A new report (pdf) by the Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research finds:

• More than 24,000 interrogations have been conducted at Guantánamo since 2002.

• All interrogations conducted at Guantánamo were videotaped. Thus, many videotapes documenting Guantánamo interrogations do or did exist.

• The Central Intelligence Agency is just one of many entities that interrogated detainees at Guantánamo.

The press release on the report is here. [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Mark Halperin, the latest Quinnipiac polls for Ohio and Pennsylvania:

Ohio: Clinton 55, Obama 34

Pennsylvania: Clinton 52, Obama 36.

Dates conducted: Feb. 6-12. Error margin: 4.1 points.

I've seen nothing new on Texas.

By Big Tent Democrat

This article, featured at TPM, discusses the Clinton position that she will accept the nomination even if she loses the popular vote. I think it is rather academic myself in that if Clinton loses the popular vote, the majority of the Super Delegates are not likely to support her.

However, I do wonder if the Media and TPM are willing to ask Barack Obama the same question - to wit, is he willing to accept the nomination if he loses the popular vote? Not the pledged delegate count, the popular vote.

Anyone concerned about Obama thwarting the will of the people? Media? TPM? Hello?

NOTE: Comments are now closed.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has tossed a law that made it illegal to sell for promote sex toys.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by as many as two years in jail, violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

The Court's reasoning:

In its decision Tuesday, the appeals court cited Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 opinion that struck down bans on consensual sex between same-sex couples.

"Just as in Lawrence, the state here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct," the appeals judges wrote. "The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy of their own homes because the state is morally opposed to a certain type of consensual private intimate conduct. This is an insufficient justification after Lawrence."

Newsday has a five-step plan for Hillary Clinton to rebound from the post-Super Tuesday wins of Barack Obama. It was created by "experts and Clinton backers."

1. Recapture "Hillary voters," starting in Wisconsin.

The Feb. 19 Wisconsin primary, which the Clinton campaign has downplayed, will provide her with a chance to regain her footing with blue-collar whites and women in Milwaukee and its suburbs. A Strategic Vision poll taken before this week's losses shows Obama leading by just 4 points and one Clinton aide said the "game would change if we can sneak a win there" by focusing obsessively on the economy.

Her campaign has convinced her to spend three days there this week, rather than spending all week in Texas or Ohio.

2. She has to win Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Win Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. If Obama wins even one, Clinton's primary-night speech could be her farewell address. Citing internal polling, Clinton's people believe she has a very strong advantage in Texas, where she will bank on Hispanic voters who propelled her to wins in California, Nevada and Arizona. She's also strong in Pennsylvania, leading by 20 or more points, although recent poll data is scarce.

Ohio, say the experts, is a little different.

Obama is expected to perform very strongly in Cleveland's big African-American community and in Columbus, a mini-Seattle with a high concentration of college students and professionals. Clinton is expected to do well in rust-belt cities like Youngstown and Toledo and conservative parts of the state, including Cincinnati and its suburbs.

More...

By a vote of 51 to 45 today, the Senate voted to ban waterboarding.

The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year, which the Senate approved on a 51-45 vote. It would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning.

The House adopted the provision back in December. Bush has threatened to veto the bill.

As I wrote yesterday, Hillary Clinton wrote Bush Monday and urged him to withdraw his veto threat.

Today Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin and other senior Democratic Senators wrote to Bush and called on him to revise his Executive Order on CIA interrogation to comply with our treaty obligations and to prohibit explicitly a number of torture techniques that the Administration has used. The Senators wrote: [More...]

The Senate Ethics Committee today issued a public letter of reprimand to Idaho Sen. Larry Craig.

In a letter signed by all six members of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, the members affirmed the initial guilty plea that Craig signed after an undercover officer in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport arrested him in a men's room sting.

....In addition, members admonished Craig for trying to use the influence of his office to avoid arrest and failing to notify the committee that he had used his campaign funds to pay his legal fees, a violation of Senate rules.

The full letter is here (pdf.)[More...]

If you've forgotten what happens when Republican Presidents appoint Supreme Court Justices, and why it's so important we not elect another one in November, check out this BBC interview with Justice Anton Scalia.

In a wide-ranging discussion, he defends his often controversial positions on issues like Guantanamo Bay, argues that torture may be legal and attacks the "sick" practice of televising trials.

...Justice Scalia says that it is far from clear that torture is unconstitutional and says that it may be legal to "smack [a suspect] in the face" if the suspect is concealing information which could endanger the public.

On abortion and the death penalty:

He says there is nothing in the Constitution that grants women the right to an abortion.

The death penalty, he argues, is not covered by the 8th Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."

John McCain promises to appoint more judges in the mold of Scalia, Roberts and Alito. We get the Government we elect.

A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit filed against a San Jose flight company that alleged the company aided the CIA in transporting detainees to secret overseas prisons. The Court agreed with the Bush Administration that the suit could jeopardize state secrets. The opinion is here (pdf).

U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose said he had no authority to decide whether, as three current prisoners and two freed inmates alleged, Jeppesen International Trip Planning colluded with the CIA to violate their rights. The suit instead must be dismissed at the outset because its subject is a secret program that cannot be examined in a public proceeding, Ware said.

Public and confidential declarations filed by CIA Director Michael Hayden show that "proceeding with this case would jeopardize national security and foreign relations," Ware said.

This is the third suit by Ghost Air detainees that has been dismissed.

By Big Tent Democrat

I have the solution for the Florida/Michigan disaster. Seat half of the Michigan and Florida delegations based on the existing results. Then schedule a Florida primary and a Michigan caucus primary in mid-May. If there is no need because Obama has already locked up the nomination in April, then, seat all the delegation based on the existing results and cancel the May contests.

This enfranchises those voters who voted previously AND ensures that Obama gets a fair shot at winning those two states. And it would be a great tiebreaker for deciding the nominee if we are still deadlocked come May. No one could complain could they? Someone will win this thing fair and square and then we can unify.

What am I missing? Is that not a brilliant solution?

Update (TL): Comments are closed now, more than 225 of them, thanks for your thoughts.

By Big Tent Democrat

This is good from MoDo. Except for this:

While Obama aims to transcend race, Hillary often aims to use gender to her advantage, or to excuse mistakes.

Absurd. Obama clearly is benefitting from his race, and more power to him. Hillary' gender is clearly a double edged sword, as MoDO basically accepted in the previous part of her column.

In any event, a much more thoughtful MoDo than we have come to expect. Tell me what you think.

By Big Tent Democrat

What do you think of Roger Clemens? Sorry, I got nuthin.

This is an Open Thread. Remember the comments rules. I am just deleting now for all nonconforming comments that I see.