I think Obama will lose his purported attempt to keep the DOD abuse photos secret. But I also think, to prove his good intentions, he ought to order DOD to make the embarrassing information behind these photos available.

• In a democracy, transparency is essential.
• Obama’s “Sister Soulja moment“?
• Sign of the times.
• Your liberal US Senate at work.
• Keep it up, Dick.
• The next SCOTUS justice? 
• But…but…our healthcare system is the world’s best.
• Because they’re idiots?

More examples of Cheney’s office torturing to justify their policy decisions.

Featuring new videos by Vandaveer and The Brad Mehldau Trio.

The RNC unveils its latest act of “triple dog dare” buffoonery.

Philip Zelikow made clear in today’s hearing how Congressional briefing should work. But all the evidence suggests that’s not what happened.

Wasn’t Lindsay Graham previously portraying himself as an opponent of torture?

Lindsey Graham says that if the Bush Administration were trying to commit a crime, then they wouldn’t brief Democrats on what they were doing. And, as it turns out, that’s precisely what the Administration did–not brief Democrats.

For all the woofin’ being done by Michael Steele and others about how Norm’s going to be fighting to the bitter end to get back Paul Wellstone’s Senate seat, I strongly suspect that his mind is no longer on the contest and appeal. He’s already trying to figure out how he’s going to afford the next big legal challenge, the Kazeminy lawsuits, as refinancing his house is no longer an option in this crashed real-estate market. That’s why he’s asking the Federal Elections Commission to allow him to use campaign funds to pay his Kazeminy legal fees.

Ali Soufan didn’t get to read his entire prepared statement in today’s SJC hearing. But his prepared statement adds some more nuance to the narrative of how CIA started to torture Abu Zubaydah. [Except where linked, the details below come from Soufan’s testimony.