Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign theme was “change we can believe in” but after three years of leading the government which has only grown more partisan Obama has lost the change mantle to Mitt Romney.

It is with great joy that I note the Senate passage and today’s signing by President Obama of a bill that should lead to the eventual repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” The policy was pure discrimination, and has no place in a fair and equal society. But the events of the last few days would not have happened without the past two years of tireless advocacy from the grassroots. It was some of best, unrelenting political activism in recent times, for which many deserve credit.

That said, change shouldn’t be this hard.

In other words: Combatant Status Review Tribunals/Administrative Review Boards 2.0: Now With Lawyers. And that means the executive is going to have to come up with another series of rules, from scratch, to govern this review process. The courts have accepted — to the dismay of civil libertarians — wide prerogative for the executive in detention. But they’ve taken a dim view of ad-hoc solutions.

Leave it to Josh Foust to tease out the implications of some of my reporting better than I did. Not only is ISAF re-highlighting its (apparently) civilian-casualty-free airstrikes, but it’s also letting the public know more about special-forces activity than it (I gather) ever has. Last month, Gen. Petraeus shared with me some rather detailed information about 90 days in the life of Special Operations Forces, including how many insurgents and insurgent leaders they had killed and captured. The AP’s rock-star war correspondent, Kimberly Dozier, takes a look at the data and assesses that Petraeus is releasing the material in order to convince people the war is going well.

and basic senses of justice about torture

big story from ProPublica/WashPost