Recent Supreme Court cases tell us that whether the death penalty is cruel and unusual depends upon the nation's "evolving standards of decency." Here are a couple of questions regarding those evolving standards.

What of felony murder? The "felony murder" rule holds an offender responsible for a foreseeable death caused during the commission of a felony, even when there is no intent to kill. Suppose an arsonist burns down what he believes to be an unoccupied house, unknowingly killing someone inside the dwelling. That's felony murder. Should the death penalty be available when there's no intent to kill?

Jurors in California declined to impose the death penalty on Manuel Alvarez, who "parked his Jeep on train tracks and caused a Metrolink derailment" that killed eleven people. [more ...]

Is there any federal agency that hasn't been mismanaged in the Bush administration?

It is supposed to provide health services to about 2 million American Indians and Alaskan natives. But the Government Accountability Office charged Monday that the Indian Health Services, which often runs out of funds to pay for health care, managed to lose more than 5,000 pieces of equipment worth about $16 million in the period from 2004 to 2007.... To top it off, auditors found false purchasing documents created to mislead investigators.

Native American health is right up there with the environment, civil rights, body armor for soldiers, alternative energy, and the Constitution on the list of things the Bush administration just doesn't care about.

Al Sharpton's tax woes will not land him in prison, according to Sharpton's lawyers.

Federal prosecutors have disbanded their criminal investigation into the financial dealings of the Rev. Al Sharpton and his Harlem civil rights group, the minister and his lawyers said Tuesday. Prosecutors concluded that Sharpton's substantial tax problems were better handled as a civil matter by the Internal Revenue Service rather than in criminal court, his lawyers said.

Subtitle - I told you so. Via TPM, McCain is whining that Obama is the Media Darling:

The campaign of John McCain -- who once described the media as his "base" -- has come up with a pretty creative way to portray the media as "in love" with Barack Obama, blasting two versions of this video right into the in-boxes of the swooning reporters themselves...

In the midst of Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki's statements in support of withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and McCain's response that he knows best for Iraq, I wonder if John Derbyshire is giving the best explanation of the new McCain position on Iraq:

Now that our American blood and money has seen off most of the enemies of Maliki and his Iranian pals, it is perfectly natural for them to believe they can finish the job themselves, without further assistance from us. . . We should tell Maliki, loudly and in public, that he owes his job to us, and that further prosecution of our military operations in his country will be conducted with regard only to U.S. interests, as determined in consensus by our established domestic political processes. And if he doesn't like that, he can go to hell.

Now here is the question - why is it in U.S. interests to continue to protect the Maliki government with the presence of 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq?

Speaking for me only

larger version here.

Vanity Fair has a parody of the New Yorker's awful cartoon featuring Sen. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.

I think the VF cartoon is much gentler and less offensive than the New Yorker cartoon.

Also, the McCain cartoon has more truths: John McCain is old, Cindy McCain did have a love affair with pills (even though in the cartoon the pills she is holding are for her husband) and McCain does admire George Bush.

What would you have added to the McCain cartoon to clearly represent the "politics of fear"?

Given the Republican aversion to business regulation that has dominated government for so many years, it has become increasingly unusual to see civil penalties assessed against businesses that manufacture unsafe products, that install those products in an unsafe manner, or that provide an unsafe working environment for their employees. It is extraordinarily unusual to see criminal prosecutions of businesses when negligence leads to death. That's what makes the prosecution of David Lionetti both newsworthy and troublesome.

David Lionetti was arrested yesterday on a manslaughter charge in the death of Zachary Cohn. Six-year-old Cohn drowned last summer after becoming trapped by the suction of a drain in his family's pool in Greenwich, Conn. The pool had been installed by Lionetti's company Shoreline Pools. ... In issuing the warrant for Lionetti's arrest, law enforcement officials state that he failed to have his company install mandated safety devices in the Cohn family pool. As a result Zachary Cohn was able to remove the cover and was caught in the suction power of the drain. His parents were unable to free him before he drowned.

If the alleged facts are true, Lionetti's company was clearly negligent and civilly liable for damages. But if Lionetti is criminally responsible for negligence, why not also arrest the actual installers who failed to install the required safety devices? And why not arrest the parents who failed to supervise their child as he removed the drain cover? Should every act of negligence be treated as a crime? [more ...]

