I'm just heading to bed, so I know lots of you early birds will be looking to express yourselves on a variety of topics before I get up. Here's some space for you to do just that. All topics welcomre.

Check out the new Artists for Innocence campaign launched by the Innocence Project.

The Innocence Project Artists’ Committee is a group of writers, directors, actors, visual artists and musicians who support the Innocence Project and are helping raise awareness about wrongful convictions.

Members of the Artists’ Committee lend their talent and voice to the Innocence Project’s vital work in a variety of ways. They help raise awareness and money to free innocent prisoners, they speak out about the need to prevent wrongful convictions, and they integrate these issues into their art.

Among the artists involved: John Singleton (Bobak Ha’eri), Amy Brenneman, John Grisham, Paris Barclay, Helen Mirren, Trent Reznor, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Stephen Colbert, Matthew Modine (David Shankbone), Nia Long, Zooey Deschanel, Bob Balaban (Lisa Ross), Morgan Spurlock (David Shankbone), Dave Eggers,and Nora Ephron

The British Press is awash in reports that Texas Billionaire Sir Allen Stanford, under investigation by the SEC, caught breaks in prior investigations due to his working for the DEA as a confidential informant into money laundering. More from the Independent and the BBC.

U.S. District Court Judge Sam Kent was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison today for obstructing justice in the investigation of sexual harassment claims against him. Prosecutors had asked for 36 months.

He was granted a voluntary surrender and will report to prison next month.

Kent has asked for early retirement and is still being paid his salary. His salary continues until he resigns or is impeached. He was on the bench for 18 years.

The U.S. soldier who opened fire at a counseling center at Camp Liberty in Baghdad today is in custody. He killed five people, presumably fellow soldiers.

As TChris and I wrote separately yesterday, the death penalty phase of a trial for another homicidal former Iraq soldier, Steven Green, begins today in Paducah, KY.

Roxana Sarberi has been freed in Iran and reunited with her parents. She can now return to the U.S.

It looks to me like efforts by the Obama Administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were successful. Iran reduced Sarberi's sentence to a suspended term:

The judiciary spokesman, Jamshidi, said the appeals court reduced her sentence as a gesture of "Islamic mercy" because she had cooperated with authorities and had expressed regret.

In comments to this post, I speculate that the Obama Administration's possible release of a 2004 CIA report on torture may be motivated by former Vice President Dick Cheney's insistence on release of more information on the subject and his assertions that President Obama's abandonment of torture has made the country less safe. Josh Marshall notes the irony that Cheney has become the de facto leading advocate for a torture investigation:

[W]ith his on-going round of aggressive public appearances [Cheney] not only seems to be inviting a public inquiry into Bush administration anti-constitutional practices . . . -- but actually inviting it -- in the sense that he really seems to be pushing for it to happen. In his interview this weekend he seemed to say that he'd be happy to testify under oath about his torture policies. And intentionally or not, he's the one moving the ball forward on the release of various classified documents detailing torture practices.

Beltway stalwarts Fred Hiatt and Stuart Taylor are on board already. What's the hold up?

Speaking for me only

In my discussion of Stuart Taylor's view (I intemperately accused Taylor of dishonesty and later apologised for my characterization) on the effectiveness of torture, I relied on published reports regarding a 2004 report by the CIA Inspector General to support my view that torture was ineffective. Via Greg Sargent, the Washington Post reports that the Obama Administration is considering releasing this 2004 report. If the report is accurate, this should be big news:

It's a shame that the press involves a "public trust." Otherwise, the Media could take its cues from American Idol:

Can a television show with a shrinking audience actually increase its revenue? In the case of “American Idol,” the answer is yes . . . Despite losing viewers in each of the last three years, “American Idol”. . . is generating ever-growing profits for its creators and, it appears, for Fox Broadcasting through brand extensions, marketing arrangements and licensing fees.

The New York Times could sell naming rights - The Federal Express NYTimes? Anyway, this is an Open Thread.

AP reported:

Government exams of the nation's biggest banks have helped lift a cloud of uncertainty that has hung over the economy. . . . "The publication of the stress tests simply cleared the air of uncertainty," said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics. "The results were not scary at all."

Happy to hear it. If that is the case, why in blazes do we need the Geithner Plan? It should be scrapped immediately and all government assistance, from TARP to government guarantees of bank debt should be scrapped as soon as possible, if not immediately.

Speaking for me only

There is one way, over the long haul, to guarantee the appointment of judges that are sensitive to issues of social justice, and that is to win the right to appoint them by recapturing the presidency and the Senate. - Barack Obama, 2005

Via DemfromCt, E.J. Dionne:

When George W. Bush was president, Senate Republicans now proposing to raise an ideological ruckus said Democrats were wrong to use judicial philosophy as a benchmark for confirming a nominee. If a president's picks were formally qualified and intelligent -- and both Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito were -- that should be enough, the Republicans said.

[MORE . . .]

You know how thrilled the Obama Administration is when that name gets said in the Media? I know Brian Williams loves Rush Limbaugh, but most of America does not. So Wanda Sykes has done Obama a great favor. I suppose conservatives will feel obliged to be "outraged" about it all, though I thought this was sort of half hearted:

TIME's Joe Klein: "comedy is by definition inappropriate. I mean, this is just comedy. And we're talking about a guy in Rush Limbaugh who is inappropriate half the time I hear him on the radio." "But he doesn't do it at a White House Correspondents' dinner." said [Amanda] Carpenter.

(Emphasis supplied.) Umm, so the problem was Sykes did it at the White House Correspondents Dinner, as opposed Limbaugh doing it on radio? Oookaaay Amanda.

Speaking for me only