If you’ve been under the impression that Lindsey Graham is one of the rare Republicans good guys on the torture issue, be prepared to lose your innocence: He’s trying to insert an amendment essentially overturning Rasul v. Bush into the defense appropriations bill. It would strip detainees of any right to challenge either the legality or the conditions of their imprisonment. We are all just supposed to trust that the administration would never hold people without a good reason, and certainly would never abuse anyone.

Not surprisingly, Jeralyn is the go to person on this.

This is happening a day after the Senate rejected an amendment to establish an independent commission  on detention policies and practices (without a single Republican voting to shine a light) (one particular Republican did not vote), and  at the same time the House seems to be moving closer to stripping the McCain amendment out of the defense appropriations bill passed by the Senate. The Senate recently attached the amendment to a second bill, and it looks like this may have provided an opening for killing it.:

McCain said Wednesday he is worried that attempts to kill the provisions could succeed.

Under a scenario that McCain said was possible, House-Senate negotiators would strip the provisions from the must-pass spending bill and then never complete the other bill that includes the detainee language, the defense policy bill.

"That’s what I am told the strategy is," McCain said, declining to say who told him that. "I hope that it’s not true. I hope that they won’t do that."

Back to Graham’s proposal. The Senate could vote on it tomorrow, so it’s urgent to contact senators right away. The Center for Constitutional Rights has a list of the most important senators to reach, but call even if yours isn’t on the list.

We need to raise a ruckus about this quickly.