Email this NY TIMES editorial to Congress.

[Eric J in MN]

My email to both my Senators and my Rep:

Please oppose creating kangaroo courts in Cuba.

We should continue to try terrorists in the real federal courts we have in the US.

Please oppose letting Bush choose secret acts of cruelty to use against prisoners.

It will result in false confessions.

I agree with this NY TIMES editorial.

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A Bad Bargain

Published: September 22, 2006

Here is a way to measure how seriously President Bush was willing to compromise on the military tribunals bill: Less than an hour after an agreement was announced yesterday with three leading Republican senators, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of its one real concession.

About the only thing that Senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham had to show for their defiance was Mr. Bush’s agreement to drop his insistence on allowing prosecutors of suspected terrorists to introduce classified evidence kept secret from the defendant. The White House agreed to abide by the rules of courts-martial, which bar secret evidence. (Although the administration’s supporters continually claim this means giving classified information to terrorists, the rules actually provide for reviewing, editing and summarizing classified material. Evidence that cannot be safely declassified cannot be introduced.)

...On other issues, the three rebel senators achieved only modest improvements on the White House’s original positions. They wanted to bar evidence obtained through coercion. Now, they have agreed to allow it if a judge finds it reliable (which coerced evidence hardly can be) and relevant to guilt or innocence. The way coercion is measured in the bill, even those protections would not apply to the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.
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I emailed them the entire editorial, which continues at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/opinion/22fri1.html

[jimshoes]

1. I'm trying to think of

what depravity these rightards won't march in lockstep to. But I know I won't have to wait very long to find out. They sink to new lows as regularly as the tides ebb and flow. They're beyond disgusting.

[Eric J in MN]

2. We've seen in the past 24 hours how the Republican Senators...

...who were presented as principled caved to Bush, and are allowing bogus trials.

[Eric J in MN]

3. kicking for human rights (NT)

NT