Private First Class Steven Dale Green, tried in Federal Court for the rape of a 14-year-old girl, Abeer Qassim Hamza, and the murder of her and family in Mahmudiya, Iraq in 2006, has been found guilty on all 16 counts.

Eight of those counts carry the death penalty.

More trial coverage from Evan Bright here.

Arlen Specter (D-RD-Pa.) is born again. But unlike most converts, he’s not exactly zealous about his new religion.

In the same breath that he announced his switch to the Democratic Party last week, Specter was quick to assert his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. The legislation, which would level the playing field for workers seeking to form unions, depends upon 60 votes for cloture in the Senate (that is, we need 60 senators to agree to let the bill come to a vote).

Mike Rogers of PageOneQ appeared on ABC affiliate News Channel 8 in Washington DC to discuss his appearance in the film Outrage. The news anchor Doug McKelway hadn’t seen the film and appeared to be confused about Mike’s role in the project, thinking he had actually made the film. His anger is reminiscent of…well, Larry Craig’s famous “I am not gay!” press conference.

Okay, I lied. I’m going to throw up a quick post.

I wanted to direct your attention to Scott Horton’s interview of the Stanford students who challenged Condi Rice on her role in torture. In particular, I wanted to point to the comments of Sammy Abusrur–whose friends are now calling him “Frost”–about Condi’s role over all as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State.

Republicans don’t quite know how to respond to Obama’s empathy requirement for his SCOTUS nominee. First, you had Orrin Hatch, taking the really weird position that only partisan liberals had the ability to understand other people.

Enter Jeff “The KKK Ain’t That Bad” Sessions:

Q: When you hear President Obama talk about nominating someone to the court who has empathy and real-world experience, do you understand what he means?

John Kerry’s Senate Committee hearing on the future of journalism evidently turned into a bunch of self-congratulatory wanking about how important newspapers are to our American way of life:

“High-end journalism is dying in America,” testified David Simon, creator of HBO’s “The Wire,” who wore an open-collar black sport shirt for the somber occasion.

Yesterday while Sec. of State Clinton was expressing “deep regret” over the civilian deaths in Bala Baluk on Monday, US military spokespeople were taking spin to a whole new level.

Penny Pritzger, the finance chair of the Obama campaign who is now a member of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, has a somewhat different opinion of the Employee Free Choice Act than he does. She is joining together with other billionaires to fight bill, which would “make it easier for unions to organize hotels they own.” She has “told the president she is opposed to the measure

Okay, I didn’t see this one coming. General Motors is staring imminent bankruptcy dead in the eye and now they want to negotiate purchase of a substantial interest in Fiat. This is getting weird.