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" The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles "
© 1965 Bob Dylan

Sunday :: April 11, 2004

Military Families May Decide Election

by TChris

In time of war, the President might expect to count military families in his base of support. As the war in Iraq continues to produce senseless deaths, with rumblings that more troops are needed and with no clear plan to withdraw, President Bush's support among military families is starting to erode. Families are questioning why the President is placing their spouses and children in harm's way.

[I]t was clear at Fort Campbell, based on more than three dozen interviews here this week, that the Republican Party will have to work harder this year to keep the votes of military families, a group who at other times could be counted as Republican stalwarts.

Polls of the military are few and tend to be unreliable since pollsters have only limited access to military bases, and many military personnel are scattered overseas. A recent Washington Post/CBS Poll found that military personnel were still 2-to-1 Republican, but a CBS News survey found that 40 to 48 percent of people from "military families" would vote for Senator John Kerry, said Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University who studies military-civilian relations.

As military families become less convinced that the President's war policy serves the nation's interests, "the large number of military personnel in swing states like West Virginia, Florida and New Mexico means that small shifts in military voting could prove decisive in the national election."

10:28 AM | Archived Link | Comments (6) | Trackback (0)

Reporting on Jurors and Their Deliberations

by TChris

We depend on the media to uncover hidden wrongdoing in government. To what extent should the media seek to uncover the mysterious workings of jury deliberations?

The question arises after reporters visited the Manhattan apartment building of Juror No. 4 in the Tyco trial. (Background on the trial, which ended in a mistrial after twelve days of jury deliberations, and the role played by Juror No. 4 can be found in TalkLeft posts here and here.)
Based on interviews, the NY Times reported that Juror No. 4 was a "standoffish" resident who only spoke to staff when she was giving them orders but never bothered to tip them at Christmas. The Times later confessed that, "contrary to previous reports," the juror does tip her doorman.

The Times' internal critic characterizes the coverage as accusing the juror of being "remote, cheap and stubborn." He's also disturbed "that The Times is willing to publish negative comments, made by unidentified individuals, about someone who does not have the opportunity to reply."

Taking similar shots at public officials might seem unfair, but those elected or appointed to a government office know what they're getting into and have a forum from which to fight back. Jurors are pressed into service, often unwillingly, as a public duty. They don't deserve to have their private lives made public. Interviews like those published by The Times can only dissuade citizens from serving on juries, impeding the ability of courts to give people a fair trial with a truly representative jury.

MORE...
10:10 AM | Archived Link | Comments (1) | Trackback (0)

Ashcroft to Take 9/11 Hot Seat

This week's 9/11 Commission hearings will feature John Ashcroft. He's expected to be asked some tough questions, particularly because he cut the FBI's requested counterterrorism budget before Sept. 11.

Last week, Sept. 11 commission member Jamie Gorelick asserted that there had been no evidence of heightened anti-terrorism efforts in Ashcroft's office after the president received a classified memo from the CIA on Aug. 6, 2001, entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." In an earlier session, commission member Richard Ben-Veniste remarked, "Ironically, on September 10th, 2001, Attorney General Ashcroft axed $58 million from the FBI's counterterrorism budget."

Janet Reno and FBI Director Robert Mueller will also testify. The main question, according to Zoe Baird, is:

How are we going to use our law enforcement and intelligence capabilities to tell us what terrorists are going to do and when they are going to it? It is the key to protecting the nation."

We hope the answer isn't going to be to create a new domestic CIA-type agency, like Britain's MI-5:

The left-leaning Center for National Security Studies in Washington is among the civil liberties advocacy groups fearful of a domestic spy agency. "We do not think it will be possible to construct rules that force such an agency to focus on the truly dangerous individuals who may be in the United States and not use their resources to put vast numbers of innocent Americans at risk," said Kate Martin, director of the center.

12:07 AM | Archived Link | Comments (9) | Trackback (0)

Vietnam Executes Woman for Drug Dealing

A 48 year old woman was blindfolded, tied to a stake and executed by firing squad in Vietnam:

She was condemned to death after being caught trafficking 337-grammes of heroin from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in 1998. Under Vietnamese law, anyone found in possession of 300 grams or more of heroin, or at least 10-kilograms of opium, faces the death penalty. At least 28 people have been handed the death penalty this year in Vietnam, while 19 people have been executed.

