Senate to Release Torture Report Today, Obama on Colbert Report, Are Vanity Plates Speech?: A.M. Links

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Large image on homepages | shriekingtree/Flickr
(shriekingtree/Flickr)
shriekingtree/Flickr
  • Parts of the hush-hush Senate Intelligence Committee report on Bush-era "enhanced interrogation tactics" are expected to be released this morning, and officials are promising nasty new details about CIA obfuscation and torture. 
  • Stephen Colbert hosted some real talk with President Obama on the Colbert Report Monday night, asking "Does that happen to every president, where you get into the office and you think 'oh, you know what, I might be the only one I trust with this much power so I'll hold onto it?'"
  • More than 150 demonstrators were arrested in Berkely, California, last night after storming Interstate 80 freeway in order to protest police brutality. Several journalists were injured by officers while covering the protests. Major protests were also seen Monday in cities from Brooklyn to Phoenix. 
  • The Supreme Court will hear a case on whether vanity licence plates are protected by the First Amendment.
  • Four Christian colleges and a group of Colorado nuns argued in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Monday that being excepted from Obamacare's birth control mandate is not enough because of the "morally problematic" forms they have to sign in order to opt out.
  • South Carolina Republicans yesterday introduced seven bills to restrict abortion access. While several of the bills contradict each other in terms of when exactly they would ban abortion, state Sen. Lee Bright, who filed five of them, told The Huffington Post he was waiting to "see which [bill] gets the most traction."
  • Michael Brown's federal autopsy report, conducted at the request of the Department of Justice and released yesterday, reached similar conclusions to autopsies performed by Ferguson officials and a private examiner. Transcripts of interviews with possible witnesses to Brown's shooting were also released.

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