Senate Vote on Torture Bill: C-SPAN 2 Watch Thread

[derby378]

Senator John McCain's anti-torture bill has been compromised. Darth Cheney found a way.

The Senate is about to debate the treasonous bill and vote on it. Here are your media links:

http://www.c-span.org/watch/cspan2.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS2

EDIT: It's C-SPAN 1 instead. The House is debating it. And the stream is not available.

Sorry, guys! I have no idea what's going on here.

[skooooo]

1. How has it been compromised?

[derby378]

2. Here's the link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5665289

[derby378]

4. Damn good quote from William Drummond

He, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave.

[LSK]

3. i dont see the Senate n/t

[derby378]

5. Give them just a moment...

The session should begin shortly.

[LSK]

6. House or Senate

CSPAN2 (the Senate channel) was doing some other programming.

[EFerrari]

10. House!

[LSK]

11. might want to change your thread title then.

[IndyOp]

7. All I am getting it bagpipe music -

I will assume that the Senate session is starting a bit later than they said it would. C-SPAN always includes the note 'start and end times may vary' -

[derby378]

8. Everyone please read the OP again - there's a change

My apologies for the mess...

[EFerrari]

15. None needed! Thank you for the OP

:hi:

[Nothing Without Hope]

21. Please change your thread title - it's the HOUSE, not the SENATE

and thanks for posting about this. I've given info/link on what this is all about in my other post upthread.

[ceile]

9. CSPAN 1 Patriot Act debate live

[LSK]

12. stream works for me - using Realplayer

[EFerrari]

13. The Patriot Act will be considered. Also, the House

needs to address / modify their Defense Appropriations bill re ANWR.

I haven't heard them even ADDRESS the Graham - Levin Amendment.

I HOPE YOU GUYS HAVE CALLED YOUR REPS TO PROTEST THIS ADMENDMENT TO THE APPROPRIATIONS BILL! IT GUTS MCCAIN'S BILL. :(

[nofurylike]

17. sweatin. eom

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. From what I read, it's the HOUSE that is voting on the compromised bill

Info in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5665289
thread title (12/22 GD): US BILL up this week would ALLOW TORTURE for evidence, long-term holding

The Dec 16 press release from Human Rights Watch is in reply #7, and the Wash Post story that gives the timing and obliquely refers to this Graham-Levin amendment despite the article's lying title about Congress banning torture, is in Reply #20.

[EFerrari]

16. My signal is going in and out. Please summarize someone?

These al Qaida rainstorms! :(

[nofurylike]

18. Obey calling them out on their tricks. excellent. reboot? eom

[EFerrari]

19. Go, Obey! It's my satellite signal. Back now but will go out

again. Cats and dogs coming down here.

[nofurylike]

48. do you also have streaming, for when this all heats up again?

soon?

[Sydnie]

20. David Obey complaining about Frist pressuring them

to add 40 pages of legislation to the bill (his vaccine special giveaway). Said Frist and the Speaker came over to the House and demanded that the language be added even though the conferees had never see the language at all.

He is taking Frist's pet language DOWN!

Appears that Stevens was NOT the only one to strong arm his additions into that bill.

Frist must be foaming at the mouth right about now.

[Reciprocity]

22. His opening statement sounds very similar to

Kennedy's yesterday on flu vaccine. I wounder if they talk to each other?

[EFerrari]

23. Good! I hope he goes right into shock.

:mad:

[Nothing Without Hope]

24. Here is a thread on Frist's sneaky move for vaccine makers:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5654741
thread title (12/21 GD): NYT: Frist slips broad legal shield for vaccine makers into military bill

My specific reasons for being appalled by this approach to vaccine legislation (apart from Frist's corruption and conflicts of interest) are outlined in Reply #3.

[EFerrari]

25. Thank you, Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Frist.

:nuke:

[nofurylike]

26. what was that? what did they just do? please? eom

[Sydnie]

27. They ajourned until Dec 26th?

WTF? I don't get it either.

[nofurylike]

29. thank you Sydnie! wtf, indeed?! five week patriot act extension.

listening for what else in this summary

arrgh!



peace!

[Nothing Without Hope]

28. What's happening with the corrupted torture legislation in the HOUSE?? n/t

[nofurylike]

30. that bill didn't even get dealt with! wtf?! when will it? listening for

info on this summary thing, but now it's all sensenbrenner?!

help us out here, anyone?

[EFerrari]

31. The amendment we are concerned about didn't even get

mentioned.

NEXT WEEK WE HAVE TO MOUNT AN OFFENSIVE.

