The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in two drug cases, Gall v. United States and Kimbrough v. United States.

The Kimbrough case will bring the disparate penalties for crack and powder into full focus. U.S. News today has some numbers on the sentencing disparity. The Gall case will define the circumstances under which a judge can sentence below strict federal sentencing guidelines.

In a nutshell, Gall's guidelines were 30 to 37 months for minor participation of limited duration in an ecstasy conspiracy. The Judge deviated from the Guidelines to a sentence of probation, the Government appealed and the 6th Circuit reversed the trial court.

The question in Gall (pdf):

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I have not read Justice Clarence Thomas' new memoir, "My Grandfather's Son." I do not know if I will. But one thing seems clear, Justice Thomas' book has reawakened the Anita Hill controversy. Perhaps that was not a wise thing for Justice Thomas to do. Hill responds to Thomas in the NYTimes:

ON Oct. 11, 1991, I testified about my experience as an employee of Clarence Thomas’s at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I stand by my testimony.

Justice Thomas has every right to present himself as he wishes in his new memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He may even be entitled to feel abused by the confirmation process that led to his appointment to the Supreme Court.

But I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.

Strange that Justice Thomas would repick this fight. Anita Hill has been reawakened.

I speak for me only as usual and I am a supporter of the Chris Dodd candidacy for the PResidency.

Chris Dodd's campaign is based on one major issue - that the leadership we will want in our next President is demonstrated by the leadership a candidate shows now on the major issues of the day. The biggest issue is, of course, Iraq, and Chris Dodd is fighting to insure a Democratic Congress does not fund the Iraq War without a date certain for ending the war. This fight is attracting notice in Iowa:

Yepsen: 1st-tier Dems' timidity on Iraq may create opening

Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd is the longest of long-shot candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. But he doesn't seem too agitated about that. He's an experienced politician. He knows how the caucus game often breaks late. Because of his 33 years of experience in Congress, he also knows something about U.S. foreign policy and the war in Iraq.

He does get agitated about that, particularly when the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination appear to be in no big hurry to get out. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all declined in last week's debate to say they'd have U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term - in 2013. "I was stunned, literally stunned" to hear them say that, Dodd said in an interview for last weekend's Iowa Press program on Iowa Public Television."It was breathtaking to me that the so-called three leading candidates would not make that commitment. That's six years from today." . . .MORE

Ed Kilgore and Matt Yglesias discuss Iraq polling. Ed writes:

Pollsters need to figure out ways to (a) test the Iraq issues actually facing Congress; (b) include in questions a few basic facts about troop withdrawals (i.e., that Bush is only talking about withdrawing "surged" troops) and funding levels (i.e., how much money buys what strategy) . . .

This seems right and as a public service I write the actual question facing the Congress:

Given President Bush's declared statements and views, not funding the Iraq War after a date certain is the only way Congress can end US combat involvement in Iraq. Do you favor or disfavor the Congress exercising its Constitutional power over spending in order to end US combat involvement in Iraq?

I betcha you get 60-65% approval of not funding.

See also Bob Fertik's polling results.

Yes, the Senate Democrats failed us again as they approved another $150 billion for the Iraq War and for Afghanistan:

The 92-3 vote comes as the House planned to approve separate legislation Tuesday that requires President Bush to give Congress a plan for eventual troop withdrawals.

The developments underscored the difficulty facing Democrats in the Iraq debate: They lack the votes to pass legislation ordering troops home and are divided on whether to cut money for combat, despite a mandate by supporters to end the war.

Memo to Senate Dems: What's so tough about following your mandate? So what if you lose, at least take a stand on the major issue you were elected on. It's really quite simple. Set a timetable now for all troops to be gone from Iraq or vote to cut off the funding.

In an interview published Saturday, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said we are a Christian nation and he prefers a President of the Christian faith.

"I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles ... personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith."

.... He added that "the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation."

Jewish groups roundly criticized him. The American Jewish Committee released a statement:

McCain should know that the United States is a democratic society without a religious test for public office.

