Yesterday's open thread got a lot of action, so let's try another one. And check out the bloglift at Daily Kos - it's terrific.

More arrests are expected in San Francisco.

"We're empathetic to the ill and to the sick, however we cannot disregard federal law," said Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Javier Pena. "We have the power to enforce federal drug laws even in areas where it might not be popular."

Twenty people were indicted on federal drug charges in court documents unsealed Thursday, and an arrest warrant has been issued for another. Two others face state drug charges, and more arrests are pending, Ryan said.

One of the reasons to be an anonymous blogger is if you think you might apply for a job someday where what you write could come back to haunt you. Before you blog your diatribe, you would do well to remember that the Internet has no eraser.

Case in point:

The Lexington Herald-Leader today contains an article that begins, "The young lawyer whom Kentucky Chief Justice Joseph Lambert yesterday named his chief of staff has strong opinions about Democrats, gay marriage and other hot-button topics, and until recently he enjoyed posting them on the Internet.

Jason Nemes, 27, a former Republican congressional aide, discontinued his personal blog -- with posts such as 'Democrats are anti-American' and 'Does a fetus feel pain?' -- before taking a job at the state Supreme Court."

The newspaper also offers a related item consisting of "Excerpts from the blog."

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.

In the day's most dramatic confrontation, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a leading critic of the Iraq campaign, told Rumsfeld that the war has become a "seeming intractable quagmire." He recited a long list of what he called "gross errors and mistakes" in the U.S. military campaign and concluded with a renewed appeal for Rumsfeld to step down.

"In baseball, it's three strikes, you're out," Kennedy said before a standing-room-only session of the Armed Services Committee. "What is it for the secretary of defense? Isn't it time for you to resign?"

Rumsfeld paused, appearing to collect his thoughts and composure.

The New York Times has an article today about a New England Journal of Medicine article citing interrogators who report that doctors aided them at Guantanamo.

Several ethics experts outside the military said there were serious questions involving the conduct of the doctors, especially those in units known as Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, BSCT, colloquially referred to as "biscuit" teams, which advise interrogators. "Their purpose was to help us break them," one former interrogator told The Times earlier this year.

However, these reports are not new.

In August, 2004, a leading British medical journal published an article that criticized the medical ethics of the U.S. military at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and in Afghanistan. So did the New England Journal of Medicine.

And in January, 2005, the New England Journal of Medicine released an article by a Georgetown University law professor implicating army doctors in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

For some additional insight, this op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle by Alfred McCoy on the CIA's history of torture is well-worth reading. McCoy is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of "The Politics of Heroin," an examination of the CIA's alliances with drug lords, and "Closer Than Brothers," a study of the impact of the CIA's psychological torture method upon the Philippine military.

Sometimes we focus so much on the country's abuses abroad, we forget about those committed at home. Please read the story of Moises Carranza-Reyes....it will make you sick....and angry. Here's just a snippet:

He has never been charged with a crime, in this country or in his native Mexico. Yes, he did enter the United States without an invitation in 2003....."I was trying to find a better life," he explains, speaking through a translator. "I've worked all my life. I don't care what kind of work I do. I feel humiliated if I can't work. I will do any honest work."

He never got the chance. So far the only entity to make a buck off Carranza-Reyes is the Park County (Colorado)Jail, which houses alien detainees under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Carranza-Reyes spent eight days at the jail shortly after entering Colorado two years ago. The experience cost him his left leg below the knee and almost cost him his life. And it's left him -- and Denver taxpayers -- with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills that he has no way to pay.

He didn't get in a fight or an accident. It was the filthy jail conditions and lack of medical treatment.

Digby:

I am currently working on a project about Rove and have done a lot of research on how people perceive him as compared to his actual success. I agree with the assessment above. He is highly overrated as a strategist --- indeed Democrats have imputed to him almost magical powers to shape events in the most complicated ways. It's much simpler than that.

He is just someone who has no limits. And he has a client and a party that are willing to do as he advises. That is a powerful thing, but it is not genius. It is useful in elections, but it is a disaster in governance, as we are seeing. Brute force cannot accomplish every task, as any plumber or mechanic can tell you.

Democrats today demanded an apology from Karl Rove for his sleazy comments about liberals and 9/11. The White House refused.

The White House said it would "of course not" heed Democratic demands for an apology from Rove or a presidential condemnation of the adviser's remarks, and it rejected Democratic charges that Rove's words amounted to a Bush administration attempt to exploit the war on terrorism for political gain.

Democratic Chief Deputy Whip Diana DeGette (D-CO)had this to say about Rove's remarks:

The Supreme Court issued a controversial ruling today, allowing cities to appropriate private homes:

Cities may bulldoze people's homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday, giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the decision bowed to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans. The 5-4 decision means that homeowners will have more limited rights.

The more liberal members of the court, along with Justice Anthony Kennedy, voted to allow the seizures:

Lots going on offline here today...here's a place for your thoughts.

Scary story of the day:

The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.

The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates. The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.

[Via Huffington Post.] Arthur at Light of Reason has a lot to say about this.

Karl Rove went over the top at a fundraiser yesterday in Manhattan. His comments:

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.....I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."

It gets worse:

Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others."

"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

AmericaBlog is hopping mad. Atrios has some thoughts as well. This will be the story of the day.

A Mississippi Judge today sentenced Edgar Killen to 60 years in prison on the manslaughter convictions for three civil rights workers - 20 years on each count, to be served consecutively. It was the maximum sentence possible. He is 80 years old.