12:04 AM | Archived Link | Comments (12) | Trackback (1)

Saturday :: April 10, 2004

Condi Never Looked So Good

Janet Jackson, playing Condi Rice, on Saturday Night Live, now.

Update: As Emily Litella would have said, never mind, we're told in the comments in was Maya Rudolph, not Janet playing Condi. Great skit.

Update: Our commenter was wrong and we were right. Pontificator finds this article with picture from the AP showing it was Janet Jackson in the intro skit with Dick Cheney, as we originally posted.

Best comment so far, from Cincy Demo: "Thanks to TalkLeft for demonstrating the unreliable nature of eyewitness identification."

10:39 PM | Archived Link | Comments (13) | Trackback (0)

Poll: Bush Underestimated Terrorism Threat

A new Newsweek poll shows:

Six out of 10 Americans say the Bush administration underestimated the threat of terrorism prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and nearly two out of three are at least somewhat concerned Iraq could become another Vietnam, according to a Newsweek Poll released on Saturday.

The poll of 1,005 adults taken on Thursday and Friday also showed a 51 percent disapproval rating for President Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq, where violence has flared up in the last week amid calls by Muslim clerics for an uprising against the U.S.-led occupation.

08:40 PM | Archived Link | Comments (8) | Trackback (1)

Newsweek Poll Gives Kerry 7 Point Lead

by TChris

It's too early for a poll to predict what voters will do in November, but when the trends point toward ousting the President, polls are fun to watch.

After weeks of increasingly violent news from Iraq, presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts now leads the president in a two-way trial heat by seven points (50 percent to 43 percent), according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll.

08:35 PM | Archived Link | Comments (8) | Trackback (0)

Ralph Nader on War and the Draft

Maxspeak says he's not voting for Ralph Nader, but he likes this memo Nader just sent out on the war and the draft. When we last bashed the draft, Max disagreed with us a bit. (Our post that he refers to has moved here.) Now, Max says, he's "four-square agin' any draft." As to Bush and Kerry:

Kerry seems to be channeling Hubert Humphrey, circa 1968. Send in more troops and do the job "right." I was in SDS and helped to "dump the Hump," resulting in Richard Nixon. That did not turn out well. Neither would Dubya, the Sequel.....Short-term, I'd say support your local peace movement, sticking to a resolute "get the hell out now" stance and communicate your views to your elected representatives.

Now here's Ralph's message to American Students:

The War, the Draft and Your Future

"
We have been down this road before.

U.S. troops sent to war half a world away. American foreign policy controlled by an arrogant elite, bent on projecting military power around the globe. A public misled into supporting an unconstitutional war founded on deceit and fabrications. As the death toll mounts, we hear claims that the war is nearly won, that victory is just around the corner. But victory never arrives.

As the public loses confidence in the government, the government questions the patriotism of any who express doubt about the war. When a presidential election arrives, both the Democrat and Republican nominees embrace the policy of continued war. The military draft comes to dominate the lives of America's young, and vast numbers who believe the war to be a senseless blunder are faced with fighting a war they do not believe in, or facing exile or prison. The year was 1968. Because voters had no choice that November, the Vietnam War continued for another six years. Hundreds of thousands of Americans like you died, were maimed, or suffered from diseases like malaria. A far greater number of Vietnamese died.

Today, the war is in the quicksands and alleys of Iraq. Once again, under the pressure of a determined resistance, we see an American war policy being slowly torn apart at the seams, while the candidates urge us to "stay the course" in this tragic misadventure. Today's Presidential candidates are not Nixon and Humphrey, they are now Bush and Kerry.

Once again, there is one overriding truth: If war is the only choice in this election, then war we will have. Today enlistments in the Reserves and National Guard are declining. The Pentagon is quietly recruiting new members to fill local draft boards, as the machinery for drafting a new generation of young Americans is being quietly put into place.

Young Americans need to know that a train is coming, and it could run over their generation in the same way that the Vietnam War devastated the lives of those who came of age in the sixties.

I am running for President, and have been against this war from the beginning. We must not waste lives in order to control and waste more oil. Stand with us and we may yet salvage your future and Americas' future from this looming disaster.