Glenn Greenwald debates Cass Sunstein on FISA, on Amy Goodman's program, Democracy Now. It is the second segment after headlines, starting at the 33 minute mark. Glenn also speaks about the ATT sponsorship of the Democratic National Convention about 15 minutes earlier. I have not listened to it yet and will update this post with my thoughts afterwords.

Sunstein - we peons have "widely misunderstood" what Obama did. Oy. Greenwald - to say this was not a flip flop by Obama is "insultingly false." Sunstein is a condescending ass - "I appreciate the vehemence." What a creep (speaking for me only.) Listen to it because Sunstein proves he has no idea what he is talking about. It is hard to explain what a disingenuous appearance Sunstein makes here. Today, he says he does not agree with the Bush inherent authority argument. But in in 2002 (on military tribunals) and in 2004 (on warrantless surveillance) he DID agree with the Bush Administration's outrageous legal claims. Sunstein can not be trusted (speaking for me only.)

This is truly an amazing statement from the Bush Administration:

"We don't think that talking about specific negotiating tactics or your negotiating position in the press is the best way to negotiate a deal," [White House Press Secretary Dana] Perino said after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was quoted in a magazine article supporting the 16-month troop withdrawal timeline proposed by Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate. "However, we understand that they're a sovereign country and they'll be able to do that," Perino said. "We're just not going to do it on our end."

(Emphasis supplied.) If you understand Iraq is a sovereign country, then you should understand that they should not have to have leverage at all in telling the United States to leave. The United States has no right to have troops in Iraq. Indeed, the ostensible purpose of the troop presence in Iraq is to assist the Iraqi government. Suppose the US, in good faith, disagrees with the Iraqi government's assessment of the situation. So what? If they ask you to leave, then you leave.

But of course the most amazing part of this is that the American People as well as the Iraqi government wants the United States to leave Iraq, but for the Bush Administration and John McCain, it does not matter what the people want.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Good for the ACLU (again):

The American Civil Liberties Union sued Alabama elections officials Monday over what it says is an overly expansive policy disenfranchising felons, amid concern from voting rights groups nationwide that voting lists are being culled with too great alacrity by many states.

Alabama bars felons from voting only if they've been convicted of a crime of "moral turpitude." According to the ACLU, the state legislature limited that fuzzy phrase to specific crimes: "murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, incest, sexual torture and nine other crimes mainly involving pornography and abuses against children." Alabama's attorney general, Troy King, has expanded the legislature's list to include about a dozen more (mostly nonviolent) crimes, including the distribution of marijuana. The ACLU takes the sensible position that it's the responsibility of the legislature, not the attorney general, to make the law. [more ...]

The military commission trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, got underway today.

The Judge barred the prosecution from introducing statements Hamdan made while detained at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan because they were the product of overly coercive techniques.

The judge said the prosecution cannot use a series of interrogations at the Bagram air base and Panshir, Afghanistan, because of the "highly coercive environments and conditions under which they were made."

At Bagram, the judge found Hamdan was kept in isolation 24 hours a day with his hands and feet restrained, and armed soldiers prompted him to talk by kneeing him in the back. His captors at Panshir repeatedly tied him up, put a bag over his head and knocked him the ground.

Other rulings: [More...]

I still haven't gotten my iPhone. Apple stores have been sold out since Friday and I got mad at AT&T when it didn't come through with my phone 7 days after I paid for it so I canceled the order. The current shortage may last a month:

Apple stores are reporting serious shortages of the device, an inventory slip-up that might last for a month, Computerworld reported. Barely a quarter of Apple's retail stores have iPhones to sell, but only nine stores have all three versions available. Only 18 stores currently have the 16 gigabit black model in stock and 26 stores have the white model with the same storage capacity. AT&T is also reporting a severe shortage with all 1,200 retail stores nearly out of the iPhone altogether.

But, I did get a gift of a brand new iPod touch. It's the latest iPod and has a much bigger video screen, wifi, internet and e-mail and all the calendar, contacts, etc features. The only thing it doesn't have is the phone. (And, you need to be able to connect to a wi-fi network.) [More...]