Ezra Klein wrote a great piece taking apart the very silly Roger Cohen's lament that "liberal hawks" like himself are misunderstood. They are NOT neocons Cohen insists. Ezra responded:

This shouldn't be necessary to say, but increasingly, it seems like the only point worth making to the commentariat. American politics isn't about you. It's not about your ideas, or your personal vision of the world, or your purity. . . . It is the impact of your ideas, and your commentary, that matters. . . . Here's why: Roger Cohen is not president. George W. Bush is. And until Roger Cohen's foreign policy vision integrates itself with an understanding of American power, and how ideas interact with the current administration, he is, effectively, a neoconservative, or, worse, an enabler of the neoconservatives who's able to advocate for their policy agenda without needing to answer for their failures.

(Emphasis supplied.) Great stuff. But it is worth asking this question - are progressive pundits, progressive blogs, and progressive activists considering how their "ideas interact with the current administration?" I think not. There is precious little discussion from most about the fact that the only way to stop the Bush Administration's Iraq Debacle is to not fund it after a date certain. So either they are of the view that NOTHING can stop the Iraq Debacle while Bush is President (and if they think so, they should say so), or they are just as guilty of the narcissism Klein accuses Cohen of. Moreover, while George Bush will not be President after January 2009, neither will Ezra Klein or any other progressive pundit, blogger or activist. More.

A sickening story out of Los Angeles.

A suburban sheriff’s station has had deputies vying to book the most people and impound the most vehicles, and the Los Angeles County sheriff said Thursday that he had ended the competitions.

Results from the competitions, called Operation Any Booking and Operation Vehicle Impound, had been posted on a wall in the Lakewood station. Two hundred deputies are based in Lakewood, which is the local police force for 120,000 residents in five cities southeast of Los Angeles, Artesia, Bellflower, Hawaiian Gardens, Lakewood and Paramount.

L.A. Sheriff Baca says there will be no repercussions.

“They’re not acceptable,” he said. “They’re not appropriate. But no harm, no foul. The only disciplinary action I’ve taken is saying to the lieutenant who organized them, ‘Hey, knock this’” off.

Let's see if the courts agree when the lawyers for those busted during the period of the competition start challenging the arrests in court.

I've gotten tagged by the Blawg Review's La Meme Chose: Simply the Best. While they didn't name TalkLeft, others who got tagged did (thank you Law Sites and Deliberations) so now it's my turn.

Without further ado, here's my list of daily reads of blogs covering legal issues or blogging.

• Sentencing Law and Policy
• How Appealing
• Scotus Blog
• Balkanization
• Bench Conference
• WSJ Law Blog
• Stand Down Texas Project
• Drug War Rant
• Grits for Breakfast
• Real Lawyers Have Blogs

(Since LNILR contributes to TalkLeft, I'm not naming his Fourth Amendment blog -- or the blogs who named TalkLeft -- to avoid the appearance of favoritism and reciprocity.)

Honorable mention goes to Capital Defense Weekly, the DUI Blog, the White Collar Crime Blog and Think Outside the Cage.

There are many great law blogs out there and I hope you'll check all the lists going around.

A federal judge in New York today granted downward departures from the sentencing guidelines and sentenced a lawyer couple who pleaded guilty to insider trading to probation.

The husband had cancer and was dependent on the wife's health insurance from her job. The wife wanted to take care of her husband while he was ill.

[Defense lawyer] Breen said that Ms. Collotta's life was a "wreck" because of her actions and she needed to stay out of prison to care for her sick husband, who depends on her for the health insurance provided by her job.... Ms. Collotta tearfully told the court, "I fear that he will die without his wife and his best friend by his side."

The interesting part of the story for me is this comment by the Judge.

"This is one of those cases in which the defendants before the court are at the bottom of the food chain and those who have profited the greatest" are likely to receive a lighter sentence because of cooperation with the government."

Appearing on Air America Radio today, Elizabeth Edwards criticized Rush Limbaugh regarding his Vietnam draft deferment.

My classmates went to Vietnam, he did not. He was 4F. He had a medical disability, the same medical disability that probably should have stopped him from spending a lifetime in a radio announcer’s chair; but it is true, isn’t it? If he has an inoperable position that allows him not to serve, presumably it should not allow him to sit for long periods of time the way he does.

I think this is a serious enough offense for the people who fund him, who buy ads and allow him to be on the air, need to be asked if this is what they really stand for, do they think it is all right for someone who has never served to denigrate the men and women who have simply because they are expressing an opinion. Frankly, I thought that is what we are fighting for.

According to Snopes, Rush did ultimately receive a 4-F classification after submitting a letter from his personal doctor. There is no record of him being examined by military doctors. His medical condition: a pilonidal cyst.

More...