"

We're not voting for Nader either, but we sure do agree with him about the war and we share his concern that our kids will see a draft train before they see a peace train.

06:32 PM | Archived Link | Comments (13) | Trackback (1)

What Bush Knew and When He Knew It

By TChris

As TalkLeft noted yesterday, most Americans think the Bush administration is hiding information about its knowledge of terrorist threats prior to 9/11. It seems those suspicions are well founded.

The daily intelligence briefing delivered to U.S. President George W. Bush a month before the September 11 attacks warns of various scenarios of al Qaeda's intentions to strike inside the United States, sources confirm to CNN.

Condoleezza Rice testified that the briefing contained only historical information, not a warning of future attacks (notwithstanding its title: "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the US.") But that's not quite true. One highlight of the briefing:

An intelligence report received in May 2001 indicating al Qaeda was attempting to send operatives to the United States through Canada to carry out an attack using explosives.

That sounds a bit like a warning of a future attack. In any event, the briefing's historical information would have given a sharp-minded President fair warning that his administration needed to give bin Laden a high priority.

The classified briefing delivered to President Bush five weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks featured information about ongoing al Qaeda activities within the United States, including signs of a terror support network, indications of hijacking preparations and plans for domestic attacks using explosives ...

Update: Here is the declassified text of the briefing.

06:01 PM | Archived Link | Comments (33) | Trackback (2)

Bush and the Military Vote

The New York Times says military families are beginning to question their support for President Bush, and it could be a factor in the 2004 election. One military wife says:

So a lot of military wives are now asking: `Why? Why did we go to Iraq?' The administration talked a strong story, but a lot of us are kicking our butts about how we voted last time around. Now we're leaning the other way."

The article continues:

As the conflict in Iraq deepens beyond some prior predictions, the military voting block could become a serious domestic casualty for the Bush administration....it was clear at Fort Campbell, based on more than three dozen interviews here this week, that the Republican Party will have to work harder this year to keep the votes of military families, a group who at other times could be counted as Republican stalwarts.

05:38 PM | Archived Link | Comments (3) | Trackback (0)

Bush Releases Pre-9/11 Memo

President Bush has released the now famous August 6, 2001 memo relating to Osama's plan to attack the U.S.

.... the document said the FBI had detected "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

The Post says the memo could be viewed as contradicting Condi Rice:

"The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers Bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or Bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives," the document said.

Update: Here's the text of the actual document (pdf). Here it is in html. [hat tip Poppy]

05:05 PM | Archived Link | Comments (5) | Trackback (0)

More Hostages Taken in Iraq

Bump and Update: The militants are now threatening to kill and mutilate the American hostage, Thomas Hamill, if their terms aren't met within 12 hours.

"Our only demand is to remove the siege from the city of mosques," a spokesman said in a tape given to the Al-Jazeera television network. "If you don't respond within 12 hours ... he will be treated worse than those who were killed and burned in Fallujah."

Update: The Japanese hostages may be released within 24 hours.

***********
Original Post

The militant group named Ahmed Yassin brigades now claims to have 30 hostages in Iraq. They are demanding the U.S. withdraw its forces from Iraq in return for release of the hostages. The group claims to have one American and one Canadian. Canada has no forces in Iraq.

On a related note, Colorado lost a much beloved member of the Winter Park ski community Thursday with the death of Michael Bloss in Iraq.

Bloss, an instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, died in a firefight Thursday in Iraq, where the former soldier in British special services had traveled to provide security to private contractors. Back in Wales, Peter Bloss told the BBC that his son must have jumped at the opportunity to provide security in Iraq after his military experience. "As I was originally told, he was escorting these electrical workers who were working on redoing some cables or whatever, and they were attacked by a group of Iraqis," the father said. "And Michael got them to safety and then was shot dead. He spent two years in Northern Ireland during the real troubles and didn't have a scratch, and this happens now in Iraq."

MORE...
02:04 PM | Archived Link | Comments (10) | Trackback (0)

Photos from Fallujah

Portland Indy Media has photos of the fighting in Fallujah obtained from Al Jazeera. Not for the faint of heart. Link via Skippy.

