by TChris

There's no doubt that affluent defendants who can afford to mount a strong death penalty defense will probably be spared a verdict of death, while those with fewer resources (particularly in states that don't fund an adequate defense for the indigent) are more likely to be executed. That's the message being spread by David Kaczynski, brother of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, and William Babbitt, brother of Manny Babbitt, "a grade-school dropout and paranoid schizophrenic, scarred by Vietnam, who was executed in California in 1999 after a defense lawyer mounted no defense at all."

Race is just as important as income in the inequitable implementation of the death penalty.

Study after study has shown that no matter what the offense, blacks and whites suspected of similar crimes are charged differently, convicted at different rates and sentenced differently.

In a 2000 report, for instance, Human Rights Watch analyzed U.S. Justice Department data and found that while blacks make up only 13 percent of the population, they are 30 percent of those arrested, 41 percent of those in local jails and 49 percent of those in prison. When the organization revisited the issue three years later, little had changed.

by TChris

Among those who believe that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is making life less safe -- most Iraqis.

About three-quarters of Iraqis believe U.S. forces are provoking more conflict than they are preventing in Iraq and should be withdrawn within a year, a survey released on Wednesday showed. ...

That poll found a strong majority of Iraqis wanted American forces to leave immediately. It asked whether people favored U.S. troops leaving immediately, staying until the government asked them to leave or saying until the violence stopped.

by TChris

It isn't surprising that Republicans would sell out the Constitution and endanger the country by supporting the president's proposal to weaken the Geneva Conventions and to try detainees without the fundamental protections of due process, but it should be shocking that Senate Democrats apparently won't use their power to stop this un-American bill.

An editorial in today's NY Times succintly explains seven key problems with the bill. Will its call to action fall on deaf Democratic ears?

There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.

It's my birthday and I'm taking the day off from both my day job and blogging. Not because I have something special to do, but because I can and I want to.

I don't particularly feel like saying how old I am, I'd just note that Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Tuesday Weld, Bruce Springsteen and Bill and Hillary Clinton are older than me. But not by much.

If you have no reason to take the day off, here's some space for you to vent.

Denver may have just moved up a notch in the competiton to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Why? Because its chief competitor, Minneapolis, was just chosen to host the Republican convention.

Party and state officials announced the selection Wednesday. The convention is slated for Sept. 1-4, 2008.... Democrats also had been considering holding their convention in the Twin Cities, but the Republican announcement left Democrats with two competing cities to choose from -- New York and Denver.

Can Denver beat New York?

Amanda Across America visits Atrios in Philly.

It's over in the House. They voted today, 253-168, to pass Bush's military commission bill. It's expected to pass the Senate tomorrow.

The mostly party-line 253-168 vote in the Republican-run House came shortly after senators agreed to limit debate on their own nearly identical bill, all but assuring its passage on Thursday.

Republican leaders are hoping to work out differences and send Bush a final version before leaving town this weekend to campaign for the Nov. 7 congressional elections.

What a blow for due process and justice. Shame on all who voted for it.

I don't want Jeanine Pirro to win the election for New York Attorney General, but I'm sorry to see her personal life splashed all over the papers. This is really sordid. I also don't wish a federal investigation on anyone, especially over marital problems.

Shorter version: Pirro asked Bernie Kerik to bug her husband to find out about his mistress. This is the same husband who went to jail a few years ago for tax evasion, where Jeanine wasn't indicted because she had innocent spouse status even though she signed the return. The feds were tapping Bernie in 2005 on an unrelated matter and they caught his coversations with Jeanine. Now she's under investigation.

There are two horrible provisions in the military commissions bill. One would grant amnesty to Bush administration officials who authorized the use of torture techniques. The other would eliminate habeas for detainees.

While we've all focused a lot on the habeas provision, Sen. Dick Durbin points out in this long statement he delivered today in the Senate that the torture amnesty provision is not receiving nearly enough attention.

In the pants on fire department, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she doesn't recall seeing this memo from Richard Clarke in January, 2001, describing the severity of the al-Qaeda threat.

In it, Clarke advocates for a principal level review of Al Qaeda threat, calling Al Qaeda "not some narrow, little terrorist issue" but a "transnational challenge."

Update: Hillary weighs in on Condi issue.

Update: The hostage who was shot has died. She was 16 and her name was Emily Keyes. The gunman killed himself. The question now is why did the cops rush in?

Update: It's over. The gunman's dead.

*******
Is this Columbine redux?

One person has been brought out on a gurney at the scene of a hostage standoff at a high school in Bailey. Two girls were being held by a gunman there. Jefferson County spokesperson Jackie Kelley said the parents of the two students being held have not yet been notified.

"We have almost no information on this suspect," she said. We don't know who he is or what he wants."

Columbine expert and author Dave Cullen is following events closely and made a google map. This is in a county close to Jefferson where Columbine is situated, but here's the key difference: The perp is reported to be a parent, not a student:

The ACLU puts the lie to Republican spin on S. 2453, the National Security Surveillance Act (Received by e-mail, it's not up on their website yet, so I don't have a link.)

First, the background:

On Monday, Senator John Sununu (R-NJ) distributed a press release heralding an .agreement reached between the White House and Senators Larry Craig (R-ID), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and himself on S. 2453, the National Security Surveillance Act. These three senators had previously raised concerns about legislation on the NSA warrantless surveillance program.

In his release, Senator Sununu said the bill, "protects the rights afforded to citizens in the Constitution." Nothing could be further from the truth - the bill would authorize what the president has admitted and then some-- more wiretapping of Americans without court oversight of individual wiretaps than has ever been approved in US history. The press release goes on to spin three areas in which the new bill is a supposed win.

Here is the ACLU's breakdown of the Republican rhetoric and the reality of what the bill would do: