In a letter to Rep. Lamar Smith, Karl Rove claims he had nothing to do with the prosecution of Don Siegelman. How reassuring. So why is he unwilling to repeat his assertions under oath? And if his fealty to executive privilege doesn't bar him from making that claim in a letter, what's stopping him from repeating it in a congressional hearing?

This is Siegelman's response. Siegelman has also assembled a handy archive of materials addressing his prosecution.

Had enough of Karl Rove? Vent your anger by joining more than 100,000 people who have signed a petition at Send Karl Rove to Jail. Or just stop by to look at the picture of Rove behind bars. It might make you feel better.

James Leo Bishop was executed in Mississippi last night. His last words included an apology to his victims and a request for people to vote for Sen. Barack Obama:

Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim's family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said.

There's no question Sen. Barack Obama is more attuned to the racial disparity in the application of the death penalty and plight of the wrongly convicted than John McCain. However, he's not a death penalty opponent.

Nonetheless, Mr. Bishop makes the right call between McCain and Obama. May he rest in peace. [More...]

Over at Slate, Emily Bazelon, Kara Hadge, Dahlia Lithwick and Chris Wilson have put together an interactive guide to crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush Administration, from warrantless wiretapping to coercive interrogation to the DOJ U.S. Attorney hiring and firing scandals and more.

Each scandal is represented by a colored circle that encompasses the people who are implicated. As it's easy to see, many of the players here are mixed up in two, three, or more of the alleged crimes.

A text-only version is here. If you get confused, they write:

fall back on this golden rule of wrongdoing in the White House: All roads lead to Gonzales.

MoveOn can be tremendously successful without being effective.

-Chris Hayes describing criticism of Move On

I am a vociferous critic of Move On's tactics of the past few years, believing that it has lost its way as an issue organization and instead largely became solely a Democratic cheerleader with little focus on issues. Chris Hayes, the editor of The Nation has a piece that sees good and bad in Move On:

What started as a simple one-sentence petition hastily posted to the web has evolved into the most readily identifiable group in the vanguard of a revived progressivism, with a membership that exceeds 3 million. Capable of dominating a news cycle with a single ad and raising millions of dollars with a lone e-mail, MoveOn pioneered an entire approach to conducting politics through the Internet that has been replicated and spun off across the country and around the globe, an approach that, as the Obama campaign has dramatically demonstrated, has permanently transformed the landscape of American politics.

More . .

It's unusual that all three writers here are working offline at our day jobs at the same time but that seems to be the case today.

Here's an open thread for you. And thanks to all who responded to BTD's earlier request for support. The kind words and donations are very much appreciated.

The ACLU announced today it has obtained three key memos concerning the CIA's abusive interrogation techniques. You can view them here.

Among other things, they establish that the CIA was told to document the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, including who was present. The first memo shows waterboarding was an approved technique.

One of the documents obtained by the ACLU today is a redacted version of a previously undisclosed Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion from August 2002 that authorizes the CIA to use specific interrogation methods, including waterboarding.

[More...]

I've been in court and missed Obama's speech in Berlin today. 200,000 people turned out to hear him. Here's the transcript. He told the assembled crowd he speaks to them as a citizen of the world.

One message: Tear down the walls.

The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

The German paper says it was clearly taken from Ronald Reagan:

Obama's speech was a clear echo of former US president Ronald Reagan's call to then Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbachev in Berlin in 1987 to "tear down this wall," before the fall of communism.

A big theme was the war on terror: [More...]

The City and County of Denver and the ACLU have reached a partial agreement with respect to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Colorado seeking details of security purchases made by police for the Democratic National Convention. Denver has now provided details of the $18.2 million spent to date and those planning on protesting can rest a little easier:

The city also announced today that none of the equipment purchases include nonlethal weapons that discharge "slime" or "goo" to immobilize persons or vehicles or that use microwaves or sonic waves to induce pain or discomfort in targets.

The ACLU was relieved -- so much so that it agreed to wait until the convention is over to decide whether to return to court and seek more information.

Denver also disclosed that the police have no "mandatory arrest" policy -- meaning there is no list of offenses that will require arrest rather than the issuance of a citation.[More...]

There are probably good reasons to think that reducing the speed limit to 55 makes sense as gas prices continue to soar. Still, while I don't agree with all of the reasoning in this essay (particularly the notion that "liberal and green do-gooders" are standing in the way of our God-given right to pillage the planet's natural resources), I do agree with Sammy Hagar:

VoteVets will start running this ad on Friday.

While the top line number is familiar, 47-41 Obama, the story remains the voters' focus on Obama:

51 percent of respondents say they are focusing more on what kind of president Obama would be, compared with just 27 percent who say they’re focusing more on McCain. “This election is more about Barack Obama than it is about John McCain,” says Newhouse, the GOP pollster.

That is McCain's forlorn hope - to raise doubts about Obama. But we see that he and his campaign are just not good at it. Give the devil his due, Karl Rove knew how to play negative politics. McCain's team is terrible at it so far.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Good news for Australian journalist Peter Lloyd, arrested last week for trafficking in one gram of meth in Singapore. He's been released on bail.

He's still facing 20 years and up to 15 lashes of the cane.