Former President Bill Clinton appeared on Good Morning America today. As to Hillary's record of supporting women, he said:

"I defy you to find anybody who has run for office in recent history who's got a longer history of working for women, for families and children, than Hillary does," he said. "I don't think it's inconsistent with being a woman that you can also be knowledgeable on military and security affairs, and be strong when the occasion demands it. I don't consider that being manly -- I consider that being a leader."

He also said the U.S. cannot succeed militarily in Iraq and come September, President Bush will be out excuses.

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As I mentioned yesterday, the idea that in September the report of General David Petraeus on the Surge will weaken Godot Republican resolve on following Bush's Iraq Debacle policy is simply unrealistic. Glenn Greenwald catches Gen. Petraeus interviewed by Hugh Hewitt of all people:

HH: Now you’re due to make a report back in September, I don’t know if it’s early, mid or late September, General Petraeus, is that enough time to really get a fix on how the surge is progressing? DP: Well, I have always said that we will have a sense by that time of basically, of how things are going, have we been able to achieve progress on the ground, where have their been shortfalls, and so forth. And I think that is a reasonable amount of time to have had all the forces on the ground, again, for about three months, to have that kind of sense. . . .

Does anyone believe that a proud soldier like Petraeus will provide a sense that he can't succeed? Of course he will not. Heck, if he would, would you really want him to be leading the forces? Unlike Glenn, I am not as skeptical of Petraeus' intentions; I just realize he is human and the commander of the operation is not going to be the one to declare his operation a failure. More.

The defense begins its case today in the terrorism trial of Jose Padilla and two codefendants.

How big are the holes in the case? Journalist Lew Z. Koch, writing at Firedoglake, counts the ways. He concludes:

Ashcroft, then Comey, and now Gonzales, Frazier, Shipley, Killinger and Pell have built a case on fantasy, supposition, prejudice and fear mongering. Can the defense make the jury see the shocking inadequacies of the prosecution’s case?

The Christian Science Monitor asks, Without a Plot, Is Padilla Guilty?

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Tens of thousands of graduating law students around the country (11,000 in New York alone) are in final crunch mode studying for next week's bar exam.

The TL kid is one of them.

Above the Law has put up an open thread for sharing bar exam tips and stories. I'm doing the same here. Humor is appreciated. (And thanks to all of you who responded here.)

I can't imagine taking a bar exam in a room with thousands of other people. Nor can I imagine rules like these.

Applicants are NOT permitted to bring any items into the examination room other than one (1) clear, gallon-sized plastic food storage bag which may contain:

Pens (blue or black ink only)
Medication
No. 2 Pencils, Erasers, Highlighters
Feminine Hygiene Products
Beverage in plastic container or juice box only
Tissues
Quiet Snack (No peanut or tree nut products)
Ordinary Earplugs

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Let's hope the Democrats are as resolute.

Hunter S. Thompson's 70th birthday is today. His wife Anita shares her thoughts.

There's a birthday party tonight at Owl Farm for Hunter,which I'm missing because I have court here in Denver tomorrow. Owl Farm parties are always a great time and Hunter's spirit is right at hand.

(Update: Looks like the party didn't happen, but I'm told a small group assembled to toast Hunter and they did shoot a cannon or two.)

Saturday, the Aspen Daily News will run a commemorative issue for Hunter, with Anita as the paper's guest editor. Ralph Steadman will grace the cover and Walter Isaacson and others will be contributors. Anita writes:

I’ll be including a cut-out card to put in your wallet with the things to do and not do while talking to the police.

The timing of the special edition is not just for Hunter's birthday, but for the Aspen Institute Symposium on Hunter's writings, Politics, Truth and Justice, to be held Saturday night. Hunter's son Juan has done a great job of putting it together.

