Update: Argument transcripts (in pdf) are here (Rita) and here (Claiborne).

original post:

Before the Supreme Court's Booker decision, federal courts were required to follow the federal sentencing guidelines. The guidelines required judges to enhance sentences to punish for crimes the judge believed were related to the crime of conviction, even though the additional crimes weren't proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Under the post-Booker regime, judges could impose any "reasonable" sentence after considering the guidelines and a number of other factors.

After Booker made the guidelines advisory, some federal appellate courts did their best to restore their mandatory nature by announcing that guideline-compliant sentences are presumptively reasonable while reversing sentences that weren't as harsh as the guidelines recommended. In today's NY Times, Linda Greenhouse spotlights two cases that will be argued before the Supreme Court today -- cases challenging the presumption that guideline sentences are reasonable.

The presumption “simply resurrects the system rejected in Booker,” Thomas N. Cochran, an assistant federal public defender in Greensboro, N.C., told the court in the brief he filed on behalf of Victor A. Rita Jr., the defendant in one of the two new cases.

Update: I'm the guest poster at Hillary's blog today. If you follow my link, you'll see I've chronicled her election bid since 2000. I haven't yet decided whom I'm supporting to ultimately get the nomination. But I'm heartily endorsing her seeking it.

Hillary Clinton's blog went live today. Some of you may remember that she asked for submissions to become the first guest poster. More than 10,000 entries were received. The winner with the first post is Kelly G. Here's her entry.

Imagine my surprise when Peter Daou called me today to say my submitted post will be up tomorrow! Out of 10,000 plus submissions, I'm pretty amazed. So don't forget to go on over (when you're not checking out my live-blogging of the Scooter Libby closings at Huffington Post or reading what Big Tent and/or TChris have to say here.)

As I'm sitting in my hotel room in D.C. tonight, which is right across from a fire station with huge sirens going off every half hour or so as the firetrucks respond to the latest emergency, and about to catch up on the news of the day and then watch "24" and "What About Brian", two songs keep resonating through my head: Don Henley's New York Minute .

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As readers of this blog know, I believe the way to end the US involvement in Iraq is to announce a date certain for ending funding of the war. There is much confusion on how such a strategy would succeed. I think the fundamental confusion is the failure to understand that to defund the war the Congress need not pass any legislation at all. It merely must REFRAIN from passing legislation that funds the war.

But here is the most important part of the equation - the Democratic leadership of the Congress must announce now the date certain when it will no longer fund the Iraq war. It must tell the American People now that the funding will end on x date, and that it is incumbent on the President to adjust his actions accordingly. It must tell the American People NOW that if the troops are left in the field AFTER the announced date it will be the President who has placed our troops in increased danger. It will be the President who does not support the troops.

I'm flying back to Washington today for Tuesday's closing arguments in the Scooter Libby trial. Since today is a holiday, I don't know how many people will be online, but I figured I'd give those of you who are a place to talk.

My live-blogging Tuesday will be over at Huffington Post. My nightly wrap-ups will appear both there and here.

A big thanks to TalkLeft readers who helped make possible my three trips to cover the trial and to Arianna Huffington , Firedoglake and Media Bloggers for the press passes.

Former prosecutor Victoria Toensing has an op-ed in the Washington Post today (debunked nicely by Larry Johnson) outlining her case for Scooter Libby's acquittal. In two words: jury nullification.

(Thanks, Victoria, for attempting to personally smear the prosecutor on the eve of closing arguments. I bet if a true criminal defense lawyer wrote an article like that you'd accuse him or her of trying to influence the jury pool.)

Toensing is playing to the court of public opinion here, not the court of law. By setting forth her grounds for indicting others in the case, she's advocating exactly what Patrick Fitzgerald has said he's on guard against: the defense playing the jury nullification card, arguing that it's not fair Libby was charged while others weren't.

I don't think Team Libby is going to make that argument, at least not directly. They know Patrick Fitzgerald would repeatedly interrupt Wells' closing to object and there's few things worse than losing your rhythm and the jury's undivided attention in closing because of objections from the other side.

