52 House members have filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents related to the Downing Street minutes. Raw Story has the details and the letter, which is reproduced below:

Ward Churchill is back in the spotlight, this time with controversial comments about the "fragging" of military officers.

First, his comments:

"Conscientious objection removes a given piece of the cannon fodder from the fray," he said. "Fragging an officer has a much more impactful effect."

Churchill denies advocating fragging and defends his remarks:

Reached at his home in Boulder County on Wednesday night, Churchill said the comments were made merely to spark discussion and not to take a position on fragging, which is the killing or injuring of an officer in combat by a subordinate.

He said that his remarks were being taken out of context and sensationalized in an effort to drive him from his job as a CU professor. "I neither advocated nor suggested to anyone, anything," Churchill said. "I asked them to think about where they stood on things."

Update: Ian at the Political Teen has some audio of Churchill's speech.

People for the American Way have prepared a report of this term's Supreme Court decisions. The link should be up on their site shortly. It finds:

The Supreme Court decided a number of important cases concerning civil rights and civil liberties in its 2004-2005 term. Overall, the Court protected key civil rights and liberties, and disappointed those seeking to expand property rights and limit Congress’ power – often by narrow margins – though some narrow decisions regarding access to justice and immigrant rights were disappointing. In fact, many of the key rulings, discussed in further detail below, were decided by narrow margins of 5-4 (or 5-3 due to the absence of Chief Justice Rehnquist), emphasizing the significance of future vacancies on the Supreme Court.

The choice of a replacement for any of the Supeme Court Justices has never been more important.

Eric Alterman has a new Nation column examining the disparate mainstream media coverage accorded to Senator Dick Durbin's Guantanamo comments and Karl Rove's liberal bashing comments.

And where were the mainstream media in all this? With just a few honorable exceptions they were passing along without prejudice Rove's slander and lies and the deliberate distortions of Durbin's words.

Elizabeth Holtzman has a new article in the Nation, Torture and Accountability. It blows the cover off the "few bad apples" meme and makes a case for a war crimes prosecution of higher-ups.

The key question is not whether detainees in Iraq were subjected to inhuman treatment in violation of the War Crimes Act, but how high up the responsibility goes for those abhorrent acts. Under well-established principles of international law, officials in the chain of command who order inhuman treatment or who, knowing about it, fail to stop it are responsible. The "chain of command" doctrine is undoubtedly applicable to War Crimes Act prosecutions. But even if it weren't, higher-ups could be held responsible under the principles of conspiracy or aiding and abetting the crime under normal federal criminal law. This was surely the reason that Gonzales wanted to block future prosecutions of higher-ups by "prosecutors and independent counsels."

It's a long but powerful article, and well worth reading.

Bump and Update: Time Magazine will turn over the notes of reporter Matthew Cooper sought by the Government in the Valerie Plame grand jury investigation. Cooper will avoid going to jail. No word yet on Judith Miller, who has said she'd go to jail rather than comply.

More details at Bloomberg News. The Wall Street Journal (free link) provides analysis.

Update: Atrios:

When it comes to defending the supposed principles they were fighting for, this seems like a rather bad outcome. The whole point was that to protect the freedom of the press you had to protect the identity of confidential sources. From this perspective Time taints their entire publication -- you can't rely on anyone working for that magazine to protect their sources because the publishers/editors will sell out all of their journalist's sources.

A woman, in a hot air balloon, realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude, and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me. Can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago. But, I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS, and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 11 degrees, 14.97 minutes North latitude, and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes West longitude.

She rolled her eyes, and said, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

President Bush continues on Ashcroft's mission to tear down the walls between intelligence gathering and criminal investigations:

President Bush on Wednesday ordered changes intended to break down old walls between foreign and domestic intelligence activities by creating a new national security division within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that will fall under the overall direction of John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence.

The powers accorded intelligence gathering and law enforcment agencies are different for good reason. For example, it prevents the Government from making an end run around the Fourth Amendment. The ACLU has an excellent explanation of the issue here.

What exactly is "the wall?" Former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick describes it this way:

In her first interview from prison since her 20 year sentence by a Bali court for smuggling 4 kilos of pot, a charge for which she claims she was framed, Austrialian Schapelle Corby says she's not giving up the fight.

[hat tip Heretik.]

Former presidential candidate Wesley Clark is now a Fox News military analyst. He was on O'Reilly tonight.

O'Reilly: You don't think 50 news stories in the New York Times about Abu Graib undermined the war effort?

Clark: I think Abu Ghraib undermined the war effort.

Crooks and Liars watched Olberman who said the ratings for Bush's Iraq speech were a flop. [link fixed]

Only 23 million saw the show, down from 34.7 million for his Social Security speech. It sure looks like he was preaching to the choir.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich says it's critical that we have a withdrawal plan from Iraq.

The longer we stay in Iraq, accidentally killing tens of thousands of civilians, we create more people who swear vengeance against America. Pre-war intelligence, including the c.I.A., saw no serious link between Osama Bin Laden and Hussein.

....Everything about the war in Iraq has been wrong. It was wrong to go in. It is wrong to stay in. It is wrong to keep our troops in harm's way. H.J. Res. 55 gives us a chance to right the wrong and exit with a plan which is sensitive to the security concerns of both the Iraqi people and the American people, because the truth is that this war is making people in both countries less safe.

Contact your Congressperson and ask him or her to support H.J. Res. 55, a binding congressional resolution calling on President Bush to begin withdrawing the United States Armed Forces from Iraq on or before October 1, 2006. Let's start the exit process.