Thought Stew with Carrots and Peas too

    Obamma has clinched the nomination of the Democratic Party. Good for him; Bad for us Democrats who believe that a president should have substance. As I stated months ago, I wil not vote on popularity but rather on the issues. McCain will keep our country safe and unlike the Bushists has a humanity that only smeone who has endured what he has can have. I still believe that at the end of th day, the GOP does not own McCain, but rather he will stand on his on and for the people.

 Earlier this month Texas Child Protective Services removed over 400 children from a religious sect at the YFZ ranch outside El dorado Texas by Force with SWAT. The ranch is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Latter-day Saints, a Mormon sect. The group lives peacably with their neighbors, and has remained private for several decades. This high regard for privacy has caused distrust by their neighbors and local officials. After CPS “determined that an immediate danger exists to the physical health and safety of the children who are residents of the YFZ Ranch,” it filed an affidavit in state court to permit the “rescue” of a teenage mother from the 1,700-acre property.

The raid was conducted in response to unconfirmed telephone calls on March 29 and 30 by a teenager who said that she and her 8-month-old infant were prisoners inside the sect .  The girl described many beatings she had endured from the older man to whom she was “spiritually married,” who “was also married to several other women” . The man has been named BUT, has not been arrested because it is a proven fact that he has not set a foot in Texas since 1977. At the end the caller “began crying and then stated that she is happy and fine and does not want to get in trouble and that everything she had previously said should be forgotten”. Although hundreds of other young girls, many of them pregnant, have now been taken into statee custody, Texas authorities have so far not located the girl who called for help.  Therefore her existance is unconfirmed and the story is believed by some to be fabricated.

Mothers within the group have appealed to media and hundreds of pro bono attorneys have come to the aid of these children who have in reality been kidnapped by the state of Texas.

As i have followed this story from the beginning it has smelled of religous bigotry of the highest order. As I sat and watched the news as the children ere huddled like cattle into buses , one thing stood out to me above all others. On the side of the buses carrying the kidnapped children was written “First Baptist Church”. It then began to sink in that the fundamentalist bible beating christian extremists are at it again. In the Bible belt of Texas there is a majority of white, baptists bigots that turn the wheels of government in small towns such as El Dorado. I suspect that religous extremism, greed and anti-mormon bigotry lies at the core of the motives behind this seige of the FLDS children ,  and eventually their land and assets.  The reader should understand that in the history of the Mormon people , the United States government, fueled by protestant fundamentalism has led the persecution of this religion. Under orders of the Govenor of illinois the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith was murdered and later in Missouri an extermination order was issued for the Mormon people. This drove the Mormons west to what is now Utah. Not soon after , the United States under orders of the president sent battallions to exterminate the Mormons because word had reached the capitol that they were building a Temple and a kingdom in Indian territory.  Some years later  Deseret as it was known sought for statehood as a part of the United states and were denied ; 1) Because mormons practiced their faith which included polygamy, 2) the name deseret was a word from the mormon scriptures and a congressman from the south was biased against it.  The result was that the mormon church rescinded the practice of polygamy. However what was to become of those who were already living this way? Were husbands suppose to abandon their wives and children? These families left the Utah territory and settled in areas such as Arizona, Idaho and Texas. Over generations they established a peaceful way of life and continued their faith as they always had.  Here we are almost a hundred years later and the stories of persecution that these sect members have only heard about from their grandparents and great-grandparents are becoming a reality; The United States government is coming to finish their extermination order.
 
Are we going to watch as Waco happens again?

 

    Easter is the time of year for new spiritual beginnings. Christians celebrate the ressurection of Jesus of Nazareth. This provides a hope for followers that after death there is a new life. Judaism marks the passover, a time where death was passed over them and life was spared that it may continue, a second chance if you will. There are some who feel that the two are related. I feel it is important to mark the difference between hoping for a fresh start or getting a new life and recieving a second chance or preservation of the current life. I think the contrast speaks fundamentally to how Christians percieve life and live it .

