A former Iraqi general who was captured by the U.S. near the Syrian border on Oct. 5 has died while being interrogated by by the U.S.

Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, an air defense general captured Oct. 5 in a raid near the Syrian border, was being questioned Wednesday while in American custody in Qaim near the Syrian border when lost consciousness after complaining he didn't feel well, the military said in a statement.

He was pronounced dead by a U.S. military physician. The cause of death is under investigation, the military said. The statement did not give his age.

President Bush snuck off the ranch to fly to Iraq for his first visit to have a two hour Turkey dinner with the troops. Meanwhile, Hillary flew to Afganistan to have dinner there with the troops. She will then go on to Iraq.

Bush's visit was top secret. In fact, his office put out word he'd be doing the family thing in Crawford:

Otherwise, Bush is celebrating Thanksgiving much like he always does - alongside family members, enjoying a traditional feast of turkey and fixings, only this time with a pecan pie made from nuts from trees on his ranch. Bush arrived here Monday night after spending the day at Fort Carson, an Army base near Colorado Springs, Colo.

He was clearly relishing the prospect of the time away from Washington as he appeared before GOP donors Tuesday in Las Vegas and described his morning on the ranch with his wife, Laura.

In the news today, several thousand more marines are headed to Iraq.

Update: Fox News accompanied the President, CNN did not.

We haven't covered this until now, but these reports of abuses by Miami police at the recent anti-free trade talk rallies are very disturbing and warrant wider dissemination and discussion. Have at it.

Miami police reneged on their promise to give safe passage to 25 busloads of seniors who attempted to attend Thursday's AFL-CIO rally against the Free
trade Area of the Americas, the leader of a retired union workers group charged Tuesday.

More:

Civil rights groups complained Tuesday that police at last week's trade talks abused protesters - some senior citizens - by arresting them without cause and denying them restrooms, water and phones.

Meanwhile, the national steelworkers union called for a congressional investigation and the removal of Miami police Chief John Timoney over the treatment of its members during the protests, and several groups said they will ssue the city.

And this:

Small, peaceful demonstrations were attacked with extreme force; organisations were infiltrated by undercover officers who used stun guns; buses of union members were prevented from joining permitted marches; people were beaten with batons; activists had guns pointed at their heads at checkpoints.

Police violence outside trade summits is not new; what was striking about Miami was how divorced the security response was from anything resembling an
actual threat. From an activist perspective, the protests were small and obedient, an understandable response to weeks of police intimidation.

Amnesty International is also calling for an investigation .

Mother Jones provides Home Truths: There are 3.5 million homeless in America. At least 750,000 of them will spend Thanksgiving night on the street.

Via Drug War Rant: If you've got a tv in the kitchen, check out C-span today at 1:00 pm Eastern, for a "drug policy debate between William Bennett (moralizing drug warrior...) and Kurt Schmoke (former Mayor of Baltimore and drug policy reform advocate)."

Related: In Los Angeles this week, U.S. District Court Judge Howard Matz sentenced three men who distributed marijuana to the sick to probation and community service, departing downward from guidelines of 30 plus months. Matz praised the men's work and called the prosecution "badly misguided."

Update: Read Drug War Rant's Thanksgiving Day story--as Walter in Denver says, be thankful if nothing like this has happened to your family.

Patriot Watch discusses the erosion of the Posse Comitatus Act and explains why it's a bad idea.

Back in April Senator John Warner (R-VA), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee indicated he would like to revisit Posse Comitatus....The White House has also weighed in, "The threat of catastrophic terrorism requires a thorough review of the laws permitting the military to act within the United States in order to determine whether domestic preparedness and response efforts would benefit from greater involvement of military personnel and, if so, how."

Military analyst William Arkin criticized the erosion of the Act in an op-ed this week in the LA Times:

It's not that we're heading toward martial law. We're not. But outside the view of most of the public, the government is daily expanding military operations into areas of local government and law enforcement that historically have been off-limits. And it doesn't seem far-fetched to imagine that those charged with assembling "actionable intelligence" will slowly start combining databases of known terrorists with seemingly innocuous lists of contributors to charities or causes, that membership lists for activist organizations will be folded in, that names and personal data of anti-globalization protesters will be run through the "data mine." After all, the mission of Northern Command and other Pentagon agencies is to identify groups and individuals who could potentially pose threats to Defense Department and civilian installations.

Ret. General Tommy Franks weighed in this week as well:

Meanwhile, another military expert, ret. Gen. Tommy Franks, who ran the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, told Cigar Aficionado magazine of his concern that another major terrorist attack on the order of 9/11 could cause citizens to "question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid another mass casualty-producing event."

More excerpts from Franks' interview can be found here.

Patriot Watch will keep us all posted. Our views and explanation of the Act with some good reference links are set out here.

Could the Michael Jackson case get any wierder?

An executive with a Santa Monica charter jet company under investigation for secretly taping Michael Jackson has served for years as an FBI informant, sources said Wednesday. Though there is no evidence that authorities knew about XtraJet's surreptitious recordings of the pop star until after they were disclosed Monday, sources inside and outside law enforcement said company executive Jeffrey Borer worked as a bureau informant in Los Angeles.

In an interview late Wednesday, the 59-year-old Marina del Rey man denied ever serving as a government informant. The claim, he said, is "absolutely not true. I don't know where that came from.... If you print that, you'll get in big trouble," he said.

