These are grim days for the Constitution. The House and the Senate have passed the catastrophic "compromise" negotiated by senators McCain & Co. to the President's "enemy combatants" bill. The only thing compromised is the rule of law; the bill still strips detainees of the right to appeal, broadens the President's unilateral powers to decide who is an enemy and which interrogation methods violate the Geneva Conventions, and fatally undermines the War Crimes Act. The bill was rushed to passage just days after the Canadian government exonerated Maher Arar, "rendered" by the United States to Syria, imprisoned and tortured for nearly a year.
EDITORS' NOTE: This editorial was updated for the web after the magazine went to the printer.
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Noted.
The Nation and the NAACP; democracy derailed in Honduras; Sotomayor and Ricci
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Public Option Now!
Getting a Medicare-style public plan as part of healthcare reform is a winnable fight.
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Noted.
Sebastian Jones on healthcare reform, Nisa Qazi on refugees in Pakistan, John Nichols on NOW's Kim Gandy
As more than 300 law professors wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders, the enemy-combatants debate is "an urgent test of our nation's constitutional and democratic values." Democrats as well as Republicans have failed the test.
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