"To argue that America is a Christian nation, or that persons of a particular faith should by reason of their faith not seek high office, puts the very character of our country at stake," Jeffrey Sinensky, the group's general counsel, said Monday in a statement.

Who came to McCain's defense? Joe Lieberman. And of course, McCain is now backtracking.

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New passport rules went into effect today. You'll need one to fly to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda, and to re-enter the U.S. from those countries when traveling by air.

Beginning in January, the passport rule will extend to travel by sea and land, including automobiles.

And if you're behind on your child support? Forget about it.

Here's how to apply for a passport if you don't have one.

Re: the video. Yes, that's actor Steve Martin on banjo accompanying Roger McGuinn.

Media Matters:

Summary: Discussing Rush Limbaugh's recent description of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," John Gibson asserted on his radio show: "Rush was specifically talking about a particular one, Jesse MacBeth, who had pled guilty in court to lying about even being in Iraq." To support this claim, Gibson aired a clip in which Limbaugh purported to air the "entire" segment in question. In fact, that segment did not include a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of the 1 minute and 50 second discussion that occurred between Limbaugh's original "phony soldiers" comment and his subsequent reference to MacBeth.

As Rob Corddry said, "facts have a liberal bias," so they need to be adjusted by the likes of Limbaugh and Fox.

Update [2007-10-1 18:16:27 by Big Tent Democrat]: You gotta respect the chutzpah the Republicans have:

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Shakespeare:

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

A writer named Patrick Healy yesterday critized Hillary Clinton in a tabloid-type trash article in the New York Times because of her laugh which he calls a "cackle." The implication: Hillary is a witch.

The weirdest moment was with Bob Schieffer on the CBS News program "Face the Nation" when Mr. Schieffer said to Mrs. Clinton, "You rolled out your new health care plan, something Republicans immediately said is going to lead to socialized medicine." She giggled, giggled some more, and then could not seem to stop giggling — "Sorry, Bob," she said — and finally unleashed the full Cackle.

As Media Matters has reported, Healy has been doing hit pieces on Democratic candidates for years while giving Rudy Giuliani a pass. More inexplicable is that Maureen Dowd, whom Atrios calls Wanker of the Day today, chimes in.

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Thousands of monks in Burma have been executed or moved into prisons.

According to one Swedish diplomat who has now left the country, the military has won.

Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that the Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression. "The Burma revolt is over," she added.

"The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt. "Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear."

This was the lead and main story on the news in Spain this weekend....Sky News, BBC, CNN International, and Bloomberg devoted most of their half-hour programs to it. The military blocked journalists from entering the country so they reported news they received from "citizen journalists" and aired their videos. Some journalists reported from Bangkok. They also aired a lot of telephone calls they received from people inside the country.

In another nice piece of reporting, Solomon Moore examines the slow progress that states are making to address the problem of wrongful convictions -- a problem that states generally refused to acknowledge until DNA evidence made clear that mistaken or knowingly false accusations often lead to erroneous guilty verdicts.

All but eight states now give inmates varying degrees of access to DNA evidence that might not have been available at the time of their convictions. Many states are also overhauling the way witnesses identify suspects, crime labs handle evidence and informants are used. At least six states have created commissions to expedite cases of those wrongfully convicted or to consider changes to criminal justice procedures. ...

Maryland, North Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia passed legislation this year to create tougher standards for the identification of suspects by witnesses, one of the most trouble-ridden procedures. ... Two states, Vermont and Maryland, passed laws this year to improve crime lab oversight to eliminate errors and omissions.

More than 500 local and state jurisdictions, including Alaska, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia have adopted polices that require the recording of interrogations to help prevent false confessions, according to the Innocence Project.

Unfortunately, progress has been halting and inconsistent, at best.

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Here's the moral of the story:

The problem is that when the police focus on gangs rather than the crimes they commit, they are apt to sweep up innocent bystanders, who may dress like a gang member, talk like a gang member and even live in a gang neighborhood, but are not gang members.

Solomon Moore's first-hand experience with abusive police behavior toward suspected gang members -- "Reporting While Black" -- is worth your time.