I get to celebrate my birthday today in Madrid which is pretty cool. Almost enough to make me forget I'm the same age as Bruce Springsteen and Barry Scheck (although still younger than Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.)

Have a great day everyone, and here's your open thread.

Jena Six defendant Mychal Bell has been released on bond pending trial.

He will be tried in juvenile court. It's where charges should have been brought in the first place.

Senator Chris Dodd: I happen to believe very strongly that this policy of ours, military involvement in Iraq, is counterproductive. We're less safe, less secure, more vulnerable and more isolated today as a result of the policy. So I believe that we ought to begin that process of redeployment here.

. . . Congress has an obligation here. It's not enough that we just draft timetables. The Constitution gives the Congress of the United States a unique power, and that is the power of the purse. As long as we continue drafting these lengthy resolutions and amendments here, talking about timelines and dates, we're not getting to the fundamental power that exists in the Congress.

And that is to terminate the funding of this effort here, give us a new direction. As everyone who's looked at this issue over the last two or three years have concluded, there is no military solution here, and we need to do far more to protect our interests not only in that region, but throughout the world. We're not doing it with this policy.

It is not ordinarily a crime to be in the United States without proper authorization. Police therefore have no right to detain individuals and command them to "show me your papers" when those individuals aren't reasonably suspected of criminal activity. Immigration advocates believe that's exactly what's happening in Irving, Texas.

Father Pedro Portillo, of Santa Maria de Guadalupe Church in Irving, said he's talked to several people who say they were approached by officers without cause and asked for immigration documents.

The suspicion is that Irving police officers are engaging in "racial profiling and overzealously arresting suspected illegal immigrants so they can be deported, a claim the Mexican Consulate takes so seriously it's advising people to avoid driving through this Dallas suburb."

Mexican Consulate staff in Dallas attempt to interview Mexicans being deported, and say that over the past few weeks it appears a disproportionate number have been from Irving. The consulate covers a huge area, from East Texas all the way to the Texas Panhandle, and Hubbard Urrea said about half those interviewed were from Irving, a Dallas suburb of 206,000.

Jon Soltz of Vote Vets responds to Rush Limbuagh's attack on US soldiers who served in Iraq who oppose continuing the Debacle:

Rush Limbaugh, on his show said that those troops who come home and want to get America out of the middle of the religious civil war in Iraq are "phony soldiers." I'd love for you, Rush, to have me on your show and tell that to me to my face. First, in what universe is a guy who never served even close to being qualified to judge those who have worn the uniform? Rush Limbaugh has never worn a uniform in his life - not even one at Mickey D's - and somehow he's got the moral standing to pass judgment on the men and women who risked their lives for this nation, and his right to blather smears on the airwaves? . . .

Time for a Congressional resolution condemning Limbaugh. Yes, I am serious. This is how the game of politics has to be played.

Update [2007-9-27 19:53:3 by Big Tent Democrat]: Dems firing hard at Limbaugh.

In the tpmcafe discussion of Matt Bai's new book,"The Argument," mcjoan writes one of the best pieces I've seen on what the Netroots is. A snippet:

Just about every lefty blogger I know came to online activism because of their core belief in a traditionally liberal governing philosophy. It's best summed up by Matt Stoller in response to Jonathon Chait's thoughtful look at the blogs in TNR from a few months ago.

Basically, we're a group of people who feel very betrayed by the leadership of our country, our media, and our party. We care about ideas because bad ideas implemented tend to kill lots of innocent people, and we don't like that. We are liberal because we believe in liberal ideas, and by and large, we've been proven correct. The Iraq war was a terrible idea. Bush has been a horrible President. Running on Iraq in 2006 was a good idea. Stopping Social Security privatization was possible and necessary. A 50 state strategy made sense because a wave election was foreseeable. Don't trust the telecom companies with the internet. Let's figure out this global warming thing.

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A big thanks to TChris and Big Tent for posting while I'm in Madrid.

The big news here is the military crackdown in Burma (now called Myanmar)in which Buddhist monks are being beaten and arrested. Eight people have been killed by police firing weapons into crowds of protesters. A Japanese journalist was also killed.

