Ah, the new Iraqi democracy at work.

Thirteen men convicted of murder, kidnapping and other crimes were hanged in a Baghdad jail on Tuesday, lining up shortly before their execution in hoods and green jumpsuits, their hands bound behind their backs.

The government executed the 13 men after an appeals court and the presidency approved the verdict, said Busho Ibrahim, undersecretary of the Justice Ministry.

In other Iraqi death news:

Police said they found 53 bodies around Baghdad on Tuesday, apparent victims of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites that has swept the capital this year. Many of the bodies showed signs of torture.

Donald Trump believes in second chances. He's not going to fire Miss USA Tara Conner for underage drinking. Instead, she's going to rehab and will retain her title.

Ms. Connor turned 21 a few days ago.

Maybe it's time to lower the drinking age to 18. That's what it was in New York when I was that age.

If you're old enough to sign a contract, get married and die in a foreign war, you should be old enough to have a drink.

It's official. Team Libby told the Judge presiding over his trial today he absolutely will call Veep Dick Cheney as a trial witness.

More information is available here, as well as last week's filings.

Update: Empty Wheel and Christy at Firedoglake share their thoughts.

Update: I'd love to see Fitz impeach Cheney at trial using Cheney's statements made in 2004 to federal investigators.

More on Cheney's involvement here and here.

Dick Cheney denies he shot and killed the deer, but what is it doing on his lawn? Wonkette explains.

The NY Daily News has more.

[Hat tip reader Scribe.]

Not surprisingly, Hillary's pollster Mark Penn thinks so. But he does have numbers to buttress his argument:

Penn cited the ABC News/Washington Post poll of adults this month, which found 56% with favorable opinions of Clinton and 40% with unfavorable opinions. In the poll, she is the only Democratic contender viewed favorably by more than half the country.

. . . "She gets very, very strong support from the younger generation, and particularly younger women," he said. In recent months, Penn said, he sees "a very significant surge of support" for Clinton among Democrats.

This trend is particularly dramatic in a CNN poll taken this month that showed Clinton gaining 9 percentage points since late October, to 37% in a Democratic primary, while Obama actually lost 2 points to fall to 15%. Other polls show her up by a similar margin but haven't measured his support over time. "If you notice in these polls she has a very strong lead, Democratic and otherwise, among the African-American community," he said. Obama is black and is widely expected to cut deeply into the Clintons' traditional support among African-Americans. . . .

And the recent Newsweek poll showing Hillary up 7 over MCCain would also support his view. Personally, I don't buy these polls so far out and do not think Hillary is  very electable. But that is the least of it. more so than Obama, I find Hillary's political rhetoric and style an abandonment of the Politics of Contrast (see my posts on the subject for more detail)  that I think won Dems the 2006 election and the type of politics that  Dems must adopt in the near future in all national elections. To wit, Hillary is BENEFITTING from an improved Dem brand and weakened GOP brand but her style was not part of that success. To adopt it, or Obama's, is to reject success.

I do not understand why Dems would do that. But Dems have proven to be political fools in the past so it certainly is possible they will again be so in the future.

It's time for the Tuesday open thread. What's happening in your world? What are you reading and concerned about today?

And if any of you readers are Scoop-tech, and know how to put the publication date into my rss feed ( which block I put the code in and what code I should put in), please let me know. Colin of Scoophost is out of town until the first of the year and I'd like to do it asap. Many thanks!

Genarlow Wilson and some friends rented a hotel room for a New Years Eve party in 2003. They planned to drink and smoke some weed and fool around. One of Wilson's friends, a 15 year old girl, performed an act of oral gratification on Wilson, who was 17. Although she testified that she was a willing participant, Georgia law made it a felony for Wilson to receive oral pleasure from a minor -- even a minor who was close to his own age -- so jurors found him guilty.

The verdict might have been different if jurors had known Wilson was facing a minimum sentence of 11 years, 10 to be served without parole. Wilson is also required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

As a result of the publicity surrounding Wilson's case, Georgia changed its law, but the Georgia Supreme Court declined to hear Wilson's appeal. The Court's justification is, to put it politely, hogwash.

Duncan speaks on the Primaries:

Some Notes on Primary Season

1) Your favorite candidate is the only one who can win.

2) Your favorite candidate is the only one who will truly get behind a progressive agenda.

3) Other candidates are part of some nefarious conspiracy to destroy your candidate.

4) Supporters of other candidates are motivated by groupthink.

5) Supporters of other candidates are operating in bad faith and arguing dishonestly.

6) "Powerful" bloggers shouldn't be "biased."

7) Primary season is the silliest season of all.

True dat.

Responding to a federal court opinion last week finding California's death penalty procedures woefully inadequate, Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger is promising to fix them in 30 days.

Sorry, Arnie. That's not good enough. You need to suspend them until (if ever) they are fixed, like Jeb Bush did.

The federal judge presiding over the Jose Padilla trial ordered him to be mentally evaluated by Bureau of Prisons doctors.

Defense attorneys have argued that 3-1/2 years of torture and solitary confinement in a military brig had left Padilla mentally ill and unable to understand the charges against him or assist in his defense.

Prosecutors have emphatically denied that Padilla was mistreated in any way but did not object to his undergoing a mental exam.

Is that because they have faith the BOP shrinks will rule for them?

Alex Koppelman at Salon compares the prosecution of Jose Padilla to that of a home-grown terrorist tried the old-fashioned way and explains why the Padilla method is likely to fail.

That the prosecution of Crocker ended so successfully points to what may ultimately be the most significant difference between the Crocker and Padilla cases. Crocker was investigated, prosecuted and detained in the old, pre-9/11 way, and his case has held up even as the Padilla prosecution has self-destructed.

The Crocker case was brought in by old-fashioned police work. A confidential informant passed on a tip and a sting was conducted by an FBI agent careful to make sure the plan was real and not a creation of the government. No lawyer for Crocker has ever filed an allegation that Crocker was tortured. He wasn't even cuffed or shackled at his arraignment. The case against Padilla, on the other hand, came about through anything but normal means, and that has been its downfall.

The Wall St. Journal (free link) examines the problems the Pentagon has encountered with the military commission trial of Canadian teenager Omar Khahr.

I see Omar Khadr, Child of Jihad, much different than the military.

The number one cash crop in America is now marijuana.

The report, "Marijuana Production in the United States," by marijuana policy researcher Jon Gettman, concludes that despite massive eradication efforts at the hands of the federal government, "marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of the national economy."