Nicely said:

Just a few years ago, the United States could hold its head high for the freedoms enjoyed by those residing within its borders as well as its energy, leadership, and openness and compassion. Today we are fast becoming a closed society, suspicious not only of “outsiders” but of many within our borders who are in some way “not like us.” The lists of our freedoms have turned into lists of our enemies, giving them an unmerited significance that in turn diminishes the country’s international standing. Persuasion has been replaced by coercion, honor sacrificed to a corrupted “duty,” and morality to expediency.

Military analyst Dan Smith examines the administration's assault on civil liberties post 9/11.

Four soldiers on active Army duty and a reserve police officer were arrested in Greensburg, Kansas for looting a grocery store that was destroyed by a tornado. The soldiers were in uniform, but were not assigned to the disaster area. Only National Guard troops were providing disaster relief.

I'm swamped by work today, so here's an open thread.

Check out Big Tent's article in The Guardian on the netroots (a form of which was originally published here on TalkLeft)

There are some new diaries up as well:

• Mutiple Deployments To Iraq Breaking Our Military
• The Cabal
• Priming the Deadeye impeachment pump

Former Westchester County D.A. and unsuccessful N.Y. Attorney General Candidate Jeanine Pirro is in the news again.

It seems Ms. Pirro used to tape-record some of her calls. And before leaving office, she asked an investigator to destroy some of the tapes.

One of the reasons this is of interest is that that Ms. Pirro's successor now is in possession of a tape suggesting Ms. Pirro failed to disclose evidence that could have helped a man whom Ms. Pirro subsequently charged with murder. But the existence of any tapes immediately raises the question of whom Ms. Pirro was talking to over her years in office and what conversations, whether of a political or legal nature, might be recorded in the surviving tapes.

"The fact that the then District Attorney secretly recorded certain conversations in her office and on her telephone came to light during a still continuing federal grand jury investigation conducted jointly by the United States Attorney and this Office," Mr. Hecht wrote.

[Hat tip Crooks and Liars.]

The New Jersey Senate will vote Thursday on a bill to abolish the state's death penalty.

New Jersey is set to consider becoming the first state to abolish the death penalty legislatively since capital punishment was reinstated 31 years ago. A Senate committee is slated Thursday to consider replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole.

The initiative stems from a January report from a special commission appointed by the Legislature. The panel determined New Jersey’s death penalty costs taxpayers more than paying for prisoners to serve life terms and concluded there was no evidence the death penalty deters people from committing murders.

“There is increasing evidence that the death penalty is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency,” the report said.

Will it happen? It's possible. Both Gov. Jon Corzine and the leaders of both houses in the legislature oppose the death penalty.

More...

The ACLU has filed objections to the Real I.D. Regulations.

A hearing is scheduled tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Calling the Real ID Act "unworkable and an intolerable threat to privacy and civil liberties," the American Civil Liberties Union today filed comments asking the Department of Homeland Security to withdraw its proposed Real ID regulations and to join with the expanding list of states, organizations and individuals pushing Congress to overhaul the ill-conceived measure.

"This is a bad law, and DHS' regulations won't make it any better," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "The ACLU national office and state affiliates have been campaigning against Real ID for more than two years, and the effort is beginning to pay off. Our efforts helped create a genuine rebellion against this law."

"Real ID is a flimsy house of cards doomed to an inevitable collapse. The regulations do not--and cannot--fix its many problems," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project.

Opposition to the Real I.D. Act is spreading. You can view a map showing progress across the country here.

Chris Bowers writes a couple of posts that seem to argue against striving for diversity in the progressive blogosphere. Chris writes:

[T]he famous and thoughtful Kid Oakland . . . wrote the following:

Of course we want diversity in the blogosphere. We want the blogs to reflect the party and the nation...not perfectly...but as much as possible.

I have to seriously ask--why? Since when is blogging such an incredibly important public institution, ala our education system, government or business world, that the entire public needs to be represented in it? I'd like to think blogging is that important, but it just isn't.

As Chris himself notes, he has not always been so dismissive of the importance of the progressive blogs, but let's leave that aside. For Chris goes further. Chris argues that striving for diversity in the progressive blogosphere would actually be harmful:

I could not more strongly disagree with Kid Oakland's statement that this is something we would even want. If every individual subset of the larger institution were equally diverse as the institution as a whole, then all of the niches and different functions that each subset fills would be entirely erased. . . .

Come again? Diversity in the progressive blogosphere would erase its function? Wow!

Sigh. Here we do NOT go again:

"Over the course of the next three to four months, we'll have some idea how well the plan's working. . . . By the time we get to September or October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn't, what's Plan B?"

Sure they will. This is deja vu all over again:

I think it will be rather clear in the next 60 to 90 days as to whether this plan is going to work. . . . We need to know, as we . . . move through these benchmarks, that the Iraqis are doing what they have to do. -Boehner, 1/23/07

Democrats and anti-war groups that are waiting for Republicans to move to end the Debacle now sound like this:

Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let's go.

They do not move.

Episode 82 is tonight: "Walk Like a Man."

This week, A.J. struggles with depression. Meanwhile, Kelli's dad is the unwitting catalyst of a new feud between Christopher and Paulie.

Paulie sure is getting his share of attention this season. I wonder if it means he'll be gone by the season's end.

So many loose ends, so few episodes left. Anyone have any predictions or reactions?

A new study in New Jersey, home of the original Megan's Law which requires convicted sex offenders to register with authorities, finds no evidence they make children safer and questions whether the laws are worth the enormous cost.

For those who don't know a Megan's law from an Amber Alert or a Laci's or Jessica's law,

The 1994 law is named after Megan Kanka, a suburban Trenton girl who was raped and murdered by a convicted sex offender living across the street. It has been a model for dozens of state laws across the country.

The law requires sex criminals to report their whereabouts to law enforcement authorities, who must maintain a catalog of the offenders and notify residents when a high-risk offender moves nearby. The tracking and notification apparatus in New Jersey costs county and local governments millions of dollars.

As to the study, conducted by the New Jersey Department of Corrections and funded by the National Institute of Justice (the research arm of the Department of Justice),

More...

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo continues to ratchet up the immigration debate with ridiculous hyperboles. His latest, in Arizona yesterday:

Presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo told supporters gathered at a private ranch here Friday that American culture, as well as the fate of western civilization, is being threatened by illegal immigration.

....“There’s an issue that is so much broader than all that, so much more serious. It is the issue of our culture itself, and whether we will survive.”

Then, he warned his audience that what happened at an elementary school in 2004 in Beslan, Russia, ("where Islamic terrorists from Chechnya killed more than 300 people") could happen here:

More...

Who wrote this column, cuz it makes good sense:

The gap between public opinion and Washington reality has rarely been wider than on the issue of the Iraq war. A clear national mandate is being blocked -- for now -- by constraints that make sense only in the short-term calculus of politics in this capital city. The public verdict on the war is plain. Large majorities have come to believe that it was a mistake to go in, and equally large majorities want to begin the process of getting out. That is what the polls say; it is what the mail to Capitol Hill says; and it is what voters signaled when they put the Democrats back into control of Congress in November. . . . Congress shares war-making power under the Constitution but can exercise it only through its control of the money the president needs to finance any military operation.

But then it makes the Friedman Unit mistake: