Bump and Update: It's a done deal. Lieberman has endorsed John McCain for President.

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Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard reports Sen. Joe Lieberman will endorse John McCain for President in New Hampshire tomorrow.

This is not surprising to me -- it's just two of your father's Oldsmobiles sticking together. MSNBC asked in January whether a McCain-Lieberman ticket was not a possibility.

More....

Adam Liptak in the New York Times has a new column on the recent sentencing guideline reductions for crack cocaine. He posits that as a result of the reductions, Congress may be less likely to reduce mandatory minimum penalties for crack cocaine since Judges now have more discretion in sentencing and Congress won't want to give judges unfettered discretion.

There are several bills kicking around Congress meant to harmonize cocaine sentencing laws. But, perhaps perversely, the Supreme Court’s decisions last Monday may make Congressional action less likely. Letting judges have too much discretion does not sit well with some legislators, and that discretion can be controlled through mandatory minimums.

His source for that theory is former (very conservative) Judge and victims' rights advocate Paul Cassell. I've never agreed with Cassell about anything, particularly his attempts to repeal Miranda rights, push the death penalty and make light of false confessions and wrongful convictions, but I sure hope he's wrong on this one.

Liptak describes the penalties for powder as if they are way too lenient,

Fifty grams of crack equals a guaranteed 10 years. It takes five kilograms of powder to mandate the same sentence. Five kilos is a lot of cocaine.

I think that's a backwards way of looking at it. The better view is that ten years is a long jail sentence -- for any non-violent drug offense, regardless of the quantity.

I'm wondering if Liptak's use of the phrase "a lot of cocaine" is the result of someone whispering in his ear that the only way the crack penalties go down is if the powder penalties go up. That would be a terrible injustice.

The pending reform bills are here. Two call for equalization. The bills could be put on the agenda early next year. It's time to start contacting your Senators and Congresspersons and telling them to equalize the crack and powder cocaine penalties at the current powder levels. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Aside from 9/11, there's nothing Rudy Giuliani touts more than his crime record. Now, even that is being exposed. Former U.S. District Court Judge John Martin, who was Rudy's predecessor as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has an op-ed in today's New York Times, The Office I Left Giuliani.

What set Martin off was Rudy's defense of his judgment regarding Bernie Kerik on Meet the Press, saying it had to weighed against his other accomplishments. Rudy said:

“How can I not have pretty good judgment about the people who work for me and not been able to turn around the United States attorney’s office?”

Martin responds:

But Mr. Giuliani’s claim to have turned around the Manhattan United States attorney’s office is not only untrue, it is an insult to the outstanding men and women who have served in that office over the last 50 years.

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Bottom line: The Senate must reject the Senate Intelligence Committee bill's with provisions for telecom immunity. It must insist that any bill passed carries protections for Americans against wiretapping that comport with the Fourth Amendment.

The ACLU says:

This week the Senate will consider making vast changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and will determine whether telecommunications companies should be held liable for their role in President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.

...."When the FISA Amendments Act of 2007 comes to the Senate floor this week, Congress has a duty and an opportunity to protect the Fourth Amendment and rein in the executive's spying power.

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Sunday, Hillary Clinton launched her Hill-a-Copter tour which will take her to 99 Iowa counties by Thursday. A reporter from the Boston Globe is accompanying the tour.

Tomorrow, she will be on all six morning shows: ABC's Good Morning America, NBC's Today, CBS' Early Show, Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends, MSNBC's Morning Joe and CNN's American Morning.

Her latest endorsements: Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey and Maine Governor John Baldacci. The other governors supporting her are New York's Eliot Spitzer, New Jersey's Jon Corzine, Ohio's Ted Strickland, Maryland's Martin O'Malley, Arkansas' Mike Beebe and Michigan's Jennifer Granholm.

Obama's getting help from a long-time friend, Mike Jordan, an insurance agent from Chicago who goes to Iowa every weekend to stump for the candidate. At an Iowa town hall meeting, Obama addressed how he'd create a better educated workforce. He also "pledged to bring troops home within 16 months of taking office." At a news conference just before the town hall meeting in Saturday, Obama focused on toy safety.

Joe Biden told a group in Iowa they don't want a candidate without foreign policy experience. [More...]

In another outrageous attempt at grabbing power that does not belong to it, the Bush Administration is now seeking to control which military lawyers get promotions:

The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House's policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.

The administration has proposed a regulation requiring "coordination" with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps - the military's 4,000-member uniformed legal force - can be promoted.

In a nutshell,

Under the current system, boards of military officers pick who will join the JAG corps and who will be promoted, while the general counsels' role is limited to reviewing whether the boards followed correct procedures. The proposed rule would impose a new requirement of "coordination" with the general counsels of the services and the Pentagon during the JAG appointment and promotion process.

It's our unitary executive at work again. [More...]

As someone with a parent in a nursing home, I am very glad to learn that Hillary Clinton and Tom Harkin (D-IA) have introduced a bill "that would force a federal agency to make public its list of the nation's worst nursing homes."

