It's good news that unpaid bloggers are included in this compromise, but since I don't know the details, I don't know if this would have kept Judy Miller out of jail:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, leading Senate Democrats and a coalition of news organizations have reached tentative agreement on legislation providing greater protections against the fining or imprisonment of reporters who refuse to identify confidential sources.

Under the deal, made public Friday, federal judges could quash subpoenas demanding testimony or information from reporters if the judges determined that the public interest in news gathering outweighed the need to uncover the source of a leak, including, in some circumstances, unauthorized disclosure of classified government information.

Protection under the so-called shield law would also be extended to unpaid bloggers engaged in gathering and disseminating news.

A version of shield legislation was approved by the House in March. But a similar bill has stalled in the Senate, and its prospects appeared to dim significantly in September when the administration, responding to apprehension expressed by intelligence agencies and prosecutors, took a harder line with regard to cases in which the government could claim national security concerns.

With the new agreement, however, the White House has now moderated that position.

[...]The leading proponents of the legislation, Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, both Democrats, expressed confidence that the compromise would move quickly through the Senate.

“We still get most of our information from investigative journalists,” Mr. Specter said. “If you can’t protect sources, there is a lot of public corruption and private malfeasance that will go undetected and unpunished.”

TalkLeft: Rosen recants on Sotomayor, Turley takes up his standard, but who will represent white males on the court?

The Pump Handle: The Climate Bill is less than ideal, but the best we're gonna get right now

The Big Picture: The back story to "Bailout Nation" (h/t swimgirl)

TPMMuckraker: A sketchy DOD report does not attempt to establish the original status of the detainees it claims "reengaged" in terrorism, and does not consider the possibility that some of the 540 men released from Gitmo just might have been radicalized during their imprisonment.

American Street: Death rattle of the cult of Intelligence?

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Scoop44, Alien Truth, Politics In Color, Michigan Liberal

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For some time now, Bill O'Reilly has been so desperate to prove that the Bush administration's use of extreme tactics in the "war on terror" -- including torturing detainees and killing civilians -- that he's even been willing to smear the memories of American veterans of World War II to make that point. Last night on his Fox News show, he added Winston Churchill to the list of smear victims.

We all remember the Malmedy smear, for which O'Reilly has never either apologized or corrected the record:

In Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured S.S. forces who had their hands in the air and were unarmed and they shot them dead, you know that. That's on the record. And documented."

O'Reilly in fact had it completely reversed: At Malmedy, it was American troops who were massacred by SS guards, not the other way around.

Not only did O'Reilly never correct the insulting gaffe, a year later he repeated it:

In Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured SS forces who had their hands in the air, and they were unarmed, and they shot them down. You know that. That’s on the record, been documented. In Iwo Jima, the same thing occurred. Japanese attempted to surrender, and they were burned in their caves.

As Robert Parry observes:

O’Reilly also engages in historical revisionism with his explanation that the small number of Japanese POWs at Iwo Jima and other Pacific battles is proof that U.S. Marines committed systematic murder. According to most historical accounts, the Americans wanted the Japanese soldiers to surrender but they chose to fight to the death.

So last night he wandered into the same waters, claiming that Winston Churchill was likely a war criminal under the standards "the far left" wants to impose on the Bush administration. What started all this was President Obama citing Winston Churchill's views on torture:

O'Reilly: And since then, the Factor has been investigating Winston Churchill's position on waging war and interrogating the enemy. Via Boston University professor Cathal Nolan, we have found out the following:

Churchill actually wanted to use poison gas on the Germans in violation of the Geneva Convention, but was stopped by the British War Cabinet.

The Royal Air Force killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of civilians by targeting non-military sites.

And the British operated a number of military interrogation centers during and after World War II, including one called the "London Cage," where German prisoners were beaten, deprived of sleep, and threatened with death.

Another center was opened in Bad Nenndorf on German soil after Churchill left power. It was almost like a concentration camp. British government documents detailed terrible torture inflicted on the Germans. Some of the inmates were branded human skeletons.

Well, is O'Reilly right? Er, as you might expect given his track record -- No.

It's not as egregious a smear as the Malmedy/Iwo Jima claims, but close.

Continue reading »

And Doctor Biobrain's Response Is...: How McCain stopped the FARCing bullsh*t

Nieman Watchdog: Frustration in the Army officer corps

Sadly, No! Wouldn't G-Dub make an awesome high school government teacher?

his vorpal sword: Trivial Pursuit - Schizophrenic Edition

The Opinion Mill's Weekend Bookchat: Authors speak on Roger Ailes, Karl Rove and the government's imprisonment of dissidents. Plus a peek at the Progressive Book Club launch party, a schoolteacher suspended for using the Freedom Writers in his classroom and Ahmed Rashid talks about the coming change in jihaidsm.

HOLY CRAP: My financial records "belong to God"...Who would've predicted the Religious Right would support the GOP nominee?...Asking God to intervene on gas prices...Bush edits out Jefferson's religious views...Clueless ideologues ...God arrested near Tampa church...Obama sets off debate on ties between religion and politics...Bloggers And Blasphemy...And finally...

