After deliberating three hours, a military jury found Lt. Andrew K. Ledford not guilty of charges related to the beating death of an Iraqi "ghost detainee." Ledford will now be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

This sounds to me like it would have been the correct result had Leford been charged with murder. He wasn't. He was charged with poor leadership and lying to officials. It's a little surprising he wasn't convicted on any of those charges. Perhaps because the jury was persuaded that the real culprits were the CIA agents who allegedly suspended al-Jamadi from his wrists, handcuffed behind his back in a "Palestinean hanging" mode. As we've pointed out a few times,

A government report obtained by the Associated Press said that [Manadel]Jamadi died an hour after his arrival at Abu Ghraib in early November 2003. The report said he had been beaten while in CIA custody and then hung by his wrists, with his arms crossed across his back -- treatment described as "torture" by international organizations. The prisoner reportedly died before CIA interrogators extracted information from him. U.S. Army guards at the prison then packed his body in ice and posed with the corpse in mocking photographs.

Daily Kos turned three yesterday. At that time, Markos was lucky to get 100 visitors a day. Today, Daily Kos is the most amazing phenomenon in the blogosphere, averaging 500,000 visitors a day. It is a community of voices, but as Armando, another major contributor to the blog explains, it all really goes back to Markos.

Markos is the magic here. Yes the Community is the heart. But Markos created the space, created the conditions and created the spark that has made dailykos what it is today.

So lift your virtual glass, a toast to Markos.

Indeed. Congrats and many, many more, Markos.

From the newest crop of documents the Defense Department has turned over to the ACLU and made available on their website is this e-mail, spotted by this astute Democatic Underground reader: [hat tip Crooks and Liars.]

DETAINEES-2797B

E-mail (from CTD employee to Frankie Battle) noting that sender is forwarding this EC up the chain of command, concerning alleged impersonation of FBI Agents at GTMO

12/05/03

Same document as Detainee-2797 with the following unredacted: "Of concern, DOD interrogators impersonating Supervisory Special Agents of the FBI told a detainee that the FBI…" and "These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and CITF believes that techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee." and "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done (by) the "FBI" interrogators. The FBI will (be) left holding the bag before the public." (emphasis supplied)

A loss for the Justice Department. A jury has found David Rosen, HillaryClinton's chief fundraiser, not guilty of campaign finance violations.

The charges grew out of a campaign fund-raising event in August 2000 called the Hollywood Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton. Mr. Rosen told campaign officials in Washington that the event cost about $400,000; the government says expenses for the gala topped $1.1 million, although the total cost of the extravaganza remains unknown to this day.

Much of the testimony in the course of the three-week trial concerned the arcane rules of the Federal Election Commission during 2000, rules that Judge A. Howard Matz at one point described as even more incomprehensible than the federal tax code.

Schapelle's address:
Schapelle Corby
LPM Kerobokan
Jl. Tangkuban Perahu
Kerobokan, Denpasar 80117
Bali, INDONESIA

Schapelle will serve her 20 year sentence at Kerobokan prion in Bali, where she has been held for the past seven months. Here's what she faces.

Abanana, some pawpaw, five slices of white bread and a half-bowl of vegetables is the daily ration for Schapelle Corby and each of the other 20 or so Westerners serving time in Bali's Kerobokan jail.

...The jail .... provides almost nothing to its more than 600 inmates - no drinking water, coffee or tea, bedding, toiletries, clothes, medicine, amenities or work.

...The women are locked in from about 5pm until 9am and Corby's cell is so small that the bodies of the seven women she shares with touch as they rest. With no beds, they sleep on mats, and with no fan, they sweat. Each woman gets a bucket of water a day to wash herself with.

That being said, apparently this prison has some benefits. Everything and everyone is for sale, beginning with the guards. So if Schapelle gets donations, she can live like this:

Check out this editorial in the Los Angeles Times today calling on Senator Bill Frist to resign.

The longer he tries to run the Senate, the more he looks like a bungler whose only principle is personal advancement.

Ouch. But so true. [hat tip Huffington Post.]

Indonesia says no to a transfer to Australia.

Update: Jeff Seaman for Congress and Swing State Project join the boycott.

Raw Story has the details of the bill Democrats plan to introduce that will cause a committee to be formed to investigate claims of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo and in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article has the text of Rep. Henry Waxman's press release, with a list of sponsors. Is your Representative on there? If not, give them a call and thell them you'd like them to sign on as a co-sponsor of this legislation when it's introduced.

Via AmericaBlog....show some Heart for Kraft Foods for this courageous stand. Call them at 1-800-323-0768 and go buy some Mac and Cheese.

Read Kraft's letter, via Kos:

The true test of any commitment is how you respond when challenged. Kraft is experiencing this to a degree right now, as a result of our decision to be one of several contributors to the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago. The games will bring together thousands of athletes in a competition that will take place in our corporate hometown....

by TChris

Schools can't teach the value of free speech by suppressing speech. The only lesson students at El Camino Real High School have learned is that even mild cricitism of a Republican president will be met with censorship.

Theater students designed posters to advertise their play, "The Complete History of America (Abridged)," which takes a satirical view of U.S. history. The posters depicted President Bush as Groucho Marx. A student supporter of the president complained, and the principal responded by tearing down the posters.

Undaunted, the theater students -- who have a better grasp of the Constitution than their principal -- put up new posters.

The new designs all feature a silhouette of Bush and a burning cigar, along with inscriptions such as "Free Expression for All (unless you are in high school)" and "What First Amendment?"

Good for them.

Who knew Dick Wolf had such a sense of humor? Tom DeLay fumes at a Law and Order episode

According to a transcript excerpt supplied to the magazine Broadcasting & Cable by Delay's office, the show's finale features a white supremacist who kills a judge's family, and the killing of an appellate judge. As the detectives hunt for the judge killer, Detective Alex Eames, played by Kathryn Erbe, said "Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-Shirt."

Crooks and Liars has the video

Time to Boycott Bali. Indonesia rules out a prisoner transfer to Australia. What neanderthals they are over there. Schapelle got 20 years. Here's the translator's edited transcript of the verdict and sentencing. Here's the Austrlian news blog's description of the reaction in the courtroom. Is this sentence really better than life? I'd say it is a life sentence...Schapelle's life as she knew it is over. And who lives 20 years behind the walls of a foreign prison? We live-blogged the two hour verdict reading (along with Blaghdaddy in the comments) as best we could given the awful audio feed from the courtroom to the Australian media which kept going in and out - and the sporadic translation.

• 11:41 a.m. She's guilty, has until next Wednesday to appeal. Australian Government says it has to accept the verdict.

• 11:38 a.m. The Judge has been reading (screaming) for two hours. He's not done, but it's all over for Schapelle. Shorter version: She must be convicted because drugs are a menace to Indonesia and police are more credible than civilians.

• 11:31 a.m. Judge says evidence is pointing to her guilt. Mentions lack of fingerprint testing and excuses it. They've considered Schapelle's defense that she was a victim of drug traffickers....but because importation of drugs hurts Indonesian people....