11:44 AM | Archived Link | Comments (14) | Trackback (0)

History of U.S. Troops in Fallujah

In June, 2003, Human Rights Watch released this report (pdf) of its investigation into violent acts involving U.S. troops in Fallujah:

This report documents these first two violent incidents of April 28 and 30, the facts of which continue to be deeply contested by both sides. The conclusions of Human Rights Watch’s investigation challenge some of the assertions made by the U.S. military....The report also highlights some of the difficulties of putting a powerful combat force in a law enforcement role....Human Rights Watch’s findings of excessive use of force by U.S. troops point to the need for a full, independent and impartial investigation of the al-Falluja incidents by U.S. authorities. Such an investigation should aim to determine the full circumstances that led to the killing of as many as twenty Iraqi civilians in these two incidents, and to hold accountable anyone found to have violated international humanitarian law.

Here's some background on Fallujah:

MORE...
11:33 AM | Archived Link | Comments (3) | Trackback (0)

Blogiversary

Happy First Blogiversary to Whiskey Bar - and don't miss Billmon's latest analysis of Iraq, Countdown to Failure.

I suppose it's a natural human response: eye for any eye, atrocity for atrocity. But I still find it amazing that the progressive collapse of every single justification offered for this war -- the nonexistent WMDs, Saddam's mythical connection to Al Qaeda, the craving of the Iraqi people for Western-style bourgeois democracy and Big Macs -- has had so little effect on the willingness of the American people to keep fighting it.

....the events of the past week have probably doomed whatever slender chance existed for stabilizing Iraq in the post-June 30 period. It looks like the Coalition is on a countdown to political failure. And political failure will eventually mean military failure as well, since it's hard to see how public support for an indefinite occupation can be maintained indefinitely. ...The only remaining question, it seems, is how much more blood will have to be spilled -- in Iraq, and maybe in America as well -- before the price of that failure has been paid in full.

09:58 AM | Archived Link | Comments (1) | Trackback (0)

Condi Contradicted

The New York Times reports Saturday that Bush was briefed at his ranch in August, 2001 about a planned Osama attack in the U.S. :

President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday. The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in Crawford.

The disclosure appears to contradict the White House's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the Qaeda threat was "historical" in nature and that the White House had little reason to suspect a Qaeda attack within American borders.

Update: Rittenhouse Review has a wrap-up of editorial reviews on Condi's testimony.

12:13 AM | Archived Link | Comments (31) | Trackback (0)

Chaos in Baghdad

It's not just Fallujah. The early Saturday AP headline is Baghdad Turns to Chaos:

Gunmen running rampant on Baghdad's western edge attacked a fuel convoy, killing a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi driver and causing a fiery explosion that sent up a pall of black smoke. A Baghdad correspondent for Al-Jazeera Arab television said that at least nine people had been killed. Another U.S. soldier was killed in an attack on a base elsewhere in the capital, and large groups of insurgents fought U.S. soldiers in two cities to the north, Baqouba and Muqdadiyah.

This week's toll so far: 46 U.S. soldiers killed. 460 Iraqis killed, 280 in Fallujah.

12:05 AM | Archived Link | Comments (18) | Trackback (0)

Friday :: April 09, 2004

Judging the Iraq Pundits

The Guardian judges the right-wing Iraq pundits. Christopher Hitchens is but one:

He taunted the anti-war marchers and "half the newspaper columnists in England" for their forecasts of doom, confidently claiming that all was well in liberated Baghdad, which had not "become a Stalingrad, with house-to-house resistance". The Arab streets had not risen, "to spit in the face of Zionism and imperialism". He thrilled to the news that the US and its allies had made "a clean sweep of Arab de-Stalinisation".

Anti-war demonstrators who claimed that "there would be heaps and heaps of slaughtered Iraqi civilians, and massive casualties among coalition troops" had been wrong. "Soon it will become evident to the naked eye that the city is substantially undamaged. It will also become obvious that its inhabitants waited patiently through what must have been very stressful days and nights, trusting and being able to tell that the targeting was careful and the intentions honourable."

The moral of the story: "Journalism and propoganda should be separate."

[link via Sean Paul at Agonist who is doing a great job of reporting current events in Iraq despite the paucity of official news reports.]

08:06 PM | Archived Link | Comments (10) | Trackback (0)

Condi Gets Low Grade From Her Former Professor

Diane Carman of the Denver Post interviewed Condoleezza Rice's former professor , Arthur N. Gilbert, at the University of Denver International Studies Program. Interestingly, the former Director of the Program was Josef Korbel, the father of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In fact, Korbel was the reason Rice changed her major from music to international studies.

