Another weird story of the day: An ethics investigation into Mobile, AL judge Herman Thomas includes these allegations:

Authorities are investigating allegations that now-suspended Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas periodically removed prisoners from Mobile County Metro Jail and spanked them in a room at the courthouse, according to courthouse sources involved in the inquiry.

Once inside the room, according to the sources, the judge would ask the young men to drop their pants and prepare to be spanked with what they described as a wooden or fraternity-like paddle.

Judge Thomas refused to comment on the allegations. The NAACP may hold a press conference this afternoon. Some of the details of the accusations appear to be corroborated:

More...

atrios liked this from Stoller:

Also, while I'm doing a bit of ranting, stupid articles on what the 'netroots' does or does not do, such as this one, or this one, to take but two examples, that ignore the fact that no top-tier Democrat differs from Clinton on Iraq, are really really stupid. . . . [T]he blogosphere is [not] some top-down organization with centralized management that controls the Democratic party leadership rather than a network of people with somewhat highly trafficked websites held in mild disdain by most Democrats on the Hill with any decision-making authority or useful information. Although to be fair to the previous two really stupid articles, the latter two stupid articles were pretty stupid.

I wrote one of the "stupid" articles referenced. I think Stoller missed my point. I could not care less if the Netroots unites behind any Presidential candidate or blasts away at Hillary. Stoller defends himself by saying Hillary should be opposed (I guess.) He may be right but that is not my beef. Indeed, my complaint has been that the Netroots spends too much time talking about the 2008 presidential election and not enough time talking about the issues of 2007. In fact, I wrote:

I've opined several times that Sen. Larry Craig's plea might be withdrawn because the mail-in plea agreement he signed failed to advise him of his right to counsel. Attorney Beldar points out that Minnesota has a form for defendants who want to plead guilty pro se. Beldar notes, however, there's been no reporting that Craig submitted such a form. Maybe a reporter or lawyer in MN could check the file?

Meanwhile, World Net Daily comes up with another defense for Sen. Craig: Article 1: Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution provides that no member of Congress can be arrested while traveling to or from official session. Craig voted on a bill in Washington at 5:55 pm, which raises the clear inference he was traveling from MN to D.C. to vote.

More...

Bump and Update: Check out the voicemail Sen. Larry Craig left for his lawyer Billy Martin "on a stranger's phone" minutes before his resignation speech. Roll Call obtained the voicemail after it was offered for sale and refused by the Idaho Statesman. McJoan at Daily Kos posts the entire transcript.

Update: Here's the audio of the call from Roll Call. Sounds more like an answering machine than a voicemail to me, although I don't know it makes a difference.

This story keeps getting weirder by the hour.

"Yes, Billy, this is Larry Craig calling. You can reach me on my cell. Arlen Specter is now willing to come out in my defense, arguing that it appears by all that he knows that I have been railroaded and all that.

"Having all of that, we have reshaped my statement a little bit to say it is my intent to resign on Sept. 30. I think it is important for you to make as bold a statement as you are comfortable with this afternoon, and I would hope you could make it in front of the cameras.

"I think it would help drive the story that I’m willing to fight, that I’ve got quality people out there fighting in my defense, and that this thing could take a new turn or a new shape, it has that potential. Anyway, give me a buzz or give Mike a buzz on that. We’re headed to my press conference now. "Thank you. Bye."

Dan Whiting, confirms the voice is Craig's. Here's the statement Billy Martin released Saturday.

So who did Craig call? Did someone close to Martin sell him out or did he really dial the wrong number? I wonder what the recorded message said on the phone Craig left the voice-mail on. He's not stupid. If it was "Hi, this is John, please leave me a message" he wouldn't have left that message. Something had to indicate to Craig he was calling Billy Martin. No way would Billy Martin have leaked the message. So, who is Roll Call protecting? My theory is below.

More....

Kudos to Markos and Daily Kos. The FEC issued an important ruling today, finding that blogs are media and like all media since 1974, media activity has been explicitly exempted from federal campaign finance regulation:

The Federal Election Commission announced today that it has unanimously resolved two complaints alleging that Internet blog activity is subject to Commission regulation, finding that the activity is exempt from regulation under the media or volunteer exemption.

In Matter Under Review (MUR) 5928, the Commission determined that Kos Media, L.L.C., which operates the website DailyKos, did not violate the Federal Election Campaign Act. The Commission rejected allegations that the site should be regulated as a political committee because it charges a fee to place advertising on its website and it provides “a gift of free advertising and candidate media services” by posting blog entries that support candidates. The Commission determined that the website falls squarely within the media exemption and is therefore not subject to federal regulation under the Act.

More...

Kos:

Heck, I'd be happy if just the Democrats would follow their words with action this Magical September. We don't need Republicans to follow suit.