    The evangelical base live their lives in a bubble. Whatever merit they hope to recieve for being good citizens are assumed to be rewarded in some future place in eternity. The only deeds considered meritable are those which pertain to their own identities as christians. The enviroment and world peace are not only not on their radar, but the mere discussion is considered a sign of the times, a threat.  The disconnect that exists is relevant to what plagues our society today. Enviromentally we are dying. The climate we live in is suffocating us and cooking us at the same time. Either the christian base does not care or I suspect they feel that God will burn the earth anyway so why should they care. World peace threatens the christian world viewpoint that only Jesus can bring peace. If there is or ever will be a world leader or organaization that breaches closely to obtaining peace the cry is heard from christian churches around the world that that person or group is ant-christ or the devil.

    I have stated in a pervious post that these groups of evangelicals are the wolves in sheep clothing. As a movement they intend to set american progressivenes back a hundred years. As individuals we see a dangersous movement of infiltration into public life beginning on local school boards. The recent intelligent design debate is a symptom of this movement to christianize the nation beginning with the children.  Few, yet  notable evangelical radicals have made attempts to snatch the highest office of the presidency. Statistics show that these figures have grown Mike Huckabee held a twenty-five percent  voter following while years ago Pat Robertson in his presidential campain held twenty-two percent of the republican vote iin the primaries. As insignificant as it is to the total turn-out in elections  it is relevant in order to show the rise of this radical movement .

    Easter is the time of year that these groups ecstatically affirm their faith in a new life after they screw up this one. Those of us who choose to live in the real world;Let us affirm our conviction that if there is a new life it is dependant on our deeds in this one. Let us honor those who have done good in this life and ressurect in this season their memory. Let us roll the stone of fundamentalism out of our way and begin the progess of a new day.

   

   

    The United States is approximately 9.2 trillion dollars in national debt. Essentially we are bankrupt and are borrowing money from other countries to fund the war on terror. That is on one hand…Do you know what the other hand is up to? Slated for Summer of 2008 taxpayers will begin to recieve on average six hundred dollars per person in “rebates”. Why? because Bush has convinced the nation that this will stimulate the economy. That is a fallacy. The reality is that gas prices are prjected to be over four dollars per gallon this Summer. so the rebate will be burned up literally by the most wealthy, the oil men. The pieces of the puzzle are beginning to take shape and a very ugly picture of the Bush swindiling of America is being seen. All is culminating just in time for GW Bush to high-tale it ouuta here. As early as January of 2004, Kevin phillips reported in an article the following.” As early as 1964, George H.W. Bush, running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, was labeled by incumbent Democrat Ralph Yarborough as a hireling of the sheik of Kuwait, for whom Bush’s company drilled offshore oil wells. Over the four decades since then, the ever-reaching Bushes have emerged as the first U.S. political clan to thoroughly entangle themselves with Middle Eastern royal families and oil money.

The first family member lured by the Middle East’s petroleum wealth was George W. Bush’s great-grandfather, George H. Walker, a buccaneer who was president of Wall Street-based W.A. Harriman & Co. In the 1920s, Walker and his firm participated in rebuilding the Baku oil fields only a few hundred miles north of current-day Iraq. As senior director of Dresser Industries (now part of Halliburton), Walker’s son-in-law Prescott Bush (George W. Bush’s grandfather) became involved with the Middle East in the years after World War II. But it was George H.W. Bush, the current president’s father, who forged the dynasty’s strongest ties to the region.

George H.W. Bush was the first CIA director to come from the oil industry. He went on to became the first vice president — and then the first president — to have either an oil or CIA background. This helps to explain his persistent bent toward the Middle East, covert operations and rogue banks like the Abu Dhabi-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which came to be known by the nickname “Bank of Crooks and Criminals International.” In each of the government offices he held, he encouraged CIA involvement in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, and he pursued policies that helped make the Middle East into the world’s primary destination for arms shipments.

Taking the CIA helm in January 1976, Bush cemented strong relations with the intelligence services of both Saudi Arabia and the shah of Iran. He worked closely with Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence, brother-in-law of King Faisal and an early BCCI insider. After leaving the CIA in January 1977, Bush became chairman of the executive committee of First International Bancshares and its British subsidiary, where, according to journalists Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin in their 1992 book “False Profits,” Bush “traveled on the bank’s behalf and sometimes marketed to international banks in London, including several Middle Eastern institutions.”

