by TChris

The police arrested three Burger King employees in New Mexico who sprinkled marijuana on the officers' burgers. The officers ate half the burgers before discovering the extra ingredient. The officers went to the hospital to be examined; no word on whether they developed a case of the munchies and returned to finish the burgers.

Update: (TL) The employees and Burger King manager are being charged with "possession of marijuana and aggravated battery on an officer, a felony." Talk about over-charging....

[George Harrison and Eric Claption, Live In Japan - 1991]

October 15, the last date for filing tax returns, is right around the corner. My accountant says tomorrow is my due date, so I'll be buried in paper until the wee hours.

For those of you smart enough to have filed on April 15, here's an open thread.

Update: It's 11:05 pm and I just found my accountant's "tax organizer" that I have to fill out by tomorrow. It was buried at the bottom of the 10th moving box I just unpacked. I hope this isn't an all-nighter, but it's looking that way. On the bright side, what did people do before Quicken?

As the House readies for hearings Thursday in Foleygate, Sen. John McCain has called for an independent investigation.

Chief witness at Thursday's hearing will be former Foley Chief of Staff, Kirk Fordham.

In other news from Foleyville, former Congressional page Jordan Edmund and his lawyer, Stephen Jones, met with members of the U.S. Attorneys' office in OKC for 2 1/2 hours. And Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe says he warned of the House official in charge of the page program of Foley's e-mails to pages back in 2001.

Update: Arianna says Republicans are whistling past the Foley graveyard.

(Guest Post from Big Tent Democrat)

All of us, Democrats and Independents, and Republicans for that matter, we're all FDR liberals. I have written it here before, liberals won the battle of ideas during the New Deal. Some extremist Republicans want to refight that fight, but no Republican who wants to get elected will fight that fight.

I write this because Harold Meyerson writes an incisive reaction to Markos Moulitsas's theory of Democratic Libertarianism:

Writing from the perspectives of a more New Dealish American liberal and an avowed social democrat (the latter tendency, I need not be reminded, being one that has fewer avowed adherents in America than libertarianism, though more than Trotskyism), I want to make a couple of points that Markos doesn't touch on. First, I want to point out the areas of overlap between libertarianism--or, at least, the preservation of personal liberties--and New Deal democracy, and even social democracy. Second, I want to look again at some of the new libertarianism Markos documents within the Democratic Party--not just where it extends, but where it can't extend, and why it can't.

On the other side, I'll talk more about Meyerson's cans and can'ts, but if I may, it seems to me that what Markos is attempting is a packaging of New Deal policies in attractive garb for those who consider themselves libertarian in outlook. In that sense, I think Markos' exercise is a valuable one. And to consider it an academic discussion of libertarianism is to miss the point.

Think Progress says House Speaker Denny Hastert is now trying to blame others for the Mark Foley mess. From the news conference today,

QUESTION: How satisfied are you with how your staff handled the scandal so far and whether anyone resign in your office?

HASTERT: I understood what my staff told me, and I think from that response, they've handled it as well as they should. However, in 20/20 hindsight, probably you could do everything a little bit better. If there is a problem, if there was a cover up, then we should find that out through the investigation process. They'll be under oath and we'll find out. If they did cover something up, they should not continue to have their jobs. But I -- but I didn't think anybody at any time in my office did anything wrong. I found out about these revelations last Friday. That was the first information I had about it.

News coverage here.

As if Macaca wasn't enough, there's this:

Stock options that Senator George Allen described as worthless were worth as much as $1.1 million at one point, according to a review of Senate disclosure forms and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The records appear to contradict remarks he made to the Associated Press. ``I got paid in stock options which were worthless,'' AP quoted him as saying.

Allen served as a board member of Chantilly, Virginia-based Xybernaut Corp. from 1998 until December 2000 and was awarded options on 110,000 shares during that period. His Senate financial disclosure form for 1999, required for candidates as well as officeholders, doesn't report that he owned the options.

[Hat tip Patriot Daily.]

Professor Stephen Griffin over at Balkanization has a thoughtful post on torture and the ticking time bomb theory in the context of Judge Richard Posner's new book, Not a Suicide Pact. Posner seems to embrace the TTB theory.

Posner comments: "In the era of weapons of mass destruction, torture may sometimes be the only means of averting the death of thousands, even millions, of Americans. In such a situation it would be the moral and political duty of the president to authorize torture. It seems odd that people who accept this point nevertheless denounce torture with such ferocity."

Griffen says,

What disturbs me is the moral shallowness of this particular scenario. Defined in a common sense way, torture involves deliberate cruelty and, as such, should be absolutely prohibited.

The Southern District of Florida Blog details Jose Padilla's Motion to Dismiss for Outrageous Government Conduct. It's well-worth reading for Padilla's factual recitation of what was done to him during his three years of confinement. I especially like the introduction:

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil 89 (Walter Kaufmann trans., Vintage Books 1966) (1886).\

Legal reporter Vanessa Blum covers the motion here.\

Update: The motion itself is here.

(Guest Post from Big Tent Democrat)

In discussing Scott Lemieux's piece on Dred Scott (Lemieux responded here), I touched upon the issue of Constitutional Interpretation. On Constitutional interpretation I wrote:

It seems undeniable to me that Dred Scott was a results oriented decision. And in that respect, Lemieux's statement that "[a]spirational" jurisprudence is only as good as the aspirations of the judge involved" is obviously correct. However, that does the "theory of a living Constitution" short shrift. The theory (or at least my theory) of a Living Constitution does not rest on "aspirational jurisprudence", but rather on common law judicial principles and the Constitution itself.

More on this on the other side.

Santa Barbara prosecutor Joyce Dudley wrote a novel about herself and her life as a prosecutor. Obviously, not lacking in ego, she describes her character as:

Ms. Danner, Ms. Dudley writes, has "the poise and sexiness of a dancer, the brains of a scholar and the protective passion of a mother." "She had always been attractive," Ms. Dudley continues, "but now, having reached middle age, experience, confidence and poise further enhanced her beauty."

She also suffers from Dick Wolf syndrome, where prosecutors are g-ds and defense lawyers are scum.

Prosecutors in "Intoxicating Agent" are fearless champions of the truth; defense lawyers, unethical and manipulative; and defendants, despicable and unattractive. One is called "felony ugly."

A real-life defendant in a date-rape drug case sued because one of the cases in her book is so close to his still-pending case. The judge issued a strong opinion, disqualifying her from the real-life case.

by TChris

Heck of a job there, Bushy.

Nearly five years after President Bush introduced the concept of an "axis of evil" comprising Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the administration has reached a crisis point with each nation: North Korea has claimed it conducted its first nuclear test, Iran refuses to halt its uranium-enrichment program, and Iraq appears to be tipping into a civil war 3 1/2 years after the U.S.-led invasion.

Isn't it about time for the president to award himself a medal?

by TChris

Another poll, this one conducted by The NY Times and CBS News, brings more bad news for Republicans. Perhaps the most telling finding:

Americans - including women and suburbanites - are more likely to say that Democrats, and not Republicans, share their moral values.