Lt. William Kallop testified yesterday at a military Article 32 hearing on the atrocities at Haditha. He said that there were two live children among the dead.

``I saw one breathe. That's how I knew,'' 1st Lt. William Kallop testified on Tuesday at a military tribunal at Camp Pendleton. ``The little boy who breathed was about 6 or 7 and when I touched him, the little girl jumped up. She was about 11.''

The two injured children were the only survivors of a Marine Corps assault on two Iraqi homes near the site of a bomb attack on a Marine convoy that left one Marine dead and two injured. Prosecutors contend that the surviving Marines swept through the town on a revenge spree, killing 24 civilians with grenades and guns.

The case in which he testified was that against Capt. Randy Stone. Stone was,

More....

Digby points us to this fine James Fallows article on Thomas Wales, the Seattle federal prosecutor who was murdered, and not grieved, for the suspected motive of his views on guns:

The killing took place on October 11, 2001. . . . [Wales] was 49 years old, and he had spent the previous 18 years as a federal prosecutor in Seattle, mainly working on white-collar crime cases. . . . A significant detail is that one of the civic causes for which Tom Wales worked was gun safety and at the time of his death was head of Washington Cease-Fire. . . . As best I have been able to tell from a distance, through the years law-enforcement and political officials from Seattle and Washington state have frequently complained that federal officials in Washington DC were not putting enough resources or effort into the case. The same Seattle Times story mentioned above goes into one of the disagreements. Everyone on the Seattle side of the story remembers that the Department of Justice in Washington DC sent no official representative to his funeral.

(Emphasis supplied.) No official representation from the Bush Administration at the funeral of a slain federal prosecutor who may have been killed for his services to the security of our country.

My very good friend Maryscott O'Connor takes the a bait laid by Jonah Goldberg, hook, line and sinker:

[GOLDBERG:] IT'S IRONIC. At precisely the moment so many people think that the Republican Party and the conservative movement went off the rails, the people who hate the right the most want to copy it.

Me again, sorry. I just want to remind anyone reading this that I've been saying the same thing for years, now.

Only someone who truly does not understand what the Right is and how it became what it is could possibly write that. MSOC has allowed her rage at the Left blogs, a sentiment I share on the Iraq issue (which MSOC never writes about by the way, so I throw My Left Wing in with the failing Netroots on Iraq), to blind her to the obvious - the Right does not respect the truth, like them or not, the Left blogs do.

I addressed this issue regarding Jon Chait's article and MSOC is just as wildly wrong now as Chait was in his article on this point.

As TalkLeft reported here, Alan Crotzer spent more than 24 years -- more than half his life -- behind bars for crimes he didn't commit. Having been responsible for the wrongful incarceration, one might think that Florida would want to compensate the man.

[F]or the second time in as many years Florida's Legislature has failed to pass a bill that would give Crotzer financial compensation for his wrongful conviction .... Though the House passed a measure that would have given Crotzer $1.25 million, the state senate didn't act on the bill in the recently ended legislative session.

It took the state more than 24 years to correct Crotzer's unjust loss of freedom. Will it take another 24 to recognize his entitlement to financial justice?

Via How Appealing (which has the order posted here), the D.C. Court of Appeals has refused to review en banc the decision a panel of judges issued in March finding that the Second Amendment conveys an individual right to bear arms.

The appeals court decision had struck down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. That opinion is here (pdf).

I agree this means it's more likely the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue.

More at Scotusblog; Volokh; Cato Institute.

LA Police Chief William Bratton has demoted and disciplined officers involved in shooting rubber bullets at and using batons on immigration rights protesters in last week's march.

At a City Hall news conference, Bratton said a two-star deputy chief, Cayler "Lee" Carter Jr., and his second-in-command, Louis Gray, were the ranking officers at MacArthur Park on May 1, when officers swept through the park swinging batons and firing rubber bullets indiscriminately. Carter has been moved down a rank in the department and has been told to stay home from work indefinitely. Gray has been reassigned within the department.

"As chief of the department, I have to be comfortable with the leadership team I have around me," Bratton said. "This is not a witch hunt."

There were several injuries resulting from the police misconduct:

More...

More "dehumanizing and degrading" behavior by prison guards, this time in Florida:

Prosecutors issued arrest warrants Tuesday for eight former prison employees accused of abusing inmates, including forcing some to clean toilets with their tongues.

The eight were among 13 prison employees who had already been fired from the 605-inmate medium and minimum security at the Hendry Correctional Institution in the Everglades. The previous warden and an assistant warden resigned, and three others were reassigned after an inmates was beaten and choked by guards in March.

Cleaning toilets with your tongue? If true, what scum these guards are.

Here's a group and event that deserves some notice:

Hear Us Out
Wednesday, May 16, 2007 @ 7:00 PM
The Thurgood Marshall Center*
1816 12th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009

Hear Us Out will feature the writings of 16 and 17-year olds who have been charged and incarcerated as adults in the DC Jail. Poems will be read by Free Minds members who have been released and are now living and working in the DC community. Come celebrate their successes at this free community event!

Though I am behind these bars I'll start my life anew
Despite these walls around me
My sun will still shine through
by Leon, age 17, "Sunshine"

You are invited to bring a new or used paperback book for the DC Jail's new lending library. Invite your friends. Light refreshments will be served.

More...

Six men from the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East have been arrested for an alleged planned attack on military members at Fort Dix.

Authorities say there is no evidence connecting them to al-Qaida.

``If these people did something, then they deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law,'' said Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer who represented scores of detainees after the 2001 attacks. ``But when the government says `Islamic militants,' it sends a message to the public that Islam and militancy are synonymous.''

``Don't equate actions with religion,'' he said.

A point well taken.

Update: The suspects: Four of the suspects were born in the former Yugoslavia, one in Jordan and one in Turkey, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Newark, New Jersey.

Save the Children and the National Center for Health Statistics have released their latest studies of infant mortality rates around the world. While the rate in the U.S. remains about the same, the rate in Iraq is soaring:

Two wars and a decade of sanctions have led to a huge rise in the mortality rate among young children in Iraq, leaving statistics that were once the envy of the Arab world now comparable with those of sub-Saharan Africa.

A new report shows that in the years since 1990, Iraq has seen its child mortality rate soar by 125 per cent, the highest increase of any country in the world. Its rate of deaths of children under five now matches that of Mauritania.

Via KagroX, some are saying September is the key month on Iraq:

"Many of my Republican colleagues have been promised they will get a straight story on the surge by September," said Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.). "I won't be the only Republican, or one of two Republicans, demanding a change in our disposition of troops in Iraq at that point. That is very clear to me."

Via Talex, Obama agrees:

Presidential candidate Barack Obama on Sunday launched a public campaign to win enough votes to override a presidential veto of a troop withdrawal from Iraq. . . . Obama said he believed a phased troop withdrawal could be pushed through Congress this fall if the public applies enough pressure on Republicans over the summer. . . . "I think by the fall, if there's been concerted pressure over the summer (it could happen)," he said. "

This Rudy meltdown was inevitable. I can not imagine what he was thinking when he decided to run for the GOP nomination. Anyway, here is another nail in the coffin of his campaign:

®ecords show that in the '90s he contributed money at least six times to Planned Parenthood, one of the country's leading abortion rights groups and its top provider of abortions.

What is funny to me is how he is contradicting himself with the very damage control operations he is running now:

Asked how Giuliani could reconcile personal opposition to abortion with a contribution to Planned Parenthood, a Giuliani spokeswoman said "Mayor Giuliani has been consistent in his position -- he is personally opposed to abortion, but at the same time he understands it is a personal and emotional decision that should ultimately be left up to the woman," said Maria Comella.

"Giuliani gave a noncommittal answer to the question of whether it would be a good day for the country if Roe v. Wade were overturned. "It'd be OK," Giuliani responded."

Okaaaay.