HiddenMysteries: Count The Votes- Torture Bill Didn't Pass

By Douglas Herman

Am I missing something or did the Military Commissions Act pass the Senate using fuzzy math? Please explain to me how 65 votes out of 99 Senate votes cast equals two thirds majority? Seems they missed by one vote.

According to the link at Wikipedia (below) the Torture Bill breezed through the House of Representatives with a passing vote. Such luminaries as Florida representative, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, self-styled critic of Cuba' s torture regime, voted to continue the US government-sponsored torture sessions at Quantanamo prison in Cuba. Not content with Gitmo, IRL and her co-conspirators voted to add MORE torture provisions to the US government here in the country that gave her shelter. From torture.

Then the good old boys in the Senate got to vote on the Torture Bill. Championed by other victims of torture like John McCain, they followed the example of Ros-Lehtinen, figuring that what was good for Communist military dictatorships overseas must be good for America .

So these worthies stomped on the Bill of Rights and pissed on the graves of REAL patriots like Madison, Jefferson and Franklin, and passed a bill into law allowing state security (SS) orgs to arrest anyone, torture them and hold them indefinitely without recourse.

But wait.

Did the law really pass?

I counted 65 votes of approval from the Reichstag, I mean Senate. Here are the House votes (HR 6166) and the US Senate votes (S3930).

To pass, the Senate would have needed at least 67 Ayes. Or 66-33 if one senator abstained. Correct? GOP Senators Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) signaled their support but, at the last minute, Snowe dodged the vote by being absent. Guess the good people of Maine must have flooded her office with calls. Thank you Maine .

At least two-dozen former military leaders penned a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee outlining their objections to the bill (But, who gives a damn what high-ranking military leaders think, right?) They rightly believed the bill would put U.S. military personnel---captured soldiers as prisoners of war--- at risk in current and future military conflicts. Some expressed their concern that the bill would weaken the moral authority of the U.S. in the War on Terror.

But NEARLY two thirds of US Senators, lacking in spine and moral authority, and having no grasp of history or the US Constitution (That goddamned piece of paper), decided to vote for 666, otherwise known as the Military Commissions Act.

BUT wait once again. They were still a few quislings short.

34 Senators voted No while Olympia Snowe remained a no show. So, it seems as if the Act never passed and whatever goddamned piece of paper GWB signed into law was illegal.

USAF veteran and Constitutional Rights Scholar (actually just an Intern) Douglas Herman writes regularly for Rense.

http://www.rense.com

Count The Votes- Torture Bill Didn't Pass

Tuesday, November 07 2006 @ 10:22 AM CST