Professor Gilbert has some flattering things to say about Condi personally, but is harshly critical of her stance on Iraq.

Gilbert is puzzled by what has become of this bright, diligent student...he believes she has failed to heed the lessons of the past. To a historian, this is unconscionable. When the Bush administration exploited the nation's anxiety over 9/11 to justify invading Iraq, Gilbert said, "it was the worst foreign policy decision made in living memory. "It worries me that with all this focus on 9/11, it's taking the grave situation in Iraq off the front page," he said, referring to the hearings. "Iraq is a catastrophe beyond measure."

The fact that Rice is capable of defending the decision to go to war is a "terrible failure of education, of picking up what your education should have led you to."....Whether Rice shared the neoconservatives' obsession with Iraq or was just being a "good soldier," Gilbert said, Iraq will be her disastrous legacy. "It was such a horrendous mistake, knowing what she should have known.... He shakes his head. Rice should have known better than to send our troops to Iraq, he said.

07:22 PM | Archived Link | Comments (20) | Trackback (0)

Video of Rush Limbaugh Hearing Online

For anyone interested in watching this week's oral argument in the Rush Limbaugh case concerning the privacy of his medical records, you can watch it online here at his lawyer Roy Black's website. The firm has a page devoted to Rush, with transcripts, news articles and press releases and court filings.

It's great not to be under a gag order. We think these types of webpages soon will be de rigeur in high profile cases.

06:44 PM | Archived Link | Comments (3) | Trackback (0)

Enron Ex-CEO Hospitalized Over Paranoia-Like Episode

Enron's former CEO Jeffrey Skilling was taken by NY police to a hospital at 4 a.m.

Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was taken to a hospital early Friday after several people called police saying he was pulling on their clothes and accusing them of being FBI agents, a police source told The Associated Press. Police found Skilling at 4 a.m. at the corner of Park Avenue and East 73rd Street and determined he might be an "emotionally disturbed person," said the source, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity.Police did not charge Skilling with a crime. They took him to New York Presbyterian Hospital for observation. Hospital officials did not immediately return calls for comment.

Skilling was at two bars in Manhattan - American Trash and The Voodoo Lounge - where he allegedly ran up to patrons and pulled open their clothes, the source said. "He was shouting at them 'You're an FBI agent and you're following me,'" the source said. Skilling allegedly did the same thing to people on the street, the source added. He was with his wife at the time. Skilling was described as being intoxicated and highly uncooperative when he was approached by police, the source said.

Skilling is on bail awaiting trial on charges of insider trading and fraud-related crimes.

06:12 PM | Archived Link | Comments (10) | Trackback (0)

Jayson Williams Seeks Dismissal

by TChris

Contending that the prosecution withheld key evidence, lawyers for former NBA player Jason Williams, on trial for manslaughter, want the judge to dismiss the charge. The defense also wants the judge to rule that Williams can't be tried again. Prior commentary about Williams' case is here.

On the last day of testimony in Williams' two month long trial, the prosecutor acknowledged that he had not provided the defense with photographs and notes created by the prosecution's expert witness while examining the gun Williams fired. Shortly before a prosecution expert gave rebuttal testimony, the defense learned for the first time that the expert had disassembled the gun to examine it. Whether the gun might have misfired is critical to Williams' defense, and the disassembly might have altered the weapon's condition, rendering subsequent examinations useless. The defense also contends that the examination occurred in secret, in volation of an agreement that defense experts would be present whenever the gun was tested.

The prosecutor is willing to reopen the evidence, but the defense says the prosecution deliberately withheld the information. They want the judge to dismiss the case without the possibility of retrial. The judge will hear argument on the motion Monday.


05:10 PM | Archived Link | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

Action Alert: Victims' Rights Amendment

On April 23, the Senate will consider the proposed Victims' Rights Amendment (VRA) to the U.S. Constitution (S. J. Res. 1). Below is the text of the action alert we received from National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Legislative Director Kyle O'Dowd.

