US tones down praise for Musharraf
WASHINGTON – Just months ago, the United States publicly championed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as an “indispensable” ally.

U.S. ordered to name Canadian’s interrogators
An Army judge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has ordered the Pentagon to do more to help lawyers for Canadian detainee Omar Khadr build a defense case and delayed his trial on charges of killing a U.S. soldiers during a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002 — when he was 15 years old. Army Col. Peter Brownback ordered prosecutors on Friday to give Khadr’s lawyers the names of all American personnel who had interrogated Khadr after his capture as well as access to their handwritten notes, made both in Afghanistan and at the prison camp here.

CIA sends new detainee to Guantanamo
Another alleged senior al Qaeda captive held secretly by the CIA has been transferred to this remote Navy base, the military said Friday. The arrival of Mohammud Rahim al Afghani, labeled a ”tough, seasoned jihadist” by CIA director Gen. Mike V. Hayden, raises to 16 the number of ”high-value detainees” in U.S. custody.

Mukasey Tells Joke About Sadists and the Legal Decisions They Make (by Jonathan Turley)
With torture and detainees, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has never been viewed as much of a whoopee cushion. However, while speaking at the London School of Economics, Mukasey seemed to tell give a humorous example that seemed to put the Bush administration in the role of the sadist speaking to the al Qaeda masochist. The whole point of the Mukasey statement was to explain that he really didn’t want to execute these individuals. However, he would never oppose execution based on the fact that they have been denied international or domestic rights of due process. Nor because they were tortured or denied access to witnesses and evidence. It is only because they would want death and we don’t want to make them happy.

Pentagon reports increase in harassment
One-third of women in the military and 6 percent of men said they were sexually harassed, according to the latest Pentagon survey on the issue. The figure for women was worse than the previous finding several years ago but better than a similar survey taken in 1995, the Defense Department said in a report Friday.

Dems: Congress must OK troop commitments
Reps. William Delahunt (D-Mass.) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) announced legislation Thursday to prohibit the use of federal funds to implement a long-term diplomatic and security agreement the Bush administration plans to strike with the government of Iraq. The two say that any pact committing U.S. forces to fight on behalf of the Iraqi government must be approved by Congress. But the White House says such concerns are much ado about nothing. At a briefing for reporters last week, a senior administration official said that the controversy stems largely from a sloppy Arabic-to-English translation of words in the Declaration of Principles that is to serve as the basis for negotiating the new agreement.
Just a translation problem?  Why didn’t they bring that up WEEKS ago?

House OKs Democratic surveillance bill
WASHINGTON – The House has passed by a narrow margin a Democratic surveillance bill that President Bush has vowed to veto if it reaches his desk.

Rep. Steve King Cites Contractor Immunity As Argument For Why Telecom Immunity Would Be A Success (Think Progress)
[Friday], the House passed an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that provides no “retroactive immunity for telecom companies but allows the courts to determine whether lawsuits should proceed.” During a House debate on the bill before the vote, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) argued that the telecom companies should receive the retroactive immunity. As an example of why this solution would work well, he pointed to the existing immunity for contractors… It’s unclear exactly which contractors King is referring to. Across the board, however, contractor immunity has done little other than shield corporations from gross negligence.
Click through to watch the video.

House seeks debt limit increase to $10.2 trillion
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government’s debt limit would be raised to $10.2 trillion under a budget plan for next year approved by the U.S. House of Representatives… Large annual deficits have caused the federal debt to climb steeply since President George W. Bush took office, rising from $5.6 trillion in January, 2001, to $9.3 trillion on Wednesday.

GAO Says F-35 Costs to Hit $1 Trillion
WASHINGTON – The cost of buying and operating a new fleet of jet fighters for the U.S. military is nearing $1 trillion, according to a congressional audit that found the program dogged by delays, manufacturing inefficiencies and price increases.

Don’t Let Consumers Speak (by Elizabeth Warren, writing at TPM Café)
What if you held a hearing, but the people who were most directly affected by the proposals were barred from speaking? That’s what happened [Thursday]. The Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions of the House Committee on Financial Services held hearings on credit cards… The people who had been invited to testify had flown in from around the country with their credit card bills in hand, only to learn that they couldn’t talk unless they would sign a waiver that would permit the credit card companies to make public anything they wanted to tell about their financial records, their credit histories, their purchases, and so on. The Republicans and Democrats had worked out a deal “to be fair to the credit card lenders.” These people couldn’t say anything unless they were willing to let the credit card companies strip them naked in public.

Democratic rivals agree to play nicer
WASHINGTON – On this presidential rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton can agree: They sometimes disagree with their trash-talking supporters and will try to cool it.

Michigan Agrees on Re-Vote, Florida Not Settled
Negotiators in Michigan “settled today on a state-run primary, most likely to be held June 3,” according to the Detroit Free Press. Sen. Hillary Clinton “is said to be onboard with the idea of the full primary. Less certain, however, is whether the Democratic frontrunner, Barack Obama, will agree to the plan.” Meanwhile, in Florida, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) “began floating the idea Friday of seating half the state’s 186 pledged delegates at the party’s national convention,” the Orlando Sentinel reported. “The Nelson plan still gives Clinton the edge, based on her 17 percentage-point win in January. But instead of gaining 38 delegates, Clinton’s victory margin in Florida would be reduced to 19.”

Richard Scruggs pleads guilty in Mississippi bribery case
Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, the legendary trial lawyer who made Big Business tremble every time he set foot in court, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring to bribe a Mississippi judge — a case that will send him to prison and could spell the end of his storied legal career. Prosecutors are asking for five years behind bars for the 61-year-old Scruggs, a multimillionaire who combined a shrewd legal mind and the aw-shucks charm of a Southern country lawyer to extract billion-dollar settlements from the tobacco and asbestos industries, among others. The giant of the plaintiffs’ bar could lose his license to practice law. Scruggs and co-defendant Sidney Backstrom both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States for conspiring to bribe a Mississippi judge for a favorable ruling in a legal-fees dispute from a Hurricane Katrina insurance lawsuit.