Some media write-ups of Alberto Gonzales' confirmation hearing Thursday suggest he got a pass. As Salon puts it:

As the protest against Bush's certification fell flat and they rolled over for Gonzales, it was a day of humiliation and futility for Democrats.

More reaction: The Washington Post calls it a "senate grilling without much heat."

The New England Journal of Medicine has released an article by a Georgetown University law professor implicating army doctors in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Actually, this isn't news as it was reported last August in a British medical journal--we wrote about it here. From today's Washington Post:

U.S. Army doctors violated the Geneva Conventions by helping intelligence officers carry out abusive interrogations at military detention centers, perhaps participating in torture, according to an article in today's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Medical personnel helped tailor interrogations to the physical and mental conditions of individual detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to the article. It says that medical workers gave interrogators access to patient medical files, and that psychiatrists and other physicians collaborated with interrogators and guards who, in turn, deprived detainees of sleep, restricted them to diets of bread and water and exposed them to extreme heat and cold.

The article finds:

"The conclusion that doctors participated in torture is premature, but there is probable cause for suspecting it."

Did Alberto Gonzales approve of their assistance? Did he know about it? Will anyone ask him?

Here is the full text of Sen. Richard Durbin's (D-IL) floor statement today at the confirmation hearing of Alberto Gonzales.

The full text of the confirmation hearing is here (html)

In the new issue of The Nation, Christian Parenti investigates the explosion of poppy farming and trafficking in Afghanistan and asks why it took the US so long to crack down on the illicit drug trade which fuels everything from Islamic terrorism to the spread of HIV.

Also in The Nation, Bruce Shapiro explains why the nomination of Alberto Gonzales is a turning point not only for Democrats, but for restraining unchecked presidential power.

Alberto Gonzales suggested today during his confirmation hearing that the U.S. revisit the Geneva Conventions:

Gonzales promised that as attorney general he would abide by the 1949 Geneva treaty but also said the White House was looking at the possibility of seeking revisions. Now I'm not suggesting that the principles, the basic treatment of human beings, should be revisited," Gonzales said. "But there has been some very preliminary discussion: Is this something that we ought to look at?"

The discussions haven't gone far, Gonzales said. "It's not been a systematic project or effort to look at this question," he said. "But some people I deal with, the lawyers, indicate maybe this is something we should look at."

....He refused to back away from his legal opinion to Bush that terrorists don't deserve Geneva Convention treatment if captured by Americans overseas. "My judgment was ... that it would not apply to al-Qaida - they weren't a signatory to the convention," he said.

Thank goodness neither he nor Bush nor all their neo-con law scholars have the power to change them. The international community is not going to pay them any heed. As for what else happened at the hearing:

Does this father-son team look alike or what?

Defense Lawyer Michael Tigar began his closing argument yesterday in the trial of attorney Lynne Stewart, charged with providing material aid to terrorists by disseminating messages from her imprisoned client.

Attorney Michael Tigar suggested Wednesday in a closing argument that the prosecution of a "courageous, brash and feisty" Manhattan defense lawyer on terrorism charges was an insult to the nation's other defense lawyers. "The government of the United States has the arrogance to tell the defense bar how to practice law," Tigar told a federal jury as he underscored a threat felt by defense lawyers that had received little mention in the 6-month-old trial.

The hearings have recessed for lunch. Via Human Rights First which is liveblogging the confirmation hearing:

Durbin: Images of Abu Ghraib are likely to be with us for a lifetime. Scandal to US are likely to be with us for decades. Yesterday we payed tribute to Congressman Matsui – who was sent to a Japanese internment camp. That painful time in US history is still recounted as a shameful chapter – as Abu Ghraib will.

Second area of abuse – interrogation that went too far. You conceded that they might have started at Guantanamo and made it to Iraq. Would you also concede that your decision to call in the definition of torture opened up a permissive environment for torture that had been held as unacceptable for decades?

Where's my lockbox? The Bush Administration once again proves itself to be disingenuous at best, and a liar at worst. Remember Bush saying there were no plans to cut social security benefits for retirees? Now an e-mail from Karl Rove Deputy Peter Wenner surfaces.

Human Rights First has a blogger providing real-time legal analysis on the Alberto Gonzales confirmation hearing scheduled to begin at 9:30am. This is a great resource to understand the subtleties of the hearing. Avi Cover, the blogger, was the author of the Human Rights First report that examined Gonzales’ record and was also a part of the legal team for Rasul, the main plaintiff in the Guanatanamo Bay Supreme Court case decided in June 2004.

Update: The White House refuses to release additional Gonzales documents. Via Raw Story.

The Seattle Times blasts the newly reported plan to hold Guantanamo detainees indefinitely in secret locations, perhaps for life. It calls the plan "a horrifying development."

Torturing prisoners, denying them legal safeguards and essentially refuting their existence is what rogue regimes and lawless nations do. Reading about it in China's Xinhua News Agency is especially disconcerting. The Bush administration is not only doing all this now, but making systematic plans to create an American gulag of prisons and prisoners without names and cells without numbers. From the old Soviet Union to Communist China to the banana republics of Latin America and Castro's Cuba, that's what others do.

It's not like these inmates have money to spare, nonetheless, they are doing their part to help the Tsunami victims.

Some 800 Malaysian prisoners, including those awaiting execution, have dipped into their savings to help victims of the tsunami disaster, officials said. The total of around RM3,000 may be paltry but it was a major sacrifice for the inmates at the Taiping Prison in Perak, said Prison Director Narander Singh.

"The money is what they have saved to help them start a new life after being released. But they decided to donate that money after reading about the plight of the victims," he told AFP.