The only evidence to emerge so far against Bradley Manning comes from Adrian Lamo, a hacker who was in a mental institution three weeks before he says Manning contacted him. Charlie Savage reports in the New York Times that Lamo has miraculously “remembered” new evidence from his chat logs that connects Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. But instead of asking Lamo to go back to Wired, or the Washington Post, and get copies of the chat transcripts he gave them, the New York Times says “no problem, we’ll just publish this based on the recollections of someone who was in a mental institution two weeks before all this happened.”

The conservative mind is a wondrous thing to behold, especially when it’s the Washington Post’s best mind, George Will.

What did the Republican letter at the beginning of the lame duck say? Until the tax issue and the funding of the government gets worked out, they would not move forward on anything. That was the threat. And in fact, they won on both of those counts in a big way. They got the Bush tax cuts extended for two years, and they can hold out at that time for another extension. And they stopped an omnibus spending bill and secured a short-term continuing resolution, which blocked funding of health care and financial reform and gave the next Congress an early opportunity to set spending priorities.

That was really all they cared about.

If President Obama thinks it important to eliminate the symbols al Qaeda uses to recruit people to attack America, shouldn’t he consider ending drone strikes, too?

The UN’s special rapporteur for on torture will investigate the treatment of Bradley Manning, the former intelligence analyst accused of leaking classified material and currently held in solitary confinement under the custody of the US Marines. Manning faces a court martial but no criminal charges, and has yet been held in solitary for over seven months.

In case you missed it, the New York Times reported on some newly released recordings of Richard Nixon doing an excellent impression of Archie Bunker.

In an excellent interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on MSNBC yesterday, host Cent Uygur probed Assange on the relationship between Wikileaks and alleged leaker Bradley Manning. Assange clearly stated that no one in Wikileaks knew of Manning, who has not been convicted of any crime, before the media reported about Manning.

Assange stated that no matter what, Manning has been held in solitary confinement in worse and worse conditions, and that human rights organizations should investigate. As for the specific allegations against Manning, Julian Assange says that if they are true, “Manning is being held as a political prisoner in the United States.”

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said on an end-of-the-year conference call yesterday afternoon that “we’ll see confrontation on spending issues” in the next Congress, vowing that the President will fight efforts to cut budgets by 20% in areas like education.

The Alaska Supreme Court ruled against Miller’s bid yesterday to challenge the Senate election, where Murkowski won as a write-in candidate. Miller has until Monday to decide whether to take his case to federal district court, and Judge Ralph Beistline, who is holding up certification of the election until Miller exhausts his options.

Solitary confinement will slowly wear down the mental and physical condition of Bradley Manning, held in 23-hour isolation in the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia, the same facility that held John Hinckley, Jr. That is my assessment after talking to David House last weekend.