John Kerry, the next President of the United States, will be in Denver on Monday June 21 for a Rally for a Stronger America. Gates open 1:00 pm.

WHERE: Greek Theater at Denver's Civic Center Park

For Kerry's best supporters, pick up your VIP tickets to get up front at the rally. Please stop by the Colorado Democratic Party HQ at 777 Santa Fe. Hours for ticket pick up are as follows:

Friday 4 PM - 7 PM
Saturday 10 AM - 6 PM
Sunday 10 AM - 6 PM
Monday 8 AM - 1 PM

Alternatively, general admission tickets are available online

Update: Reuters reports it has found the body of beheaded hostage Paul Johnson in the Saudi Capital. (via tv news). Al-Arabiya tv said there was also a video of the beheading.

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An Islamic website is reporting that American hostage Paul Johnson has been beheaded:

An al-Qaida group said Friday it killed American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr, posting an Internet message that showed photographs of a beheaded body that appeared to be his. The statement was posted on a Web site where the group frequently makes announcements. Also posted were three still photos showing a head that appeared to be Johnson's.

Update: The Guardian reports:

One of the three photographs posted on the internet site showed a man's head, face toward the camera, being held by a hand. The other two showed a beheaded body lying prone on a bed, with the severed head placed in the small of his back. The face looked like Mr Johnson's, Reuters reported.

The beheaded body was clad in a bright orange suit, similar to those issued to suspected Islamic militants imprisoned by the United States at Guantanamo Bay - and similar to the suit another American captive, Nicholas Berg, was wearing when he was beheaded in Iraq last month by another group of Islamic militants inspired by al-Qaida. Soon after the statement appeared, the website was inaccessible, with a message saying it was closed for maintenance. Arab satellite network al-Arabiya said there was also a video of the beheading.

We are disgusted. We offer our sincerest condolences to Mr. Johnson's family. Post your thoughts here.

[comments now closed]

As we reported yesterday, CIA contractor David Passaro has been charged with crimes arising from the death of an Afghan prisoner. Some are asking why:

Have you asked yourself why David Passaro, of all the possible number of people involved in just such incidents in Afghanistan--where the number of deaths under interrogation goes into, I believe, at least the double digits--gets indicted? Today, an excellently researched and reported story in the WaPo by Susan Schmidt and Dana Priest gives one possible answer.

You see, the person killed in that incident was a man called Abdul Wali who last June 21 voluntarily gave himself up for questioning at the CIA/Special Forces base at Asadabad--and he had been accompanied to the base by the Hyder Akbar, the 18-year-old, US-educated son of a nearby, US-installed provincial governor, Sayed Fazl Akbar.

Read the Wapo article for the rest of the story.

Today is the deadline set by Islamic terrorists for the release of al-Qaeda prisoners in exchange for the release of American hostage Paul Johnson. Will it happen? The Saudis have expanded their search for him.

With helicopters flying overhead, thousands of Saudi police searched for American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr. on Friday, as a deadline loomed for the kingdom to release jailed al-Qaida suspects or see him killed. Police went through several Riyadh neighborhoods, even going door to door, but authorities acknowledged having few leads for finding Johnson, a Lockheed Martin employee who was kidnapped a week ago by a group calling itself al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Security forces expanded their searches later Friday to more suburbs of Riyadh, and police stopped cars at checkpoints throughout the capital.

Some Saudis are unsympathetic:

The organization that claimed the kidnapping is believed to be headed by Abdulaziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin al-Moqrin, the top al-Qaida figure in Saudi Arabia.
People living in fundamentalist districts being searched in western and southern Riyadh suggested that the kidnappers enjoy popular support, partly because of U.S. policy in Iraq and America's perceived backing for Israel. "How can we inform on our brothers when we see all these pictures coming from Abu Ghraib and Rafah," Muklas Nawaf, a resident of Dhahar al-Budaih, said as he ate meat grilled on a spit at a restaurant called Jihad, Arabic for holy war.

At least one Saudi cleric is pleading for Johnson's return:

A top Saudi cleric, the preacher at the leading mosque in Riyadh, the Imam Sultana, implored the kidnappers to release Johnson in a column published Friday in Al-Riyadh newspaper. "O youth of the nation who have trodden the wrong path, come back to the fold of the community of Islam. Avoid this sedition and be obedient to the ruler of the Muslims," Sheik Mohammed bin Saad al-Saeed wrote.

There are few promising leads. Stay tuned.

by TChris

Unfounded hysteria about sexual abuse of children in daycare centers swept the nation in the 1980's, resulting in the convictions of innocent men and women. Bernard F. Baran Jr., convicted in 1985, says he's one of them.

Baran's lawyer, John Swomley, says the first family to accuse Baran was motivated by a stepparent's prejudice against Baran, who was openly gay.

The mother and her boyfriend were homophobic and had previously complained to the day care center about Mr. Baran because they thought he was gay. They had a history of severe drug abuse and mental health issues. The mother was fearful that she would not regain custody of her children if she did not testify in the manner expected by the prosecutor.

Swomley says Baran's lawyer, hired for $500, did nothing to investigate the suggestive questioning techniques that produced the accusations. He also argues that the prosecution withheld key evidence, including claims by two of the alleged victims that it was actually their mother's boyfriends who sexually assaulted them. Three of the six kids who accused Baran have now recanted their stories, but Baran is still serving multiple life sentences.

