My Tortured Decision  —  FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding.  I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified.

Larry Summers falls asleep during Obama's meeting with credit card executives.  —  Today, President Obama met with credit card industry officials at the White House.  After the meeting, he pledged to push for a law that would offer “strong and reliable” protections for credit card users in the United States.

Cheney Succeeding In Shifting Torture Debate?  —  In case you're wondering whether Dick Cheney and other former Bushies are succeeding in shifting the torture debate on to the narrow question of whether torture has “worked,” take a look at this headline, photo, and article in today's New York Times (click to enlarge):

GOP Stymies Vote on Sebelius  —  President Obama will have to wait a bit longer to round out his Cabinet.  Senate Republicans refused today to allow a confirmation vote on his health secretary nominee Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kan.).  She is the last Cabinet member awaiting Senate approval.

Steele urged to label Obama a socialist  —  State RNC leaders raise dissent  —  Republican state party leaders are rebelling against new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele for failing to dub President Obama and the Democrats as “socialists.”  And the rebels insist that the label matters.

Taliban advance eastward, threaten Islamabad  —  Click map for full view.  Taliban presence, by district and tribal agency, in the Northwest Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies.  Information on Taliban presence obtained from open source and derived …

WaPo hires Prospect's Klein  —  The American Prospect's Ezra Klein, one of the top bloggers on politics and policy, is heading to the Washington Post.  —  Rumors about Klein's upcoming move spread on Wednesday night during a reception thrown by The Nation magazine in honor of D.C. bureau chief Chris Hayes.

Johnston 'didn't think it was going to get this rough'  —  (CNN) — A year ago, few outside of Wasilla, Alaska, had ever heard of Levi Johnston.  All that changed last summer when Gov. Sarah Palin accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination.  —  Soon after she entered the national spotlight …

CHU WASN'T THE ‘BAFFLED’ ONE.... Arrogance is almost always unseemly, but I think there's an important distinction to be made between conceit and misplaced arrogance.  The prior is merely unseemly; the latter is humiliating.  —  Yesterday, at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee …

Torturing the Truth  —  It's time to face the ugly reality about the use of harsh interrogation tactics  —  When the Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote his epic, The Gulag Archipelago, some Americans read it to measure the gulf between the brute savagery of communism and the principled standards of free, civilized nations.

U.S. Is Said to Prepare Filing for Chrysler Bankruptcy  —  By MICHELINE MAYNARD and MICHAEL J. de la MERCED  —  DETROIT — The Treasury Department is preparing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing for Chrysler that could come as soon as next week, people with direct knowledge of the action said Thursday.

King: Torture trial should spark “scorched earth”  —  New York Republican Rep. Peter King thinks his party needs to go nuke if Bush era officials are prosecuted on torture charges.  —  King, the outspoken ranking member of the House homeland security committee, said Republicans should …

Obama at 100 Days: Strong Job Approval, Even Higher Personal Ratings  —  Better Ratings for Foreign Policy than Domestic Issues  —  As he approaches the 100-day mark of his presidency, Barack Obama's job approval ratings are higher than those of his most recent predecessors.

Bill O'Reilly's response to waterboarding: ‘Torture, my ass.’  —  Last night on The Factor, Bill O'Reilly hosted Newsday columnist Ellis Henican, who criticized O'Reilly's tolerance of torture.  “You disappoint me, you disappoint me,” Henican said, pointing his finger at O'Reilly.

Yemen Dispute Slows Closing of Guantánamo  —  The Obama administration's effort to return the largest group of Guantánamo detainees to Yemen, their home country, has stalled, creating a major new hurdle for the president's plan to close the prison camp in Cuba by next January, American and Yemeni officials say.

Hannity Offers To Be Waterboarded For Charity (By Charles Grodin!)  —  Oh, well.  This is, I believe, a “golden moment” in the history of televised media.  Sean Hannity had actor Charles Grodin on his show tonight, and the two men actually had some genuinely good natured sparring with each other over the news of the week.

Drama at GE shareholders meeting  —  Fox News producer infiltrates event; ‘hostility’ over MSNBC  —  The hostility between Fox News Channel and MSNBC reached a fever pitch Wednesday when a Fox producer infiltrated the GE shareholders meeting.  —  Just before GE re-elected board members …

Sizing Up Obama's First 100 Days  —  The President almost seemed apologetic.  “This may be a slightly longer speech than I usually give,” he told his audience at Georgetown University on April 14.  “This is going to be prose and not poetry.”  What followed, as promised, was not poetry.

Obey rains on Obama's parade  —  House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey threw a bucket of cold water on the Obama administration's foreign policy agenda Thursday, admitting serious doubt about success in Afghanistan and Pakistan and no appetite for helping the International Monetary …

The President's Apology Tour  —  Great leaders aren't defined by consensus.  —  President Barack Obama has finished the second leg of his international confession tour.  In less than 100 days, he has apologized on three continents for what he views as the sins of America and his predecessors.