The ACLU will be at Guantanamo tomorrow to monitor the military commission hearing of Omar Khadr. The process so far:

Khadr, now 21, was 15 years old when he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He is the first detainee to face a military commission since June when charges against him and a Yemeni prisoner, Salim Hamdan, were thrown out by military judges who said the commission lacked proper jurisdictional authority to prosecute them. The military judges ruled that the two defendants had not been designated “unlawful enemy combatants” as required under the Military Commission Act signed into law by President Bush in October 2006.

The U.S. government appealed the dismissal of the cases, and the newly established U.S. Court of Military Commission Review – a panel of three military officers appointed by the Pentagon – reinstated the charges in September by deciding that the military commission judges have the authority to decide whether detainees should be deemed “unlawful” enemy combatants. Despite an appeal filed by Khadr’s lawyers with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the military judge in Khadr’s case, Col. Peter Brownback, will hear the case Thursday.

Omar is a Canadian teenager and child of Jihad, captured in Afghanistan and sent to Gitmo where he alleges he was tortured.

In February, his U.S. lawyer told reporters the teenager had been used as a human mop to clean urine on the floor and had been beaten, threatened with rape and tied up for hours in painful positions at Guantanamo Bay.

ABC News reports Bernie Kerik is telling friends and his legal team he expects to be indicted on tax and bribery charges by November 15, at the latest.

The statute of limitations expires on Nov. 15. Months ago, his lawyers and DOJ agreed to extend the statute until then.

I thought there might be another extension, but it looks now like there won't be.

Rather than rehash what I've already written, here are some good Village Voice artices from 2005 and 2006 summing up Rudy's Bernie troubles and explaining Bernie' s state guilty pleas last year.

Russ Buettner for the Daily News has been following the case from the beginning. Here's his article on Bernie's 9/11 "Love Nest" (woven into a great post by the late Steve Gilliard, and a compilation of articles at Citizens for Judicial Accountability.

My 48 posts (to date) on Kerik are accessible at this link.

The rationale for the doubletalk from John Edwards on drivers licenses for undocumented aliens becomes clearer. Rassmussen Reports says:

Just 19% of Democratic Primary Voters in New Hampshire believe that drivers licenses should be made available to undocumented workers. Sixty-six percent (66%) disagree. A separate survey released yesterday found that Democrats nationwide hold similar views with 68% opposing the policy.

Edwards' apparent (his answer is hard to decipher and rather nonsensical) change of heart (he favored drivers licenses for undocumented aliens in 2004) is clearly a result of political expediency.

The one candidate who spoke clearly and correctly on this issue was Barack Obama. He explained very well why offering dirvers licenses to undocumented aliens is good policy. He refused to pander to the xenophobia still present in the Democratic Party. Good for Obama. I hope he sticks to it in the face of this ugly side of the Democratic Party:

The insane Pat Robertson for the seemingly crazy and pro-choice Rudy.

Good to see how principled Robertson is on the social issues. Cilizza labels Robertson one of the most influential figures in the "social conservative movement" (the anti-science, pro-crazy wing?), but we were told something different before, so mission accomplished for Robertson I suppose. The funny part of Cilizza's ignorant column is this:

In recent years, Robertson has drawn considerable controversy for comments made about homosexuality

Homosexuality? Really? Did Robertson come out in favor when we were not looking? Come now Cilizza, either you are stupid or think we are. Robertson's problems are about his advocacy of assasination of the leaders of other nations:

Stunned by his "700 Club" commentary advocating the assassination of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, several of the Rev. Pat Robertson's evangelical brethren quickly, and publicly, condemned him for it. Since in their estimation, the Rev. Robertson now plays a diminished role in national politics, some conservative commentators thought the "liberal" media blew the story out of proportion.

And his comment that US deserved 9/11:

After watching the tv news and clicking on local media websites all night long, trying to determine the outcome of the marijuana initiative on Denver's ballot that would make pot offenses the lowest priority for Denver's police, I gave up.

It was a mostly mail-in election and there were major problems counting the ballots. At midnight, with 70,000 of the 90,000 votes counted, the initiative was winning 55.5% to 45.5%.

Then Denver's Clerk and Recorder called in the Swat Team to finish counting the ballots. Calling in the police to count the votes on a marijuana reform measure?

If the vote changes by morning, I want a recount.

Update: It looks like the pot initiative passed. Congratulations, Safer Denver. They will be counting votes until this afternoon, but 75,000 of the 90,000 are counted and its winning by 56.3% to 43.7%.

Musharraf must go. Hundreds more lawyers were arrested in Pakistan yesterday. The photo is of lawyers shouting slogans as they are being hauled away in police vans and accompanies this Scotsman article describing the lawyers being beaten.

Lawyers protesting yesterday outside the courts in Karachi and Lahore were thrashed by baton-charging police amid clouds of tear gas. About 350 of them were rounded up in Lahore.

Lawyers, judges and human-rights activists appear to have been deemed the enemies of the regime, as the country slides towards totalitarian rule. Since Saturday, between 1,500 and 2,000 have been incarcerated.