Once in the White House, first as vice president to Ronald Reagan and later as president, George H.W. Bush was linked to at least two Middle East-centered scandals. It’s never been entirely clear what Bush’s connection was to the Iran-Contra affair, in which clandestine arms shipments to Iran, some BCCI-financed, helped illegally fund the operations of the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels in Nicaragua. But in 1992, special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh asserted that Bush, despite his protestations, had indeed been “in the loop” on multiple illegal acts.

Much clearer was Bush’s pivotal role, both as vice president and president, in “Iraqgate,” the hidden aid provided by the U.S. and its military to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in its high-stakes war with Iran during the 1980s. The U.S. is known to have provided both biological cultures that could have been used for weapons and nuclear know-how to the regime, as well as conventional weapons. As ABC-TV broadcaster Ted Koppel put it in a June 1992 “Nightline” program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War: “It is becoming increasingly clear that George [H.W.] Bush, operating largely behind the scenes through the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence and military help that built Saddam’s Iraq into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to destroy.”

During these years, Bush’s four sons — George W., Jeb, Neil and Marvin — were following in the family footsteps, lining up business deals with Saudi, Kuwaiti and Bahraini moneymen and cozying up to BCCI. The Middle East was becoming a convenient family money spigot.

Eldest son George W. Bush made his first Middle East connection in the late 1970s with James Bath, a Texas businessmen who served as the North American representative for two rich Saudis (and Osama bin Laden relatives) — billionaire Salem bin Laden and banker and BCCI insider Khalid bin Mahfouz. Bath put $50,000 into Bush’s 1979 Arbusto oil partnership, probably using Bin Laden-Bin Mahfouz funds.

In the late 1980s, after several failed oil ventures, the future 43rd president let the ailing oil business in which he was a major stockholder and chairman be bought out by another foreign-influenced operation, Harken Energy. The Wall Street Journal commented in 1991, “The mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy may prove nothing more than how ubiquitous the rogue bank’s ties were. But the number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken — all since George W. Bush came on board — likewise raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.”

Other hints of cronyism came in 1990 when inexperienced Harken got a major contract to drill in the Persian Gulf for the government of Bahrain. Time magazine reporters Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne, in their book “The Outlaw Bank,” concluded “that Mahfouz, or other BCCI players, must have had a hand in steering the oil-drilling contract to the president’s son.” The web entangling the Bush presidencies was already being spun.

Second son Jeb Bush, now the governor of Florida, spent most of his time in the early and mid-1980s hobnobbing with ex-Cuban intelligence officers, Nicaraguan Contras and others plugged into the lucrative orbit of Miami-area front groups for the CIA. But he too had some Middle East connections. Two of his business associates, Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya and Camilo Padreda, both indicted for financial dealings, were longtime associates of Middle Eastern arms dealer, BCCI investor and Iran-Contra figure Adnan Khashoggi. Prosecutors dropped the case against the two, and a federal judge ordered Padreda’s name expunged from the record. But a few years later Padreda, a former Miami-Dade County GOP treasurer, was convicted of fraud over a federally insured housing development that Jeb Bush had helped to facilitate. Jeb Bush also socialized with Adbur Sakhia, the Miami BCCI branch chief and later its top U.S. official.

Neil Bush, most famous for the scandal surrounding the corrupt practices of Colorado’s Silverado Savings & Loan, where he served as a director during the 1980s, also picked plums from Persian Gulf orchards. In 1993, after his father left the White House, Neil went to Kuwait with his parents, brother Marvin and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. When his father left, Neil stayed to lobby for business contracts, and after returning home evolved a set of lucrative relationships with Syrian-American businessman Jamal Daniel. One of their ventures, Ignite!, an educational software company, also included representatives of at least three ruling Persian Gulf families.

