Jane Hamsher was on MSNBC this afternoon to speak about PFC. Bradley Manning’s surprise transfer from Quantico to Fort Leavenworth, away from his attorney, his friends, and his family. Jane called on Obama to explain why he said Manning’s treatment met basic standards, when the Pentagon admitted yesterday Manning’s treatment was “rare, if not unprecedented.”

A new investigative piece by The Nation exposes the pre-election activities at Koch Industries, which instructed its 50,000 employees who to vote for and why in an election packet full of right-wing propaganda. The packet (they were mailed to employees in all states; the linked example is the one from Washington state) included Koch-endorsed and Koch-PAC supported candidates for election, almost all of them Republicans, and an editorial from Charles Koch himself stressing the importance of pro-business candidates in 2010.

It is with great sadness I report: Oscar-nominated Restrepo co-director Tim Hetherington was killed in a mortar attack Wednesday in Misrata, Libya while filming a clash between Libyan rebels and Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.

Back on March 11, in response to Jake Tapper’s question whether he agreed with PJ Crowley’s judgment that Bradley Manning’s treatment was “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid,” President Obama said the Pentagon had assured him that the treatment met DOD standards. But yesterday’s press conference appears to present problems for this story.

Dennis Kucinich spoke on MSNBC today about the Pentagon’s surprise move of Manning from Quantico to Ft. Leavenworth. Kucinich said he’s been “absolutely stonewalled by the Department of Defense.” He continued: “frankly, I don’t believe anything they say when it comes to Bradley Manning.”

There’s not much of a coherent program here. And the representatives in Congress don’t have a handle on it either. That’s why it’s plausible, as Stan Collender says, that the debt limit will fail before being enacted. In this sense you could see something like what happened on TARP. It failed first, and the market tanked, and then everyone got spooked and passed the bill on the second chance.

In case you’re wondering, the Drudge-initiated wingnut circle-jerk over Obama’s “combative outburst” [sic] with a reporter is all about race.

We finally have the documentary proof showing the important role oil companies played in the lead up to the war in Iraq. I hope it doesn’t take another eight years before we get documented proof about what a huge role oil played in the decision to launch a kinetic military action in Libya.

The notion of occupying Afghanistan for the sake of women’s rights was always spurious. Women’s rights are not traditionally respected in war zones. Not even the Obama Administration is making this argument anymore.

But I guess that was kind of the last justification Dean had for the policy, and with that done, he’s turned completely away. He added, “The Vietnam War showed us we shouldn’t prop up corrupt governments, and that’s what we’ve got in Afghanistan.”

Yesterday the Pentagon surprised everybody – including Bradley Manning’s lawyer – with news that the accused Wikileaks whistleblower will be moved from the Quantico brig in Virginia to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The Pentagon’s lawyer, Jeh Johnson, announced Manning’s transfer in a snap press conference (video embedded) that revealed the government’s strategy: take Manning to a place “not in the Washington[, DC] area” where he will “likely be in pre-trial confinement for a while.”