"On the pretext of fighting militants, General Musharraf has mounted a coup against Pakistan's civil society," said Brad Adams, the Asia director at the campaign group Human Rights Watch. "It's clear it is aimed solely at keeping himself in power."

More...

Paul Kane at the Washington Post the other day asked if Diane Feinstein was "the next Joe Lieberman."

She's not the "next" Joe Lieberman, she's been his twin for years and I'm glad people are taking notice. Examples from the past five years, in reverse chronological order:

• 2007: Feinstein crosses the aisle to support the confirmation of Judge Leslie Southwick, despite strong objections from liberal and civil rights groups.

• 2006: She co-sponsors Sen. Arlen Spector's FISA bill which would have made it easier for the NSA to bypass FISA's requirement of a court order. According to her own description of the bill:

The bill would create a new authority that would allow the Attorney General to designate specified FBI and NSA supervisors to begin such emergency surveillance without a warrant so long as the Attorney General is notified within 24 hours of the commencement of the wiretap and approves the surveillance within three days.

She also supported the flag-burning amendment.

• In 2005, she supported inserting the anti-meth bill into the Patriot Act. I wrote then, "I'm not surprised. She's has as little in common with true Democrats as Joe Lieberman." If you're wondering why you have to show id to buy sudafed and other common cold pills, as if that will deter the manufacture of meth, she co-sponsored that part.

More....

Can we please look forward instead of back? I don't want to waste time trying to impeach Dick Cheney or George Bush.

Let's spend our energy trying to get a better President and Vice President in 2008.

Both parties in Congress today played games with Dennis Kucinich's impeachment bill. It now goes to the Judiciary Committee where I bet it never sees the light of day or debate. KagroX at Daily Kos explains what happened.

Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette has just released this statement (no link, received by e-mail):

“Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s resolution raises important questions that require more than just 60 minutes of discussion on the House floor. That is why I voted to refer his resolution to the Judiciary Committee for the Committee to consider the measure through the regular process.”

I know many readers will disagree, but let's be practical. The time to impeach, if there was one, was after we learned Bush and Cheney lied about getting us into war in Iraq. It's too late now and counterproductive.

President Bush is now less popular than Richard Nixon.

By 64%-31%, Americans disapprove of the job he is doing. For the first time in the history of the Gallup Poll, 50% say they "strongly disapprove" of the president. Richard Nixon had reached the previous high, 48%, just before an impeachment inquiry was launched in 1974.

[Photo, taken by me in June, 2007, is of a mask located at Hunter Thompson's Owl Farm.]

All options are now exhausted. Former Illinois Governor George Ryan, age 73, will report to federal prison in rural Wisconsin by sundown tomorrow to begin serving his 6 1/2 year sentence. Supreme Court Justice John Stevens today denied his appeal for a stay.

Gov. Ryan did a great thing while in office.

He .... suspended all executions in Illinois and emptied out death row by commuting the sentences of all 167 inmates to life in prison. He cited the risk of the criminal justice system making a grave and irreversible error.

Digby skewers Maureen Orth, but I noticed this bit:

What I remember most vividly about that evening [a 1964 party on the Presidential yacht when Orth was a college student] was an exchange I had with Bobby Kennedy, the attorney general. “What are you going to be next, vice president or senator?,” I asked rather impudently, because I did not want him to think I was a brainless bimbo.

Very meaty question Orth asked. But I suppose she did leave it for us to discover the amount of brain she has. In any event, as Atrios (he puts them in the 7th grade) notes, Ms. Orth has regressed since then. This article is so sexist and condescending, that it makes a mockery of feminism. It seems "hostessing" is the highest calling for women in certain DC salons.

This is obvious. Matt Stoller writes:

I spoke to a New York state party insider who told me that candidate numbers have been dropped ten points in local elections to be held tomorrow because of immigration, across all major voting blocs. The right-wing speaks entirely in coded language about tribalism, and it's beginning to hurt our candidates badly.

I am curious about Stoller's conclusion that it is hurting. In Western New York, I suppose it is hurting. But what about in areas with significant Latino populations? Is it hurting there? Or is it helping Dems? I find Stoller's formulation problematic in the extreme. Indeed, one need only read Stoller's partner, Chris Bowers, to see why:

[L]ooking through exit poll data, it appears that [Kerry and Dukakis] performed almost identically among one of the larger demographic groups in the electorate: white voters. The only real difference between the outcome of the 1988 and 2004 elections does not seem to be that Kerry did any better among particularly demographic groups, but rather that demographic groups more favorable to Democrats formed a larger share of the electorate. In fact, Kerry actually did worse than Dukakis among Latinos. If John Kerry had won Latinos by the same 70%-30% margin that Dukakis did, then he would have at least pulled to within less than a percentage point on Bush, and possibly even won the popular vote.

Stoller seems to be misunderstanding the moment imo. Standing with Latinos on immigration MUST be part of the Emerging Democratic Majority strategy of the Democratic Party. This is precisely why John Edwards' weasel words on the subject are so troubling.