Action Requested: Contact your Senators and urge them to oppose this dangerous measure. Encourage your local prosecutors to do the same. Remember that many Senators will soon be arriving in their home states for spring recess (which lasts until April 16), and face-to-face meetings may be possible. Contact information for Members of Congress is available at here.

Background: The Victims’ Rights Amendment was approved 10-8 by the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 4, 2003. On the House side, the Constitution Subcommittee held a hearing regarding the VRA on September 30, 2003. The latest version of the proposed Victims’ Rights Amendment would give victims of violent crimes : (1) the right to notice of proceedings involving the alleged crime and of prisoner release or escape; (2) the right not to be excluded from proceedings involving the alleged crime and, with respect to certain proceedings, the right to be heard; and (3) the right to "adjudicative decisions" that consider the victim's safety, interest in avoiding delay, and claim to restitution.

The VRA’s sweeping, unfunded mandates would diminish the constitutional rights of accused persons and wreak havoc on our criminal justice system. Specifically --

MORE...
03:13 PM | Archived Link | Comments (5) | Trackback (3)

Poll: Administration is Hiding Something

by TChris

Forced by public criticism to flip-flop its position about Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission, the Bush administration allowed her to testify, no doubt hoping that Rice would reassure the public that the administration did everything right and has nothing to hide. If that was the plan, it didn't work. According to a CBS poll:

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice’s public testimony at the Sept. 11 Commission hearings may have improved her own image with the public, but most Americans still believe that the Bush administration could have done more to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks, was not paying enough attention to the issue before Sept. 11 and is still hiding something about what they knew.

01:52 PM | Archived Link | Comments (28) | Trackback (0)

More on Scalia v. Free Press

by TChris

As TalkLeft reported yesterday, U.S. Marshals guarding Justice Scalia confronted journalists who were recording his speeches to school audiences on Wednesday. Accounts of those confontations are conflicting.

Journalists report that, at a speech Justice Scalia gave to high school students in Hattiesburg, Deputy U.S. Marshal Melanie Rube demanded that they erase their recordings.

After Associated Press reporter Denise Grones balked, the marshal took her digital recorder and erased its contents -- after Grones explained how the machine worked. The marshal also asked Hattiesburg American reporter Antoinette Konz to hand over a cassette tape and returned it, erased, after the event.

Rube won't comment, but Nehemiah Flowers, the United States marshal in Jackson, Miss., said "that Deputy Rube ... asked politely if they would erase the tape." Flowers denied that the request was "coercive." Seizing the recorder and erasing the tape despite a reporter's objection seems coercive, notwithstanding Flowers' spin.

But did Rube act on her own, or at the direction of Justice Scalia? According to Flowers, Rube was "following the court's orders." But David Turner, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, said "Justice Scalia did not instruct the deputy to take that action." Seems the Marshals are having a problem getting on the same page.

The Marshals may also have a problem explaining how their interference with a free press is justified.

"The seizure and destruction of a reporter's tape recordings is remarkable, and I think it would be difficult to find any law that would justify it," said Luther T. Munford, a First Amendment expert at Phelps Dunbar, a law firm in Jackson.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press protested the seizure yesterday in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft. The letter noted that the deputy's action appeared to violate a 1980 federal law prohibiting most seizures of journalists' resource materials.

10:01 AM | Archived Link | Comments (25) | Trackback (2)

Monitoring of NJ Police Internal Affairs to End

by TChris

Federal oversight of internal investigations of misconduct by the New Jersey state police, implemented in 1999 after the state admitted that troopers engaged in racial profiling to make traffic stops, will end in response to a joint request made by the U.S. Justice Department and the state attorney general's office. Those agencies say that an internal affairs unit is doing an admirable job of handling complaints against officers and no longer needs oversight. Monitoring of other functions of the state police would continue under the judge's order.

Critics, including State Senator Nia Gill, complain that they weren't given notice of the proposal to end the monitoring and didn't have a chance to respond. Sen. Gill believes that all concerned parties should be heard before the judge decides whether to end the monitoring.

Minority leaders and civil rights groups plan to challenge the ruling, saying the consent decree that mandated the overall monitoring should not be lifted piecemeal. They also claim that questions remain about whether the internal affairs unit has truly reformed its practices.

