This just in from Reuters :

The U.S. Justice Department has subpoenaed Planned Parenthood for the confidential medical records of hundreds of women as part of its defense against challenges to a federal law that bans a type of late-term abortion, the family planning organization said on Thursday. Attorney General John Ashcroft said this month the records were needed to find out whether the procedure, called "partial birth abortion" by its critics, was medically necessary.

"We believe that this is a sweeping invasion of medical privacy. Ashcroft has subpoenaed hundreds of confidential medical records and we're taking every step within the law to resist this," said Elizabeth Toledo, a spokeswoman for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Planned Parenthood said subpoenas had been served on Tuesday at six of its locations -- Los Angeles, San Diego, New York, Washington, Kansas City and Pittsburgh. ABC News reported that the subpoenas demand hundreds of women's medical records

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233 Haitians have been caught by the Coast Guard trying to flee to the U.S. since December 30 and returned, despite the turmoil going on there.

Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said Haitians living in the United States illegally would continue to be deported and those picked up at sea would continue to be sent back, unless they presented a well-founded fear of persecution. Advocates for immigrants said they feared that the government was abdicating its responsibilities to Haitian refugees. President Bush said Wednesday that American officials would "turn back any refugee that attempts to reach our shore" from Haiti.

This policy is unfair and inhumane.

...advocacy groups and several members of Congress argue that the government is denying refugees fair access to the American asylum process. They said the government should not send Haitians home when it has deemed the country dangerous enough to evacuate non-essential personnel and deploy marines to guard the American Embassy.

"To send people back into the kind of killing field that Haiti has descended to is a violation of all that refugee status and humanitarianism calls for," Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, said in a telephone interview.

Eleanor Acer, asylum director for Human Rights First, said, "It sends a very clear message that the U.S. is not willing to step up and accept its legal and moral obligation to accept refugees, particularly when the refugees at issue are at our own doorstep."

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The Governor of Oklahoma issued a last-minute stay today in the planned execution of Hung Thanh Le. The stay was granted after the Governor received an official request from the Vietnamese government.

Amnesty International issued a press release about the execution earlier today:

Twenty-four hours after Secretary of State Colin Powell proclaimed that "President Bush regards the defence and advancement of human rights as America's special calling," the USA is due to carry out its 900th execution since resuming judicial killing in 1977. The events set to unfold in the Oklahoma death chamber tonight will once again give the lie to US claims to be global human rights champion.

....Hung Le's trial was marked by prosecutorial misconduct and inadequate legal representation. He has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his experiences as a teenager in refugee camps. The state clemency board unanimously voted that his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment, but Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry rejected their recommendation.

Mr. Le would have been the 900th person executed in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.

Tell your senators that we should not enact laws out of grief and passion, or in response to a singular criminal event, however horrific it might be. Cooler heads are needed where our fundamental liberties are at stake. The House of Representatives didn't get that message and passed a dangerous bill today. We have no doubt that the bill will have serious implications for abortion rights.

We've never heard Howard Stern's radio show and don't think we'd enjoy listening to it but we think it's absurd and a giant step down the slippery slope of censorship for Clear Channel to have yanked it. Howard spoke about it on the air today. We urge all his fans to protest.

Rosie O'Donnell married her partner Kelli Carpenter in San Francisco today:

"I want to thank the city of San Francisco for this amazing stance the mayor has taken for all the people here, not just us but all the thousands and thousands of loving, law-abiding couples," the former talk show host, holding a large bouquet, said after she and Kelli Carpenter emerged from their brief ceremony inside Mayor Gavin Newsom's office.

The newlyweds walked hand in hand down the grand marble staircase in the rotunda to thunderous applause from hundreds of spectators who came to witness the city's first celebrity same-sex wedding.

TalkLeft reader Bryan W. of Seattle writes in:

I am appalled and outraged by the latest attempts by one group of people to impose their ideals and extremely delicate sense of values on others. The primary burn is the proposed amendment to the constitution to ban two people’s pursuit of happiness. Not being homosexual, I don’t have any personal stake in this but the fact that people would attempt to modify the Constitution because an act offends their sensitive moralities makes me think, “What’s next?”. Make no mistake; if it were politically palatable, the same persons backing the proposed amendment would just as soon put forward a constitutional amendment to ban homosexuality.

We as liberals need to stand up against this. And I don’t mean stand up and say, “Well I’m not sure if gay marriage should be legal… but I am in favor of civil unions!” This position is simple and transparent pandering. Stand up, say it’s wrong to impede a person’s pursuit of happiness simply because it offends someone else and stick to your position.

More denials by Michael Jackson's young accuser have been captured on videotape:

Videographer Christian Robinson says he spent two years recording Michael Jackson and those who made it into the pop star's inner circle. Now Robinson is finally talking about what he saw during those years and about a tape that could rock the case against Jackson.

Robinson says he taped his own interview with Jackson's accuser and his family soon after Martin Bashir's documentary Living With Michael Jackson aired in February 2003. The 24-year-old videographer says he asked them whether there had ever been any inappropriate sexual behavior between the pop star and the young boy.

"Yeah. I asked. And they answered, and they were very up front and they, of course, said absolutely not," said Robinson on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "All of them, every single one," he said. Robinson claims the alleged victim, his brother, his sister and his mother all said Jackson did nothing wrong.

Will we get him dead or alive? How long will we have had him?

[Source of image unknown, we received it by e-mail.]

We've got court this afternoon--if you feel like talking, you can do it here. We'll be back this evening.

The New York Times has endorsed John Kerry in Tuesday's New York primary. The paper praises John Edwards, but says this is not his time and he needs more experience. As to Kerry,

Mr. Kerry, one of the Senate's experts in foreign affairs, exudes maturity and depth. He can discuss virtually any issue of security or international affairs with authority. What his critics see as an inability to take strong, clear positions seems to us to reflect his appreciation that life is not simple. He understands the nuances and shades of gray in both foreign and domestic policy. While he still has trouble turning out snappy sound bites, we don't detect any difficulty in laying down a clear bottom line. His campaigning skills are perhaps not as strong as his intellectual ones, but they are pretty good and getting better. Early in the race he alienated some audiences with brittle, patronizing lectures. But he has improved tremendously over the last few months. His answers are focused and to the point, and his speeches far more compelling.

....Almost everyone who has been watching the Democratic campaign would love to merge Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards into one composite super-candidate, with Mr. Kerry's depth and Mr. Edwards's personal touch with the voters. In the television era, likability is extremely important. But this is a serious business, and Mr. Kerry, the more experienced and knowledgeable candidate, gets our endorsement.

The U.S. announced it is returning one of the Guantanamo detainees to Denmark. Denmark has stated that he will be freed upon his return:

The Pentagon did not give his name, but Danish media have identified him as Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane, imprisoned in February 2001 after being captured in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon said Denmark has provided unspecified assurances that he will not pose a further threat. The United States has released 93 prisoners from Guantanamo but still holds roughly 650 non-U.S. citizens caught in what President Bush calls the global war on terrorism. The Pentagon said it decided he no longer posed a danger.

Here are some interesting pictures:

Michael Brescia

This is still our favorite though:

John Doe 2 and "Dirty Bomb" Suspect Jose Padilla.

More on the Aryan Republican Army (ARA) is here.

Note: We are not vouching for the accuracy of these internet photos and news reports, just pointing them out.

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