Republicans need 60 votes in the Senate to pass any funding bills, while Democrats can single-handedly squash any efforts in the House. If Republicans don't compromise on a withdrawal timetable, there's no impetus to pass a funding bill.

And without funding, there's no war.

Way to make me look dumb, Kos. And shut me up quick. I thank you for it.

Kudos.

For a year, the ACLU has been trying to get documents from the military on the killings of Iraqis by U.S. Troops. It is filing a lawsuit today because to date, only the Army has complied with their FOIA request.

Also today, the ACLU released 10,000 pages of documents it received from the Army in a searchable database here.

Those documents include new evidence of coalition forces’ involvement in civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. The nearly 10,000 pages that the ACLU is making public today include courts martial proceedings and military investigations regarding the possible wrongful death of civilians.

The files in many instances show a lack of proper training. From the New York Times report on the released documents:

They show repeated examples of troops believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens.

More...

(Andy Warhol's "Electric Chair", 1971)

Nebraska, which currently has 10 men on death row, still uses the electric chair exclusively for executions.

Today, the Nebraska Supreme Court holds oral argument on the constitutionality of frying its death inmates.

The case being argued involves an appeal filed by death-row inmate Raymond Mata Jr. But it also could affect the case of death row inmate Carey Dean Moore, who came within days of being executed in May.

The court cited the Mata appeal when it abruptly halted Moore's scheduled execution. The court said the legal questions surrounding the electric chair needed to be resolved before another inmate was put to death in Nebraska.

Nebraska legislators were one vote short of ending the death penalty this year. The answer is not to switch from the electric chair to lethal injection, but from the electric chair to life without the possibility of parole.

If the Nebraska high court tosses Old Sparky it will leave the state without a death penalty. Hopefully, one more legislator will change his mind when it comes time to consider a new death penalty law in the state.

Check out next Sunday's New York Times' magazine article by Jeffrey Rosen on Jack Goldsmith's book that discusses, among other things, what went on behind the scenes with Ashcroft, Gonzales and the NSA wiretapping program. Goldmsith is the former head of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel

The article contains a number of new disclosures. But first, some background. Goldsmith is a conservative. He supports the war on terror. Here's where he's coming from:

Goldsmith notes, everywhere the president looks, critics — as well as his own lawyers — are telling him that pre-emptive actions may violate international law as well as U.S. criminal law. What, exactly, are the legal limits of executive power in the post-9/11 world? How should administration lawyers negotiate the conflict between the fear of attacks and the fear of lawsuits?

In Goldsmith’s view, the Bush administration went about answering these questions in the wrong way. Instead of reaching out to Congress and the courts for support, which would have strengthened its legal hand, the administration asserted what Goldsmith considers an unnecessarily broad, “go-it-alone” view of executive power. As Goldsmith sees it, this strategy has backfired. “They embraced this vision,” he says, “because they wanted to leave the presidency stronger than when they assumed office, but the approach they took achieved exactly the opposite effect. The central irony is that people whose explicit goal was to expand presidential power have diminished it.”

More....

Vanity Fair's September issue has a long interview with Al Gore and Tipper about the 2000 election and the effect of the media.

Tipper Gore tells [author Evgenia] Peretz that following the loss, “we were roadkill … it took a long time to pick ourselves up from what happened.” Tipper also says that Al has made no moves that would suggest a run for the presidency, but adds that if he turned to her one night and said he had to run, she’d get on board, and they’d discuss how to approach it this time around, given what they’ve learned.

Sen. John McCain, who thankfully appears to have little chance of winning his party's nomination, let alone the Presidency, is now advocating stepping up the domestic war on drugs.

We are creating the demand. We are creating the demand for these drugs coming across our border, which maybe means that we should go back more trying to make some progress and in telling Americans, particularly young Americans, that the use of drugs is a terrible thing for them to do," he said.

Yes, lets jail some more non-violent drug offenders, that will work. (strong sarcasm.)

Kevin Drum continues his stellar work exposing General Potemkin Petraeus. From a WaPo article:

[V]isits to key U.S. bases and neighborhoods in and around Baghdad show that recent improvements are sometimes tenuous, temporary, even illusory....Even U.S. soldiers assigned to protect Petraeus's showcase remain skeptical. "Personally, I think it's a false representation," Campbell said, referring to the portrayal of the Dora market as an emblem of the surge's success. . . . [T]he Dora market is a Potemkin village of sorts . . .

Frederick Kagan, of the Fighting Writing Kagans compares Anbar to Gettysburg and Bush's trip there to Lincoln's trip to Gettysburg. I kid you not. Write your own snark. My one observation - when did Bush become President of Iraq?

Finally, I continue my whining about cajoling of the Netroots on Iraq in my most recent piece in the Guardian Online's blog, "comment is free." [Note: The piece was edited by a Guardian editor.]