Will people listen now that it is the Pentagon, not the ACLU or Human Rights First that is confirming American soldiers in Iraq abused detainees?

United States Special Operations troops employed a set of harsh, unauthorized interrogation techniques against detainees in Iraq during a four-month period in early 2004, long after approval for their use was rescinded, according to a Pentagon inquiry released Friday.

The abuse by special-ops forces detailed in the report continued after the allegations at Abu Ghraib came to light. As for the particular abusive techniques used,

I'm very glad to see that Marc Ash of Truthout yesterday published a "stand down" on Jason Leopold's May 13 article reporting that Karl Rove had been indicted.

Yesterday, most Mainstream Media organizations published reports about a letter supposedly received by Karl Rove's attorney Robert Luskin. As an example of the supposed letter's contents, TIME Magazine stated that, "Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald said or wrote, 'Absent any unexpected developments, he does not anticipate seeking any criminal charges against Rove.'"

Truthout of course published an article on May 13 which reported that Karl Rove had in fact already been indicted. Obviously there is a major contradiction between our version of the story and what was reported yesterday. As such, we are going to stand down on the Rove matter at this time. We defer instead to the nation's leading publications.

Ash also, appropriately in my view, defends Jason Leopold:

The House of Representatives copped out again.

In a vote charged with election-year politics, the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a symbolic resolution that wrapped the Iraq conflict into the war on terrorism and rejected a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal.

The war on terror is not the war in Iraq. 2,500 American troops have died. Instead of instilling the fear of terrorism in the heart of every American, it's time to instill grief at the loss of life and the failure of our misguided U.S. policy in Iraq.

Here's the roll call vote. Set a deadline and bring the troops home.

Senator Hillary Clinton delivered the opening address at the American Constitution Society Convention in Washington this morning. [Update: I just watched her speech on C-Span 2, it's a good one, catch a repeat if you can]

She announced new proposed legislation to address the security of private information. Declaring privacy to be "synonymous with liberty," Senator Clinton called for greater federal protection for personal data from theft or misuse by private commercial actors, as well as great Congressional and judicial oversight over domestic surveillance and data-mining programs unilaterally crafted by the executive branch.

You can watch her speech here.

Anderson Cooper 360 featured a long segment on how the Chinese are taking and selling organs from prisoners condemned to death. Doctors have testified at hearings that sometimes the prisoners are still alive. Americans and other foreigners who can't get an organ in time from being on a donor list are flying to China to receive the organs, justifying their decision by saying they aren't told anything about the organ donor, so they don't know their new liver, kidney or eyes, whatever the case may be, came from a person who was killed in order that the organ be harvested and sold.

CNN referred to the "death vans" I wrote about here, which are used both to execute the prisoner by lethal injection and then, within 15 minutes, take their organs.

In an editorial Wednesday, a Chinese newspaper defends its death penalty and organ harvesting program.

The defense filed another challenge to DA Mike Nifong Thursday. Remember when he told America on national tv that his reading of the accuser's rmedical eport indicated a rape had taken place? Turns out, the report hadn't been printed as of that date.

"On March 29, 2006, Mr. Nifong claimed to have read a medical report that, according to discovery, was not printed until March 30, 2006, or retrieved by law enforcement pursuant to Mr. Nifong's own subpoena until April 5, 2006," read the filing from lawyers Joseph Cheshire and Bradley Bannon.

As to the accuser's injurie that might be consistent with a sexual assault, what injuries?

According to the defense, the only injuries noted by the doctor who performed the 33exam were "three small scratches" on her right knee and ankle.

Happy blogiversary to us! With traveling, I forgot it's TalkLeft's birthday. 4 years old.

13 million plus vistors, 22 million plus page views, 14,500 entries and 192,000 comments.

Wow. Thanks to all of you for sticking with us.

Update: Thanks to Kevin for his blogiversary praise for TalkLeft -- no chopped liver here!

by TChris

The police have little incentive to obey the constitutional requirement to knock and announce their presence before busting down doors to serve search warrants, thanks to a 5-4 Supreme Court decision issued today. Justice Alito provided the tie-breaking vote.

The Court ruled that suppression of the results of the search -- the usual remedy when evidence is acquired in violation of the Constitution -- is too extreme when police fail to knock-and-announce. The dissent voiced the obvious response:

"The court destroys the strongest legal incentive to comply with the Constitution's knock-and-announce requirement,'' Breyer wrote for the four dissenters.

by TChris

By sneaking in and out of Iraq, the president avoided adding himself to this tragic statistic:

The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said on Thursday, more than three years into a conflict that finds U.S.-led forces locked in a struggle with a resilient Sunni Arab insurgency. ...

In Washington, the Pentagon also said 18,490 U.S. troops had been wounded in the war, which began in March 2003 with a U.S.-led invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed.

Update: Here's the compassionate response from the White House:

Reacting to the new milestone on combat deaths, White House press secretary Tony Snow said, ''It's a number.''

by TChris

In even numbered years, Republicans attack the Constitution. Having failed to write homophobia into the Bill of Rights, Republicans are reduced to making their biennial appeal for a partial repeal of the First Amendment. When Democrats are dared to support the rights of (relatively rare) flag burners, they need to make clear that it is the Constitution they support.

Once again, we round up the commentaries that denounce this nonsense:

Bob Kerrey in the Washington Post. If our First Amendment is altered to permit laws to be passed prohibiting flag desecration, would we like to see our police powers used to arrest an angry mother who burns a flag? Or a brother in arms whose disillusionment leads him to defile this symbol of the nation? I hope the answer is no. I hope we are strong enough to tolerate such rare and wrenching moments. I hope our desire for calm and quiet does not make it a crime for any to demonstrate in such a fashion. In truth, if I know anything about the spirit of our compatriots, some Americans might even choose to burn their flag in protest of such a law.

by TChris

The president has a bunch of people -- "enemy combatants," he likes to call them -- at Guantanamo, and he doesn't know what to do about them (other than keeping the press away so prisoners can't benefit from "publicity stunts" like, um, suicide). He told us today that he'd "like to close Guantanamo" because reports of torture and suicide just give people an "excuse" to criticize the U.S.

We don't need an excuse to criticize your administration, Mr. President. You and your helpers provide fresh cause for alarm every week. Banning the press won't shield you or your administration from warranted criticism. Guantanamo has severely damaged the credibility of the United States, and our elected representatives need to hear us object to misdeeds that tarnish our country's reputation.

by TChris

Unless a law enforcement officer is trying to stop a suspected murderer or other serious felon, there's little reason to engage in a dangerous high speed pursuit when a driver fails to heed a squad car's red and blue lights. It makes no sense to put innocent drivers and pedestrians at risk to stop a common offender when he or she can be arrested more safely at work or at home the next day.

In March, TalkLeft wrote about proposed legislation in California that would repeal a law giving immunity to officers who engage in a reckless pursuit. That bill was introduced after a police officer chased a 15-year-old driver who stole her mother's car. Speeds increased as the girl tried to elude the pursuing officer, until she collided with a van, killing a 15-year-old passenger.

CNN reports (text here, "A police chase gone bad" available in today's "most watched video" section) on the languishing legislation, and on the larger issue of "dinosaur police chiefs" who refuse to adopt policies that would limit the discretion of officers to pursue at high speeds. As this article suggests, high speed chases are "an emerging public health problem," one that accounted for more than 7,000 deaths between 1982 and 2004.