Posted on 09/28/2006 8:54:10 AM PDT by MNJohnnie
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1709588/posts?page=1
House passes detainee bill
Republicans pushed a bill supported by President George W. Bush to set rules for interrogating and trying terrorism suspects through the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday and Senate Republicans were expected to follow within a day.
The House passed the bill 253-168 largely along party lines, dismissing warnings from Democrats that courts would strike down the plan for failing to meet judicial standards.
Republicans who control both chambers want to send the bill to Bush by the weekend, when lawmakers head out to campaign for November elections that will determine control of Congress.
The bill sets up procedures to try foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Supreme Court struck down Bush's original plan, saying it violated U.S. and international standards.
As Senate debate on the bill got under way, Republicans defeated an attempt to pass an alternative that Democrats said would meet Supreme Court standards and help restore America's image, damaged by harsh treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The Senate was expected to pass the bill on Thursday, after considering several other amendments.
Republicans, seeking to polish their terrorism-fighting credentials in the final days of their campaigns, depicted the new rules as tough but fair.
"By formally establishing terrorist tribunals, the bill provides a critical tool in fighting the war on terror and it provides a measure of justice to the victims of 9/11," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, said the bill provides "basic fairness in our prosecutions but we also preserve the ability of our war fighters to operate effectively on the battlefield."
But Human rights groups and many Democrats said the deal gave Bush too much latitude to allow harsh interrogations and to deprive detainees of legal rights.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat, said agreeing to "such an ambiguous compromise would allow the president to define torture when and how he sees fit."
Rep. Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, said the bill sends a signal that "America's leaders are willing to abandon our values ... in favor of thuggish tactics they hope might make them safer for a little while."
Democrats also predicted the courts would find the bill unconstitutional because it deprived detainees held without charges of the right to file legal challenges to their imprisonment.
Under a compromise worked out last week, the CIA will be able to continue aggressive interrogations, but supporters of the bill said agency interrogators would comply with the Geneva Conventions' requirement for humane treatment.
The bill also expands the definition of "enemy combatants," who can be held indefinitely without charges, to include those who knowingly support terrorist groups with arms, money and other activities.
Backers of the bill said that provision would choke off supplies to terrorist groups, but critics said it was too broad and could subject many more people to indefinite detention.
Rocky is now complaining they are being rushed into voting for this bill
Says that he, Levin and others were not consulted about the bill
48 members of the Senate just tried to give them those rights. Think what a Pandora's box that would have been.
Racheal Ray said her Mother loves McGovern. That was the lost draw for me. Racheal is a big lib.
As Mary Poppins used to say, "Just a Fifth full of Tequila makes the medicine go down!"
One of those "idiots" that voted for habeac corpus, Rockefeller, is NOW all worried about the CIA rendition progam and how the poor, poor terrorists might be treated when sent to OTHER countries.
SO...not only do they want to give prisoners at GITMO our civil rights....he wants to make sure that prisoners sent to OTHER countries get OUR civil rights!!!
Are ya scared yet????
since the Libs FEEL like they should, and the Supreme Court has gotten so ingenious that they were able to actually find a treaty with Al Quieda in the Constitution...
since COngress and the SCOTUS has decided that LAWS over-ride UNALIENABLE rights....
UNALIENABLE means- NOT NEGOTIABLE! NOT TOUCHABLE..but hey- the LIBS seem to be able to REDEFINE every word that has been PREFECTLY UNDERSTOOD for THOUSANDS OF YEARS!
and the damn American media not only FALLS for it- but HELPS!
UGH!
Posted: September 28, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern WorldNetDaily.com
It's an entirely new definition of "Standing Room Only." Or perhaps a new measure of "equality" has arrived.
Whatever it is, it has sparked a huge political debate at a school in Kristiansand, Norway, according to the Norwegian paper Fædrelandsvennen.
The trigger for the explosion of opinion? A decision in the local district that schoolboys must sit on toilet seats when urinating, not stand.
According to the news report, the rule was announced for boys at Dvergsnes School, prompting outrage from Vidar Kleppe, the chief of The Democrats Party.
He's accusing the school of "fiddling with God's work," and now he wants the issue discussed at the executive committee level of the area council, according to the newspaper "Dagbladet."
"When boys are not allowed to pee in the natural way, the way boys have done for generations, it is meddling with God's work," Kleppe, whose group is a splinter group of former Progress Party hardliners, said in the newspaper.
"It is a human right not to have to sit down like a girl," he said.
On Kleppe's contentious "stand" on making political waves, no comment was the response from school principal Lise Gjul.
But she did tell Norwegian Broadcasting NRK that the restrooms are used by both boys and girls, and the young boys are not "good enough at aiming" in order to have "a pleasant toilet."
School officials are still listening to opinions on the issue.
Heheh.
LOL! I have heard of that word before....
Who cares we need to lose the Senate so we can win in 08... /s
I knew I'd heard that somewhere.
How is it going???
ROFLLL!!!!
CHEERS- to Mary Poppins!
;-)
"I can't stand Racheal Ray either."
What? Too much EVOO?
;-)
Stop That!
Great. You?
sKerry up. Ugh!
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