Obama moves up:

Obama, an Illinois senator, leads for the first time in the Register's poll as the choice of 28 percent of likely caucusgoers, up from 22 percent in October. Clinton, a New York senator, was the preferred candidate of 25 percent, down from 29 percent in the previous poll. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who led in the Register's May poll, held steady with 23 percent, in third place, but part of the three-way battle.

Can I note one more time that Sen. Edwards' attacks on Senator Clinton have NOT helped him, that he has ceded the Hillary alternative mantle to Senator Obama? Well, I just did. Note, this is all within the margin of error stuff so who is actually ahead is not easy to say. What DOES seem clear is that Obama is moving up, Hillary down and Edwards is not moving at all.

My NORML award and I are headed home from Key West.

I'm sorry TChris didn't make it this year, but Last Night in Little Rock did.

Vote reminder...Please vote for TalkLeft in the "politics is sport" category of the ABA Journal awards.

The Bush Administration insists it does not torture. Former detainees say otherwise.

AMMAN, Jordan -- Over the past seven years, an imposing building on the outskirts of this city has served as a secret holding cell for the CIA.

The building is the headquarters of the General Intelligence Department, Jordan's powerful spy and security agency. Since 2000, at the CIA's behest, at least 12 non-Jordanian terrorism suspects have been detained and interrogated here, according to documents and former prisoners, human rights advocates, defense lawyers and former U.S. officials.

The Jordanians specialized in two tactics:

Former prisoners have reported that their captors were expert in two practices in particular: falaqa, or beating suspects on the soles of their feet with a truncheon and then, often, forcing them to walk barefoot and bloodied across a salt-covered floor; and farruj, or the "grilled chicken," in which prisoners are handcuffed behind their legs, hung upside down by a rod placed behind their knees, and beaten.

Former detainee Al-Haj Abdu Ali Sharqawi says:

"I was kidnapped, not knowing anything of my fate, with continuous torture and interrogation for the whole of two years," Al-Haj Abdu Ali Sharqawi, a Guantanamo prisoner from Yemen, recounted in a written account of his experiences in Jordanian custody. "When I told them the truth, I was tortured and beaten."

More...

Diana Taylor, Mayor Bloomberg's significant other doesn't use the NYPD as her personal taxi service...why did taxpayers have to foot the bill for the NYPD to ferry Judith Nathan around?

Taylor, 52, takes the bus every day to her midtown office and rides the subway to business appointments. In the six years Taylor and Bloomberg have lived together, she said she has never had reason to want or need personal NYPD security.

"I don't have security in Bogota or Nairobi or Moscow when I travel there on business, why would I need security in the safest city in the world?" Taylor told the Daily News yesterday.

Unlike Nathan, Taylor "has acted as the city's unofficial First Lady, frequently marching with Bloomberg in parades, hosting Gracie Mansion social functions and campaigning with him."

Maybe you've seen Adteractive's garbage showing up on your computer screen.

The company ran e-mail and Web ads offering free Sony Playstations, laptop computers, and even a $1,000 check, implying that consumers had been selected as secret shoppers and would receive the free gear or cash after they tested the products, the FTC said in court filings.

All, of course, untrue:

In order to get the really good prizes, consumers would have to do things like take out a one-year subscription to satellite TVs, or sign up for CD or DVD deliveries. "In most instances, it is impossible for the consumer to qualify for... free merchandise without spending money," the FTC said.

Given the prevailing Republican philosophy of caveat emptor (roughly translated in conservative-speak as "people who are stupid enough to let themselves be cheated deserve it"), it's surprising that the FTC cares about deceptive advertising. It cared enough to go after Adteractive, settling for $650,000, a sum that sounds large until it's compared to Aderactive's 2005 earnings of $118 million. More promising is Adteractive's claimed acceptance of the FTC's "guidance" on how to use the word 'free'," the meaning of which apparently puzzled Adteractive until now.

One size fits all justice never works. States that in the past enacted tough laws charging juveniles as adults and in many cases throwing them in prison for life without a key are now rethinking these laws.

They're responding to new research on the adolescent brain, and studies that indicate teens sent to adult court end up worse off than those who are not: They get in trouble more often, they do it faster and the offenses are more serious.

"It's really the trifecta of bad criminal justice policy," says Shay Bilchik, a former Florida prosecutor who heads the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University. "People didn't know that at the time the changes were made. Now we do, and we have to learn from it."

States considering changes: Colorado, Connecticut, California, Michigan, Illinois. The article is filled with details.

America can't jail itself out of its juvenile crime problem. We can't keep putting law enforcement and punishment over prevention.

The expertise of the family court and the juvenile court system serves a vital function in our society. As I wrote back in 1998 when Congress was considering some ill-advised juvenile crime legislation:

The value of prevention over the pure "lock-em-up" mentality was shown by a Rand Corporation projection: While a $1 million investment in new prisons would prevent 60 serious crimes a year, the same $1 million, if invested in parent training, could prevent 160 serious crimes a year. And if the same amount were spent on graduation incentives for disadvantaged students, there might be 258 fewer serious crimes a year.