Swomley has filed a motion for a new trial, contending the evidence was unreliable, the defense lawyer was incompetent, and the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence. No date to hear the motion has yet been set.

by TChris

If you've ever attended a protest in Denver, you might want to browse through a new archive of "spy files" created by the Denver police. Among the peaceful protestors catalogued by the Denver police over the last half century: "a Franciscan nun, Amnesty International and more than 100 public school students."

The Denver Intelligence Bureau collected files on 10,000 people and 1,000 groups before ending the practice in response to an ACLU lawsuit. The ACLU argued that spying on protestors chilled the exercise of their First Amendment rights and served no legitimate law enforcement purpose.

A new Harris Poll finds voters see little difference between Bush and Kerry on gun control--leading to the conclusion it won't be a big issue in the Presidential campaign. We never thought it would be, but since the news is reporting it, so will we:

By 29% to 25% a modest plurality thinks President George Bush would be better on the gun control issue than Senator John Kerry, but 22% see no difference, and 24% are not sure....These findings suggest that gun control is not an issue which is influencing voters in their choice of presidential candidates.

My Life

Debuts June 22. Get it now. And thanks to the anonymous TL reader who bought it for us off our wish list.

Update: Clinton says he slept on the couch for two months after telling Hillary the truth about Monical.

Big Brother times ten. Here's another excessive privacy intrusion made in the name of the war on terror: Britain will be given access to U.S. databases, including those with DNA and fingerprints of foreigners:

British police will almost certainly be given access in the near future to US intelligence databases containing DNA samples, fingerprints and digital images of thousands of foreign nationals seized around the world by the US as terror suspects. As the war on terror increasingly comes to rely on biometric technology - the use of physical characteristics unique to individuals such as iris pattern, DNA and fingerprints to verify identify - western police and intelligence agencies are drawing up plans for sophisticated biometric databases which would allow them to share sensitive information.

Here's what the FBI says--biometrics is the future.

Turns out it was not just one detainee that Rumsfeld ordered held from the Red Cross, but at least two detainees.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld admitted Thursday that he ordered the secret detention of at least two prisoners captured in Iraq so that they could be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, a move that some legal experts say may have violated the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions, which outline proper treatment of prisoners of war, forbid holding prisoners incommunicado and require that their identities be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"It is clearly conduct in violation of international law," said Deborah Pearlstein, the director of the U.S. Law and Security Program of Human Rights First, a New York-based advocacy group formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

Human Rights First today issued a new report on the Bush Administration's prisoner violations, titled "Ending "Secret Detentions" (pdf) charging that it held:

by TChris

An Air Force prosecutor apparently tried to tamper with a witness in the court-martial of Ahmad Al Halabi. (TalkLeft background here.) During Halabi's preliminary hearing, Suzan Sultan, a former Air Force translator, made a mistake.

She said she misread a letter from the Syrian government to the airman, thinking the Syrians had given Al Halabi permission to visit another Middle Eastern country, Qatar. Sultan later realized that Qatar also could mean "homeland," meaning that Al Halabi could have been telling the truth when he said he merely wanted to go to Syria to get married.

Sultan says that the prosecutor, Capt. Dennis Kaw, refused to allow her to admit the mistake. Fortunately, Sultan has a conscience, and she ratted out Kaw's unethical behavior to Halabi's civilian lawyer, Donald Rehkopf Jr. Rehkopf asked the judge to dismiss the case to sanction the prosecutor's miconduct -- a rarely granted remedy -- but the court ruled that, having foiled Kaw's attempt to cheat, the defense sustained no harm that warranted dismissal. Instead, the judge ordered the prosecutor "to forward the defense's complaint and any evidence of alleged misconduct to the Staff Judge Advocate at Travis and the Office of Professional Responsibility for Air Force lawyers in Washington."

Kaw isn't the only member of the prosecution team to demonstrate questionable character. One of the Air Force investigators who worked on Halabi's case has been charged with "rape, sodomy, fondling girls and mishandling classified material." Other investigators have been less than professional.

Rehkopf alleges that [the lead investigator] and agents with the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations drank beer, failed to wear gloves and rifled through the contents of a box seized as evidence from Al Halabi, then repacked the box to "pretend and mislead" that they were following protocol.

There's an important Colorado congressional race in which you can make a difference. Support Stan Matsunakas. His opponent is Marilyn Musgrave, woman on a mission to ban gay marriage and increase the power of the radical-theological right. Stan says:

"People's eyes are wide open. The community now knows her conservative right-wing agenda," said Matsunaka, who is clearing up cases at his law practice for a second run. "Voters gave her the benefit of the doubt last time," he said. "Now, they're angry." "She was more involved in what was going on in San Francisco and Boston than in the district," he said. Both cities issued marriage licenses to gay couples... There are Republicans who backed Matsunaka in 2002 who say he has a better shot this year... "The Christian social agenda is big in Weld County, but new people have moved in from Boulder County," said Ruth Gartrell, a retired teacher who lives in Greeley. "No one knows how the county will vote," she said. ...Dana Williams of the Colorado secretary of state's office, said the district's registered voters include 163,509 Republicans, 102,874 Democrats and 128,421 unaffiliated. "When I go out in public now, people at the grocery store, hardware store and on the street tell me they didn't vote for me last time, but this time they will," Matsunaka said.

We're proud to have Stan as a new TL advertiser. Give to Stan . If you end your contribution with ".11", Stan will know it's from a TalkLeft reader. My DD has more on recent polling in the race. Daily Kos has made Stan one of his dKos8 candidates.