forgotten.

Update: Amid the despair we feel today, it’s important to remember this:

The Democrats have largely stood silent and allowed the trio of Republicans to do the lifting. It’s time for them to either try to fix this bill or delay it until after the election. The American people expect their leaders to clean up this mess without endangering U.S. troops, eviscerating American standards of justice, or further harming the nation’s severely damaged reputation.

The bill is not yet law. There is still time for action. What will Democrats do to stop it, and what will we do to support them?

Update #2: Steve Gilliard has another take on the situation.

John McCain Breaks McCain-Feingold Law

It’s bad form for a blogger to replicate the title of the post to which is linking, but I can’t resist:

John McCain Breaks McCain-Feingold Law

Hotline On Call today reports that John McCain will be raising money for Adjudant General Stan Spears in South Carolina. However the fundraiser violates the law he helped write. The invitation says that the “minimum donation requested is $100″ and says nothing about the maximum.

The law that McCain wrote specifically prohibits Senators from raising more than $2100 for a state candidate. However, the Spears invitation encourages donors to give amounts up to and beyond that limit. This means that John McCain is raising soft money.

McCain has said repeatedly that the purpose of McCain Feingold was to stop federal officeholders from raising soft money.

Go read the whole thing. Wow.

(via 1115)

Update/Correction: Doh. Senate Majority Project has posted an update to the original post which takes some of the wind out of the sails of this one:

Today, the Spears campaign has said that it distributed an RSVP card with the invitation with a disclaimer that should satisfy the law. This would make the appearance merely hypocritical rather than outright illegal . . .

Trouble is, it’s not at all clear that this disclaimer passes legal muster. McCain Feingold isn’t a law that mandates disclaimers; it’s a law that (as McCain has reminded us many times) bans federal officeholders from asking for unlimited soft money contributions. When McCain put his name on an invitation that asked for unlimited contributions where the “minimum donation requested was $100,” McCain violated that law. Even with the RSVP card, it appears that the invitation is asking for funds up to $3,500 – well above the amount McCain may raise under the McCain-Feingold law.

The Tattered Coat

John McCain

Screwed Again

John McCain Breaks McCain-Feingold Law