Say Hello to the new Firedoglake. What a great bloglift (yes, we coined that phrase.) Lots of new features and a terrific design.

It's balmy and beautiful here in Key West and I'm honored to be receiving NORML's annual Al Horn Award this evening. I'll be back home late tomorrow night.

What have you been reading and thinking about this weekend?

Peter Baker of the Washington Post blogs in defense of WaPo's spreading lies about Obama:

Two furors stoked by the blogosphere over the last 24 hours neatly illustrate the changing political climate in the United States these days and underscore the depths of suspicion, anger and hostility out there as the country tries to pick a new leader. . . . [L]iberal bloggers ripped The Washington Post for publishing a story on untrue rumors that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is secretly a Muslim. . . . [A]ny legitimate criticism and sober-minded discussion of the issues raised get drowned out by the loudest, most vituperative voices. The net result is not dialogue, but a contest of outrage.

That, my friends, is a textbook red herring. And, last I looked, CJR was not a vituperative liberal blogger and the CJR writer stated that "In The Washington Post this morning, reporter Perry Bacon Jr. wrote what may be the single worst campaign ‘08 piece to appear in any American newspaper so far this election cycle." And indeed, Baker has little substantively to say in defense of the WaPo story. This seems his best shot:

The reporter wrote the story because a voter in Iowa told him that Obama is a Muslim and he was struck that people remain so ill informed. . . . But somehow a story intended to debunk the false claims, trace their origin and explore the challenge they present the campaign in trying to quash them spawned a furious eruption among liberal bloggers accusing the Post of spreading the rumors.

This is disingenuous to say the least. I feel confident that the Obama campaign wasnot pleased with the story. Does Mr. Baker wonder why? Perhaps Lyndon Johnson can explain it:

[O]ne of Johnson’s favorite jokes is about a popular Texas sheriff running for reelection whose opponents decide to spread a rumor that he f[***]ks pigs: “We know he doesn’t, but let’s make the son of a bitch deny it.”

An accuser's motive to lie might be apparent to the accused, but what happens when the accused isn't allowed to learn the accuser's identity? Despite the administration's assurances that Guantánamo detainees will receive fair trials, Omar Ahmed Khadr will begin his trial with a significant handicap: he won't know who will be testifying against him.

Defense lawyers preparing for the war crimes trial of a 21-year-old Guantánamo detainee have been ordered by a military judge not to tell their client — or anyone else — the identity of witnesses against him, newly released documents show.

The right to confront witnesses is essential to a fair trial. How can a detainee's exercise of that right be meaningful when the detainee doesn't even know who the witness is?

Defense lawyers say the order would hamper their ability to build an adequate defense because they cannot ask their client or anyone else about prosecution witnesses, making it difficult to test the veracity of testimony.

In the administration's view, the vague fear of "terrorist retaliation" against their anonymous witnesses outweighs the accused's right to know the identity of his accuser. So much for the empty promise of fair trials for the Guantánamo detainees.

Via Kagro, it gets worse:

[Rudy Giuliani's then- girlfriend when he was married to Donna Hanover, Judi] Nathan's detail was approved by the NYPD after a stranger made an unspecified threat to her. The commissioner at the time was Bernard Kerik, who was recently indicted on tax fraud charges in an unrelated matter. "It wasn't about her being the mayor's girlfriend," Kerik said. "The person spoke to her by name and made comments to her."

Kerik signed off on all of this. Makes Rudy's support for Kerik, even after being informed of his alleged criminal activities, easier to understand.

Distributing Vicodin to people who don't have a prescription for it is conduct that typically results in the kind of harshly punitive criminal sentence that has become the trademark of the war on drugs. Unless the drug distributor is a business like Cardinal Health Inc. The DEA "is suspending its license to distribute controlled substances from its Auburn, Wash. facility" because it sold Vicodin to a "pharmacy that allegedly dispensed excessive amounts based on illegitimate prescriptions from Internet pharmacy web sites."

A license suspension sounds serious, doesn't it? Not to Wall Street analysts.

Shares of Cardinal Health Inc. edged higher Friday as analysts said the Drug Enforcement Administration's action to suspend the company's controlled substances license at its Washington facility won't materially affect its bottom line.

And why is that? (more ...)

Criminal trials are fraught with peril, and no defense is ever perfect. Credit Robert Udell for his stand up decision to testify that he mistakes during his defense of Cynthia Sommer, who was charged with murdering "her Miramar-based Marine husband."

Sommer, 34, was convicted by a jury in January of first-degree murder in the death of Sgt. Todd Sommer. Prosecutors said he died of arsenic poisoning. ... Udell said Friday he failed to call witnesses to refute testimony about where the arsenic – found in some of Todd Sommer's bodily tissues – could have come from.

Udell also admitted opening the door to evidence that his client used her husband's life insurance proceeds to enlarge her breasts.

She was depicted as a widow who partied and had sex with several men instead of mourning her husband's death.

Superior Court Judge Peter C. Deddeh granted Sommer a new trial.