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Todd Beeton discusses John Edwards and Barack Obama's speeches on poverty:

John Edwards concludes his Road To One America poverty tour today with a major speech in Kentucky, the site where Robert F Kennedy ended a similar trek in 1968. . . [L]last night on Hardball, Chris Matthews asked a more meta question that hit on the larger ramifications of Edwards' focus on poverty:

MATTHEWS: . . . How do you get back to being the party of regular folk? EDWARDS: My party and the Democratic party that I believe in stands up for ordinary people, stands up for the little guy, stands up for people who don't have health insurance, who live in poverty and who don't go to fundraisers. That's what the heart and soul of the Democratic Party is and we can never lose that because if we lose it we lose our soul. And it's gonna require us to have a little backbone and stand up for what we believe is right regardless of who's affected by it.

Barack Obama gave a speech about poverty invoking Bobby Kennedy today as well. . . [N]o matter how you read Obama's timing, it's telling that his speech doesn't contain the word "Democrat" once.

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The Sentencing Project has released its latest report on racial disparties in prison sentences. Among the findings:

Blacks in the United States are imprisoned at more than five times the rate of whites, and Hispanics are locked up at nearly double the white rate, according to a study released Wednesday by a criminal justice policy group.

The worst of the states:

In five states - Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Wisconsin - African Americans are incarcerated at more than ten times the rate of whites.

You can read the report here (pdf.)

Among the recommended fixes:

Headlines, NYTimes:

Democrats Fail to Force Vote on Iraq Pullout . . . The measure, which called for troops to begin departing within 120 days, was defeated in a procedural vote on what is known as a cloture motion. It received 52 “yes” votes, to 47 “no” votes, but Senate rules require 60 yes votes to pass the motion, which would have overcome a Republican filibuster of the measure.

How about this headline? "Dems Fail To Overcome GOP Filibuster on Iraq"? Same number of words and actually accurate.

Impeachment X KagroX writes a relatively balanced piece on defunding:

Defunding presents a more muddied picture. Savage notes:

Prompted in part by Cheney, the Bush administration has championed an aggressive view of executive power under which Congress cannot restrict the commander in chief's options, short of cutting off funds for the troops. This constitutional interpretation, which is disputed by many legal scholars, has surfaced repeatedly in recent months.

I think this presents an accurate picture of what's been said on the record -- that is, that even lunatics like Cheney, Addington and Yoo say in public that defunding the war ends it. . . .

Interestingly, Kagro is skeptical:

It's taking it with a large grain of salt. Like I said, I make no objection to your preferred method, and would vote (or not) with you when the time comes.

Funny how Kagro has no salt available when it comes to the possibility of removing Bush and Cheney even though that requires 17 Republican Senators voting for removal. More.

A new report by the Justice Policy Institute confirms that anti-gang legislation that advocates locking up gang members, charging them with status crimes and charging more juveniles as adults doesn't work. In fact, it adds to the gang problem.

Mass arrests, stiff prison sentences often served with other gang members and other strategies that focus on law enforcement rather than intervention actually strengthen gang ties and further marginalize angry young men, according to the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that advocates alternatives to incarceration.

"We're talking about 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds whose involvement in gangs is likely to be ephemeral unless they are pulled off the street and put in prison, where they will come out with much stronger gang allegiances," said Judith Greene, co-author of "Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies."

The full report is available here.

As to the current and past versions of Sen. Diane Feinstein's anti-gang bill, which I have addressed and opposed numerous times on TalkLeft, the report finds:

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So what should Democrats do now? Let me be frank -the events of the last days on the Levin-Reed Amendment was about pressuring Godot Republicans to break with Bush's Iraq Debacle. After the talk of how Sens. Warner, Lugar, Voinovich, etc. were breaking with Bush's Iraq Debacle it was of course proven to be an absolute crock. These Republicans will never break with Bush's Iraq Debacle.

Some believe that September will be the moment, after General Petraeus speaks. This is delusion. What do folks think Petraeus is going to say? Petraeus will STIFFEN Republican resolve, not weaken it.

So what to do? If you accept, as I do, that the Godot Republicans will never break with Bush, then it seems to me that the only plausible approaches to ending the Iraq Debacle require reliance on solely Democratic votes. And that means, yes, exercising the NOT spending power after a date certain. More.