Think Progress

JUSTICE -- FLASHBACK: OBAMA SAID HE WOULD LOOK FOR NEW JUSTICE WHO HAD 'EMPATHY', 'LIFE EXPERIENCE': Last night, NPR announced that Justice David Souter intends to step down from the Supreme Court, leaving an opening for President Obama to fill. In November 2007, when asked what kind of person he would look for in a potential Supreme Court nominee, Obama replied that he would look for someone who understands that "part of the role of the court is that it is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don't have a lot of clout." He added that he would look beyond judges to find others "who have life experience and they understand what it means to be on the outside." Earlier he had said he would seek someone "who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like" to be an outsider or a minority. At the time, he received widespread scorn from the right for such sentiments. "He believes in justices that have empathy," Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) scoffed last year, warning just three days after Obama's election "that he would filibuster U.S. Supreme Court appointments if those nominees were too liberal." Potential candidates for Obama's nomination include Elena Kagan, whom he recently named as Solicitor General, Sonia Sotomayor, a New York federal appeals judge, Diane Wood of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and former Dean of Stanford Law school Kathleen Sullivan.  

TORTURE -- ABU GHRAIB SOLDIERS SAY TORTURE MEMOS PROVE BUSH ADMINISTRATION MADE THEM SCAPEGOATS: When photos surfaced in 2004 from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showing the disturbing abuse of detainees, officials in the Bush administration scrambled to portray "Army Pvt. Charles A. Graner Jr. as the ringleader of a few low-ranking 'bad apples.'" The recent release of Justice Department memos detailing interrogation techniques, however, has caused Graner, who remains jailed at Fort Leavenworth, KS, and the other convicted soldiers to believe that the Bush administration sought to make them "scapegoats for policies approved at high levels." Policies such as the use of dogs, nudity, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and  "walling"-- a technique that resembles the evidence from Abu Ghraib of slamming hooded detainees against a wall -- were all outlined in the Justice Department memos. Indeed, last week the Senate Armed Services Committee declassified a version of its November 2008 report, "Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody," which concluded, "The abuses of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own." "Rumsfeld's December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. custody," the report said. As former Army Reserve general Janis L. Karpinski said, "Here, in living color, you have a photographic rendition of your memos. Is that what they wanted it to look like? Guess what, that is what it looks like." Currently, Graner is appealing his ten year sentence to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. 

ECONOMY -- BANKING LOBBY SUCCESSFULLY DEFEATS MORTGAGE CRAM-DOWN PROVISION: Yesterday, a proposal to change bankruptcy law and allow bankruptcy judges to cram-down (or rewrite) mortgage payments for troubled homeowners failed in the Senate by a vote of 45-51. The provision, which was introduced as an amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), required 60 votes to pass. In recent weeks, support for the measure evaporated in the face of furious lobbying by the banking and mortgage industries. Prior to the vote, Durbin -- who this week said that bankers "are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill" -- took to the Senate floor to decry the banking industry's influence in the cram-down debate. "At some point the senators in this chamber will decide the bankers shouldn't write the agenda for the United States Senate," said Durbin. "At some point the people in this chamber will decide the people we represent are not the folks working in the big banks, but the folks struggling to make a living and struggling to keep a decent home." Indeed, the Mortgage Bankers Association was "in a celebratory mood" at its annual meeting this week, because "a massive lobbying campaign" against cram-down bankruptcy provision appeared to be working.

Yesterday, detainee Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda, after having denied the charges for the six years while he was held in isolation in a naval brig off of South Carolina. His plea "reflects what we can achieve when we have faith in our criminal justice system," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

President Obama blamed "a small group of speculators" for forcing Chrysler into bankruptcy. "A group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout," Obama said yesterday.

SEIU has "asked CNN and Fox News to pull a health care commercial by the group Conservatives for Patients' Rights, describing it as 'unfit to air.'" The union argued that "the ad should be pulled for overstating the power of a newly established federal board on comparative effectiveness research and misrepresenting the views of the two featured physicians." FactCheck.org said that the ad was "misleading."

"The number of terrorist attacks around the world fell by 18 percent last year but rose dramatically in Pakistan, growing in frequency and lethality," according to a new State Department report on terrorism worldwide. Terror attacks also rose in Afghanistan while falling sharply in Iraq. Additionally, the number of suicide bombings declined worldwide, despite the increases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In a new report, the United Nations "is calling on Israel to freeze all pending demolition orders against Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem," a move that reflects "growing international concern over developments in the contested city." Israelis demolish Palestinian-owned structures claiming they lack permit, while Palestinians "say Israel limits construction to push them out of East Jerusalem."

The Obama administration "is determined to continue withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq on schedule, despite a surge of violence in two Iraqi cities that shows no signs of abating." "We are not even talking about" changing the withdrawal plan, an administration official said. "[T]here's little more that the United States can do to help the Iraqis end their political, ethnic and sectarian feuds." 

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Democratic senators the Obama administration would not be requesting more bank bailout funds any time soon. "I asked him if they'd need more TARP funding and he said, 'No time soon,'" said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND).

Yesterday, the House passed legislation "putting new reins on the credit card industry," which would prohibit "double-cycle billing and retroactive rate hikes and would prevent companies from giving credit cards to anyone under 18." The Senate is expected to consider the bill "as early as next week."

And finally: Queens can't just walk into the White House. Yesterday, Queen Noor of Jordan waited outside the White House's northwest gate to get clearance from Secret Service to enter. "The queen -- who presented a Jordanian passport to the Secret Service -- stood before the guard gate for several minutes spelling her name for the agents. 'It could be under Queen Noor,' she told the agent, spelling 'N-O-O-R.'"