I've searched the Thomas site for any sign that this was considered on the three days the House did anything last week, and don't see it. The Defense appropriations bill is H.R. 2863. I just got an alert (a sort of garbled email from an activist) that said there will be conference committee work on Monday and Tuesday on the bill. So apparently it's not completely too late to make the call.

I'm puzzled I didn't get that HRFirst alert, considering I've not only received but responded to them and reported back before...
Nell | 12.10.05 - 9:49 pm | #

I'll forward you the e-mail I got, but I can't account for the lack of a vote, or that you didn't get something when I did. It was a form e-mail, with my Congressman (Van Hollen) filled in.

The House GOP leadership has delayed this vote before, so maybe they did so again. I don't know whether that would show up in Thomas.gov records or not.

At any rate, I'm sorry if this wasted your time.
Thomas Nephew | Homepage | 12.11.05 - 4:29 am | #

I didn't mean at all to give the impression this wasted my time. I'm just trying to gather information to activate local volunteers, if there is something useful we can do.

I'm thinking that maybe this was a committee vote, and that your Rep. is on one of the relevant committees and mine not.

The email I got referenced the Center for Constitutional Rights' action page, which puts it a bit differently (asking House members to remove the Graham-Levin habeas-stripping amendment from the defense appropriations bill).

I find alerts from HRF and CCR's grassroots lobbying campaigns frustrating. They seem determined to dumb them down, often not providing bill numbers or a clear statement of the legislative situation. The ACLU has been much better (and occasionally downright heroic, such as during the initial Patriot Act railroad in October 2001, for instance). The Friends Committee on National Legislation is also usually a model of specificity.

In this case, though, I'm still confused after looking over each organization's call. If it's true that the conference committee is meeting Monday and Tuesday, there seems to be little anyone can do, because the House doesn't usually vote on Monday. I feel the need of a frank, detailed update from the hr lobby staff, the kind of thing that's best done in a conference call.
Nell | 12.11.05 - 1:56 pm | #

I do keep writing to ole Denny. Ya wouldn't belive the *responses* i get back (or perhaps ya would.)

Bleh! He's an awful, not to be trusted, GOPhuckUP if there ever was one.


Karen | Homepage | 12.12.05 - 9:50 pm | #

This news makes current efforts in Congress seem pointless, and I imagine was designed to do so:

Rumsfeld and Cambone have had the Army Field Manual of Interrogation rewritten to allow torture, and the relevant sections will be classified. Classified!

Hey, I'm just numb. I'm not tough enough to deal with the level of depravity we're seeing here. Hail ants.
Nell | 12.14.05 - 1:48 pm | #

This is yet another instance of Bush versus the very idea and spirit of law. If you're forever looking for the grey areas and the "line" between illegal and legal behavior, you're not interested in administering and enforcing law, you're interested in flouting and abusing it.

And since that kind of sleaziness means being comfortable with more than occasional criminality, this is an administration charged with enforcing laws that instead flirts with criminality all the time -- at best -- and just goes ahead and breaks laws at worst.

I seem to remember McCain acknowledging something like this might happen back in debates this summer. At least with his amendment, the line will be "cruel, inhuman, degrading," not torture, not that that is always a comforting distinction. Waterboarding and stress positions are torture plain and simple in my view, but not in that of many in this administration.

But the "classified" angle also puts oversight squarely on Congress' puny shoulders. With folks like the Nazgul in charge there , this really is a dispiriting development.


[[Note: I've been just swamped with work and family and other chores, and obviously haven't been able to muster much for blogging lately. I'll get back to it soon.]]
Thomas Nephew | Homepage | 12.15.05 - 10:42 am | #