(Guest Post from Big Tent Democrat)

Scott Lemieux responds to my reaction to his post on Dred Scott. I will respond to Scott's points that I feel pertinent to my argument. Lemieux writes, in part:

To take the key points as they come up:

• BTD then articulates a structuralist theory of Constitutional interpretation, identified with John Marshall, and locates a similar theory in Lincoln's famous Cooper Union speech. Now, I am something of a structuralist myself, and I agree that Lincoln constructs a perfectly plausible reading that I of course find infinitely more attractive than Taney's arguments for moral reasons. But this isn't enough; the question is not whether there are plausible arguments against Taney, but whether Lincoln provides the only plausible reading of the Constitution in 1857. And the answer to this is clearly that he doesn't (see pp. 57-76 of the Graber book.)

The Washington Post reports the number of wounded troops in Iraq is growing significantly.

More than 20,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in combat in the Iraq war, and about half have returned to duty. While much media reporting has focused on the more than 2,700 killed, military experts say the number of wounded is a more accurate gauge of the fierceness of fighting because advances in armor and medical care today allow many service members to survive who would have perished in past wars. The ratio of wounded to killed among U.S. forces in Iraq is about 8 to 1, compared with 3 to 1 in Vietnam.

It looks like Rumsfeld was wrong again:

(Guest Post from Big Tent Democrat)

Another cut and runner:

It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America's mission in Iraq has substantially failed.

Unfortunately, and tragically, there can be no doubt this is true. There is no hope for success as promised by the Bush Administration. There never was. But it is worse than that. We now have an unmitigated disaster. The action to take now is to deal with this fact and start working on the consequences of this monumental Bush failure. The time for thinking about what to do starts November 8, after the elections. why? Because Bush, supported blindly by the Rubber Stamp Republicans, will not deal with reality. And if the Republicans hold both houses of Congress next January, then the planning can't start until 2009 at the earliest. Because Bush won't do it and congressional Republicans will not either.

by TChris

A prosecutor got herself tossed from a case because its facts were too similar to those of a crime novel she'd authored and was promoting at the time of the prosecution. The defense raised a "novel" question in seeking her disqualification.

In January, Joyce Dudley, a deputy district attorney in Santa Barbara, published a crime novel called "Intoxicating Agent." Its heroine, Jordon Danner, has the same initials and the same job as Ms. Dudley, and the novel concerns a rape case with echoes of a real one. In both, the victim said she had been sexually assaulted after being given an intoxicating drug. ...

"She has a disabling conflict of interest," Justice Kenneth R. Yegan of the California Court of Appeal wrote of Ms. Dudley for a unanimous three-judge panel. Ms. Dudley must be disqualified, Justice Yegan continued, because the defendant, Massey Haraguchi, "is being prosecuted for raping an intoxicated person while the prosecutor is promoting her novel involving the identical charge."

Justice Yegan wrote that Ms. Dudley's desire for money and fame might tempt her to throw the book at the defendant, as it were.

by TChris

As if the world hadn't exceeded its quota of serious trouble:

North Korea Says Nuclear Test a Success

by TChris

Hundreds of Iraqi police officers were poisoned at their base during their evening meal today.

An official with the Environment Ministry said 11 policemen had died. However, the governor of Wasit province -- where the poisoning took place -- denied any deaths, though he said some of the victims were in critical condition. There was no immediate explanation for the contradictory reports. Some of the policemen began bleeding from the ears and nose after the meal ....

Food and water are provided to the base by an Australian firm. Whether the poisoning was deliberate or accidental is under investigation.

by TChris

Today in Foleyville:

• This new information, while describing nothing illegal, keeps the Mark Foley story and the Republican cover-up in the news, and may help persuade Republican "values voters" to stay at home in November.

• Tom Reynolds apologizes for trusting other Republicans. But he cancels an appearance on "This Week" because (cough, cough) he has the flu.