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has compiled a list of 128 nursing homes that have repeatedly fallen in and out of compliance with government health and safety regulations and caused harm to their residents. Those so-called "special-focus facilities" are now subject to more frequent government inspections.

Two weeks ago, the agency released an abbreviated, public version of the list that identified only 52 of the facilities. The agency refused to release the full list of 128 homes, even though it had already provided the full list to nursing home association lobbyists at the American Health Care Association.

The lobbying group that got the full list is the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care. [More...]

(Speaking for myself only)

I am of the opinion that Brian Williams is the most ridiculous person on television. I am also of the opinion that Howie Kurtz is the most ridiculous person writing in a major newspaper (yes, more so than MoDo.) So certainly I enjoyed Bob Somerby's skewering of both. Here is a snippet:

KURTZ (page 265): If Gibson managed to beat him, so be it. Charlie was a newsman’s newsman, Williams felt, an older version of himself. There was no shame in losing to Charlie. But he felt very differently about Katie Couric.

It wasn’t that Williams was jealous of her fame, her huge salary, of the enormous wave of publicity surrounding her ascension. But Williams and others at NBC believed that Katie was in something of a bubble, living a wealthy celebrity lifestyle that set her apart from her viewers.

What was central to Williams’ conception of himself was that he was the down-to-earth journalist, the NASCAR fan, the onetime volunteer fireman, the guy who shopped at Price Club and watched American Idol. . . . Brian Williams was convinced that, when it came to news, people would see who eats it, sleeps it, and breathes it.

And they were also going to see who knew how to pause between items! At any rate, it’s fairly clear that, at this high level, the high-strung artists of TV news can develop understandable sets of attitudes—the types of attitudes which, seen somewhere else, might be mistaken for excessive self-regard . . .

Read the whole thing. Hilarious.

The New York Times has some new and very disturbing revelations in the NSA warrantless wiretapping controversy. The news may explain why the telecoms are fighting so hard for retroactivity immunity in the planned FISA law revision.

To detect narcotics trafficking, for example, the government has been collecting the phone records of thousands of Americans and others inside the United States who call people in Latin America, according to several government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. But in 2004, one major phone carrier balked at turning over its customers’ records. Worried about possible privacy violations or public relations problems, company executives declined to help the operation, which has not been previously disclosed.

In a separate N.S.A. project, executives at a Denver phone carrier, Qwest, refused in early 2001 to give the agency access to their most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls, according to people aware of the request, which has not been previously reported. They say the arrangement could have permitted neighborhood-by-neighborhood surveillance of phone traffic without a court order, which alarmed them.

More....

John Edwards makes the cover of Newsweek and is the subject of a five page article. He's also on several of the Sunday morning shows today.

He's still fighting hard in Iowa, touting his willingness to fight for Democrats.

I think if my party, the Democratic Party, if we're not willing to fight for, stand up and show some backbone on behalf of the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the disenfranchised, we have no soul," the former North Carolina senator said. "What are we going to stand for?"

While the press has focused on Hillary and Obama, Edwards is very much still in the Iowa race.

Edwards, who finished a surprising second in the caucuses four years ago, is seeking to energize his supporters, whom his advisers says are experienced in the often intimidating task of going to a caucus and publicly declaring their preferences.

He also was the first candidate to get establish a presence in all of Iowa's 99 counties. [More...]

In addition to their endorsements of Hillary Clinton and John McCain, the Des Moines Register editors have posted another article with their assessments of the other candidates. They nail Rudy Giuliani perfectly:

Also of concern: his long association in government and private business with his former police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, who’s been indicted on corruption and tax-fraud charges, raising questions about Giuliani’s judgment. New York media also complained of secrecy and lack of transparency in his administration.

But we’re most troubled by his over-heated, fear-based approach to foreign policy. He frames today’s world as us versus them, summed up by this pledge from his Web site: “I will keep America on offense in the terrorists’ war on us.”

Rudy is down in Iowa, down in New Hampshire, and in third place in Florida, which he was counting on. Is he toast yet? The LA Times says: [more....]

Calling her the "most prepared to lead," the Des Moines Register tonight endorsed Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate for President. A video from the Editorial board explaining their endorsement is here. "Every stage of her life has prepared her for the Presidency." The editors say while Obama inspired their imagination, Hillary inspired their confidence.

From working for children’s rights as a young lawyer, to meeting with leaders around the world as first lady, to emerging as an effective legislator in her service as a senator, every stage of her life has prepared her for the presidency.

That readiness to lead sets her apart from a constellation of possible stars in her party, particularly Barack Obama, who also demonstrates the potential to be a fine president.

....Determination to succeed and learning from her mistakes have been hallmarks of Clinton’s life....In the Senate, she has earned a reputation as a workhorse who does not seek the limelight.

Tested by rough politics and personal trials, she’s demonstrated strength, resolve and resilience.....Indeed, Obama, her chief rival, inspired our imaginations. But it was Clinton who inspired our confidence. Each time we met, she impressed us with her knowledge and her competence.

Congratulations, Hillary.