The ACLU hits the highlights of the Inspector General's unclassified report (pdf) on the Bush administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program.

• The White House asked the CIA to prepare independent “threat assessments” to determine whether the surveillance program was necessary, but then told the CIA to add a paragraph to the end of each threat assessment stating that terrorists possessed the intent and capability to stage terrorist attacks within the United States (p. 7);

• Many officials, agents and analysts believe that “most PSP (Presidential Surveillance Program) leads were determined not to have any connection to terrorism,” and that “the mere possibility of the leads producing useful information” justified the program (p. 32), directly contradicting previous statements that the program was critical;

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As a follow-up yesterday's post on the Newsweek article suggesting Attorney General Eric Holder may conduct an investigation of Bush torture policies, I'd like to point you to Glenn Greenwald today. He points out that the sources floating this trial balloon also indicate:

[T]he investigation will only target "rogue" CIA interrogators who exceeded the limits of what John Yoo authorized, and would not include high-level policy makers who authorized the torture tactics and implemented America's torture regime.

In other words, as Greenwald writes, it would be Abu Ghraib redux. Tim F. at Balloon Juice makes a similar point.

Frank Rich has an interesting, but ultimately shortsighted and wrongfully aimed column today:

Sarah Palin and Al Sharpton don’t ordinarily have much in common, but they achieved a rare harmonic convergence at Michael Jackson’s memorial service. . . . Sharpton told the singer’s children it was their daddy’s adversaries, not their daddy, who were “strange,” he was channeling the pugnacious argument the Alaska governor had made the week before. . . . Sharpton’s bashing of Jackson’s naysayers received the biggest ovation of the entire show. . . . Th[e] overwhelming majority [of the GOP] isn’t just the “base” of the Republican Party that liberals and conservatives alike tend to ghettoize as a rump backwater minority. It is the party, or pretty much what remains of it in the Barack Obama era.

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It's dinnertime here and we're under another severe thunderstorm watch. Do I take a chance on barbecuing steaks or order in? Saigon soft shell crabs sound pretty good.

What are you all doing tonight?

The New York Times reports on a covert program planned by the CIA that Dick Cheney ordered be kept secret.

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

....Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

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Newsweek has a long feature article on Attorney General Eric Holder.

Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter.

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How's your weekend shaping up? I have work to do.

This is an Open Thread.

The Washington Post reports on the release of the Unclassified Inspector General report on warrantless wiretapping (and other forms of electronic surveillance). [The unclassified report is here.(pdf)]

Today's report, prepared by five inspectors general from government intelligence agencies, was mandated by Congress in legislation last year that updated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to accommodate new technologies. The bulk of the review remains highly classified.

...The inspectors general from the Departments of Justice and Defense, as well as the CIA, the NSA and the office of the Director of National Intelligence, said they reviewed thousands of documents and interviewed more than 200 people in connection with the report, including Bush era officials John Negroponte, who served as director of national intelligence, National Security Agency Director Michael V. Hayden, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

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Last week I wrote about Kristin Diane Parker, a lab tech in Colorado who may have infected up to 5,700 with the Hepatitis C virus. Parker confessed to police that she stole syringes filled with the pain-killer Fentanyl from the OR, shot herself up, put saline in the used syringes and replaced them on the rack in the OR. After getting fired, she admitted she went to work in Colorado Springs where she did the same thing.

Parker was denied bail yesterday. Her parents were in court and offered to have her live with them. But, the Magistrate said, she was living with them when she diverted drugs. He said she was a danger to the community. And did not believe her or her lawyer who tried to say she didn't know she carried the virus. A nurse said she knew.

I think there probably were conditions that would have reasonably assured the safety of the community and her appearance at further proceedings -- like bail conditioned upon her admission to an in-patient drug treatment program.

And while it doesn't bear on bond, my sympathies lie with the patients in the OR who needed pain medication and might have gotten saline instead. [More..]

You'll read stories like this and blog posts like this bemoaning this or that Blue Dog House rep or weak kneed Democratic Senator, but this is all beside the point.

President Barack Obama has it in his hands to say what health care reform will look like. Who are these Democrats in Congress who will stand up against him? There are not enough of them to stop the legislation he wants regarding health care reform.

It's fun to decry the irrational fetish for bipartisanszhip and to name folks Wankers of the Day, but make no mistake - health care reform is on President Obama. He gets the blame or credit.

Speakng for me only

Stage 7 of the Tour de France is going on today, ending at the summit of Arcalis in the Pyrenees. You can watch online here. UPDATE - Contador proves he is the man of this Tour, even though he is not yet wearing the yellow jersey. He sprints away from Armstrong and all the other main contenders at the summit. With 2 more days in the Pyrenees, Contador will likely be the Maillot Jaune in the next days and at the end of the Tour.

In other news, the NYTimes endorses the BTD Plan (snark) for the Honduran crisis.

This is an Open Thread.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, asked whether criticisms of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's intelligence and attitude are gender-based, gave this spot-on answer:

I can’t say that it was just that she was a woman. There are some people in Congress who would criticize severely anyone President Obama nominated. They’ll seize on any handle. One is that she’s a woman, another is that she made the remark about Latina women. [In 2001 Sotomayor said: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”] And I thought it was ridiculous for them to make a big deal out of that. Think of how many times you’ve said something that you didn’t get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could. I’m sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I’m a woman, that’s part of it, that I’m Jewish, that’s part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me.

The importance of judicial diversity is exactly the point conservatives refuse to acknowledge when they contend that only conservative judges (who not coincidentally are overwhelmingly white males) "follow the law." [more ...]