Rep. Henry Waxman, chair of the House Oversight Committee, has sent this letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking for seven classes of documents pertaining to the Valerie Plame Investigation.

The letter says the White House has been preventing Patrick Fitzgerald from providing many of the sought documents. As to the subject matter of the investigation, the Committee wants to know:

(1) How did such a serious violation of our national security occur? (2) Did the White House take the appropriate investigative and disciplinary steps after the breach occurred? And (3) what changes in White House procedures are necessary to prevent future violations of our national security from continuing?

Why now?

As the recent disclosure from former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan underscores, there remain many unanswered questions surrounding this incident and the involvement of the President, the Vice President, and other senior White House officials in the security breach and the White House response.

Among the sought documents: [More...]

When a policy that is "properly followed" ends in the death of an innocent teenage girl and her 9 year old sister, it's time to change the policy.

Franklinton Police Chief Ray Gilliam said Sunday afternoon policy was properly followed in a high-speed police chase and crash that killed three people. ... Franklinton police officer Michael Dunlap observed Guy Christopher Ayscue, 38, of Henderson, driving very erratically in a Pontiac, according to police. Dunlap tried to stop Ayscue using his lights and siren, but Ayscue drove off, and Dunlap pursued.

Dunlop chased Ayscue for 13 miles. Three times during the chase, Dunlop saw Ayscue enter a lane of oncoming traffic, but Dunlop continued the high speed pursuit. That judgment may not have violated a flawed departmental policy, but Dunlop was foolish to give Ayscue an incentive to drive faster.

Ayscue was traveling north on U.S. Highway 15 and went to pass another vehicle in a no-passing zone when he hit a 1999 Kia head-on, Gilliam said. ... It is estimated that Ayscue was traveling at 90 mph at the time of the crash.

Brigid Harrison, a professor of political science and law at Montclair State University, explains why New Jersey should pass a pending bill to repeal the state's death penalty. A cost/benefit analysis favors life imprisonment, given the absence of convincing evidence that death is a more effective crime deterrent.

But decisions made about the death penalty are not chiefly about numbers. They are about right and wrong. And while some victims’ families do long to see their loved one’s killer executed, when the bipartisan New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission heard testimony from victims’ families, a majority spoke in favor of repealing the death penalty.

Amid trauma and grief over the horrific death of a family member, these victims acknowledged the possibility that an innocent person could be executed by the state. After having survived the ordeal of a loved one’s murder, they questioned the morality of taking another life.

New in Rolling Stone, Ben Wallace-Wells has a six page article on How America Lost the Drug War.

Last week, Columnist Froma Harrop exposed the failure of the war on drugs.

If two people do it, is it a movement?

I am watching Senator Webb's appearance on Meet the Press this morning and in response to Tim Russert's playing President George Bush's statement that Congress capitulate to his demand that the Iraq Debacle be funded without conditions, Senator Webb basically said that Congress will provide funds for Bush Iraq Debacle.

Senator Webb talks a good game, but as he has done all year, the bottom line is he will vote cede Congress' Constitutional Spending Power. He will not vote to stand up to Bush. In the next breath he is real strong on nonbinding resolutions about Iran.

When asked by Russert about Joe Biden's call to impeach Bush if he attacks Iran, Webb hems and haws and says that the SPENDING POWER is the way to stop Bush from attacking Iran.

Excuse me Senator Webb, IF Bush does attack Iran, basedon your statements on Iraq funding, I would expect that you will vote for funding there too.

Senator Webb is a real mess on these issues.

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?