These people are worn out. If we hound them this week, imho, we will get nowhere. :(

[nofurylike]

32. good point, sfexpat2000. are you hearing that that is what will

be discussed on the 26th?

or, again, just the pat act?

so, we let them be to have their holiday, and we prepare everything, then on sunday night, through monday we do the same URGENT threads?

what you think about it?

[EFerrari]

34. I don't think it will even come up unless WE MAKE IT AN ISSUE.

And, we'll be talking to really burned out people. If I call Nancy's office again, they staffer might shoot the phone.

Let's think well and come up with a strategy to talk to these good people. I don't think they could hear one more thing today. But, that's just my opinion.

Anyone else?

[nofurylike]

41. i agree. that's why i wrote what i did. plan then start sunday night?

post an URGENT thread sunday night,to have people calling monday?

no way again today, i agree. they were already on the edge.

[nofurylike]

42. how about a planning thread tomorrow for us? or say when is

best for you.

[nofurylike]

50. okay, so. i have to go for a while. how about for now through

sunday we each just find and post everything we can on this, along with "CALL NOW"s ?

plan to post, all evening and night sunday, threads: "URGENT! CALL....!!!"

is that a plan?

please just pm me anything i can do, any way i can assist any plan, okay?

i'll check back in a while.

[EFerrari]

51. Thank you for all your work! Let's tag up on Sunday.

:toast:

[nofurylike]

53. excellent! thank you so much for all your work, too, sfexpat2000!

meanwhile, i'll be doing research and posting around here to inform people about it all, as i imagine you and Nothing Without Hope and Sapphire Blue and... will be too. by sunday, may everyone be ready to hear us ask for action!

i'll be back on later and i'll pm you some material and thoughts. thank you so much for all you do, and for your and their making it possible for me to work on this too.


:hi:

:toast:


peace and solidarity, always!

[Nothing Without Hope]

35. THE HOUSE WILL RECONVENE ON DEC 26TH:

From the House Floor proceedings site:

http://clerk.house.gov/floorsummary/floor.html
4:36 P.M. -
On motion to adjourn Agreed to by voice vote.
The House adjourned pursuant to a previous special order. The next meeting is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on December 26, 2005, unless it sooner has received a message from the Senate transmitting its adoption of H. Con. Res. 326.

Mr. Sensenbrenner moved that the House do now adjourn.

OK - it didn't get passed yet and we have to mount an offensive. BUT THEY ARE MEETING THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS, so I don't think we can wait to do what we can to expose this undermining of the anti-torture legislation.

[EFerrari]

36. Uphill battle. You know people are mostly "checked out"

between now and Jan 2. THAT'S WHY THESE BASTARDS TIMED IT THIS WAY.

What are your thoughts, NWH? I can work straight through.

[nofurylike]

43. thank you for the info! how about we gather facts and post them over

the next few days? prepare people for the call to call reps?

we all got some hard-hitting info the last days of this discussion.

[Nothing Without Hope]

37. The House will reconvene on Dec 26th:

From the House Floor proceedings site:

http://clerk.house.gov/floorsummary/floor.html
4:36 P.M. -
On motion to adjourn Agreed to by voice vote.
The House adjourned pursuant to a previous special order. The next meeting is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on December 26, 2005, unless it sooner has received a message from the Senate transmitting its adoption of H. Con. Res. 326.

Mr. Sensenbrenner moved that the House do now adjourn.

OK - it didn't get passed yet and we have to mount an offensive. BUT THEY ARE MEETING THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS, so I don't think we can wait to do what we can to expose this undermining by the amendment of the anti-torture legislation.

Re the NUMBERS AND NAMES we have to watch for, a poster in the main thread on this found at least part of the legislation language at Thomas here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r109:1:./temp/~r109WAHG5K::

Note this excerpt:

SA 2523. Mr. BINGAMAN proposed an amendment to amendment SA 2515 proposed by Mr. GRAHAM (for himself, Mr. KYL, Mr. CHAMBLISS, and Mr. CORNYN) to the bill S. 1042, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2006 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other purposes; as follows:

I don't see Levin's name in this, but Chambliss and Cornyn are TOADS.

[nofurylike]

33. did he just say "live coverage returns to the house on JANUARY

31st"?

have they just made this all too chaotic to follow?

[EFerrari]

38. Yes. This is what BushCo wanted -- under the radar

We can all enjoy our turkey because hero McCain fought for an anti-torture bill and won. NOT!

[nofurylike]

44. NOT!

[nofurylike]

47. sorry. i was quoting you."NOT!" peace! eom

[Nothing Without Hope]

58. What a scam! Bush and Cheney agreed to support anti-torture because they

had this secret back door all set up to give them everything they wanted. And McCain HAD to know all about it - the Human Rights Watch press release was on Dec 16, and the language must have been there earlier.

