Top Items:
ACLU:
Abuse of Power: The Bush Administration's Secret Legal Memos — On April 16, 2009, the Department of Justice released four secret memos used by the Bush administration to justify torture: — A 18-page memo, dated August 1, 2002, from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.
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Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
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 …
Jeffrey Toobin In / New Yorker:
JEFFREY TOOBIN: HIDING JAY BYBEE — The newest round of “torture memos” have just been released by the Department of Justice. I'm only just beginning to go through them, but I have a preliminary thought. — The first, and very chilling memo in the group is an analysis of the various techniques …
Mark Mazzetti / The Caucus:
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 …
Discussion:
UN Dispatch, Associated Press, Washington Monthly, Salon, AfterDowningStreet.org, The Plum Line, The Moderate Voice and RebelReports
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
For The Record — No mention of the torture memos appears right now on the Drudge Report (which provides news of a prank at Dominos pizza), Instapundit (which mentions the new DVD for the Lord of The Rings trilogy), Pajamas Media, or Michelle Malkin. They are reacting to the evidence …
New York Times:
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.
Mike Allen / The Politico:
Obama consulted widely on memos — White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it “a weighty decision.” — “He thought very long and hard about it …
New York Times:
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.
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
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 …
Discussion:
Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion
US Department of Justice:
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 …
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
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:
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel: CIA Officers Granted Immunity From Torture Prosecution *** UPDATE ***
Fox News:
Cable Anchors, Guests Use Tea Parties as Platform for Frat House Humor — Cable anchors and guests covered the anti-tax tea party protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references. — FOXNews.com — For thousands of Americans, Tax Day was a moment to protest …
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Eric Zimmermann / The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:
Schakowsky: Tea parties ‘despicable’ — Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) blasted “tea party” protests yesterday, labeling the activities “despicable” and shameful. “The ‘tea parties’ being held today by groups of right-wing activists, and fueled by FOX News Channel, are an effort to mislead …
Brian Faughnan / Weekly Standard:House Democrat Leaders: Tea Partiers Are Racist, Nazi, Gun Nuts
Discussion:
Hot Air, The Sundries Shack, Gateway Pundit, Liz Mair, Paco Enterprises, FiveThirtyEight, Blue Crab Boulevard and theblogprof
Gateway Pundit:Gutter Journalism: Angry Mainstream Media Reporters Use Nasty …
Discussion:
Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion
David Neiwert / Crooks and Liars:Shepard Smith blows the ‘DHS is picking on the Tea Parties’ meme out of the water
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:Fox News Anchor: We Did Public Relations For Tea Parties
Discussion:
Washington Monthly
Jay Bookman:
Georgia Senate threatens dismantling of USA — It wasn't quite the firing on Fort Sumter that launched the Civil War. But on April 1, your Georgia Senate did threaten by a vote of 43-1 to secede from and even disband the United States. — It was not an April Fool's joke.
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Little Green Footballs:
LGF on Glenn Beck — I still don't have a working cable TV connection in my new top-secret underground facility, so I missed Glenn Beck's show today (I wouldn't have been watching anyway, to be honest), but I understand from several lizardoid reports that Beck had some things to say about me.
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Jay / Stop The ACLU:
( Video) Glenn Beck Vs. Charles Johnson — Its at about 7 minutes in on this video. Of course we aren't taking sides. Glenn says Johnson is Ludicrous and Johnson says Glenn is a punk. You decide.
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Frum on Conservative Paranoia — David Frum's Spectator article on the political challenges facing the modern Republican Party has a nice ditty on the tide of extreme paranoia sweeping the conservative mediaverse: … Now to be fair, during the Bush years more than one person passed me this …
Discussion:
TPMDC
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Huma Khan / Political Punch:
WH: No Religious Cover-up at Georgetown — ABC News' Karen Travers reports: — The White House is taking some heat today from conservative and Catholic bloggers who noticed that while President Obama delivered remarks on the economy at Georgetown University Tuesday, a monogram that is a symbol …
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Newsdesk / Clout St:
Burris fundraising total: $845 — U.S. Senator Roland Burris, the controversial appointee to the seat once held by President Barack Obama, is holding his first campaign fundraiser since he took office this weekend—and the financial report he filed this week shows he could use some political donations.
Elise Hu / KVUE Political Junkie:
Perry Says He Never Called For Secession (w/ full transcript) — Governor Rick Perry, who's enjoying being a darling of the tea party movement, signed the first bill of the 2009 legislative session into law this afternoon. But all the reporters wanted to talk about is the flurry …
Discussion:
TPMDC, Think Progress, The Politico, Off the Kuff, The Huffington Post, D-Day, Oliver Willis and Texas Politics
RELATED:
Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:Go Rick! — MSNBC is now picking up on the story of Gov. Perry …
Discussion:
Open Left
Wall Street Journal:
Authorities Investigate Payments by Rattner — Steven Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration's auto task force, was one of the executives involved with payments under scrutiny in a probe of an alleged kickback scheme at New York state's pension fund, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Chloe Albanesius / PC Magazine:
Time Warner Scraps Bandwidth Cap Testing — Time Warner Cable has shelved plans to test consumption-based billing until it can improve its “customer education process,” the company announced Thursday. — “It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal …
Discussion:
Preemptive Karma
New York Post:
CNBC SWEATS ‘OBAMA-BASHING’ — THE top suits and some of the on-air talent at CNBC were recently ordered to a top-secret meeting with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker to discuss whether they've turned into the President Obama-bashing network, Page Six has learned.
Michael Scherer / Time:
Bush Approved Use of Insects in al-Qaeda Interrogations — The Bush Administration approved the use of “insects placed in a confinement box” during the interrogation of top Al Qaeda official Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2002 document that President Obama declassified for release Thursday.
Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
Perry: No Secession, At Least for Now! — We've just gotten comment from Gov. Perry's press spokesman on the governor's apparent interest in seceding from the union. It's pretty vague but basically it seems like he's saying no need to secede for now. But in the future, who knows.
Discussion:
TPMDC
Aaron Deslatte / Central Florida Political Pulse:
Florida Senate passes budget that taps fees, taxes, casinos — TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Senate passed a stitched-together $65.6 billion spending plan Thursday that pays the bills with a huge infusion of federal stimulus cash, higher taxes on tobacco and fees on motorists and court-filers, along with a dramatic expansion of gambling.
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Video: John Ziegler's arrest — From the Someone Left the Irony On Department, John Ziegler gets arrested by security guards outside USC's Annenberg School of Journalism for committing ... er ... journalism. He wanted to ask people attending their ceremony honoring Katie Couric …
John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Did the GOP in Oregon really send these PSA scripts out to be made? UPDATED — I'm in the process of verifying that the GOP in Oregon is in the process of having these new PSA's made. … I redacted the company letter head that the bids went out on. Check out these docs.
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