As TalkLeft argued here, it is ridiculous for the State of Georgia to make Genarlow Wilson serve a minimum of 10 years because, at age 17, he engaged in a consensual act of oral sex with a 15 year old girl. Public outrage caused the Georgia legislature to change the law, but Georgia's courts have refused to apply the change retroactively to save Wilson from an unfair sentence.

Wilson is taking another shot at persuading a court to reduce his sentence by arguing in a habeas petition that 10 years is, under the circumstances, cruel and unusual. The constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual sentences is rarely held to be violated by a sentence that falls within a statutory maximum, but this is an unusual case.

[T]he General Assembly reduced the maximum sentence in such cases from 10 years with no chance of parole to 12 months or less in jail, a highly unusual step in an era when sentences are commonly lengthened, not reduced dramatically.

That almost unprecedented act of contrition by lawmakers ought to persuade the judge that Genarlow Wilson's sentence violates the standards set by the people of Georgia, which the law holds is a critical test of whether a punishment is cruel and unusual.

Georgia resident and former president Jimmy Carter asked Georgia's attorney general to recognize the injustice of Wilson's sentence, but the plea was futile.

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Are they stupid or are they lying? Yet again, the pollsters seem incapable of accurately describing the Reid-Feingold framework. Let's remind again what is being proposed - after a date certain, March 31, 2008, the Congress will not fund the Iraq Debacle. How could you ask the American People about this? Here's how:

Would you support a proposal that provides a binding withdrawal date from Iraq by announcing that after March 31, 2008, the war will not be funded?

Because that is the proposal. How does Gallup describe it?

[Would you support a] candidate who supports legislation that would cut off funding for the war in Iraq.

This is obviously an inaccurate description. It implies immediate defunding. And that is a false description. Gallup insists on falsely describing the proposal. The question is why?

Mark Kleiman writes:

I'd propose a simple rule: no one comes in who can't speak, read, and write English. I'm not a hard-core assimilationist . . .

You're not? I suppose Kleiman could argue that since there would be no need for language assimilation under Kleiman's plan. Being one of the wonky bloggers who we're supposed to take seriously, let's consider Kleiman's rationales for this departure from over a hundred years of immigration policy:

[T]he advantages, to immigrants and to the country, of having our citizens-to-be start out literate in the national language — which is also the world business language — seem to me obvious. As Net access becomes more and more nearly universal, so does access to the tools to learn English up to the rudimentary level which is all we ought to ask for. I'm reluctant to discriminate on the basis of social class, but I don't mind using intelligence and drive as filters.

That is some egregiously bad wonkery. Here's why.

When Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card visited John Ashcroft in a desperate attempt to secure his approval of the president's illegal wiretapping program, the second in command at the Justice Department, James Comey, intervened (as TalkLeft reported here and here). Accompanying Comey on his trip to the hospital was Patrick Philbin, described in this post as (like Comey) having later left the Justice Department "under stressful circumstances."

Adding to Philbin's stress was the knowledge that helping Comey block Gonzales had caused his career to dead-end. According to answers that Comey supplied as a follow-up to his Senate testimony, Vice President Cheney blocked Philbin's promotion.

Mr. Philbin was considered for principal Deputy Solicitor General after Paul Clement became Solicitor General. It was my understanding that the Vice President’s office blocked that appointment.

I understood that someone at the White House communicated to Attorney General Gonzales that the Vice President would oppose the appointment if the Attorney General pursued the matter. The Attorney General chose not to pursue it.

Philbin also participated in Comey's "thumbs down" review of the wiretap program. Comey's written answers are available here.

Paul Krugman writes:

In Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney completely misrepresented how we ended up in Iraq. Later, Mike Huckabee mistakenly claimed that it was Ronald Reagan’s birthday. Guess which remark The Washington Post identified as the “gaffe of the night”? Folks, this is serious. If early campaign reporting is any guide, the bad media habits that helped install the worst president ever in the White House haven’t changed a bit.
. . . Asked whether we should have invaded Iraq, Mr. Romney said that war could only have been avoided if Saddam “had opened up his country to I.A.E.A. inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction.” He dismissed this as an “unreasonable hypothetical.” Except that Saddam did, in fact, allow inspectors in. Remember Hans Blix? . . .Mr. Romney’s remark should have been the central story in news reports about Tuesday’s debate. But it wasn’t.

I disagree with Krugman in this respect. Rudy Giuliani's false remarks about Iran should have been the central story:

I'm off to Aspen and the 2007 NORML legal seminar where I'll be speaking again on using the internet for free legal research and blogging.

Big Tent Democrat, TChris and hopefully, Last Night in Little Rock, will be posting in my stead.

