Obama to release OLC torture memos; promises no prosecutions for CIA officials  —  [updated below - Update II -Update III (Interview w/ACLU's Jameel Jaffer - calls for a special prosecutor)]  —  In a just-released statement, Barack Obama announced that — in response to an ACLU FOIA lawsuit …

Obama Releases Interrogation Memos, Says C.I.A. Operatives Won't Be Prosecuted  —  Updated After a tense internal debate, President Obama officially announced this afternoon that his administration would not prosecute C.I.A. operatives for carrying out controversial interrogations of terrorist suspects …

Obama Explains Memo Release Decision  —  In sum: he's decided to redact the identities of the CIA officers who conducted the interrogations, but everything else will be released without censorship.  The full statement is after the jump; here's the part that reflects, I think, what Obama really thinks:

The Banality Of Evil  —  Perhaps you are reading these documents alongside me.  I've only read the Bybee memo, as chilling an artefact as you are ever likely to read in a democratic society, the work clearly not of a lawyer assessing torture techniques in good faith, but of an administration official tasked …

Department of Justice Releases Four Office of Legal Counsel Opinions  —  In connection with ongoing litigation, the Department of Justice today released four previously undisclosed Office of Legal Counsel ("OLC") opinions - one that OLC issued to the Central Intelligence Agency in August 2002 …

President Obama's Statement on the Memos  —  Following is President Obama's statement on the release of memos by the Office of Legal Counsel, as provided by the White House.  —  The Department of Justice will today release certain memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case.

Interrogation Memos Detail Harsh Tactics by the C.I.A.  —  WASHINGTON — The Justice Department made public on Thursday detailed memos describing harsh interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency, as President Obama said that C.I.A. operatives who carried out the techniques would not be prosecuted.

Georgia Senate threatens to secede  —  What do they plan on fighting with, peaches?  Mind you, this comes on yesterday's threat by the GOP governor of Texas to secede as well.  —  Of course, what's really going on here is that Republicans are intentionally fanning the flames of violence …

Shepard Smith blows the ‘DHS is picking on the Tea Parties’ meme out of the water  —  You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!  —  Shepard Smith brought that rarest of things to Fox News yesterday: amid the cacophony over the Tea Parties, he actually committed an act of journalism.

“Tea Party” Protests Appear to Draw At Least 250,000  —  This is an update and probably the last one.  Those of you who are interested in extending the analysis (there are undoubtedly many events missing, although most of the major ones should now be covered) are encouraged to do so at Wikipedia or elsewhere.