09:24 AM | Archived Link | Comments (2) | Trackback (0)

Unhappy Easter

by TChris

A Sheriff's deputy in Pasco County, Florida arrested a nine year old girl after he found a rabbit in her home that she took from a neighbor. Presumably concerned about "officer safety," the deputy handcuffed the girl, then transported her in his squad car to the police department for questioning.

A Sheriff's spokesperson claimed that the deputy had no choice but to act after the neighbor reported the crime. A local public defender disagrees that an arrest was required, explaining that the deputy could have referred charges to the state's attorney without taking the girl into custody.

The sheriff's department asserts that these heavy-handed tactics teach children to respect the law. Perhaps the girl will learn not to confuse her neighbor's rabbit with the Easter bunny, but there is little to respect in the deputy's actions.

"I think this is a little unusual to say the very least," Cecka Green of Voices for Florida's Children said. "To treat children as hardened criminals, when back in the old days that may have just been seen as mischief that could have been handled by the parents, can contribute to some problems with our kids in this society."

The lesson that is likely to stick with the little girl? The deputy who arrested her was a jerk.

"He put one handcuff on me really tight," she said Thursday. In the patrol car, "He just stared at me in the mirror."

08:44 AM | Archived Link | Comments (26) | Trackback (0)

Thursday :: April 08, 2004

Is Iraq Spiraling Out of Control?

Condi Rice is so five minutes ago. As we write this, the news is coming in fast and furious from Iraq:

In an ominous turn, kidnappers seized 13 foreign hostages and threatened to burn three Japanese captives alive if Tokyo did not withdraw its troops.....TV pictures aired in the Middle East by the Al-Jazeera satellite network and rebroadcast during prime time in Japan showed the three Japanese hostages - two aid workers and a journalist - wide-eyed and moaning in terror as their black-clad captors held knives to their throats, shouting God is Great in Arabic.

Two Arab aid workers from Jerusalem - one who had once lived in Georgia - were abducted in a separate incident, and a Syrian-born Canadian humanitarian aid worker for the International Rescue Committee was taken hostage Wednesday by a local militia in Najaf. Eight South Korean Christian missionaries were seized by gunmen outside Baghdad. Seven were freed after one of them escaped, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul said.

The radical Shi'ite Militia has seized control of two cities in the south:

In the south, the al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army militia had full control in the cities of Kut and Kufa and in the central part of Najaf. Police in the cities have abandoned their stations or stood aside as the gunmen roam the streets.

The U.S. death toll is at 40 for this week alone, six in the past 48 hours. Friday is the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Al Jazeera's headline story: Fierce Falluja fighting recalls Vietnam.

MORE...
09:23 PM | Archived Link | Comments (53) | Trackback (0)

Bush Proclaims National D.A.R.E. Day

No, it's not a joke. President Bush actually declared today, April 8, National D.A.R.E. Day 2004:

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 8, 2004, as National D.A.R.E. Day.

Drug War Rant provides some appropriate reading to accompany your celebration.

07:54 PM | Archived Link | Comments (15) | Trackback (1)

We Don't Need No Fifth Amendment?

Someone must have hijacked Kevin Drum's Washington Monthly blog today, because we can't believe Kevin would say this:

I'd like to see videotaping required for all police interviews, and in return I'd suggest that the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination be discarded. If police interviews are all recorded and trials are all held in public, it's not at all clear to me what value the 5th Amendment right to silence has anymore....with Star Chambers a thing of the past and videotaping preventing coerced confessions, I really do wonder if the self-incrimination clause of the 5th Amendment has enough value left to make it worth the problems it causes. I suspect it doesn't.

Where's the Kevin we thought we knew? [hat tip to Kikuchiyo News]

Update: Nick at DeNovo offers some analysis.

07:43 PM | Archived Link | Comments (17) | Trackback (3)

Which Apprentice Are You?

The second to last episode of The Apprentice is on tonight. Take the test, figure out which one of the Apprentice candidates is most like you. We're Bill:

What is Bill's definition of "success"? If I can lead a happy life, touch the lives of others in a positive way, win the respect of those that I care about … and make a few million along the way then I have been successful.

After the show, head on over to Oliver Willis' Apprentice blog for comment. Oliver reports, by the way, that he is Katrina.

