Say hello to Torture Is Not Us by American Progress (hoster of the excellent blog Think Progress), an action site to support the John McCain anti-torture amendment.

One crucial consideration: If the McCain Amendment passes, it must include the CIA. Like the Graham-Levin amendment on detainees, it is part of a larger 2006 military spending package. Bush and Cheney have threatened vetoes if the McCain Amendment passes in a form that excludes the CIA.

I'm not sure I can support the McCain Amendment with the Levin-Graham amendment as part of the package. Particularly, because as I wrote here, no habeas for them could become precedent for no habeas for us, as early as tomorrow, when the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold its second hearing on the dreadfulStreamlined Procedures Act.

Pajamas Media, the new blog-news-opinion collaboration, is having a big roll-out in New York tomorrow. They also will be announcing their new name. With $3.5 million in private financing on board, they are going top drawer.

While most of the participating blogs lean right, they did secure David Corn and Marc Cooper and I suspect more will join as it becomes better known and should it become successful.

Spain announced today it will probe allegations that the CIA used an airport near Mallorca to transfer Ghost Air detainees destined for overseas interrogation facilities.

The Spanish government had no knowledge of the alleged flights but a judge was investigating them, [Spanish Interior Minister Jose Antonio] Alonso told Spanish television channel Telecinco.

"If it were confirmed that this is true, we would be looking at very serious, intolerable deeds because they break the basic rules of treating people in a democratic legal and political system," he said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee today rejected the Jeff Bingaman amendment on habeas relief for detainees by a vote of 44 - 54. The Graham-Levin amendment was approved 84-14.

I just received a copy of the Amendment. My initial take is that while ithe compromise version is a modest improvement on the original Graham amendment, the Graham-Levin substitute would, like the original, eliminate habeas for Guatanamo detainees, overturn the Rasul decision, and also likely prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on the merits of the Hamdan case.

Kudos to Sen. Dick Durbin, whom I'm told, voted for the Bingaman Amendment and against the compromise.

More later.

350 law professors write the Senate Judiciary Committee (pdf)in opposition to Lindsay Graham's detainee habeas stripping amendment to the Pentagon funding bill.

I have not seen a copy of the Levin-Graham compromise. If anyone has it and can send it to me, that would be great. From the accounts I read in the news, it doesn't come close to the Bingaman Amendment - but I want to reserve judgment until I've read it.

Update: Marty Lederman of Balkinization apparently has seen the compromise and raises questions.

Update: I have a copy of the Amendment now, no need to send it.

[Update: Reddhed at Firedog Lake agrees and adds valuable additional thoughts.]

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Original Post

Taylor Marsh reports on special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and Libby's agreement to keep all discovery provided to Libby out of the hands of third parties and the lawsuit filed by Dow Jones, parent of the Wall St. Journal, to prevent the Court from going along.

As a defense lawyer, I have to say, the right thing to do is keep the material in the hands of the parties. I read Fitzgerald's proposed order (pertinent paragraphs are reproduced below) which is available on Pacer, the federal court docketing system, and it's very similar to ones I get in gang and large drug cases. It even requires the lawyers to return the discovery once the case is over and to keep a record of every person associated with the defense with whom they share it. Why? For one thing, the Government doesn't want unindicted co-conspirators to get their hands on it. For another, they want to protect the identity and safety of cooperating witnesses.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The Washington Post reported yesterday that DOJ Civil Rights Division career attorneys are leaving at a rate nearly double that of prior administrations because disagreements over the conservative agenda of DOJ under the current Administration.

Such is the distain for the current Administration for civil rights enforcement, the division's lawyers have found their energies diverted away from enforcement of the civil rights laws into other areas.

Ahmad Chalabi is getting the star treatment. The neocon purveyor of faulty intelligence met Monday first with Donald Rumsfeld and then with Dick Cheney.

Arianna tells all in My Dinner With Chalabi.

Other persons he's met with while here: Sen. Carl Levin, Rep. Tom Lantos, and Dick Holbrooke. He now praises Henry Waxman and hates Paul Bremer.

It sounds like his current meme is to protest he's being treated as a scapegoat of the CIA while declaring that human rights abuses, not WMD's, are why he made taking out Saddam his life mission.

Saddam's has been in jail for over a year and it seems the torture of Iraqis by Iraqis continues. But 2,000 young American lives have been lost. I'm not buying anything Mr. Chalabi has to sell, unless its a speedy withdrawal of American troops.

And the hits, they just keep coming. This one sounds well-deserved.

Alito put his personal opinion out there in 1985 when he sent a document to the Reagan administration, along with his application to become a deputy assistant attorney general, saying his previous government work had included helping "to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly."

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government argued that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," wrote Alito, who was then working for the solicitor general's office.

Could it get any worse? Yes.

ABC News has an exclusive report of two released Iraqi detainees who allege shocking accounts of torture by U.S. troops. Aside from physical beatings, the men allege:

"They took us to a cage — an animal cage that had lions in it within the Republican Palace," he said. "And they threatened us that if we did not confess, they would put us inside the cage with the lions in it. It scared me a lot when they got me close to the cage, and they threatened me. And they opened the door and they threatened that if I did not confess, that they were going to throw me inside the cage. And as the lion was coming closer, they would pull me back out and shut the door, and tell me, 'We will give you one more chance to confess.' And I would say, 'Confess to what?'"

Inside the Republican Palace — the site of Saddam's former office — Sabbar says troops taunted him with a mock execution.

Here are seventeen myths and distortions about the Graham amendment. To add your voice to the outcry against this legislation, click here.

Via Digby:

The Republican senate is using habeas corpus as a political football. South Carolinian Lindsay Graham, the sponsor, is undoubtedly feeling tremendous pressure because of his "soft" stance on torture (I still can't believe we are even talking about it) and this is his way of restoring some manly credentials. But there is no excuse for the Democrats who signed on to this. Nor is there any excuse for the Blue state moderates either.

There was obviously some back room dickering on this bit of legislation and that makes me about as sick as anything about this whole thing. They're playing politics with habeas corpus for Gawd's sake. This isn't some f*cking highway bill or a farm subsidy. It's the very foundation of our system of government and the single most important element of liberty. If the state can just declare someone an "unlawful combatant" and lock them up forever, we have voted ourselves into tyranny.