Time Magazine examines the Florida prison system, particularly in the wake of the acquittal of 13 juvenile boot camp guards last week.

In another Florida case, a 36 year old was stomped to death by guards in his cell. The guards were acquitted despite their boot prints being found all over the inmate's back.

Both verdicts were vivid reminders of what critics call the rot of Florida's corrections culture...While no one is asking Florida to coddle its prisoners, adult or juvenile, many fear it has yet to break its dark habit of coddling abusive guards and other officials watching over those prisoners.

Below are some examples of the prisoner abuses that have come to light through filed lawsuits:

Update: The Supreme Court halted the execution.

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Christopher Scott Emmett is scheduled for execution in Virginia tonight. His lawyers are seeking a last minute stay from the Supreme Court based upon the lethal injection procedure. The state is resisting.

This would be Emmett's second stay. The first was granted two hours before his scheduled execution in June.

Monday night, a Nevada execution was halted. In that case the inmate wanted to die.

More...

Adam Liptak reminds us of an embarrassing fact:

In December, the United Nations took up a resolution calling for the abolition of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for children and young teenagers. The vote was 185 to 1, with the United States the lone dissenter.

Indeed, the United States stands alone in the world in convicting young adolescents as adults and sentencing them to live out their lives in prison. According to a new report, there are 73 Americans serving such sentences for crimes they committed at 13 or 14.

The Equal Justice Initiative advocates the restoration of parole availability for juvenile offenders who are sentenced to life. Its report is here (pdf). Liptak explains why that sensible proposal won't excite legislators:

Lynn Cheney told NBC's Norah O'Donnell today that Dick Cheney's geneology shows he and Barack Obama are 8th cousins, related through a relative from France in the 1700's.

Why was she telling this? She was "admitting" it to acknowledge any perceived bias on her part against Hillary.

Tom Tancredo didn't do too well in the fundraising department this quarter. His contributions totaled 764,188.87. His operating expenses were 1,192,933.01. In his home state of Colorado, he raised only 47,274.00.

Maybe that's why he's getting this desperate:

Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo wants foreigners seeking visas to join relatives in the U.S. to provide DNA samples to prove their family ties.

The Colorado congressman introduced a bill Tuesday in the House to require the tests, saying documents provided by immigrants to show they are related to U.S. citizens or permanent residents are sometimes sketchy and unreliable.

I thought Republicans were supposed to be the party offering less bureaucracy. I guess not if it makes a good soundbite or you're losing.

On 5280.com today I wrote about Hillary's fund-raising success this quarter in Colorado.

Over at HuffPo, there's an article "Hollywood Still Hearts Obama" about how Obama is raking it in with Hollywood stars. Since I already had the link to the FEC stats, I went and checked.

Obama raised $3,724,772.18 in California this past quarter. Hillary raised $4,869,227.82.

How about Beverly Hills zip code 90210? Obama raised 69,102.81. Hillary raised 154,515.00.

The HuffPo article doesn't give totals, just lists some stars' donations but it gives the wrong impression. A better, not to mention more alliterative title would have been "Hollywood Hearts Hillary."

I only found out about this today because I was going to do a segment on Dan Abrams show tonight about Rush Limbaugh (story below)and they canceled at the last minute because they are going to cover the Ellen DeGeneres meltdown instead. You can watch the video at the link.

I'm totally supporting Ellen.

In a nutshell: Ellen got a dog from a rescue mission. She paid $3,000 to have it neutered and go through training to make sure it would get along with her cats. The cats and dog didn't get along. Ellen gave the dog to her hairdresser who does her hair daily for the show and who has two young daughters. The kids bonded with the dog.

But Ellen didn't read the fine print of her contract with the rescue mission which said if she doesn't keep the dog it goes back to them. When they called to check on the dog, Ellen told them the truth. The rescue mission went and repossessed the dog. Ellen breaks down on the show saying it's all her fault and pleads with the company to return the dog to the kids.

More...

Media Matters has the transcript of Rush Limbaugh telling his audience that in the past, he told the reporter of a national newsmagazine he would dig into his past to come up with dirt on him in order to get the reporter to change his story. Rush felt the reporter's story was a hit job so he says he engaged in the "destructive" behavior himself. He says the statements did the trick and the reporter changed the story.

I've practiced it once. I am not going to tell you the story because I'm don't want to give it away, and I would have to mention names, and I'm not going to mention names. But there was a cover story on me coming out of one of the big news magazines, and it was going to totally mischaracterize me and what I do and how I do it. And we found out who was writing it and made a couple phone calls to the person writing it. And we said, "You know what? We're going to find out where your kids go to school. We're going to find out who you knocked up in high school. We're going to find out what drugs you used. We're going to find out where you go to drink and do -- we're gonna find out how you paid for your house. We're going to do -- and we're going to do exact -- and we're going to say that, you know what?

More...

Arianna at Huffington Post interviewed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday.

Speaker Pelosi made three promises in the interview:

• that the House will not take up a war appropriations bill this year
• that there will be no war appropriations bill next year that doesn't include a fixed date for bringing the troops home
• that House Democrats will put up a major fight over the Bush administration's desire to make permanent the FISA law passed in August, particularly over the issue of retroactive immunity that the Senate has already given in on.

Huffpo has videos up of the interview.

Since the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the use of lethal injections to execute prisoners violates the Eighth Amendment, at least ten states have stayed executions. Nevada is the latest.

A killer's execution was halted 90 minutes before he was set to die amid arguments from death penalty opponents that the state should wait until the U.S. Supreme Court reviews the constitutionality of lethal injections. ... The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada appealed to halt any executions in the state.

I've got some jail visiting to do today and will be offline. Big Tent Democrat or TChris may be around this afternoon, but in the meantime, here's an open thread for you.

Also check out the new diaries:

WaPo Op Ed piece:

The Real Iraq We Knew

By 12 former Army captains
Tuesday, October 16, 2007; 12:00 AM

. . . As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.
. . . [T]he U.S. military has been trying in vain to hold the country together. Even with "the surge," we simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions.

. . . There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.