The Bush family’s Middle Eastern commercial focus is further exemplified by Marvin, the youngest brother of the current president. From 1993 to 2000 he was a major shareholder, along with Mishal Youssef Saud al Sabah, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, in the Kuwait-American Corp., which had holdings in several U.S. defense, aviation and industrial security companies.

George H.W. Bush’s own Persian Gulf relationships kept expanding. While serving in the Reagan White House during the 1980s, he was known in the Middle East as “the Saudi vice president,” and a New Yorker article last year described the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. as “almost a member of the [Bush] family.” Indeed, many saw the 1991 Gulf War to expel Iraq from Kuwait as an outgrowth of Bush’s close ties to the oil industry and to Persian Gulf royal families, who felt threatened by Saddam Hussein’s expansionism.

After losing his bid for a second term as president, Bush joined up in 1993 with the Washington-based Carlyle Group. Under the leadership of ex-officials like Baker and former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, Carlyle developed a specialty in buying defense companies and doubling or quadrupling their value. The ex-president not only became an investor in Carlyle, but a member of the company’s Asia Advisory Board and a rainmaker who drummed up investors. Twelve rich Saudi families, including the Bin Ladens, were among them. In 2002, the Washington Post reported, “Saudis close to Prince Sultan, the Saudi defense minister … were encouraged to put money into Carlyle as a favor to the elder Bush.” Bush retired from the company last October, and Baker, who lobbied U.S. allies last month to forgive Iraq’s debt, remains a Carlyle senior counselor.

If the 1991 war with Iraq and its aftermath cemented the Bush ties with oil elites and royalty in the Middle East, it angered Islamic true believers and radicals. By the late 1990s, many of the Islamic insurgents who had been mobilized by the CIA and others to chase the Soviets out of Afghanistan were becoming increasingly anti-American. They found a kinship with Osama bin Laden, the renegade of his billionaire Saudi family, who was outraged at the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia.

When the U.S. launched a second war against Iraq in 2003 but failed to find weapons of mass destruction that Hussein was purported to have, international polls, especially those by the Washington-based Pew Center, charted a massive growth in anti-Bush and anti-American sentiment in Muslim parts of the world — an obvious boon to terrorist recruitment. Even before the war, some cynics had argued that Iraq was targeted to divert attention from the administration’s failure to catch Osama bin Laden and stop Al Qaeda terrorism.

Bolder critics hinted that George W. Bush had sought to shift attention away from how his family’s ties to the Bin Ladens and to rogue elements in the Middle East had crippled U.S. investigations in the months leading up to 9/11. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained that even when Congress released the mid-2003 intelligence reports on the origins of the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration heavily redacted a 28-page section dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments, leading him to conclude, “There seems to be a systematic strategy of coddling and cover-up when it comes to the Saudis.”

There is no evidence to suggest that the events of Sept. 11 could have been prevented or discovered ahead of time had someone other than a Bush been president.

Kevin Phillips’ book, “American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush,” is published by Viking Penguin.

“

    Govenor Elliot Spitzer resigned today amid prostitution scandal.  In a nation that values privacy, free speech and candor; why do we care about the sexual escapades of a sensationalist like Spitzer? from Franklin Roosevelt to John F Kennedy to Bill Clinton, the public penis has wielded its uncontrollable self on officials of the highest order. The difference today is that everything is news whether its is news-Worthy or not. Some we seem to forgive  and others we have contempt for. perhaps we snickered at Bill because we knew he was a sleazy good-ol-boy from the start. We have contempt for any individual who says one thing and does another. Spitzer is our case in point. As Jimmy Swaggart preached moral eminance he too was knocking knickers with a professional prostitute. The hypocrisy is what enrages us more than the content of the deed I think. Spitzer is known for is relentless pursuit of those he deemed to be dishonest and immoral. as attorney General his list of successful witchhunts are well know.It seems that the unrelenting call now is for him to step into the fire and watch his political career go up in flames. Maybe his time to go has come but I would ask ourselves as a concious nation of self-reflecting individuals. Is it not hypocrisy to bring one criminal back into the White house on the coattails of his wife while prosecuting Spitzer for essentially the same misdeed?

