Today's lead NYT editorial on the "terror" bill -- WOW! ... simply WOW!

[Bozita]

I'm a NYT subscriber, so I have Times Select.

Check the link for the beginning. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Then check this:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

more...

[MadMaddie]

1. The Republicans have let OBL win....and they are too stupid

to understand it.....

[KyndCulture]

2. ding ding.

no shit.

[postulater]

7. They hate us for the freedom we just lost

[KyndCulture]

3. dammit I wish I could read the rest of that.

[laundry_queen]

11. Here ya go (link)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,439889,00.html

[EFerrari]

4. Is "secret evidence" an oxymoron?

Secret evidence.

:puke:

[Dem2theMax]

5. Just sent that to the repuke editor of the SD Union-Tribune.

Told her to put it on the front page.

Just reading it will fry her right wing brain.

[Captain Hilts]

6. BIG win for OBL. nt

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

8. Alas, too late.

[Justice Is Comin]

9. We have put Hitler in charge of the welfare of the Jews.

Now all we have to do is have 2 or 3 of our CIA operatives in Iran captured and I hope when that happens Mahmoud shows the results of abolition of the Geneva Convention and turns that heh heh heh fungus hedge monkey into the leper of the world.

[kentuck]

10. Too bad they couldn't have warned the spineless Democrats yesterday?

<snip>
There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.

We don’t blame the Democrats for being frightened. The Republicans have made it clear that they’ll use any opportunity to brand anyone who votes against this bill as a terrorist enabler. But Americans of the future won’t remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.

They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts