I'm at the airport, heading back to Denver (slowly, having to change planes in Chicago) from rural Connecticut where I've spent the last five days with Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and her three big poodles, Kobe, Lucy and Katie.

Jane is amazing. She is an eternal optimist and determined to get as much joy out of every day as she can, despite her cancer, which I'm convinced she is going to beat. We walked up and down the long winding hilly road to her house for 60 minutes every day. We cooked and ate only the freshest fish, greens, fruits and vegetables. She looks as gorgeous as always, has a strong appetite, laughs a lot and was great company. If I didn't have a day job, I would have stayed longer.

The dogs are incredibly smart, sensitive, respectful and loving. I'm going to miss them.

We didn't see much news, the days just kind of flew by, so here's another open thread to bring us all up to speed.

I should be back to regular blogging Tuesday or Wednesday.

Kudos to New Mexico Governor and presidential hopeful Bill Richardson who has signed the state legislature's medical marijuana bill into law.

New Mexico now joins Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington in protecting medical marijuana patients from arrest. Richardson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, actively lobbied for the bill's passage.

"Governor Richardson's action is the clearest sign yet that the politicians are finally catching up with the people on the issue of medical marijuana," said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in Washington, D.C. "Support for medical marijuana is overwhelming -- 78 percent in a national Gallup poll -- and backing from the medical community is solidifying as new research continues to document marijuana's medical benefits. Support in Congress keeps growing, and this could be the year the federal government finally ends its cruel attacks on the sick in states where medical marijuana is legal."

As more and more states pass medical marijuana laws, and they will, thanks to the great work of Marijuana Policy Project,NORML and patients' rights groups, it's time for a change in federal enforcement policies.

There's an in depth profile of Monica Goodling at Law.com today.

It begins with a discussion of her taking the 5th (the only smart position in my opinion) but continues in the section "Born for the Job" with connections to Mark Corallo, Barbara Comstock and the rest of the cabal.

After graduating in 1999, Goodling landed a job at the D.C. headquarters of the Republican National Committee just as the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign was ramping up. Goodling's position put her inside the newly created war room for political opposition research. There, she worked alongside a crew of party faithful who would later shepherd her through the ranks at Justice.

Among Goodling's close associates were Barbara Comstock, head of opposition research for the RNC and later the chief spokeswoman for Ashcroft; Griffin, Comstock's deputy, whom Goodling would later help to win the interim appointment to replace one of the eight ousted U.S. Attorneys in Arkansas; and Mark Corallo, who in 2003 took the helm of the Justice Department's Public Affairs Office after Comstock.

Goodling quickly won Comstock's trust for her hard work and talent for digging up information on tort litigation and judicial nominations. And when Griffin left in 2001, Goodling became Comstock's deputy. They helped prepare Ashcroft and Theodore Olson for their confirmation hearings to be attorney general and solicitor general, respectively.

When Comstock became Ashcroft's spokeswoman in 2002, she brought Goodling along as her deputy. Goodling stayed for three years. In no time, Goodling became "indispensable" to the office, says Corallo, who became Ashcroft's spokesman in 2003. "I have never known anybody that works harder or does better work than her."

She even went along on Ashcroft's traveling road shows.

More...

While many in Congress purport to want to end the Iraq Debacle, only one proposal is an actual proposal which uses the true powers of Congress to end the war- the "Not Spending" Power. The proposal is that of Senators Harry Reid and Russ Feingold. The magic words are the following:

c) Prohibition on Use of Funds - No funds appropriated or otherwise made available under any provision of law may be obligated or expended to continue the deployment in Iraq of members of the United States Armed Forces after March 31, 2008.

Any proposal that does NOT include this phrasing is merely for show. Having the same date or goals is nice and all, but absent those magic words, no proposal from the Congress is truly a proposal to end the Iraq Debacle, given who the President currently is.

Chicago Police Superintendant Philip Cline has announced his resignation amid the growing scandal of videotaped police beatings of suspects.

Cline has been under fire recently stemming from the conduct of Officer Anthony Abbate and other unnamed officers who are accused of beating citizens in separate barroom incidents caught on video.

....As the world was getting its first look at the grainy, graphic video of the burly Abbate pummeling bartender Karolina Obrycka, records that were made public showed that the Police Department had quietly filed misdemeanor charges against the officer a week earlier.

As discussed here, the Solicitor General adopted a narrow procedural approach to avoiding the SCOTUS hearing the Boumediene Gitmo habeas case.

The approach was successful:

"There is no need for this court to assess the adequacy of the...review before it has taken place," Solicitor General Paul Clement, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote.

The court is likely to be faced with the same cases it rejected Monday once the appeals court begins conducting reviews. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter voted to accept the appeals. "The questions presented are significant ones warranting our review," Breyer wrote. In addition, Breyer and Souter said they would have heard the case on a fast track, as the detainees requested.

And in a sign that the court has not had its final say on the matter, Justices Anthony Kennedy and John Paul Stevens made clear in a separate opinion that they were rejecting the appeals only on procedural grounds.

Yes, the New Age "Four Horseman" - Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts, voted to not hear the appeal without reservation.

This is a major development, imo:

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER COSPONSORS FEINGOLD BILL TO REDEPLOY TROOPS FROM IRAQ

Washington D.C. -­ U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced today that they are introducing legislation that will effectively end the current military mission in Iraq and begin the redeployment of U.S. forces. . . . The bill ends funding for the war, with three narrow exceptions, effective March 31, 2008.

“I am pleased to cosponsor Senator Feingold’s important legislation,” Reid said. “I believe it is consistent with the language included in the supplemental appropriations bill passed by a bipartisan majority of the Senate. If the President vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period.”

“I am delighted to be working with the Majority Leader to bring our involvement in the Iraq war to an end,” Feingold said. “Congress has a responsibility to end a war that is opposed by the American people and is undermining our national security. By ending funding for the President’s failed Iraq policy, our bill requires the President to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq.”

Just another Monday night national championship matchup between the Mighty Florida Gators and THE Ohio State University. This one for the NCCAA Men's Basketball Championship. Oh by the way, Florida is looking to become the first repeat champion since Duke in 1991-92.

Who should Talk Left readers root for? Far be it from me to point you in a direction (Let's Go Gators!), but let me remind you what one of the Gator stars thinks of President George Bush:

He had to be talked into the Gators' White House visit last April. His disdain for President Bush was obvious when Noah dressed down for the occasion, shirttail flapping. . . . "I don't really agree with his views," Noah said of the President. "I don't really agree with what he stands for."

Just sayin' . . . Let's Go Gators!

There's good news over at Captain's Quarters. Ed's wife (the First Mate) has had a successful kidney transplant. She and the donor are doing fine. Ed's been blogging through the surgery to relieve the stress. Go on over and send some good wishes.

This sound familiar?

I have concerns about cutting off funding . . . I think there is a possibility, given how obstinate the Administration is, that if we try to cut off funding, Bush is hellbent on doing what he is doing . . . he may decide to play chicken and say 'you guys do whatever you want [I'm keeping the troops there]' . . .

No, that was NOT from today's daily kos front page story on Obama.

It is from MY front page Talk Left story of March 2, 2007. So all the Obama sycophants who believe the AP is lying when it writes this:

If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker "wants to play chicken with our troops," Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday.

need to wake up and stop drinking the Obama kool aid. For months and months, I have been preaching that Obama has been playing a bad brand of politics. To disbelieve a quote that is virtually the same thing he said a month ago, a quote that was ignored by most, but not by me, is to descend into blind hero worship.

Obama has talent and a good heart, but he has a politics problem.

Anthony Capozzi is now 50 years old. He's been in prison for 22 years for a rape he didn't commit. DNA has proved his innocence and he is expected to be freed within two weeks.

DNA evidence at the time of Capozzi’s trial wasn’t even admissible in the courts, and D’Agostino had to contend with the testimony of three women who identified Capozzi as their assailant.

“Maybe one’s wrong, maybe two are wrong, but jurors sit there and say how can three people possibly be wrong?” he said. “They were all so positive it was him.”

The D.A. agrees Capozzi was wrongfully convicted.

Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark is expected to present Troutman DNA test results from the county’s crime lab. Those tests show that DNA in slides taken from the rape victims matches that of the man charged as the Bike Path Killer, Altemio Sanchez.

Hillary Clinton raked it in this quarter.

Shattering previous records, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton collected $26 million for her presidential campaign during the first three months of the year and transferred an additional $10 million from her Senate fundraising account, aides said Sunday. The New York senator's total included $4.2 million raised through the Internet.

The amount outdistanced past presidential election records and set a high bar by which to measure the fundraising abilities of her chief rivals.

I wonder how Rudy Giuliani did.

Update: John Edwards raised $14 million.