CNN keeps reporting that since journalists aren't being granted entry, it is getting its reporting from citizen journalists.

I'm off to our opening reception and dinner so here's an open thread for those of you with other topics to discuss.

Plane reading: The new Rolling Stone has an oral history of Hunter S. Thompson's early years by those who knew him then. It's great reading and available online here.

Prison Nation continues to grow.

The number of inmates in adult correctional facilities in the United States has topped two million for the first time, the Census Bureau said yesterday.

It isn't exactly cheery news that there are more people residing in prison than in nursing homes, or that there are slightly fewer living in prison than in college dormitories. The most shocking comparison is this one:

Among people living in group quarters, whites were almost twice as likely to be living in a dormitory than a prison, while Asians were nine times more likely to be in a college dorm than in prison. But blacks and Hispanics were about three times as likely to be imprisoned than to be living in a dormitory.

The Bureau of Prisons has never been responsive to groups that advocate for prisoners' rights, but it turns out that BOP listens to Republicans and evangelical talk show hosts. The Bureau reversed its decision (reported here) to purge prison chapel libraries of all religious texts that aren't on a government-approved list. The new plan seems to be a selective purge.

In an e-mail message Wednesday, the bureau said: “In response to concerns expressed by members of several religious communities, the Bureau of Prisons has decided to alter its planned course of action with respect to the Chapel Library Project. The bureau will begin immediately to return to chapel libraries materials that were removed in June 2007, with the exception of any publications that have been found to be inappropriate, such as material that could be radicalizing or incite violence. The review of all materials in chapel libraries will be completed by the end of January 2008.”

What standards will govern the determination that a religious text is "inappropriate"? Will those decisions be free from religious bias? Don't expect BOP to answer those questions.

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Various provisions of the Patriot Act offend the Constitution. Today, federal District Court Judge Ann Aiken focused on the Act's attempt to circumvent the requirement that warrants to search for evidence of suspected criminal activity must be based on probable cause. The Constitution prevailed (pdf).

The case arose out of the FBI's unfounded suspicion that Brandon Mayfield orchestrated a train bombing in Madrid. Mayfield's odyssey is chronicled in these TalkLeft posts. Mayfield brought a lawsuit that, among other things, asked the court to declare the Patriot Act unconstitutional.

Before the Patriot Act, the law allowed the government to obtain a surveillance order from the FISA court when it certified that the primary purpose of surveillance was the gathering of foreign intelligence information. A search primarily intended to uncover evidence of a domestic crime required a showing of probable cause. The Patriot Act authorized a FISA surveillance order when the the executive branch certified that a significant purpose of surveillance was foreign intelligence gathering, even if the surveillance primarily furthered an ordinary criminal investigation.

Judge Aiken identified the constitutional dilemma:

Significantly, a seemingly minor change in wording has a dramatic and significant impact on the application of FISA. A warrant under FISA now issues if "a significant purpose" of the surveillance is foreign intelligence. Now, for the first time in our Nation's history, the government can conduct surveillance to gather evidence for use in a criminal case without a traditional warrant, as long as it presents a non-reviewable assertion that it also has a significant interest in the targeted person for foreign intelligence purposes.

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I'm gonna live blog the Democratic Presidential Debate taking place this evening at Dartmouth College. Or at least as long as I can stand it. It will be broadcast on MSNBC. It starts at 9.

Predict who you think will have a big night tonight. Here's my prediction - Chris Dodd goes after Hillary and Obama on the Iran resolution passed today by the Senate and will press Biden to commit to not funding the Iraq Debacle. Leadership NOW!

After 43 hours of deliberation, the jury considering Phil Spector's fate could not reach a unanimous verdict. (More on the drama surrounding the deliberations here.) Unable to reconcile the differences that led to a 10-2 vote (presumably for conviction), the jury declared itself hopelessly deadlocked, and the judge declared a mistrial.

The prosecution says it will retry Spector. Second trials often favor the prosecution, since the state has now previewed Spector's defense. In the meantime, Spector remains free on bail, his presumption of innocence intact.