Bump and Update: The New York Times has a new article describing the two memos from 2005:

One 2005 opinion gave the Justice Department’s most authoritative legal approval to the harshest agency techniques, including head slapping, exposure to cold and simulated drowning, even when used in combination.

The second opinion declared that under some circumstances, such techniques were not “cruel, inhuman or degrading,” a category of treatment that Congress banned in December 2005.

As one Senator opined today:

“I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice,” Mr. Rockefeller wrote.

As for the timing of the memos:

A senior administration official who insisted on anonymity said the opinion on the “combined effects” of different techniques was approved in May 2005.

The opinion that the methods were not cruel or inhuman was approved later in 2005, the official said. Officials have said both opinions remain in effect.

*******
Original Post
White House Denies Memos Authorized Torture

Predictably, the White House is denying that memos issued in 2005 authorized previously prohibited CIA interrogation techniques that amount to torture.

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(Guest Post by Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson)

On Iran, Hillary has been right in her strong criticism of Bush

I was pleased to see that last Monday Hillary joined Senator Jim Webb in co-sponsoring a bill that would prohibit the use of funds for military action in Iran without specific authorization from Congress. Last week, Hillary voted to support a non-binding resolution that designates the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. As a former diplomat, I have had considerable experience in the use of such resolutions to bring pressure – diplomatic pressure – to bear on a regime to rein in rogue elements. And make no mistake about it, the Guards are not only in operational control of Iran's policy toward Iraq and Afghanistan, where Iranian supplied munitions are costing American lives; they are agents of reaction and repression inside Iran. While it is a fact that the Bush administration's duplicity should give all Americans pause, we cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that we have real enemies in the world, and that we must be prepared to exercise the appropriate levers of power in support of our interests.

Both Hillary and Jim Webb correctly worry that the administration is considering a preemptive military strike against Iran. That is why Hillary continues to confront the Bush-Cheney White House and to challenge the legitimacy of any attack against Iran without prior Congressional approval.

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Bad news for Sen. Larry Craig. The court has denied his motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

“Because the defendant’s plea was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and because the conviction is supported by the evidence ... the Defendant’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea is denied,” Hennepin County Judge Charles Porter wrote.

Here's the Order (pdf).

The question now: Will Craig appeal?

Update: Craig will not resign before the end of his term.

Hours after the Supreme Court granted cert on the issue of whether Kentucky's lethal injection procedures constituted cruel and unusual punishment, Judge Sharon Keller in Texas, without consulting the other judges, closed the criminal courts at 5:00 pm.

As a result, Michael Richard's attorneys were unable to file for a stay of execution. Richard was executed that night.

Cheryl Johnson, the Judge assigned to handle any late minute motions in Richard's case is angry.

"If I'm in charge of the execution, I ought to have known about those things, and I ought to have been asked whether I was willing to stay late and accept those filings."

Johnson said her first reaction was "utter dismay." Johnson said she would have accepted the brief for consideration by the court. "Sure," she said. "I mean, this is a death case."

There were judges in the courthouse at the time Keller closed it.

Three judges were working late in the courthouse that evening, and others were available by phone if needed, court personnel said.

Amnesty International has released a report tracking the botched executions in the U.S.

"The use of lethal injections in the US has led to at least nine bungled executions, including one in which the prisoner took 69 minutes to die and another in which the condemned man complained five times: "It don't work," a report by Amnesty International says today.

The report contains a catalogue of botched executions dating from 2000, when lethal injection was adopted by 37 of the 38 US states with the death penalty."

As to Texas:

Amnesty notes that Texas, which operates America's busiest execution chamber, has banned one of the chemicals involved for use in euthanising pets, because it does not effectively mask pain.

In other words, you wouldn't do a dog this way.

Yesterday, a Tyler, TX judge set a Nov. 6 execution date for Allen Bridgers.

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Jack Balkin writes:

The twisting of law by the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales is far worse than Gonzales' misleading testimony in front of Congress about the U.S. Attorney scandal. That scandal dominated the headlines for weeks. This one deserves far more searching press scrutiny. Despite the fact that Congress repeatedly passed legislation stating that it was illegal for U.S. personnel to engage in torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the Justice Department repeatedly redefined the terms of these prohibitions so that the CIA could keep doing exactly what the Justice Department had authorized to do before. Gonzales treated all of these laws as if they made no difference at all, as if they were just pieces of paper. . . . MORE

The Senate approved a $459 billion Pentagon funding bill Wednesday.

Included in the package: $3 billion for the 700 mile border fence and $794 million for border security along the Mexico-U.S. border.

This is what the Republicans wanted all along. Money for enforcement, none for immigration reform.

Did the Dems vote against it? Of course not. The border provisions passed on a vote of 95 to 1.

Also in the bill: $43 billion for new weapons systems.