Today's Torture News Roundup

NY Times: "Senate Nears Final Vote on Detainee Bill"

The bill’s ultimate passage was assured on Wednesday when Democrats agreed to forgo a filibuster in return for consideration of the amendment. Any changes in the Senate bill, however, would have made it impossible for Republican leaders to meet their goal of sending the bill to the White House before adjourning on Friday to hit the campaign trail.

NY Times Editorial: "Rushing Off a Cliff"

Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

mcjoan on Kos: "Filibuster: Stand Up for Americans and Our Rights"

Senator Feingold, Senator Kerry, Senator Leahy, Senator Specter, Senator Chafee: put your colleagues on record. Filibuster this legislation, even if it fails. Make your colleagues register their vote of conscience on torture. Put them on record for posterity.

Matt Stoller on MyDD: "Specter Amendment Fails, 51-48"

This was our only shot at stopping the bill, and the amendment failed by a small margin. Senators are stunned at the call volume, and we picked up a bunch of moderate Republicans. Sherrod Brown's vote for the bill in the House allowed his Senate opponent Dewine to vote 'No', and that was a possible pickup. If you want a sense of how the Senate Democratic caucus deliberated, this piece is pretty good. Every Democrat except Ben Nelson stood up for Habeas. Sometimes we lose. That's politics.

If we had another 24 hours we might have won this, but we didn't. There's an outside shot that Rockefeller could get his amendment through (which would force a conference committee, I think), but the Habeas amendment died.