As his last act of compassion, President Bush commuted the prison sentences of Border Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean who shot an unarmed drug smuggler and then tried to cover it up. They got ten years and the right wing rallied around them. After all, it was only a drug dealer. And everybody lies. As to the latter, it's true enough in the Bush Administration.

The Court of Appeals had upheld their convictions for assault, discharge of a weapon in the commission of a crime of violence (the assault) and deprivation of civil rights.

If the border agents' 10 year sentences were too long because of mandatory minimum sentencing laws, so are everyone elses'. That's change Obama needs to bring to Congress.

As to pardon totals:

Clinton issued a total of 457 in eight years in office. Bush's father, George H. W. Bush, issued 77 in four years. Reagan issued 406 in eight years, and President Carter issued 563 in four years. Since World War II, the largest number of pardons and commutations - 2,031 - came from President Truman, who served 82 days short of eight years.

Jeffrey Harrell, a junior at Morehouse College, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day:

Today, there are still immigrants and women fighting for rights, there are people who are hungry and others without homes, Harrell said. "Until everyone is able to take part in what's called the American dream, the struggle's not done," he said.

Civil rights are for all of us. Barack Obama on Martin Luther King Jr. Day:

"We resolve that as we walk, we must walk together. And as we go forward in the work of renewing the promise of this nation, let's remember King's lesson -- that our separate dreams are really one."

Via CNN: No moving trucks will be needed for soon to be former President George W. Bush. He and Laura have already moved their things out of the White House. They are "Already Gone."

Goodbye to 8 years of Republican rule and the W.P.E. (Worst President Ever.) To ring in the new, I'll be following Jane, Marcy, John and the rest of the bloggers in D.C. and the HuffPo Ball -- from my perch in Denver where it's an uncharacteristically warm 60 degrees. Forget the Louboutins, this inauguration will be a time for Uggs.

Arianna's got the video up that will show just before midnight at the HuffPo Ball. Also check out HuffPo's Obama Inauguration Page.

Over the weekend a much beloved bartender named Wendy Burns was murdered on a French Quarter street. Wendy was apparently shot to death during an armed robbery.

The murder occurred in the Lower Quarter, a mostly residential section of the French Quarter that has been beset by a staggering number of armed robberies in the past couple of years.

I just recently moved from the Lower Quarter after living there for about one year and a half. I moved in part because I was very weary of constantly feeling like a target, no matter the time of day. [More...]

Update: Here's Bettye Lavette and Jon Bon Jovi and singing Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come." It's great. The replay just started. Bruce Springsteen and the choir on The Rising is amazing, the visual is as good as music. I think I'm hooked for the whole thing. Updates to come, if you're by a tv, turn it on. HBO is free if you have cable or satellite.

More faves: James Taylor, John Legend and Jennifer Nettles singing "Shower the People." Joe Biden was a downer after that. Mellencamp really rocked out in the second half of Little Pink Houses. They all look so cold out there. [More...]

Kevin Drum points us to a NYTimes magazine gallery of photos of faces of the incoming Obama Administration (faces you know and some you do not.) Kevin's post is good so go read it, but I was struck by his observation about Hilda Solis' photo:

Hilda Solis looks pensive and sad.

She does. It's my favorite in the series. There is a lot to be pensive and sad about, even in the midst of this historic inauguration.

Speaking for me only

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

One conservative blogger is asking President Bush to issue torture pardons:

My powder is still dry on seeking to deny Holder the AG job, but is no longer dry on deeming preemptive pardons acceptable on the narrow issue of those involved in waterboarding.

Bush has two days to left do it. The wording of such a pardon would be extremely interesting. Presumably, the specific people being pardoned would be named. Also presumably, Bush would expressly pardon Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Hayden, Brennan, Kappes, specific field agents, etc. Finally, the pardons would state the actions for which pardons were issued. On one level, pardons would be good - we would certainly find out more about what was done. Of course, justice may be thwarted. Personally, I am more interested in stopping the abuses now. See also Jeralyn on Cheney's dismissal of the need for preemptive pardons.

Speaking for me only

The NYTimes published an editorial today that explains why the torture issue can not be swept under the rug:

We have heard a lot of talk about how the country needs to look forward and not backward. We certainly would like to forget the horrors of the last eight years. But you cannot fix something before you know exactly how it is broken. The clandestine system Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have built will not give up its secrets easily.

To ensure that the abuses stop, Mr. Obama and his administration will have to work hard to find out all that has happened. They will have to locate and override all of the policy memos, directives and executive orders that have redefined and condoned torture and other abuses. . . .

The question now is plain - DOES the Obama Administration wish to "ensure that the abuses stop?" Let's hope it does. In any event, we must demand that all necessary steps are taken to "ensure that the abuses stop."

Speaking for me only

In the post I reference below, Glenn Greenwald updates:

While those who argue that the U.S. was right to torture because it's the U.S. that did it are expressing a repugnant form of exceptionalism, at least they're being honest -- far more so than those who argue that Bush officials shouldn't be investigated or prosecuted while paying deceitful lip service to "the rule of law" and the idea that "no one is above the law."

True enough, but the argument, while honest, still undermines the idea of an international treaty to prohibit torture. Consider Cuba, where it is argued that the US embargo and the full throated hostility of the most powerful nation on Earth, justifies its repressive policies:

The other day, the AP reported:

President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques by ordering the CIA to follow military rules for questioning prisoners, according to two U.S. officials familiar with drafts of the plans. Still under debate is whether to allow exceptions in extraordinary cases.

. . . Obama's changes may not be absolute. His advisers are considering adding a classified loophole to the rules that could allow the CIA to use some interrogation methods not specifically authorized by the Pentagon, the officials said. They said the intent is not to use that as an opening for possible use of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.

As Glenn Greenwald points out, such a "loophole" would constitute a violation of the UN Convention on Torture, codified as a crime under US law:

The talk, I predict, will be of Obama's inauguration.

Speaking for me only