The Inspector General of the Pentagon has asked the army to open a criminal investigation into Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan.

The request, which came out of the inspector general's review of four previous investigations of the April 22, 2004, shooting, will likely lead investigators from the Army Criminal Investigation Command to return to Afghanistan and conduct a monthslong investigation into whether Tillman's death may have been a homicide, the result of criminal negligence or an accident, said an Army official who asked to remain anonymous.

Tillman's mother says:

"The Army used him. They knew right away he was killed by fratricide and used him for their own purposes to promote the war, to get sympathy for the war, for five weeks."

Why would the military do that? All one has to do is go back in time to April, 2004 when Tillman was killed and look at the headlines coming out of Iraq. Here are a few:

About every six months, the folks at Neuro Politics take out an ad on TalkLeft, asking readers to take a psychological test based mostly on politics. It's that time again, and I really had fun taking this one. I'm always trying to figure out where they are going with their questions, and I never can. Plus, this time, you get an analysis back. I'm not sure what most of mine means, so I hope I'm not embarrassing myself by publishing it, and I'd be curious for others to post their results in the comments. Besides, what else is there to do this Sunday besides wait for the red carpet to open at the Academy Awards? Here goes:

Your responses are consistent with the following attributes: You have a higher propensity for large-group social bonding. You have a stronger tendency to align your beliefs with your respective social groups. Your social behavior is consistent with stronger serotonergic activity and a reduction in submissive behaviors. Your right prefrontal cortex is more involved in your political decision making than your left. Indicators of enhanced right prefrontal and bilateral temporal activity in humor detection. Color preferences may indicate an enhanced dopamine level in your visual cortex. You have a higher tolerance for ambiguity in your thinking styles, and a greater inhibition of your left inferior parietal cortex. Your responses indicated a tendency to classify facial expressions as more threatening, and an elevation in activity in your right amygdala. Overall, your cognitive style is balanced between your left and right hemispheres.

Here's the test, and I bet you will find it intriguing.

The Department of Defense has put all of the released documents on the Guantanamo detainees online here. The list includes Testimony of Detainees Before the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, Testimony of Detainees Before the Administrative Review Board and Administrative Review Board Summaries of Detention/Release Factors.

DOD says:

This is only a portion of the combatant status review tribunals and administrative review boards that have been held to date. There have been 558 tribunals and 463 administrative boards, officials said.

Additional DOD documents are here. The LA Times has a good summary here and the AP has more here .

The Sixth Amendment guarantees public trials. But a recent investigation by the Associated Press has found that 5,000 defendants who passed through the federal courts had the details of their cases kept from public view.

At the request of the AP, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts conducted its first tally of secrecy in federal criminal cases. The nationwide data it provided the AP showed 5,116 defendants whose cases were completed in 2003, 2004 and 2005, but the bulk of their records remain secret.

On the one hand, there is good reason for this. Most of these defendants cooperated with the Government for a lesser sentence and provided information about confederates and other wrongdoers. If this information was not sealed, they would be in physical danger when they arrive at their designated prisons. No matter what you think of the system that allows defendants to purchase their freedom through ratting out others, they should not be placed in physical danger.

Caption anyone? (Via Daily Kos and BBC)

The protests:

It's show time for Andrew Fastow next week in Enron. The former CFO will take the stand to testify against Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling and earn his sentence reduction.

Defense attorneys Michael Ramsey and Daniel Petrocelli have made it clear that they intend to prove that Fastow's illegal conduct was the only wrongdoing within the company -- and was done without the knowledge of Lay or Skilling. That should make for some aggressive questioning once the defense begins their cross examination.

Fastow's plea agreement is here. It calls for a ten year sentence (after cooperation) and no further reductions after sentencing. It also called for him to begin serving his sentence when his wife Lea was released from serving her one year stint (but he's still free and the judge has granted numerous motions for him to travel, according to the court docket.) As I wrote here, it was a strict plea agreement:

by Last Night in Little Rock

An Allegany Co. NY ADA was fired Thursday for attending a white supremacist meeting in Northern Virginia according to AP last night.

[ADA] Michael Regan was dismissed after officials learned he had attended a meeting of the New Century Foundation last week in northern Virginia. Allegany County District Attorney Terrence Parker said Regan's "recent activities will continue to significantly disrupt and impair his effectiveness as an assistant district attorney and the operations of the entire district attorney's office."

Mere attendance may not have been the issue; he was quoted in last Saturday's Washington Post:

by Last Night in Little Rock

The Police Chief and an officer in small Troup, TX were arrested on drug and evidence tampering charges, and the small department was shut down, according to AP this morning. The case was investigated by the FBI and the local DA. The Chief made bond, the officer hasn't yet. To add to ignomy, "The department's equipment was seized by officers from other law-enforcement agencies."

Mohammad al-Qahtani was touted by the U.S. as being a top-notch informant. Imprisoned at Guantanamo, the U.S. said he was the planned 20th hijacker (of course, the U.S. also believed at one time that Zacarias Moussaoui was the planned 20th...and at another time that Ramzi Binalshibh was the 20th hijacker.)

Now, al-Qhatani is retracting his former statements. He says they were obtained through torture. Time Magazine has published the full 83 pages (pdf) of his interrogation.

After spending more than 30 hours talking with him through an interpreter, [his lawyer] told TIME that al-Qahtani today appears to be a broken man, fearful and at times disoriented -- someone who has "painfully described how he could not endure the months of isolation, torture and abuse, during which he was nearly killed, before making false statements to please his interrogators."

Will the detainees who claim they were tortured ever have their claims heard in a court of law? Perhaps not, thanks to Sen. Lindsay Graham and Carl Levin's amendment to McCain's torture amendment...which I warned about here and here.

Here are some of the things they did to al-Qahtani--according to reports by interrogators and others:

Wal-Mart did a turnaround today and announced all company pharmacies will carry the morning after pill (Plan B birth control.)

However, it will allow its pharmacists who morally object to providing the pill not to have to dispense it. They can either refer the customer to another pharmacist or if none is available, to a nearby store.

Why do pharmacists get to refuse to provide the pill? Do supermarket cashiers get to refuse to ring up meat because they are vegetarians? If the drug is legal, they should have to provide it-- or find another job.

Update: The New York Times has more here, with comments by Ms. Stewart.

TalkLeft's best wishes go out to criminal defense lawyer Lynne Stewart today. Ms. Stewart, 66, is scheduled to be sentenced next week following her conviction for providing material support to terrorists. In a letter to the Judge today, her lawyers advised she is battling breast cancer. She was diagnosed in November, and is undergoing radiation.

All of TalkLeft's coverage of Lynne Stewart's case is accessible here.

My views of the verdict are summarized here.

Bump and Update: HuffPo is running an Oscar's mashup thread with the best to be published Monday.

Update: CL, TalkLeft's man in Hollywood, came through with our new Oscar graphic. He also took these photos today of the preparations going on at the Kodak Center.

I'm going to watch Hustle and Flow now. Terrence Howard is up for Best Actor for his role in it. I think he was great in Crash and he's supposedly even better in H&F.

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Original Post: 10 am

Ok, I'll admit it. I love the Oscars. I try to see as many movies as I can. I like watching the clothes as much as the Awards. This year they should be even more interesting than usual because Jon Stewart is hosting. And there are so many good movies.