After deliberating for 30 hours, a federal jury in Milwaukee found three former police officers guilty of beating Frank Jude Jr. and of conspiring to violate his civil rights. A suspended officer was acquitted.

Jude's beating led to the largest single-day purge in Police Department history. In May 2005, Chief Nannette Hegerty fired nine officers, suspended three and demoted one. It also prompted new hiring and training practices.

Two of the former officers will continue to be paid their salaries until they are sentenced, pursuant to a law "that requires fired officers be paid until their appeals of termination are exhausted with the Fire and Police Commission, or they are sentenced on a felony." The third former officer is already serving a sentence for making a bomb threat.

Details ...

Back to law, this is a law blog after all.

Jack Balkin continues his righteous crusade in favor of progressive originalism. Hurrah for Prof. Balkin! His most recent post ties his theory of progressive originalism with the purposes of a Constitution, Our Higher Law:

The American Constitution is far more than basic law in this sense. Americans also view their Constitution as a source of important values, including justice, equality, democracy, and human rights. They view the Constitution’s guarantees as objects of aspiration; the Constitution either offers or refers to a standard that stands above ordinary law, criticizes it, restrains it, and holds it to account. Fidelity to the Constitution requires that we aspire to something better and more just than the political, social and legal arrangements we currently maintain. Hence the Constitution trumps ordinary law not simply because it is legally or procedurally prior to it, but because it represents important values that should trump ordinary law, supervise quotidian acts of governmental power, and hold both law and power to account. Thus, we say that the Constitution is not merely basic law, it is also higher law; that is, it is a source of inspiration and aspiration, a repository of values and principles.

. . . [I]t is not enough that the Constitution serve as basic law– a framework for governance, or as higher law– a source of aspirational standards and values. It must also be our law. The people who live under it– the American people–must understand the Constitution as their law. . . . The Constitution works as our law when we identify with it and are attached to it, whether or not we consent to it in any official or legal sense. The Constitution works as our law when we view it as our achievement and the product of our efforts as a people, which simultaneously involves a collective identification with those who came before us and those who will come after us.

. . . The method of text and principle, I believe, serves the multiple functions of a constitution – as basic law, higher law, and our law– far better than other forms of originalism. An originalism that strongly distrusts delegation to future generations and demands that open-ended provisions must be closely connected to original expected application is defective in all three respects. That kind of originalism makes the most sense if we think of the Constitution only as basic law. It tries to turn open-ended principles and standards into something more concrete and rule-like, something whose effects will hopefully be more predictable and (in many cases) more constraining. But that is not the only way that constitutions could serve as basic law. Constitutions can also channel and give incentives for political stability and adaptation rather than merely block and constrain decisionmaking. In fact, the former is a far better way to understand the basic law function of a constitution. . . .

Please read the entire post. It is a stirring vision of progressive Originalism and how such an approach aggrandizes Our Constitution.

I think while right on the smaller point, Matt Yglesias and Atrios miss the larger point that Anne Marie Slaughter gets wrong in discussing partisanship and foreign policy. Atrios writes:

Partisans are people who disagree with the Very Wise People of Washington who float above the muck doing The Business of the People selflessly and without regard for petty worldly concerns. It is wrong to criticize these people or undermine them in any way, for the fate of the Republic requires that we praise their wisdom and reminisce proudly about their moderate liberal death squads. They are the people who run the country, and we should let them do this without fear of criticism or accountability.

I do not think that is what Slaughter was saying entirely. She was arguing for something more - the separation of partisan politics from foreign policy. As if foreign policy was an issue "too important" for partisan politics, as opposed to say, health care, tax policy or the environment.

That is, fundamentally where Slaughter goes wrong here, not in the silly framing she chose. It reminded me of a discussion I had with Peter Beinart last year regarding his book "The Good Fight":

In the NYTimes, TNR's Noam Scheiber writes:

During the 1980s and ’90s, the [DLC] played a vital role in curbing both the perception and the reality of liberal excess inside the Democratic Party, and its efforts paved the way for Mr. Clinton’s ascendance. The council’s medicine worked. The centrist wing of the party won important battles on welfare reform, crime and the budget. By the late ’90s, Americans trusted Democrats to run the economy and keep their neighborhoods safe.

