Your turn, your topics. Have fun.

The story of the day so far is the unraveling and dissembling of Pentagon Spokesman Lawrence DeRita.

• Raw Story
• Think Progress
• David Corn at The Nation
• Joe Conasen

Bump and Update: ACLU wins photos.

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Orig Post 5/26

The ACLU is back in court today, charging that that the FBI documents they received show that Defense Department personnel impersonated State Department officials in Guantánamo Interrogations. The ACLU says the Defense Department And CIA are illegally refusing to turn over photos and documents regarding the torture of prisoners. [Press release to be online soon.]

In the past, it has come to light that DoD officials impersonated FBI agents, but now it appears they impersonated state department officials as well. Today's documents are online here.

Today the U.S. confirmed it had received five reports of guards mishandling the Koran. Brig. Gen. Jay Hood said two Guantanamo staffers had been disciplined.

Four U.S. guards and one interrogator were involved in the cases, three of which appeared to be deliberate mishandling and two accidental, Hood said.

Although the military says the detainee who mentioned the toilet flush incident in 2002 was reinterviewed in May and did not mention the incident, Hood acknowledged he was never specifically asked about it. The word toilet wasn't used.

"We then proceeded to ask him about any incidents where he had seen the Koran defiled, desecrated or mishandled, and he allowed as how he hadn't, but he heard that guards at some other point and time had done this," Hood said. But Hood said investigators did not directly ask the detainee about a Koran being placed in a toilet. "I do not believe they used that word toilet," he said.

by TChris

Most prosecutors, most of the time, play by the rules. And then there are prosecutors like this one.

by TChris

The Saginaw County (Michigan) Jail isn't a good place to be held after an arrest for a traffic violation. Just ask Linda Rose, who was arrested for drunk driving.

Linda Rose says she spent three hours crouched in the corner of a concrete cell at the Saginaw County Jail, shivering and sobbing, after deputies stripped her of her clothes and left her naked in front of a surveillance camera.

With good reason, Rose says that the jailers stripped her of her dignity as well as her clothing. At least dozens (and possibly hundreds) of other inmates experienced the same humiliating treatment at the hands of Saginaw County jailers. The County contended that stripping prisoners was necessary to assure that they didn't hang themselves. Why a drunk driving arrest would provoke suicidal behavior is difficult to explain, and the jailers had no particular reason to believe that the inmates who were forced to strip were suicidal. Some of them were naked for days.

A federal judge hearing a lawsuit on behalf of the detainees didn't buy the County's argument. The judge ruled that the routine practice of stripping inmates and forcing them to remain naked in a cell violates their constitutional rights. To be determined: how much money to award the class action plaintiffs as a result of the County's unlawful behavior.

Raw Story reports the wiggle room gets smaller as a Judge finds Tom DeLay's aide committed campaign finance violations.

Wonkette has the racial breakdown for the OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson juries. Crooks and Liars has the video of the O'Reilly segment in which he said the Jackson Jurors are "regular folks" - they are not OJ jurors.

Update: Guilty. We live blogged the verdict listening to an Australian tv network's webcast and live feed of the two hour reading here.

Update: We'll be bumping this post until the verdict is read Friday morning in Bali. Latest news article. Live reporter's blog will be here. Watch this video chronicling case from arrest to now. This is the prison where she is being held.

If she's convicted, an immediate appeal will be filed. Schapelle has a letter prepared for the Indonesian President asking for a pardon.

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Schapelle Corby finds out today whether she will be acquitted or sentenced to death or life in prison, when three judges render a decision in a case in which she is charged with smuggling less than 10 pounds of marijuana into Indonesia while en route to Bali for a vacation.

An al Qaeda website today announced that due to al Zarqawi's injuries, it has appointed a deputy to take his place until he's recovered. He is Sheikh Abu Hafs al-Kurani.

"The leaders met after the injury of our sheikh, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ... and decided to appoint a deputy to take the lead until the return of our sheikh," said the statement, which was posted on a militant web site that two days earlier announced al-Zarqawi had been injured.

"The leadership decided that our esteemed Sheikh Abu Hafs al-Kurani will be a deputy for the mujahideen (holy fighters) for he was renowned for carrying out the most difficult operations," it said, adding that Zarqawi had chosen him for such attacks.

Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid introduced the party's reform agenda today at the National Press Club. He made an interesting observation (received by e-mail):

As of this month, more time has passed since 9-11 than the time between Pearl Harbor and the defeat of Japan. During those three years and eight months – sixty years ago – we invaded North Africa and Normandy. We freed people from the Philippines to France. Hitler lay dead and Tojo was in chains. We had defeated fascism around the world and had begun to build the new United Nations.

But today Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, our homeland is still not secure, we’re still not energy independent, and – in many ways – Americans are less safe than we were before 9-11.

This afternoon, Joe Trippi will unveil 'Change America' during a blog conference call originating at O'Hare airport where he will be gathered with United Airlines flight attendants who recently lost their pensions.

The Internet-based campaign will provide information and tools to help Americans organize for action in their communities against irresponsible corporate behavior. Trippi, who raised the effectiveness of Internet campaigning as campaign manager for Howard Dean, will talk with bloggers about Change America’s first project: urging action against corporations that dump employee pensions while management feathers its own nest.

The blog conference call will originate from the headquarters of the United Airlines flight attendants in Chicago. Trippi will unveil the new Web site, www.changeamerica.com, along with the Internet grassroots project.

The site will also highlight the attack on retirement security. I can't particpate in the call, but check the website later this afternoon, it's a good cause.