• Republicans aren't helped by editorials like this one, which characterizes the Republican response to the Foley scandal as being "as chaotic as a clown convention." The editorial provides a small history lesson:

Some House members are rallying around Hastert, a genial fellow who came to power when Robert Livingston, the heir presumptive to ethically-challenged Newt Gingrich, foundered on an extramarital affair. He has spent his term deferring to more ruthless members like Tom DeLay, who's now under indictment in a campaign finance case and under investigation in a lobbying scandal, and also to the White House once George Bush became president.

by TChris

U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel awarded damages of $13.6 million to Eric Sarsfield, who spent about a decade in prison for a rape he didn't commit.

In her three-page decision, Judge Zobel said Mr. Sarsfield's problems with alcohol and drugs before his wrongful imprisonment worsened and his "social and communal life has been shredded." She said that the phobia and panic disorders he suffers from are the direct result of his incarceration.

The award includes a $2 million settlement that Sarsfield received from Marlboro, Massachusetts. Sarsfield's lawyer fears that the rest of the award may be uncollectable.

I've had four wonderful days in Manhattan, with the TL kid and great colleagues, being treated, as usual, like royalty by Lexis.com. I haven't read a newspaper, seen a television show, listened to a radio or blogged. A huge thanks to TChris and Big Tent Democrat for all their great posts.

I'm on the way to the airport (blogging this from my laptop's WWAN) and will be back to regular blogging tonight.

In the meantime, here's one more open thread.

(Guest Post from Big Tent Democrat)

This is a disgrace:

The Navy lawyer who took the Guantánamo case of Osama bin Laden's driver to the U.S. Supreme Court -- and won -- has been passed over for promotion by the Pentagon and must soon leave the military.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, said last week he received word he had been denied a promotion to full-blown commander this summer, "about two weeks after" the Supreme Court sided against the White House and with his client, a Yemeni captive at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. Under the military's "up-or-out" promotion system, Swift will retire in March or April, closing a 20-year career of military service.

This disagraceful vengeance upon a Navy lawyer committed to the ideals he swore to uphold is just as much as taint on our country as the detainee bill. Why? Because it puts into grave doubt the whole idea of military tribunals, and the independence and commitment of layers appointed to defend detainees. The Navy reward for a job well done is to be busted out of the service. An outrage.

by TChris

Even as the president assures us that Democrats can't be trusted to conduct the war against terror, his administration intends to do nothing to assure that Luis Posada Carriles is prosecuted for the role he allegedly played in causing an explosion that killed all 73 people aboard a Cubana Airlines flight in 1976. Posada was arrested last year for illegal entry into the United States, and is being held in an El Paso detention center. Venezuela and Cuba are seeking his extradition, but the Bush adminstration wants to deport him to a country that will likely set him free.

His case presents a quandary for the Bush administration, at least in part because Mr. Posada is a former C.I.A. operative and United States Army officer who directed his wrath at a government that Washington has long opposed.

In Bush's world, some accused terrorists deserve to be held without trial forever, while others enjoy a favored status. The sister of a passenger on the ill-fated Cubana Airlines flight wonders why the United States is following a double standard.

"If this were a plane full of Americans, it would have been a different story."

by TChris

Shouldn't a knowledge of sign language be a job requirement for campus police officers at Gallaudet University?

Students at Gallaudet University remained barricaded inside one of the main campus buildings Friday, protesting the school's presidential selection and what students call a pattern of prejudice at the largely deaf institution.

Students said campus police on Friday morning forced their way into the Hall Memorial Building, shoving and elbowing students and pepper spraying some. The school denied use of pepper spray and said authorities needed to rush in because of a bomb threat, though there turned out to be no bomb.

Ryan Commerson, a student and leader of the protests, said the campus police apparently did not know sign language and could not communicate their concerns to students as they pushed their way in. A lack of knowledge of sign language by those charged with protecting the students has historically caused troubles at the university not far from the U.S. Capitol, but the school has previously said it took steps to address that.