President Bush issued 29 pardons today. I "Lewis" Scooter Libby was not among them.

That doesn't mean one won't be forthcoming now that Libby has dropped his appeal. Bush has said previously he wouldn't give a pardon while the appeal was pending. Since Libby only announced his intent to withdraw the appeal yesterday, it could just be a matter of timing. Bush can grant pardons until he leaves office in 2009.

Here's the full list. Included is one commutation of a crack cocaine sentence -- see below.

The ACLU announces:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) announced today that it will not make public orders and legal papers pertaining to the scope of the government's authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans.

This is only the third time the FISC has issued an opinion publicly and the first time it has ruled on a substantive motion made by any party other than the government.

Here's today's FISA Court opinion and an AP article discussing it.

By a unanimous vote, the U.S. Sentencing Commission has made its November, 2007 reduction in crack cocaine penalties retroactive. The effective date is March, 2008. The statement is here.

This is very good news, but note the limitations:

Not every crack cocaine offender will be eligible for a lower sentence under the decision. A Federal sentencing judge will make the final determination of whether an offender is eligible for a lower sentence and how much that sentence should be lowered. That determination will be made only after consideration of many factors, including the Commission’s direction to consider whether lowering the offender’s sentence would pose a danger to public safety. In addition, the overall impact is anticipated to occur incrementally over approximately 30 years, due to the limited nature of the guideline amendment and the fact that many crack cocaine offenders will still be required under Federal law to serve mandatory five- or ten-year sentences because of the amount of crack involved in their offense.

I'm busy at work this afternoon so here's an open thread. A few requests:

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Update: The Commission has unanimously voted for retroactivity. Press Release is here. Reaction and newer post here.

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[Note: This is a long post, covering the issues of the guidelines, mandatory minimums, the informant system of sentence reduction and the need for Congress to act to change the law.]

The U.S. Sentencing Commission will vote today on whether to make the recently enacted small (two level) guideline reduction for crack cocaine offenses retroactive so that some of the 19,500 inmates currently serving federal crack sentences can benefit from it. It is widely expected they will vote for retroactivity and I'll update and bump this post when they do.

The thing to remember is, this doesn't solve the problem. The much bigger problem is with mandatory minimum sentences. Only Congress can change those. Neither yesterday's Supreme Court decisions nor the guideline reduction addresses this problem. Today, like yesterday, judges are powerless to go below the 5 or 10 (or in some cases 20) year mandatory minimum sentence unless the defendant cooperates with the Government and the Government asks the judge to impose a lower sentence. The judge can't do it on his own -- or at the request of a defendant. That's just wrong-headed.

More...

A quick hit.

The Ombudsman for ESPN identifies what is wrong with today's Media:

. . . I call out ESPN for practices common to its cable news peers, such as bloated coverage of the moment's hot-topic stories and the mad dash from scant information to voluminous opinion. Often, the questions I pose ESPN executives can be, and often are, answered with a version of "That's just the way the 24/7 media is today." But I am not ombudsman for CNN or Fox News. I am charged with monitoring ESPN, looking at how its coverage affects sports and sports journalism . . .

"That's the way the 24/7 media is today" is the excuse of all of today's Media. ESPN's Ombudsman seems to be the only person who understands that answer is unacceptable.

Bring on Huckabee? A new CNN Poll shows he would lose by double digits in a general election.

In head-to-head matchups -- the first to include Huckabee -- the former Arkansas governor loses to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York by 10 percentage points (54 percent to 44 percent), to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois by 15 points (55 percent to 40 percent) and to former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina by 25 points (60 percent to 35 percent).

Edwards does the best against all Republicans.

On the Democratic side, Edwards performs best against each of the leading Republicans. In addition to beating Huckabee by 25 percent and McCain by 8 percent, the North Carolina Democrat beats Romney by 22 percentage points (59 percent to 37 percent).

CNN's polling director Keating Holling says: [More]

If Big Tent Democrat were here (he's still on vacation) he would be writing about these posts.

• Digby: Partisan Soljahs on the Obama-Krugman flap.

• Eriposte at Left Coaster:

I have seen enough of Sen. Obama's supposed "post-partisan" non-ideology in action to know that, while he will certainly be better than any Republican as President, he is definitely not my #1 choice in the Democratic primary. I have deep concerns about what an Obama administration would be like - one that will likely be interested in compromise as an end in itself, while repeatedly ditching the progressive netroots as he has been inclined to do already (even before winning), when his soaring rhetoric meets the reality of the not-so-soaring ideology of Congress and the Republican Noise Machine. It is probably the expectation of this dynamic, along with Sen. Obama's willingness to repeatedly throw progressives under the bus, that has Obama supporters like Andrew Sullivan - who once infamously tarred swaths of the left in this country as a fifth column - energized and welcoming of his candidacy.

• DpAndrews at MyDD: Obama has Republicans Licking Their Chops

Update: No verdict today (Tuesday.) They'll be back tomorrow morning.

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It looks like another defeat for the feds in the homegrown terror trial of the Liberty City, Florida defendants they said wanted to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and federal buildings in Miami. (Background here.)The trial began in September and went to the jury on December 4. The jury deliberated four days and told the Judge Thursday it was deadlocked. Today, the Judge gave the dynamite instruction, called the Allen charge, and told them to keep going. They'll be back tomorrow, but trial oberservers don't expect a verdict.

The case was one of those trumpeted by Alberto Gonzales. It seemed like overblown hype from the beginning.

The defendants assert they were ensnared by an FBI informant and had no intention of participating in such schemes. Six months after their arrest, Narseal Batiste, the lead defendant, sent a 25 page letter to the media, explaining his position.

More...

A new New York Times/CBS Poll taken Dec. 5 to 9 finds Hillary Clinton maintaining her lead nationally over Barack Obama. But what about Oprah?

Forty-four percent of Democrats said Mr. Clinton’s involvement would make them more likely to support Mrs. Clinton. The poll found just 1 percent said they might be swayed by the involvement of Oprah Winfrey.

More results:

• Democrats are happier with their candidates than Republicans.

• Demorats view Hillary "as a far more electable candidate" than Obama or Edwards in November.

  63 percent of Democrats said they thought Mrs. Clinton has the best chance of all the Democrats in a general election, compared with 14 percent who named Mr. Obama and 10 percent for Mr. Edwards.

  .... Not only did substantially more Democratic voters judge her to be ready for the presidency than those who believed Mr. Obama is prepared for the job, the poll found, but more Democrats said Mrs. Clinton could bring the country together than those who said Mr. Obama was someone who could unite different groups.

More...

The death penalty in New Jersey is on it's way out.

The state Senate approved legislation Monday that would make New Jersey the first state to abolish the death penalty since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to impose the sentence.

Death sentences would be changed to life without parole. The bill is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House, perhaps Thursday, and then go to Gov. John Corzine. Corzine, a death penalty opponent, likely will sign it into law by January 8.

This is not a sudden development. [More...]

Meet former CIA Agent John Kiriakou. He's come out to ABC News, admitting he's the one who waterboarded Abu Zubaydah (background here.) He tells ABC that Zubaydah "broke in less than 35 seconds," and that yes, water-boarding is torture.

"We're Americans, and we're better than this. And we shouldn't be doing this kinda thing," he said.