Here are a few of my favorite quotes that have guided me:

No.. not really. Yesterday I was listening to conservative talk radio as I often do to get myself out of my comfort zone. A caller phoned in with the following comment: (read it out loud with a deep southern accent for better effect)

” Well, I say if Hilary gets elected she will force the gay marriage thing and well if that happens them homosexuals will import children from poor countries to marry and the whole human trafficking will be a problem. We will be like a third world country”

Hmmm, I wonder what he was on. Conservative talk radio is soooo entertaining sometimes.

That’s all for now folks

Here is an excerpt from my thesis on Internet Regulation and censorship. I got an F….LOL! What do you think?

The internet represents threats to our moral conscience and national security but the internet also represents the greatest expression of freedom of speech, a right we historically hold above all others. Freedom of speech is the foundation of all of our rights as human beings, as such; the internet should not be regulated by any government or governmental agency.

 

 First I would address the threat that exists to national security. The tone that has been popular among conservative voices is that freedom of speech should be secondary to national security. I would argue that acts of Congress such as The Patriots Act serve to perpetuate the type of secrecy and fearful environment in which terror and those who wish to commit acts of terror thrive. Winston Churchill said it best when he stated; “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken - unspeakable! - Fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts!,  Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse - a little tiny mouse! -of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.” By altering the freedoms that have sustained the United States as a sovereign nation for two hundred years we may be altering the course ahead towards one of uncertainty.

 

 Secondly, there are myths and suppositions that should be answered before we can see any real progress in eradicating internet censorship. The consensus that exist and that fuel proponents of internet censorship is an idea that the internet is a chaotic uncontrolled beast that represents anarchy and criminal activity.  I agree that the internet contains criminal elements but doesn’t our brick and mortar society contain these elements also? I believe that the web is an extension of our world.  As some have already pointed out in an article by Christopher Shea, Boston Globe; Sovereignty in Cyberspace two legal scholars puncture the myth of the borderless, lawless internet. - third edition , that the truth however is that the internet is regulated by many countries as information approaches their borders so it is a myth that the web is not regulated at least in some degree. I would further argue that the censorship that exists should not be.

 

 In compromise, I would argue that it should be required by ISP’s to create, offer and maintain filtering software for customers who wish to use them. Filtering should not be imposed on any citizen of any country. The pattern of self regulation has worked with other forms of media such as radio and television. If one chooses not to watch or listen than they do not. So it should be with the web.

 

 

As a new democracy the internet should be protected as a place for free exchange of ideas. The United States has a foreign policy of intervening and aiding fledgling new democracies, this should be the case for the internet. A bill introduced in February 2006 by Representative Christopher Smith was dead on introduction.  As Hiawatha Bray reported in the Boston Globe in an article dated February 17^th, 2006 entitled Bill aims to fight Net Censorship; “The bill was entitled The Global Online Freedom Act and would have done just as I have proposed. Under the plans of the bill, the State Department would establish an office to support internet freedom worldwide and issue annual reports tracking the extant of Internet censorship in other countries. American firms would be placed under significant restrictions in dealing with such countries.”  The bill has not furthered and was cleared from being debated on the House floor. In spite of this setback recent hope is on the horizon in the form of the reintroduction of the bill that has been recommended for further debate as recent as January 2008. The bill is H.R. 275 and can be read in detail at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-275 , retrieved February 27^th, 2008. Eventually the Internet may be regarded as a land that has an inherent constitution and independence from dictatorships and those who would censor, regulate or control its borders.

The United States as it did in 1776 has now in 2008, made the first steps toward a new understanding of independence. I applaud these first few steps to combat tyranny and understand that there is no threat to national security in securing our freedoms. The greatest threat that exists is the ability for terrorist to win by convincing us to destroy ourselves from within by fostering a belief that our freedoms are not worth defending or have somehow become obsolete.

