The New York Times presents its "must do" list for President Bush. Excellent choices include:

• Restore Habeas Corpus

• Stop Illegal Spying

• Ban Torture, Really

In addition, the Times says, he must close secret prisons, account for the ghost prisoners, ban extraordinary rendition, tighten the definition of enemy combatant, fairly screen prisoners, ban secret and tainted evidence, better define "classified evidence" and respect the right to counsel.

It may be a to-do list for Bush, but I hope the Democrats are reading and listening. These are many of the issues we expected them to lead on when we voted in November.

Time to get busy.

Via Ben at Politico Blog, quoting the Washington Times about Rudy Giuliani's Cpac speech:

In interviews afterward, some attendees said Mr. Giuliani lost momentum when he heaped lavish praise on Abraham Lincoln.

"While many conservatives regard the Civil War president as the spiritual founder of the Republican Party, others deeply resent him as a man who ruthlessly suspended constitutional rights and freedoms in order to militarily challenge the South's belief in its right to secede. Some saw similar disdain for individuals' rights in Mr. Giuliani's successful war on crime in New York City."

Where is Rudy on civil liberties issues? Squarely with Bush (no suprise there.)

Mr. Giuliani took the side of the Bush administration on an issue that troubles civil libertarian conservatives, saying that "you need the tools like the Patriot Act and legal intelligence surveillance."

This is interesting. The Coulter line is snark, but I figured the Malkin line was too. I was wrong on that.

In the wake of New York's passing a law last week allowing sex offenders to be held in civil confinement after their prison terms are up, the New York Times examines the dubious wisdom of such laws.

Here's a snippet:

only a small fraction of committed offenders have ever completed treatment to the point where they could be released free and clear. Leroy Hendricks, a convicted child molester in Kansas, finished his prison term 13 years ago, but he remains locked up at a cost to taxpayers in that state of $185,000 a year — more than eight times the cost of keeping someone in prison there.

Mr. Hendricks, who is 72 and unsuccessfully challenged his confinement in the Supreme Court, spends most days in a wheelchair or leaning on a cane, because of diabetes, circulation ailments and the effects of a stroke. He may not live long enough to “graduate” from treatment.

As the Times notes, very few will. This is a six page article that examines the flaws and mistaken assumptions in these laws.

More...

A few years ago, I frequently wrote about the trial of San Francisco marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal. In 2003, Sherry Colb at Findlaw had a good synopsis of the case.

First, Ed Rosenthal grew marijuana for sick and dying patients. Second, Rosenthal acted as an agent of Oakland, California's program to dispense marijuana to people whose doctors have prescribed it. Third, California's Proposition 215 expressly authorized the program.

At Rosenthal's trial, the defense sought to tell the jury these facts, but the judge ruled them inadmissible. As a result, Rosenthal was convicted by a jury whose members believed he was an ordinary marijuana grower.

The jurors were horrified to learn afterwards that Rosenthal had been a licensed marijuana dispenser.

More...

The New York Times reports on Colorado's plan to use prison inmates as farm laborers in place of immigrants.

Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned about immigrants’ rights and from others seeking changes in the criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a day, corrections officials said.

My objections to the program are over at 5280.com, where among other things I note that the L.A. Times is spot on in calling the proposal evidence that Colorado's strict anti-immigrant laws have backfired.

Beginning in 2010, documents obtained from Whitehall show that Britian plans to fingerprint all kids from age 11 up and store the prints in a secret database for immigration purposes.

The plans are outlined in a series of “restricted” documents circulating among officials in the Identity and Passport Service. They form part of the programme for the introduction of new biometric passports and ID cards.

Opposition politicians and privacy campaigners warn that the plans show ministers are turning Britain into a “surveillance society”.

Think it can't won't happen here?

Why? How about this?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has indicated he is too busy to answer letters from Democratic congressional leaders about his firing seven U.S. attorneys involved in probes of public corruption, though a lower-level Justice Department official rejected their proposals.

Contempt of Congress. Issue a formal subpoena to make it official.

Joe Klein sez:

A left-wing extremist exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:

--believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world.

--believes that American imperialism is the primary cause of Islamic radicalism.

--believes that the decision to go to war in Iraq was not an individual case of monumental stupidity, but a consequence of America’s fundamental imperialistic nature.

--tends to blame America for the failures of others—i.e. the failure of our NATO allies to fulfill their responsibilities in Afghanistan.

--doesn’t believe that capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed, is the best liberal idea in human history.

--believes American society is fundamentally unfair (as opposed to having unfair aspects that need improvement).

--believes that eternal problems like crime and poverty are the primarily the fault of society.

--believes that America isn’t really a democracy.

--believes that corporations are fundamentally evil.

--believes in a corporate conspiracy that controls the world.

--is intolerant of good ideas when they come from conservative sources.

--dismissively mocks people of faith, especially those who are opposed to abortion and gay marriage.

--regularly uses harsh, vulgar, intolerant language to attack moderates or conservatives. . .

For the record, I fail, as I do not believe any of that. Go ahead, take the Left Wing Extremist test.

If you enjoy holidays that are celebrated on a bar stool, mark March 9 on your calendar. It's the second annual Get Over It Day.

“Not getting into the college you wanted, losing a job - everybody’s got something to get over,” said [Jeff] Goldblatt, 29, who came up with the concept in 2005 while recovering from a difficult breakup. “Everybody’s got to say, it’s time to move on, get over it.”

It’s a make-your-own holiday in which participants devise their own, sometimes vindictive, traditions. A group of young women in New York last year burned photographs of their ex-boyfriends in a bonfire, inspiring Goldblatt to create an animated fire pit on the [holiday's] Web site. Complaints lodged in the pit range from the trivial (“I lost my favorite red stapler”) to the political (“the government is stupid and nonsensical”) and the tragic (“my father passed away”), with each injustice satisfyingly churned into the flames.

Update 3/4: "Rove 2", Dick Wadhams, was unanimously elected to lead the state's Republican party.

Presidential advisor and Republican strategist Karl Rove was in Colorado yesterday, urging Republians to choose Dick Wadhams as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. Here's what he had to say about the Republican loss in 2006:

During a "repaint the state red dinner," Rove said Republicans suffered a significant defeat in the November elections, but he said he takes a longer view of history and predicted voters will again turn to Republicans for leadership.

"We had a defeat. Can't dress up that pig. We pick ourselves up off the mat, we stand on principle and we get back in the fight," he told a cheering crowd of hundreds of supporters.

Wadhams took some lumps last year when he couldn't save his Virginia senatorial candidate George Allen from self-destruction:

It's a beautiful sunny day here in Denver and I need a break from the computer. If you are stuck inside due to weather, or just feel like being online, here's a space to chat.