ComputerWorld:

Washington-based World Organization for Human Rights USA has filed a lawsuit against Yahoo Inc. for allegedly providing information to Chinese authorities that led to the persecution, torture and imprisonment of four Chinese dissidents.

The lawsuit was filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

"We represent a dissident in China, Wang Xiaoning, and his wife, Yu Ling," said Theresa Harris, international justice project director at the World Organization. "His wife came to the U.S. because of the effects of Yahoo's disclosure of her husband's information. Based on the information that Yahoo provided to the Chinese authorities, her husband was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison and she is seeking justice here. She is looking to hold the corporation accountable for what happened to her family. Her husband did nothing wrong. He wrote his opinions and that's what he's been put in prison for."

(h/t Juryduty) We talked about this case before, and as I said then, Rohrabacher's priorities are a little askew. However, it's clear Rohrabacher didn't appreciate the brush off by Bush (join the club, Dana) and has pulled the impeachment card.

CNSNews:

Weeks after accusing President Bush of "shameful" behavior over the imprisonment of two Border Patrol agents who shot an unarmed suspected drug smuggler along the U.S.-Mexico border, a federal lawmaker turned up the heat further Wednesday, suggesting the president should be impeached if either of the two men is murdered in prison.

Speaking after the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that agent Ignacio Ramos was assaulted by inmates in his Mississippi prison over the weekend, California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher had a warning for the White House.

"I tell you, Mr. President, if these men -- especially after this assault -- are murdered in prison, if one of them lose their lives, there's going to be some sort of impeachment talk in Capitol Hill," he told a press conference in Washington D.C.(Listen to Audio)

The irony that this is coming from CNSNews and one of the more conservative Republican Congressmen isn't lost on me either. While it's terrible that Ramos was assaulted, it's also disappointing that Rohrabacher champions this cause instead of the almost constant subversion of the Constitution. House Democrats? Any lessons to learn here?

I meant to post about this story sooner, but there was a power outage in my neighborhood most of the weekend. This story is unbelievable: I know, I say that a lot.

Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.

At Camp Cropper, he took notes on his imprisonment and smuggled them out in a Bible...read on

Following up on my LA Times story, Nikkie Finke from the LA Weekly has more info about David Hiller taking over the LA Times:

New Publisher Was Rumsfeld Friend & Part Of Controversial Reagan Administration U.S. Immigration Policy Calling For 'Concentration Camps--I'm told that Hiller was in charge of the task force on immigration for the Justice Department and was instrumental in dealing with all sorts of policy initiatives including plans for mass deportations back to Mexico of Mexicans in the U.S., illegal alien internment camp proposals, and calls for indefinite imprisonment for Cuban boatlift refugees. All this tested the waters for the Reagan administration and eventually laid the legal framework for the Bush administration's present-day Guantánamo policy....read on

Also noted is that his good buddy Donald Rumsfeld was a mean squash player. That's just beautiful. Have fun with that one.

Right now,two girls from New York City are rotting in a HomeSec prison in Pennsylvania for doing nothing more than many teenagers have done - one for fighting with her parents and writing an essay, the other accused of being her friend.

In early March, the New York Times reported on April 7, one girl's parents "went to the local police station house" in the Queens Village neighborhood because "their daughter...had defied their authority." Things calmed down and the parents, believing their daughter had been scared straight, asked the NYPD to forget the whole thing.

It was too late for that. read on

via Oliver Why Is Neal Boortz Making Sense?

...but he hits this one on the nose. At the center of the Terri Schiavo tragedy is America's anti-abortion movement. Notice, please, the presence of Randall Terry. The fact is that the anti-abortion movement has seized Terri Schiavo ... figuratively kidnapped her .. and they intend to use this woman to further their anti-abortion agenda. They will entomb the soul of Terri Schiavo in her now-useless body as long as it suits their agenda.

The language of those who would continue the imprisonment of Terri Schiavo is odd, if not amusing. She's referred to as disabled, in a coma or just brain damaged. She is not "disabled" in the normal context of the word. Her body is, for all practical purposes, dead ... being kept alive solely through extraordinary artificial means. She's not in a coma. People recover from comas. Her condition is diagnosed as a "persistent vegetative state." There is no medical record of someone recovering from a persistent vegetative state. This is not a state of brain damage. It is, for all practical purposes, brain death read on

Majikthise has more :

Yes, you read right. Terri Schiavo will be subpoenaed to testify before Congress.

Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee and the Senate majority leader, issued a statement saying that the woman, Terri Schiavo, and her husband, Michael, were being invited to testify in a Congressional inquiry into the matter later this month.

The statement pointed out that Federal law protects witnesses called before Congress "from anyone who may obstruct or impede a witness's attendance or testimony."

The maneuver is the latest step by lawmakers determined to keep Ms. Schiavo alive to prevent her feeding tube from being disconnected, scheduled for 1 p.m. today.

Norwood has more at Blogwood, as does Jesse of Pandagon.