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WorldCom founder Bernie Ebbers, age 65, will report to federal prison tomorrow to begin serving his 25 year sentence for fraud. For Ebbers, it is a life sentence.

In the category of longest prison sentence, WorldCom Inc. founder Bernard J. Ebbers recently bested the organizer of an armed robbery, the leaders of a Bronx drug gang and the acting boss of the Gambino crime family.

Also on Tuesday, Enron's former Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow will be sentenced. He cooperated with the Government and faces no more than ten years in prison.

Exercising one's constitutional right to a jury trial has never been more perilous. Ebbers' cohort, Scott Sullivan, the architect of the WorldCom scheme, was sentenced to only five years after he decided to cooperate and testify against Ebbers. Ken Lay was facing 25 years after his conviction, and Jeff Skilling is looking at the same, after they went to trial and were convicted, in large part due to Fastow's testimony against them.

The Washington Post article focuses on this issue:

From SuperMax to GitMax. The U.S. is finalizing plans for the newest maximum security prison at Guantanamo. The Associated Press reports we are spending $37.8 million on the facility to house a maximum of 220 prisoners. That doesn't even include the upkeep or cost of confinement.

Underscoring the military's toughening stance, a jailhouse in the final stages of construction on a cactus-studded plateau overlooking the Caribbean is being "hardened" into a maximum-security facility. Camp 6 was to have opened in August as a medium-security lockup. The modifications have pushed back the completion date of the $37.8 million jailhouse, which has a capacity for 220 inmates, to Sept. 30. It will take its first detainees in mid-October, Army Capt. Dan Byer said.

How long will they be there? Forever.

"I think what we have here is an orange. What we're doing is squeezing out the juice and what we're left with at the end of the day is pulp that will just stay here," said Navy Capt. Phil Waddingham, lead officer here for the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants.

From a flawed policy to a disasterous policy. As op-ed contributor and former military man Paul Reikoff writes in the New York Times today, Do Unto Your Enemy...

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

The plot thickens:

Three former college football teammates of Sen. George Allen say that the Virginia Republican repeatedly used an inflammatory racial epithet and demonstrated racist attitudes toward blacks during the early 1970s.
"Allen said he came to Virginia because he wanted to play football in a place where 'blacks knew their place,'" said Dr. Ken Shelton, a white radiologist in North Carolina who played tight end for the University of Virginia football team when Allen was quarterback. "He used the N-word on a regular basis back then."

A second white teammate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the Allen campaign, separately claimed that Allen used the word "nigger" to describe blacks. "It was so common with George when he was among his white friends. This is the terminology he used," the teammate said.

A third white teammate contacted separately, who also spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of being attacked by the Virginia senator, said he too remembers Allen using the word "nigger," though he said he could not recall a specific conversation in which Allen used the term. "My impression of him was that he was a racist," the third teammate said.

Deep macaca indeed.

by TChris

New York isn't the only jurisdiction to vest significant power in judges who have little acquaintance with the law. The problems exposed by the NY Times' investigation of municipal courts (inaptly named "justice courts") abound in other states. Still, some of the Times' examples of injustice are particularly egregious:

People have been sent to jail without a guilty plea or a trial, or tossed from their homes without a proper proceeding. In violation of the law, defendants have been refused lawyers, or sentenced to weeks in jail because they cannot pay a fine. Frightened women have been denied protection from abuse. ...

A mother of four ... went to court in that North Country village seeking an order of protection against her husband, who the police said had choked her, kicked her in the stomach and threatened to kill her. The justice, Donald R. Roberts, a former state trooper with a high school diploma, not only refused, according to state officials, but later told the court clerk, "Every woman needs a good pounding every now and then."

Former Senator Gary Hart, writing at Huffington Post today, opines that the October surprise may be that Bush launches a pre-emptive war against Iran before the November elections.

The steps will be these: Air Force tankers will be deployed to fuel B-2 bombers, Navy cruise missile ships will be positioned at strategic points in the northern Indian Ocean and perhaps the Persian Gulf, unmanned drones will collect target data, and commando teams will refine those data. The latter two steps are already being taken.