Check out this video: GOOD Magazine: On Skid Row, Part 2 - Kids

Add to My Profile | More Videos

 Here is why:

(Excerpts from Congresspedia at sourcewatch.org. retrieved 23, February 2008)

McCain was born August 29, 1936 in Coco Solo in the U.S controlled Panama Canal Zone. After high school graduation in 1954, McCain entered the United States Naval Academy and graduated in 1958. McCain became a Captain in the United States Navy. On October 26, 1967, McCain was shot down over Vietnam, and was held as a prisoner of war in Hanoi for five-and-a-half years, mostly in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. He was released from captivity in 1973. He was honorably discharged upon his retirement from the Navy in 1981.

During his military career he received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Flying Cross. Official Senate Biography

He is married to Cindy Hensley McCain. When John Jacob Rhodes, the longtime congressman from Arizona’s First Congressional district, announced his retirement, McCain successfully ran for the seat in 1982. In 1986, upon Senator Barry Goldwater’s retirement, McCain was elected to succeed him.

McCain touts himself as a conservative on many fiscal issues, but moderate on social issues causing some conservatives to ridicule him as a Republican In Name Only. His appeal during the 2000 presidential campaign was based on style and personal image rather than any label of liberal, conservative, moderate or libertarian.

McCain is often called a “maverick senator” because of his willingness to break with the party line. He was one of only four Republicans in the entire U.S. Congress to vote against the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. He was the only Republican senator to vote against the Telecommunications Act of 1995, which he called “the biggest rip-off since the Teapot Dome Scandal.”

He was also the only Republican senator to vote against the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, which phased out many of the farming subsidy programs put into place during the Great Depression. His concerns over global warming and other environmental issues have also put him at odds with the Bush administration and other Republicans. In addition, he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, reaffirming his position as a social moderate.

The Iraq War-

On February 5, 2007, Sen. John McCain  introduced a resolution which would set eleven conditions that the Iraqi government would need to meet in order to retain American support. In addition, it would express that the president and all personnel serving under him should “receive from Congress the full support necessary to carry out the United States mission in Iraq.”

In January, McCain disagreed with a statement by Sen. Joe Biden that it was unconstitutional for Congress to require authorization for a troop increase after authorizing the war, saying that it is most definitely within the rights of Congress to cut funding for the war. “

Integrity-

On April 6, 2006, Sens. McCain, Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.), and Tom Carper (D-Del.) introduced the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S.2590). The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to create a searchable online database of all governments contracts and has been hailed as a “Google” for federal spending. The bill was signed into law by President George W. Bush on September 26, 2006, and created the website ExpectMore.gov

Earmark Reform-

McCain has publicly criticized his party on earmarking. On June 27, 2006, McCain posted his views on Porkbusters. In reference to his political party, he stated the following: “So why has my party, the party of small government, lately adopted the practices of our opponents who believe the bigger the government the better? I’m afraid it’s because at times we value our incumbency more than our principle.” Though he supports lobbying, he states that it is corrupt when a lobbyist does not follow proper procedures by excepting favorable treatment for his or her client regardless of the public interest.

Torture and Human Rights-

Senator McCain, as a former POW, is particularly sensitive to the issue of detention and interrogation of detainees from the War on Terror. On October 3, 2005, Senator McCain introduced the McCain Detainee Amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill for 2005. On October 5, 2005, the United States Senate voted 90-9 to support the amendment. [18]

This amendment would establish the US Army Field Manual on Interrogation as the standard for interrogation of all detainees held in Department of Defense custody, including those held by the Central Intelligence Agency. The amendment would prohibit cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and follow sections of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Amendment was initially opposed by the Bush administration, particularly Vice-President Dick Cheney. Before the vote supporting the amendment, the White House threatened to veto any language limiting the use of torture on suspected terrorists. However, due to the size of the majority voting in favor, this was not an option. The White House then sought alternative language which would exempt CIA operatives from the torture ban. The Senate refused the compromise.

On December 15, President Bush announced that he accepted McCain’s terms and will “make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad.”[19] Nevertheless, President Bush can interpret the law “in a manner consistent with his own constitutional authority.” In his signing statement, or interpretation of the law, President Bush reserves what he interprets to be his constitutional right to torture in order to avoid further terrorist attacks.