07:21 PM | Archived Link | Comments (2) | Trackback (0)

Religious Group Sues Ashcroft and the DEA

The Religion of Jesus Church and TheTHC Ministry have sued Attorney General John Ashcroft and the DEA seeking to prevent the arrest of those who use marijuana for religious and medicinal purposes.

A Complaint for injunctive relief was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii against U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, D.E.A. Administrator Karen Tandy, and local U.S. District Attorney Ed Kubo by religious and medicinal consumers of cannabis. The suit seeks to enjoin the Federal government from arresting and prosecuting those residents of Hawaii whose religions and religious beliefs require the consumption of cannabis (the herb governments derogatorily label as “marijuana”).

The lawsuit also seeks protection from federal prosecution for those citizens of Hawaii who cultivate, consume and/or distribute cannabis legally pursuant to legislatively enacted Department of Public Safety Narcotics Enforcement Division guidelines and valid patient/caregiver registration certificates.

THC says they believe they will prevail based upon the recent 9th Circuit case of Raich v. Ashcroft.

The Plaintiffs also rely upon the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act to secure their definitive right to free exercise of religion. That Act was recently used to prevent the federal government from prosecuting a New Mexico based, Brazilian Uniao Do Vegetal themed religion for their importation and distribution of Ayahoasca, a hallucinogenic-laced tea from the Brazilian rainforest.

The lawyer for the Plaintiff adds:

MORE...
07:05 PM | Archived Link | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

Clear Channel Drops Howard Stern

After being fined $495k by the FCC, Clear Channel today dropped Howard Stern's show from its radio stations. Here is Howard's response:

"This is not a surprise. This is a follow up to the McCarthy type "witch hunt" of the administration and the activities of this group of presidential appointees in the FCC, led by "Colin Powell Jr." and his band of players....It is pretty shocking that governmental interference into our rights and free speech takes place in the U.S. It's hard to reconcile this with the "land of the free" and the "home of the brave". I'm sure what's next is the removal of "dirty pictures" like the 20th century German exhibit in a New York City Museum and the erotic literature in our libraries; they too will fall into their category of "evil" as well.

06:46 PM | Archived Link | Comments (15) | Trackback (0)

Welcome to America

by TChris

Two Cubans who fled to the United States never lost their faith in the American way of life, even after they were charged with assault as a result of a confrontation with the Coast Guard. Their faith has been rewarded, as a federal jury today found them not guilty. After the trial, the jury foreman shook their hands and welcomed them to America.


04:32 PM | Archived Link | Comments (3) | Trackback (0)

Justice Scalia to Reporters: Don't Record Me

by TChris

When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to high school students yesterday about the importance of protecting constitutional rights, he may have forgotten that freedom of the press is one of those rights.

During Scalia's speech at the high school, U.S. Marshal Melanie Rube demanded that a reporter with The Associated Press erase a tape recording of the justice's remarks. Rube also took a tape recording made by a reporter with the Hattiesburg American.

At an earlier appearance before a college audience, Justice Scalia told television reporters to leave.

Did Justice Scalia have a reason not to want his remarks reported accurately? Perhaps the Justice recalls that he had to recuse himself from the Pledge of Allegiance case after publicly commenting on the lower court decision at a Knights of Columbus rally.

03:55 PM | Archived Link | Comments (8) | Trackback (2)

New Orleans Prosecutions Hampered By Poor Police Work

by TChris

Poor police work by the New Orleans Police Department was frequently responsible for the dismissal of criminal charges in Orleans Parish in 2003, according to a report released by the District Attorney's office.

In 57 cases, the charges were tossed because a police officer failed to appear in court. An additional 120 cases ended because there wasn't enough testimony to prove a crime had occurred. Prosecutors tossed another 45 cases, finding them "unsuitable for trial" the report said, without listing reasons.

Another 63 cases were dismissed because judges suppressed evidence or confessions that the police improperly obtained.

03:08 PM | Archived Link | Comments (11) | Trackback (0)

Claims v. Facts: Examining Rice's Testimony

by TChris

Courtesy of AlterNet, here's a quick comparison of Condoleezza Rice's testimony to facts of record and to her other statements. A taste:

CLAIM: There was "nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S." in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6. [responding to Ben Veniste]

FACT: Rice herself confirmed that "the title [of the PDB] was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'" [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]

02:16 PM | Archived Link | Comments (41) | Trackback (0)

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