The company now denies it knew the hidden cameras were recording Jackson. Borer denies he's an informant. Where did the rumor come from? Possibly this?

Long before his name surfaced in the Jackson case, documents and interviews show, Borer has had brushes with the law. Most notably, federal records show, Borer was criminally prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office in 1988. Though the nature of the case could not be determined immediately, records also show that a Jeffrey M. Borer was listed as an inmate in the federal prison system and was released in 1991.

Borer declined to discuss his prison time other than to say, "It is a matter of public record." Asked about Borer's prison history, his attorney, Stone, said: "I believe he has served time in prison."

So, is he or isn't he?

We have another reason besides Thanksgiving for light blogging over the next several days....we got a cast on our right wrist today and we're right handed. It goes around the thumb and to below the elbow. (It's not broken, just severely stressed or something like that.) It's very difficult to hold a pen and it hurts to move it a lot. So, we're picking at the keyboard and trying not to use the mouse--as a result, it takes a very long time to make even one entry.

We'll also probably write shorter entries, with more links to news than analysis--and we may have to be like Skippy for a while and forego caps as they take more hand movement--but we're going to keep at it. Typing is a lot easier than peeling the sweet potatoes for tomorrow's thanksgiving dinner.

We wish everyone a great holiday.

The FBI is investigating the surreptitious taping of Michael Jackson and his lawyer aboard the rental plane that flew them to Santa Barbara for Jackson's surrender to authorities last week.

As federal authorities began investigating the taping incident aboard the charter jet, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Yaffe issued a restraining order prohibiting XtraJet, the airline Geragos said placed the cameras aboard the plane, from releasing the tapes until a hearing in December on a permanent injunction, according to a statement from Jackson spokesman Stuart Backerman.

Geragos has also filed a civil suit against the company. From Geragos' statement at a press conference yesterday:

"The videotaping of my client conferring with me was illegal and outrageous, as was the aircraft company's attempt to sell that tape for profit," Geragos said. "We will be absolutely relentless in our pursuit of any and all extortionists, regardless of how they try to gift wrap their lies in the cloak of justice. Michael is not going to be a piñata for every money-hungry publicity seeker to strike in the hopes of hitting it rich."

Cal Pen Code § 631 prohibits taping and disclosure of the communication unless both parties to the conversation consent. A Violation carries up to a year in the county jail and a fine. Federal law prohibits taping and disclosure of the communication unless one party consents. At least one media outlet reports viewing the video when the plane company tried to peddle it to them.

Other details emerging: Larry Feldman, the lawyer who represented Jackson's 1993 civil accuser, began representing the mother last March. It was Feldman's suggestion the boy see a therapist.

An attorney who a decade ago secured a settlement of at least $15 million for a 13-year-old boy who alleged that he was molested by the singer is involved in the current case, sources close to the investigation said.

Those sources said the mother of the boy that Jackson is alleged to have molested last winter approached Los Angeles attorney Larry Feldman in March after she became concerned that the singer had been giving wine to her cancer-stricken son, who had first asked to meet his idol.

At that point she was not aware of any alleged molestation, the source said. But as the boy told of his friendship with Jackson in bits and pieces, Feldman concluded that the boy needed to talk to a therapist, who in June reported alleged sexual abuse by Jackson to police, the source said.

We'll be discussing the case tonight on MSNBC's Abrams Report at 9 pm ET (repeats at 11 pm.)

Update: More details about the family of the accuser:

With the holiday just around the corner, lots of bloggers, ourselves included, will be posting light. Here are some good reads we've found:

Arthur of The Light of Reason is back blogging. We don't know if the LA transit strike ended, or Arthur got a car, or what, but we're glad he's back. We found out from Avedon Carol at Sideshow who has a great post on maher arar, conservative media and puritanical mores all wrapped into one.

Lisa English of Ruminate This is back with an insightful post about Medicare and the AARP.

Jay and Jane at the Daily Rant will be moving to www.classlesswarfare.com.

Pacific Views has a wrap at Tuesday Blogging.

Dave Neiwert of Orcinus explains why the political fight has become personal to him. What a superb writer he is.

We'll be back later today.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has placed one of his staffers on leave for accessing Democratic files.

"I was shocked to learn that this may have occurred," Hatch said in a statement. "I am mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."

The Pentagon agreed to withdraw the death penalty as an option for Australian David Hicks at his upcoming military tribunal trial. Other concessions were made as well.

U.S. and Australian officials announced yesterday that two Australians held at the jail will not face the death penalty if they are convicted before a U.S. tribunal or commission. The Pentagon agreed in July that two British prisoners at Guantanamo Bay who have been designated as possible defendants would not be executed if convicted.

Military officials said last night the concessions granted to the British and Australian detainees may not apply to other countries' citizens brought before the tribunals. But international lawyers said it would be difficult politically for Washington to execute other nations' citizens if it ruled out that possibility for these two allies' nationals.

Among the other concessions:

If Hicks is charged, he could talk by telephone with "appropriately cleared" family members, who also could attend the trial. Prosecutors will not bar him from the courtroom even during presentation of sensitive evidence. Military officials will not monitor conversations between him and his attorneys, and if convicted he could serve his sentence in Australia.