One of the highlights is that we will again be able to spend Sunday afternoon at Hunter Thompson's Owl Farm. That's in addition to Tommy Chong and Tony Serra and food by Chris of Cache Cache. Not to mention my favorite Sheriff Bob Braudis who will be on scene. (One of Bob's sayings: You neither need a big stick nor a big gun to keep the peace in Aspen. Listen to Jimmy Ibbotson of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band singing Braudis is Our Man, His County Rocks.)

Check out my my videos of last year's Aspen conference and our day at Owl Farm. (My You Tube video of Owl Farm was my first video ever and has generated 23,137 views and been favorited 75 times.)

This year, Hunter's wife, Anita, has invited me to stay at Owl Farm, so that's where I'll be for the weekend. I'm bringing both my camera and video camera. Hopefully, if I haven't forgotten how to use them, when I get back, I'll have some new pix and video for you.

(The hard decision: Whether to sleep in Johnny Depps' bedroom downstairs in the basement or on the main floor. The former was very tempting, but I chose the latter.)

'Tis a privilege to live in Colorado. And yes, this is an open thread.

Congrats to the TL kid who graduates today from Cardozo Law School in New York City. His ambition: to be a public defender.

I never was a public defender, I've only been in private practice. But I've told the TL kid since he was a child that if he wanted to be a trial lawyer, he ought to spend a few years as a public defender, to master the skills of a litigator.

He's listening, and hoping for a job. Congrats, Nic, to a valiant effort and a great accomplishment. And I'm sorry you have spend the summer suffering through bar refresher to take the bar exam, but it's a rite of passage. I know you will do great.

If you have some words of encouragement for him today, I hope you will post them in the comments. TalkLeft is his home page so I know he'll read them.

[Note: Scroll down for updates as I've added several]

The City Attorney in Los Angeles is challenging the Sheriff's decision to send Paris Hilton home on house arrest. The Judge has scheduled a hearing tomorrow. You can read the motion here. (pdf)

The City Attorney is also demanding that the Sheriff pick her up at her house tomorrow and transport her to court for the hearing.

There's more. He is asking the Judge to hold the Sheriff in contempt of court for putting Paris on home detention which the Judge precluded in his sentencing order. The court spokesman today said the Sheriff asked the judge to modify the sentence to home detention yesterday and the judge declined. But, the Judge was told of the sentence change before

My earlier post on Paris' release is here.

Update: I think it's up to the Sheriff where to place her. Even the court spokesman initially said today,

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I guess Ezra is trying to pay a compliment but I just found this condescending:

To step aside from the concerns about the content of the sites Klein dislikes (I'm a fan of Atrios, DailyKos, et al, but that argument has been had already), they also serve a secondary purpose in subsidizing "the smart stuff" Klein likes. In much the way that cover stories on back pain and, in this case, "the Science of Appetite," sustain the readership and subscription numbers necessary for Klein's wonkier work and the magazine's political and international reporting, the red meat provided by the sites Klein decries create the audience and infrastructure that sustains and, more to the point, publicizes, my health care writing, or Juan Cole's Iraq reporting.

Via Digby, this is just, well, read it:

Eli Lake adds a comment.

. . . What if the netleft, that has created the impression that there is a rising plurality that would like to abandon Iraqis to Qaeda, Quds and the Ba'ath, are just a few thousand committed Marxists in their pajamas? What if the Dems have strategically miscalculated? What if their over-compensation is to appease a vocal 1 percent of the electorate that actually draws contempt from the rest of the country?

Bush's former speechwriter quotes this approvingly. I was looking for a tongue in cheek but could not find it. These folks are insane. Black helicopters on the "tubes" anyone?

The NNIRR (National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights (NNIR) today asks people to urge their senators to defeat the Senate's proposed immigration bill, S.1348, the THE BORDER SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2007. I received this from the group by e-mail:

Tell the Senators that we want fair and just immigration reform that provides real legalization, expands opportunities for legal residency and family reunification; ensures labor rights for all; and respects civil liberties and due process. We oppose a new guest worker program, border militarization and the undermining of civil liberties.

You can call 1-202-224-3121 and ask for your senators or contact them online.

I agree. I don't think this bill can be fixed. Not enough carrot, too much stick.

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Team Libby today filed its Motion for Appeal Bond, listing the grounds upon which they believe the Court erred before and during trial. I've uploaded the motion(pdf) and attached exhibit (pdf).

I think they make some excellent arguments, particularly about the standard. It's not necessary that Judge Walton believe he was wrong, or that reversal is probable, only that the issue presents a close question or one that could have been decided the other way.

The grounds Libby raises:

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