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Health Care Vote Getting Closer
The Debate: Trials or Military Commissions?
Do We Still Need TV News?

WSJ: Not Again? Yes, Again: More Earthquakes Rock Chile

Three strong earthquakes rattled Chile’s central-south, minutes before Sebastian Pinera was sworn in as the country’s new president. The first aftershock, one of the strongest since a massive 8.8-magnitude quake devastated large swaths of Chile’s Maule and Bio Bio regions, was magnitude-7.2, according to the U.S. Geological Service. The epicenter was located in the central Libertador O’Higgins region, some 71 miles from port Valparaiso. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

From The Epicenter of Our Broken Congress

AP - House Democratic leaders abandoned a long struggle to appease the most ardent abortion opponents in their ranks, gambling Thursday that they can secure the support for President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care legislation with showdown votes looming next week.

Campaign for New Priorities: Speaker Pelosi today begins “walking her members through” the final health care bill language, reports Politico:”‘We’re going to get started,’ Pelosi said as she left the Capitol Wednesday night … The speaker and her leadership team have their work cut out for them as they approach an Easter deadline to wrap up a year’s worth of work on health care reform in the next two-and-a-half weeks.”

WH - Congress near final health care agreement. AP: “A closed-door meeting in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office Wednesday evening moved congressional leaders and administration officials close to agreement on such issues as additional subsidies to help lower-income families … and more aid for states under the Medicaid program … Democrats still need to see a final cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office…”

Only 65 members of the House voted with Rep. Dennis Kucinich to force withdrawal from the Afghan war. The outcome makes the antiwar forces appear weaker than they are.

Trials or Military Commissions: What Makes The Most Sense?

The Robert Jackson Steering Committee, a group of lawyers and journalists founded to uphold the principles of the Nuremberg Trials, is urging the Department of Justice to proceed with trying Khalil Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and other suspected 9/11 terrorists in federal criminal court, and not in military commissions.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the Committee enumerates several substantial problems with military commissions:

(1) Admissibility of statements following torture in certain circumstances, (2) Evidence derived from impermissible interrogation methods is not barred, (3) Evidence seized outside the US without search warrants is not excluded, (4) The accused is entitled to one “reasonably available” defense counsel, (5) No mention of the attorney-client privilege, (6) In a capital case, the accused is entitled to additional counsel “to the greatest extent practicable”, (7) Ex post facto law may be applied, (8) No right to speedy trial, (9) Trials may be closed to public, (10) Conviction by two thirds of jurors rather than unanimity, (11) Hearsay evidence admissible if direct testimony not available or would have adverse impact on military or intelligence operations, (12) Government cannot be compelled to disclose classified information, and (13) Only one peremptory challenge to jury selection. Read the full letter.

An Entangled Alliance: US / Israel: The Special Relationship?

Watch: Interview With Jeff Gates By Press TV — o restore national security requires a reappraisal of the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.” Jeff Gates is A widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide.

Joe Conason: The New McCarthyism

The values that most of us share include honesty and fairness - and this sleazy campaign violates both.

The national madness known as “McCarthyism” began 60 years ago in Wheeling, W.V., when Joseph R. McCarthy held up a scrap of paper that supposedly listed the names of 57 State Department officials he said were actually Communists and traitors.

Eventually, America learned that the Wisconsin Republican’s famous list was a fabrication, that he was a liar and a demagogue as well as an alcoholic — and that his authoritarian appeals to fear were worse than useless in defending our security. But by then, McCarthyism’s self-serving and fundamentally unpatriotic promoters had inflicted grave damage on the body politic and international prestige of the United States.

Today, McCarthy’s heirs are more slick and glib than he ever was, yet their fundamental methods are the same. When Elizabeth Cheney, William Kristol and their media friends slander Justice Department attorneys as the “al-Qaida 7″ and malign the “Department of Jihad,” they are engaging in the smear tactics that became synonymous with McCarthy.

What is different now is the cynical hypocrisy of the new McCarthyites, who know that the flimsy accusations they level against Democrats in the Obama administration could just as easily be turned on Republicans who served President Bush. [More here →]

Jane Perlez, NY Times; . Pakistanis who refused airport screening in D.C. are hailed at home

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A tour of the United States arranged by the State Department to improve ties to Pakistani legislators ended in a public relations fiasco when the members of the group refused to submit to extra airport screening in Washington, and they are now being hailed as heroes on their return home.

“People should be thankful, you made them so proud,” Hamid Mir, the host of a popular national talk show, said during an interview in his studio Tuesday with four of the six politicians, who railed against the security precautions at Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Meetings with the Obama administration’s top policy makers on Pakistan, including the president’s special representative, Richard Holbrooke, and visits to the Pentagon and the National Security Council, did not allay the anger the politicians said they felt at being asked to submit to a secondary screening Sunday before boarding a flight to New Orleans. They declined to be screened and did not board the flight.

Pakistan is one of 14 mostly Muslim countries whose citizens must go through increased checks before they fly into the United States, a procedure mandated by the Obama administration in the wake of the failed attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up an airliner flying to Detroit on Dec. 25. The inclusion of Pakistan on the list was broadly criticized as an insult to a country that the United States calls an ally.

The lawmakers were chosen to visit by the U.S. Embassy. U.S. officials are eager to reach out to political figures from tribal areas where the Pakistani army is fighting to reclaim territory from the Taliban.