Mark Schmitt points out a serious concern about Hillary Clinton's views on executive power:

I was . . . alarmed by the following passages:

Mrs. Clinton’s belief in executive power and authority is another factor weighing against an apology, advisers said. As a candidate, Mrs. Clinton likes to think and formulate ideas as if she were president - her ’responsibility gene,’ she has called it. In that vein, she believes that a president usually deserves the benefit of the doubt from Congress on matters of executive authority....

. . . [W]e have just gone through a period of the most staggering expansion of executive power in history, and I suspect that we don’t know the half of it. The setup that was the Iraq resolution, the manipulation of the executive branch itself in order to deceive Congress was one example of it. . . . The last thing we need at this moment is yet another president who "believes in executive authority and Congressional deference." We need a president who respects separation of powers and democracy. After all, the next president will not be our last.

I agree with Mark's concern but it requires a Congress willing to stymie Executive Power to check abuse of power by a President. A President Hillary Clinton asserting strong Executive Power is a concern of course. But Thomas Jefferson disclaimed any number of federal powers that he then used when President.

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• Michael Isikoff on Rove crony and lobbyist Richard Hohlt acknowledging (confirmed by Rove's lawyer) that Hohlt faxed a copy of Novak's article to Rove on July 11. Christy at Firedoglake adds her thoughts. I'd just add that those of us in the media room during Novak's testimony found Hohlt's name on the trial witness list (We were trying to figure out how to spell Hohlt.) So at one point, Wells must have been thinking about calling him, but changed his mind.

• Another released Iraqi detainee from Camp Bucca describes his torture at the American detention center. They used an electric prod on him. Another former prisoner says it happened to him too.

• Raw Story on a new, secretive U.S. prison program that targets and isolates Muslim and Middle Easterners, likely in violation of their rights.

• Larry Johnson debunks Victoria Toensing's WaPo op-ed. (Dead link removed 4/28/21

This is simply shocking.

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog expresses his outrage. So should we all.

Almost a year ago, our nation's immigrants marched in cities across America, rightly proclaiming, "We are America."

The New York Times takes a look at what's happened in the year since the marches.

• border enforcement
• federal raids
• local crackdowns
• gutted due process
• a web of suspicion
• the bureaucratic trap
• the rise of hate

The Times opines:

Hopelessly fixated on toughness, the immigration debate has lost its balance, overlooking the humanity of the immigrant. There is a starkly diminished understanding that hospitality for the stranger is part of the American ethos, and that as much as we claim to be a nation of immigrants, we have thwarted them at every turn. We must do better.

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Hashim Ibrahim Awad was an Iraqi civilian, a retired policeman, who was brutally killed in Hamdaniya, an area west of Baghdad. 7 marines and a navy medic were charged in the death.

Today, Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington,one of the charged Marines pleaded guilty to "conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and kidnapping, and to a kidnapping charge. Other charges he faced were dismissed at sentencing."

He was sentenced to 14 years with an agreement he will serve 8 in prison.

The navy medic flipped and agreed to testify against the Marines. He said:

Awad's hands and feet were bound and he was dragged from his home and shot numerous times. Then, he said, one Marine put the dead man's fingerprints on a rifle and shovel to make it look like he had been caught trying to plant a roadside bomb.

Just one day after the House passed the non-binding Iraq war resolution, the Senate gathered on a Saturday and voted against it.

It was the second time this month that minority Republicans successfully filibustered a nonbinding resolution opposing the troop buildup.

Senators voted 56-34 to invoke cloture and proceed to a floor vote on the resolution, with seven Republicans joining all the chamber's Democrats in calling for an end to the debate. But the motion fell four votes short of the threshold needed under Senate rules.

Here are the Republicans who voted for the resolution:

On Hillary Clinton's website today, she unveils a new message on Iraq.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a 90-day deadline to start pulling American troops from Iraq.

"Now it's time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days or the Congress will revoke authorization for this war," the New York senator said in a video on her campaign Web site, repeating a point included in a bill she introduced on Friday.

As to Hillary's bill, introduced yesterday:

Clinton's bill would cap the number of troops in Iraq at the January 1 level, prior to Bush's decision to add 21,500 to the approximately 130,000 soldiers already there.... [and] would require congressional authorization to exceed her proposed cap on U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Hillary also has a clear message for President Bush:

"If George Bush doesn't end the war before he leaves office, when I'm president, I will," Clinton said in the video.

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