And now we have this secret dance, without CSPAN reporting, of officially making torture legal according to US LAW, and more. The US media have thoroughly suppressed this story. I believe that the Dec 20 MSN online article cited in the opening post of the main thread came from the London Times - the copyright is by the "Financial Times" and "defense" is spelled with the British "c" instead of the American "s."

Even here at DU there hasn't been a very strong response to this massive, treasonous betrayal. I begged Skinner to pay attention, but did not even get a response.

Much more needs to be done. We're almost out of time.

[Nothing Without Hope]

40. Looks like that's what's happening all right - the crucial vote may well

be on the 26th, when they reconvene. In any case, they have plenty of time to deal with it under the radar before live coverage resumes on the 31st.

We need to call CSPAN about this.

[nofurylike]

45. call CSPAN. to ask the correct dates? eom

[LSK]

39. you REALLY need to change this threads title

:rofl:

[Nothing Without Hope]

46. UNDER THE PROVISION BY WHICH THEY ADJOURNED, THEY COULD COME

BACK EARLIER:

From the House Floor proceedings site:

http://clerk.house.gov/floorsummary/floor.html
4:36 P.M. -
On motion to adjourn Agreed to by voice vote.
The House adjourned pursuant to a previous special order. The next meeting is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on December 26, 2005, unless it sooner has received a message from the Senate transmitting its adoption of H. Con. Res. 326.

NOTE THAT THE ADJOURNMENT UNTIL DEC 26TH COULD BE CUT SHORT! THE PROCEDURE UNDER WHICH THEY ADJOURNED TODAY (H. Con. Res. 326) HAS THIS PROVISO:

SEC. 3. The Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate, or their respective designees, acting jointly after consultation with the Minority Leader of the House and the Minority Leader of the Senate, shall notify the Members of the House and the Senate, respectively, to reassemble at such place and time as they may designate if, in their opinion, the public interest shall warrant it.

What the hell? Do we have to watch them every minute? I know, silly question... And CSPAN won't cover this until January!!!

[nofurylike]

49. oh no! you know, the one way we got clues today was by calling

reps. the aides didn't really know that much, but their bits added up to what turned out to be true.

also, cspan did announce this was coming up, maybe an hour and a half before.

so, i could start calling on monday and leave cspan on through the day.

meanwhile, how about if we all just post threads all through the next days, almost at random, full of all the info we can find about that hidden amendment. we'll dig out the wording, etc.

we could link to each others threads as possible.

[Nothing Without Hope]

56. Sounds like a good plan. We need more threads, where we lay out

the facts we have as clearly as possible and link to older threads on it. Got to spread the word, or this horror will become LAW and the country won't even know about it.

No wonder Bush and Cheney accepted the McCain legislation - they have this secret back door to gut it and get what they want.

[EFerrari]

52. Uphill all the way.

Well, one or more of us will be watching. You know they need a bit of time to just be pissed and tired and then, come back.

We need a plan. Imho, if we mount an email drive Sunday morning, YES, SUNDAY MORNING! -- ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS TO NOT LEGISLATE TORTURE AND ILLEGAL DETENTION! --

We need an email campaing Sunday morning, and a fax / call in campaign Sunday/ early Monday.

What do you think?

:nuke:

[nofurylike]

54. "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS TO NOT LEGISLATE TORTURE

AND ILLEGAL DETENTION!"
actual IMPACT from those words, sfexpat2000!

very, very well said.

me too


peace!

[nofurylike]

55. sounds like a very powerful thread title for sunday... eom

[Nothing Without Hope]

57. Sounds like a plan to me. We also need to clarify exactly where all the

language gutting the McCain anti-torture legislation is. At least part of it is here:

This is from the summary of this part:

SA 2523. Mr. BINGAMAN proposed an amendment to amendment SA 2515 proposed by Mr. GRAHAM (for himself, Mr. KYL, Mr. CHAMBLISS, and Mr. CORNYN) to the bill S. 1042, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2006 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other purposes; as follows:

Note that Levin's name isn't there, though various Bush toadies' are.

The Dec 20 article at the start of the main thread said that the language gutting the McCain anti-torture legislation was in TWO BILLS.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5665289
thread title (12/22 GD): US BILL up this week would ALLOW TORTURE for evidence, long-term holding

Looks like we have one of these two bills that were mentiond - where's the other? What's going on here? We have to have the numbers and exact language to fight this properly. Oh, this has been very well suppressed indeed. Even here at DU it's not gotten very much interest. I wrote to Skinner about it, but it's not on the home page and will soon disappear from the Greatest.

No wonder Bush and Cheney accepted their "defeat" over the torture issue - they WERE NOT DEFEATED, THEY JUST USED THIS SECRET BACK DOOR TO GET WHAT THEY WANTED.