Then the president will speak on national television. He will say this: Iran is determined to develop nuclear weapons; if this happens, the entire region will go nuclear; our diplomatic efforts to prevent this have failed; Iran is offering a haven to known al Qaeda leaders; the fate of our ally Israel is at stake; Iran persists in supporting terrorism, including in Iraq; and sanctions will have no affect (and besides they are for sissies). He will not say: ...and besides, we need the oil.

by TChris

Arlen Specter is irked because he wasn't a part of the "compromise" bill authorizing the military trials of detainees. He always likes to be asked before his party deprives people of their civil rights. As long as he's asked, he'll gladly work to implement his president's plans, whether they involve torture or domestic wiretapping. If he's not made to feel that he's an important part of the process, he whines about the Constitution. Thankfully, Specter is whining now.

President Bush is pushing Congress to put the agreement into law before adjourning for the midterm elections, but Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Sunday he "vigorously" disagrees with the habeas corpus provision of the bill. ... "The courts have traditionally been open to make sure that individual rights are protected, and that is fundamental," Specter said on CNN's "Late Edition. "And the Constitution says when you can suspend the writ of habeas corpus, in time of rebellion or invasion. And we don't have either. So that has to be changed, in my opinion."

If Democrats need the cover of Republicans to stand up for the Constitution, Specter is their shield, at least for the moment. But why are we reading about Arlen Specter's opposition, rather than the opposition of Democrats?

by TChris

The First Amendment protects both religious and political speech. Preachers are free to encourage their congregations to take sides on the moral issues of the day, but religious organizations risk losing their tax exempt status when they advocate political support for a particular party or candidate. LA Times columnist Steve Lopez asks why the IRS is investigating the All Saints Episcopal Church, where Rev. George Regas imagined a debate between John Kerry, George Bush and Jesus, while the agency ignores the New Revelation Missionary Baptist Church, just two miles away.

[Pastor William Turner Jr.] has proudly boasted to President Bush about converting 80% of his congregation from Democrat to Republican.

If Turner is entitled to preach the church's position on gay marriage and stem cell research, shouldn't Regas be permitted to apply the teachings of Jesus to tax cuts that benefit the wealthy, to a war that slaughters the innocent, and to the torture of prisoners?

by TChris

In translation, "we're fighting the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here" means "we're creating terrorists over there, then supplying them with easy targets." Does this make the country more safe? Not according to the consensus of opinion reported in the National Intelligence Estimate.

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Thanks, Mr. President, for taking a serious problem and making it worse. Much worse.

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

Mr. David Broder, let me introduce you to your editor, Mr. Fred Hiatt, Iraq Debacle supporter, New McCarthyite, and critic of the "Maverick" John McCain:

[I]t's hard to credit the statement by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) yesterday that "there's no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved." In effect, the agreement means that U.S. violations of international human rights law can continue as long as Mr. Bush is president, with Congress's tacit assent. If they do, America's standing in the world will continue to suffer, as will the fight against terrorism.

Despite that, Broder writes this:

The independence being demonstrated all over the political spectrum these days -- by Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman and Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, both in tough reelection battles, and by Republican Sens. John McCain and John Warner -- has its roots in American history.

... [T]he forces of the independent center are gaining. The public disgust with the breakdown of Congress as a functioning institution has liberated more House and Senate candidates to challenge the status quo. They may be the same people, but they're not behaving the same way.

David Broder, independently stupid.

Crooks and Liars has Part I (20) minutes of the Clinton interview with Chris Wallace available for you to see. (video here.)

Arianna provides her take here.
Jane at Firedoglake and Matt at MyDD agree with Arianna.

by TChris

The compromise between three Republican senators and the Bush administration over language in legislation governing the interrogation and trial of detainees turned back the worst of the administration's intentions, but that is no reason for the bill to win the support of any Democrat -- or, for that matter, any Republican who cares about justice. When the executive branch acts both as prosecutor and as judge and jury, the only safeguard against a sham proceeding is judicial review. If a court cannot perform the limited function that habeas corpus provides -- assuring that the proceeding comported with the Constitution and laws of the United States -- the executive branch will be given the unreviewable power to imprison the innocent indefinitely.

There are other flaws in the compromise, but its prohibition of judicial review is enough to earn a filibuster. Preserving the role of the judicial branch and the right to due process and habeas corpus should be the default position of Democrats, but there's no reason to expect even a majority of elected Democrats in the Senate or House to fight for the Constitution. Too many Democrats during the Bush years have displayed their unwillingness to stand up for first principles, at risk of being labeled "soft on terror." How sad it is that politicians don't fear being labeled "soft on human rights" or "soft on the Constitution."