I've been puzzling for some time over the question of why Bush is so intent on torturing people in the face of widespread knowledge that torture does not produce reliable intelligence. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that a person being tortured will tell his torturers anything that will get them to stop torturing him. And real evidence from real torture chambers confirms this common sense notion.

So I read Paul Krugman's recent column, "King of Pain," with great interest (article behind the Times Select paywall). His take is not one I had considered.

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi said yesterday that the Palestinian territories are on the verge of total collapse. Ashrawi is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council as a member of the Third Way party.

Speaking to a mixed group of Americans of both Arab and Jewish backgrounds at a private home in Philadelphia, Ashrawi said that the unemployment level in the territories has climbed to 75% and that conditions in the territories have deteriorated to an unprecedented level. She said the situation for residents of the West Bank and Gaza has never been so grim.

Lawrence Wilkerson has a terrific op-ed piece in today's Baltimore Sun in which he argues that the neo-cons are transforming America into a radical republic.

He begins:

We Americans came not from a revolution but from an evolution.

That is in large part why our so-called revolution produced success while most throughout history did not. We came as much from the Magna Carta as from our own doings, as much from British common law and parliamentary development as from the Declaration of Independence and Continental Congress.

Wilkerson puts some important historical context around the radicalism of the neo-cons.

Lois Murphy could use some Kossack support right now.

From now until Saturday, Democracy for America is holding an online vote to determine which Congressional candidate will be the first one DFA endorses for the 2006 campaign cycle. All of the ten candidates in the final list are good Democrats that we should support in whatever way we can. I voted for Lois in the DFA poll for reasons explained below and I hope you will, too.

Lois is the Democrat who almost defeated Jim Gerlach, an entrenched disciple of Karl Rove, last year in the closest Congressional race in the nation. Despite starting out with almost no name recognition, Lois came within 6400 votes (49% to 51%) of defeating the incumbent. She jumped into the 2006 race early this year determined to finish what she started in 2004: retiring Tom Delay's lap dog, Jim Gerlach. The race is considered a toss-up this year because Lois is running again.

Jim Gerlach must be worried about Lois Murphy, the Democrat who came within a whisker of unseating him last year and is running against him again in 2006.

Gerlach insists that a fundraiser headlining Karl Rove will go on as planned on Tuesday, despite calls from his district to avoid the unseemliness of rubbing elbows with the man who revealed classified state secrets for the purpose of ruining the career of the wife of an administration critic, according to a story by Mary Ann Akers which appeared in Roll Call (subscription) last Thursday.

"We've actually gotten more RSVPs in the last couple of days because of Rove being in the paper," says Michael Gula of Keelen Communications, the firm handling the fundraiser for Gerlach. "We're getting a lot of free press."

Rove wants to keep Gerlach in Congress because Gerlach is one of the core residents of Tom DeLay's House of Scandal. Gerlach has received almost $30,000 directly from DeLay's scandal money, so his unwavering loyalty to DeLay (and Rove and Bush, of course) is rock solid. Gerlach has also given $2,000 to DeLay's legal defense fund.

More below the fold.

Here's a draft of the letter I'm going to send (via fax and website web form) to my senator tomorrow.

I'd be most interested in hearing comments about how to make it stronger.

Should you feel so inclined, feel free to lift whatever parts of it you want for letters to your own senators, especially those moderate Republicans who may vote to retain the filibuster.