Unbelievable. When will this insanity stop?

The Florida Department of Corrections says there are fewer and fewer places in Miami-Dade County where sex offenders can live because the county has some of the strongest restrictions against this kind of criminal in the country.

Florida's solution: house the convicted felons under a bridge that forms one part of the causeway. The Julia Tuttle Causeway, which links Miami to Miami Beach, offers no running water, no electricity and little protection from nasty weather. It's not an ideal solution, Department of Corrections Officials told CNN, but at least the state knows where the sex offenders are.

Then there's the rats and rodents that swarm over them.

I have preached against getting obsessed with the 2008 Presidential election to no avail. So I am going to try quoting Atrios:

As impressive as Obama's polling and fundraising has been, the dominant narrative of this as a battle between Clinton and Obama has been a bit silly. . . . And, yes, it's early and national polls are silly and when I find myself talking about this stuff too much I want to shoot myself in the face.

Let's talk about this instead:

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Arianna Huffington has a good post up today asking why the Democratic contenders for President aren't discussing the second war, the war on drugs?

...a quick search of the top Democratic hopefuls' websites reveals that not one of them -- not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, not John Edwards, not Joe Biden, not Chris Dodd, not Bill Richardson -- even mentions the drug war, let alone offers any solutions.

The silence coming from Clinton and Obama is particularly deafening.

So, let's look to the past. John Edwards put forth this position in 2004.

He also would have us shrink our bloated prison population and return its present members more successfully to society by better distinguishing non-violent drug crimes from other offenses; restoring abandoned treatment and training options; and re-enfranchising those who have done their time.

Yet, he also said:

.... he would not change marijuana laws, and he favors the Justice Department's arresting patients and caregivers who defy federal law.

Hillary addressed the war on drugs in her 2000 Senate campaign:

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Florida Governor Charlie Crist has won the battle against state Attorney General Bill McCollum to restore civil rights, including the right to vote, to most ex-offenders.

Florida officials on Thursday voted to end the practice of stripping ex-criminal offenders of their civil rights, including the right to vote. Florida is one of just three U.S. states, all in the Deep South, that have maintained long-standing constitutional barriers to restoring civil rights to those that have committed serious crimes, rights groups say.

Meeting in a special session, the Florida Clemency Board agreed by a 3-1 vote to allow some 950,000 ex-felons to automatically have their civil rights restored, removing a barrier that goes back 140 years.

Jeb Bush opposed automatic restoration. Crist made it a campaign pledge.

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His supporters will say, indeed have said, that John Edwards supports the goals of Reid-Feingold, but that it does not go far enough:

EDWARDS: I can't tell from the way you're describing [Reid-Feingold] enough of the specifics. I can tell you what I support, if Bush vetoes a bill, we should send him a bill that forces a drawdown of troops.

Ben Smith at Politico asked the Edwards campaign to elaborate on Edwards' view of Reid-Feingold. Smith reports:

"EDWARDS: Spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield emails, "I wouldn't say he supports Reid-Feingold. He supports defunding as a policy and applauds Reid and Feingold for putting it on the table, but the plan he supports is his own -- which would force a drawdown of 40-50,000 immediately and have all combat troops out in 12-18 months." UPDATE: That is to say, says Bedingfield, his only quarrel with the bill is it doesn't go far enough, but he has no problem with the methods."

This is nice and all, but Edwards can and should make it simple - he should say he supports Reid-Feingold and advocates for even TOUGHER measures. But this is too cute by half. KISS Senator Edwards. Keep it simple.

Atrios calls Hiatt a wanker. Think Progress says Hiatt is "misleading." I think Hiatt is just the biggest idiot in Washington, DC. Absorb that statement for a moment. The biggest idiot in Washington. Why? Most recently, this:

. . . After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. . . . Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message.

What is the basis of Hiatt's statement? Seemingly this:

"What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office.

Now is that a contradiction Mr. Hiatt? Are you saying Israel is not and was not ready to engage in peace talks with Syria? Is this true? Then what in the heck is wrong with Israel? They SHOULD be ready to engage in peace talks with Syria.

It is hard for some folks to say these things, but I will say it, Fred Hiatt is not a smart man. He has proven to be a disingenuous man but many credit him with an intelligence he simply does not possess. What he wrote in this editorial simply makes no sense.

In wake of the 6 year sentence imposed on Australian David Hicks by a military tribunal jury last week, lawyers for "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh are seeking a reduction of his 20 year sentence.

"It is a question of proportionality. It is a question of fairness, and it is a question of the religious experience John Walker Lindh had," attorney James Brosnahan said. "And it was not in any way directed at the United States."

Lindh is seeking a commutation from President Bush. Fat chance it will be granted. In 2004, he sought a commutation arguing he shouldn't be treated more harshly than Yaser Hamdi, who served three years. As I said at the time he was sentenced, he didn't deserve 20 years. It was a trophy sentence for the Ashcroft Justice Department. I still don't see what crime he committed against the United States.

Dick Cheney is scheduled to be the commencement speaker at Brigham Young University in Utah. Brigham Young Democrats had received permission to conduct a three hour protest Wednesday. Only, they were not allowed to speak. The university limited their protest to sitting on the sidewalk and carrying signs.

The protest, attended by hundreds of students, proceeded more or less one would expect, until the end.

NPR left. The local TV news cameras left. The newspaper reporters packed their things and left. And the only people around to document anything were students and our film crew. Our cameras kept rolling to witness what happened next.

As soon as 1:00 hit and the time for free speech expired, after an impromptu performance of the Star Spangled Banner by the BYU Democrats, men from BYU dressed in suits and sunglasses with Secret Service-style earpieces roughly rounded up all of the signage and banners. "You'll be able to use it all again. We're just going to keep it for you. So you don't carry it around campus, we'll take it to a safe place until the next designated protest."

It was like Daddy deciding that the kids had had enough play time and was taking their toys away.

Who knew free speech has a time limit -- or that it prohibits speaking?

Paul Wolfowitz, President Bush's former Deputy Secretary of Defense, is now President of the World Bank. Murray Waas reports a scandal is brewing over whether his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, was promoted in contravention of bank guidelines and given a raise to more than double the amount the bank's rules allowed.

Bank regulations disallow bank employees from supervising spouses or romantic partners, but Wolfowitz reportedly attempted to circumvent the rules so he would be able to continue to work with Riza. Informed by the bank's ethics officers that that would not be allowable, the problem appeared solved when Riza was detailed to work at the State Department's public diplomacy office in September 2005--even though her salary was still to be paid by the World Bank.

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The 15 captured British sailors are in flight back to Britain.

Mr Ahmadinejad said no concessions had been made by the British government to secure the releases, but that Britain had pledged "that the incident would not be repeated".

Later, television pictures showed the president smiling, chatting and shaking hands with the crew at his palace in Tehran. An unidentified crew member said: "I'd like to say that myself and my whole team are very grateful for your forgiveness. I'd like to thank yourself and the Iranian people... Thank you very much, sir."

Was there a prisoner swap?

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Congrats to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, one of TalkLeft's legal heroes, for winning re-election Tuesday with 84% of the vote. Oscar is one popular mayor. I hope he runs for Governor next time around.

Oscar Goodman, a former mob lawyer and self-proclaimed "happiest mayor in the world," breezed to a third term as mayor of Las Vegas. The Democrat won 84 percent of Tuesday's vote with all precincts reporting, easily avoiding a June run-off. His nearest competitor had just 2,170 votes to Goodman's 26,845.

"I just pity anybody who gets in my way," Goodman joked.

For issuing this apology

He murdered my first language.