But George W. Bush taught Democrats of all stripes that their differences with one another were minor compared with the differences between them and Republicans. For seven years, Democrats have faced a radical administration that operates in bad faith. Yet there was the Democratic Leadership Council, still arguing that teachers unions endanger the republic.

. . . Today, the council has almost no constituency within the Democratic Party. About every five years, the Pew Research Center conducts a public opinion survey to sort out the country’s major ideological groupings. In 1999, Pew found that liberals and New Democrats each accounted for nearly one-quarter of the Democratic base. By the next survey in 2005, New Democrats had completely disappeared as a group and the liberals had doubled their share of the party. Many moderates, radicalized by President Bush, now define themselves as liberals.

On a variety of issues the council, and not the party’s liberal base, is out of touch with the popular mood. A recent Washington Post poll found that 60 percent of independents, along with 70 percent of Democrats, favor withdrawing from Iraq by next spring.

Precisely. I completely agree with Noam Scheiber here. However, I think Scheiber is wrong to argue that the DLC should just go away. What they should do, in my view, is understand this:

And that is FDR's lesson for Obama. Politics is not a battle for the middle. It is a battle for defining the terms of the political debate. It is a battle to be able to say what is the middle

It is a lesson for Obama AND the DLC. Both should work to help Democrats define our agenda as the middle.

I'm updating TalkLeft's Facebook page today.

For those going to Yearly Kos, the Live Blogging the Libby Trial panel is on Thursday at 9:30 am. Also check out the panel on Friday at 4:00 pm, Ensuring Every Vote is Counted

Can we trust our voting machines to count every vote? Are minority voters given a fair chance at the ballot box? What happens when elected representatives can draw their own district lines? This panel will consider a variety of issues, ranging from redistricting to voter ID laws to felony disenfranchisement to caging, and will explain what progressives can do to ensure every adult citizen may vote, and that every vote is counted.

For those of you following the news, here's a place to talk about it.

I know this is a law blog but this rather understated headline could be extremely important:

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf held secret talks with opposition leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto about a possible power sharing deal, media reported Saturday. The meeting, held Friday in the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi, lasted about one hour and ended without an agreement, Pakistani newspapers and television networks reported.

Reports of the meeting come amid intense speculation that Musharraf would seek Bhutto as an ally in his plans to seek reappointment from legislators for another term. The plans face constitutional hurdles, weakening the hand of Musharraf, an army general who seized power in 1999 and who is a key U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism.

Musharraf has recently been politically weakened by his failed attempt to oust Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and also faces an alarming upsurge in Islamic militancy. . . . Musharraf has kept a low profile since the Supreme Court ended his bid to fire its chief judge, seen as a major setback to his plans to win a new five-year presidential term from lawmakers this fall.

The downturn in political fortunes comes as attacks have surged in Pakistan since an army assault on the pro-Taliban Red Mosque in Islamabad killed at least 102 people two weeks ago. A controversial security deal with tribal leaders on the Afghan border to contain Taliban and al-Qaida forces has also collapsed.

Read the whole article. This significance to me is the clear sign of Musharraf's growing weakness in Pakistan and the need for an alliance against Musharraf's erstwhile allies, the militant Islamists. Al Qaida IS in Pakistan's Waziristan region and a Pakistan willing to cooperate in fighting Al Qaida is important to US national security interests. This is a story that bears very close watching.

Maliki Asks For Petraeus' Removal:

Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush. Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general's moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa'eda. One Iraqi source said Mr Maliki used a video conference with Mr Bush to call for the general's signature strategy to be scrapped. "He told Bush that if Petraeus continues, he would arm Shia militias," said the official. "Bush told Maliki to calm down." At another meeting with Gen Petraeus, Mr Maliki said: "I can't deal with you any more. I will ask for someone else to replace you."

Of course, in order to avoid escalating the ongoing sectarian conflict, Gen. Petraeus is right to try and coopt the Sunni. But Maliki DOES NOT WANT THAT. It is why he truned down all of the request from the largest Sunni contigent in the Iraqi Parliament. The feud with the Saudis, who are supporting the Sunni insurgents, and the feud with Maliki, who is an ally of Iran, demonstrates there is no winning for the United States in Iraq. There is no magical strategy. There is no plan that will work. Will Senators ask General Petraeus about THAT come September?

Atrios and Jim Henley discuss Anne-Marie Slaughter's curious Op-Ed piece in WaPo today and make their points. I was most perplexed by this paragraph:

In the blogosphere, pillorying Hillary Clinton is a full-time sport. Her slightest remark, such as a recent assertion that the country needs a female president because there is so much cleaning up to do, elicited this sort of wisdom: "Hillary isn't actually a woman, she's a cyborg, programmed by Bill, to be a ruthless political machine." Obama has come in for his share of abuse as well. His recent speech to Call to Renewal's Pentecost conference, in which he called on Democrats to recognize the role of faith in politics, earned him the following comment from the liberal blogger Atrios: "If . . . you think it's important to confirm and embrace the false idea that Democrats are hostile to religion in order to set yourself apart, then continue doing what you're doing." Left-liberal blog attacks on moderate liberals have reached the point where "mainstream media" bloggers such as Joe Klein at Time magazine are wading in to call for a truce, only to get lambasted themselves.

As Hillary has made great strides with the blogs lately, as Conn Carroll of Blogometer has noted, one wonders if Slaughter has been keeping up. The other big story she may have missed is Barack Obama, whom she praises earlier in her piece for his bipartisanship, having gone ballistic negative on Hillary, labeling her "Bush Cheney Lite." Does not sound very bipartisan to me. And when for gawd's sake, did Joe Klein call for a truce with the blogs?

Ms. Slaughter seems very ill informed indeed. Even in her specialty, foreign policy. Perhaps she missed the bipartisan Levin-Reed Amendment which called for a binding Iraq withdrawal timeline, which was supported by Republican Senators Hagel, Smith, Snowe and Collins, only to be stymied by a Republican filibuster and a Bush veto threat. Oh by the way, the blogs strongly supported this bipartisan bill.

Frankly, it makes me question whether Ms. Slaughter knows much about anything.

Apparently, the White House had a right blogger conference call on the ongoing executive privilege dispute. My first reaction is why would the White House do this? Why the reach oout to the Right bloggers on this issue? I can think of only one explanation - the White House intends to make a political fight out of this, not a legal fight. I mean honestly, if they were going to make this a purely legal dispute of Constitutional issues to be decided in a court, this would obviously be unnecessary. My other thought is that the White House is obviously very worried about the situation, particularly from a political perspective. Perhaps they felt the base was not supporting them as strongly as they expected. I really do not know as I have not followed the Right political blogs on this, but have read the good conservative legal bloggers like Volokh Conspiracy, which was decidedly lukewarm to the WH position. In any event, on the flip, I will review Captain Ed's take on the call.

If true, this is appropriate irony. Newshounds reports:

We just got some wonderful news! One of our readers received a letter from Lowe's saying their ads will no longer appear during The O'Reilly Factor. We have not gotten any details yet but we'll keep you posted. Here's the letter below.

Dear Lowe's Customer,

Thank you for your comments regarding the program, The O'Reilly Factor.

Lowe's has strict guidelines that govern the placement of our advertising. Our company advertises primarily in national, network prime-time television programs and on a variety of cable outlets.

Lowe's constantly reviews advertising buys to make certain they are consistent with its policy guidelines. The O'Reilly Factor does not meet Lowe's advertising guidelines, and the company's advertising will no longer appear during the program [My emphasis]. . . .

Chalk this one up as better late than never:

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

. . . Senators were too quick to accept the nominees’ word that they would respect legal precedents, and “too easily impressed with the charm of Roberts and the erudition of Alito,” Schumer said. “There is no doubt that we were hoodwinked,” said Schumer, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Yes, Senator. You were. More.

Mitt Romney attacks?

But Romney showed some unfamiliarity with the Internet when he discussed the problem of sexual predators and children. "YouTube is a website that allows kids to network with one another and make friends and contact each other," Romney explained. "YouTube looked to see if they had any convicted sex offenders on their web site. They had 29,000."

Actually, YouTube is the popular site that allows Internet users to upload and watch a variety of videos. The web site, which is owned by search-engine behemoth Google, also was a co-sponsor of the Democratic presidential debate held on Monday night.

The web site MySpace is the one to which Romney actually was referring. MySpace, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., said this week it had found 29,000 registered sex offenders who had submitted profiles to its site and removed them.

Ooops.