by Last Night in Little Rock

Attorney General Gonzales appeared before Congress yesterday to urge them to require Internet service providers (ISPs) to keep content longer for child porn investigations. See Gonzales Urges Preserving Internet Records on NYTimes.com. Just in time for the election. It is just a cover for something greater?

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said Congress should require Internet providers to preserve customer records, adding that prosecutors need them to fight child pornography. Testifying to a Senate committee, Mr. Gonzales acknowledged concerns that such legislation might be overly intrusive and encroach on privacy rights. But he said the government's lack of access to such information was the biggest obstacle to deterring child pornography.

by TChris

News of a possible compromise between the White House and Republican senators over legislation authorizing military trials and interrogations of detainees is vague. It appears that the administration has given ground, but "few details were available, and it was not clear whether a compromise was imminent or whether the White House had shifted its stance significantly."

The new White House position, sent to Capitol Hill on Monday night, set off intensified negotiations between administration officials and a small group of Republican senators. The senators have blocked President Bush's original proposal for legislation to clarify which interrogation techniques are permissible and to establish trial procedures for terrorism suspects now in United States military custody.

If a compromise bill that satisfies Republicans finally emerges, Democrats will need to scrutinize it to assure that it leaves the Geneva Conventions intact, that it gives detainees a meaningful hearing with the procedural protections that due process requires (no secret evidence or unconfronted hearsay), and that it doesn't immunize government employees or officials from responsibility for past or future violations of human rights. Will enough Democrats be up to the task to assure that the United States stands firmly and finally in support of fair, just, and humane treatment of those it detains?

by TChris

Responding to prosecutors' complaints that the chief judge was "soft on Saddam," Iraq's prime minister removed the judge from Saddam Hussein's trial. But wait, you say. What kind of democratic government allows the executive branch to control the judicial branch, to the point of removing a judge during a trial because prosecutors want a judge who will side with them more often? The kind that has emerged in Iraq. The kind that cares more about assuring convictions than providing fair trials. The kind of government that is, by rational standards, a joke.

The change could revive complaints that the government is interfering in the tribunal trying Saddam and his regime members to ensure a quick guilty verdict.

The judge who presided over Hussein's first trial resigned midway through the trial in response to complaints that he, too, was "soft on Saddam." American prosecutors must envy the power of the Iraqi government to toss out any judge who isn't sufficiently pro-prosecution.

by TChris

Earlier this year, some political speculators predicted an administration push to draw down the number of troops in Iraq before the November elections as proof of "progress" in its nation-building effort. If that was the administration's hope, reality has intruded:

The top American commander in the Middle East said the more than 140,000 soldiers now in Iraq are likely to be needed there at least until next spring because of continuing sectarian violence and the effort to secure Baghdad. "I think that this level probably will have to be sustained through next spring, and then we'll re-evaluate," General John P. Abizaid told reporters at a breakfast roundtable. ...

The surge in violence over the last six months, especially in Baghdad, has forced American commanders to increase troop levels by around 20,000 since last June and scrap plans made by General George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, to reduce the number of combat brigades to 12 by this month.

by TChris

The Republican Senate has exhausted itself with fierce debates about gay marriage, the protection of stem cells, and flag burning amendments, while showing little interest in legislation that might benefit the public. As Republican leaders waste their time ranting about "moral issues," Al Gore unveiled a plan yesterday to combat global warming. Gore recognizes that avoiding the destruction of life on the planet is a greater moral issue than those that motivate the religious right.

"This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue -- it affects the survival of human civilization," Gore said in an hour-long speech at the New York University School of Law. "Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours."

Gore isn't alone. Religious groups are increasingly focusing on stewardship of the environment as a moral issue.

Today is moving day for me. I'll be losing my tv, telephone and high speed internet connection until Wednesday....and that's assuming Comcast and Qwest perform as agreed.

A huge thanks to TChris who will be posting here and perhaps Big Tent Democrat and Last Night in Little Rock. I'll be on WWAN every few hours to push your comments through, so I hope you'll check in.

The site move to Scoop is progressing, ScoopHost says they'll have a test site up by Thursday. I'm hoping that will solve the commenting problem and by next week TalkLeft will be faster and easier for commenters than ever.

In the meantime, feel free to chat here. I'll be back as soon as I get a working computer and online access at my new home.

And for those of you with a residence move in your future, don't forget to leave a few items of silverware and a towel or two out on your last night. I ate my take-out dinner with a 1/4 teaspoon I found left in a drawer and while I remembered to put a change of clothes, shampoo and some makeup aside, I forgot all about a towel for the shower. I had to go to the new house and bring one back.

I'm skeptical when it comes to new tv shows, particularly on network television. Despite the raves of the critics, I didn't think I'd like "Studio 60." I was never a "West Wing" fan or a fan of any of its actors, except John Spencer whom I loved on LA Law. I've never been a Judd Hirsch fan. Timothy Busfield was good in "30 Something" but far from my favorite character in the show. The movie Network had become a cliche to me even before it won the Oscar. I'm also pretty clueless as to what happens in the "control room" except when they whisper in my ear, "Jeralyn, jump in if you want" when the host isn't calling on me or "Hey, everyone, keep your answers short, we've only got 2 minutes for the segment and there's a package."

I only watched Studio 60 last night because of the buzz and because of its connection to Saturday Night Live. I thought there had been too much hype. I was wrong. Except for the predictability of Judd Hirsch's "Network" moment, it was excellent television.

Many of the tv critics say they got riveted from the moment Matthew Perry made his appearance. That didn't do it for me. For me, it was the scene where Amanda Peet (Jordan) showed up in Bradley Whitford's hotel room room and used his failed drug test to convince him to come back to the show. The ensuing scenes between Brad and Matt Perry clinched it for me. They totally work together. I also got very into Amanda Peet's self-confidence -- she promises to be even a better role model for women than Geena Davis was in Commander in Chief.

How lame. The Bush Administration's Office of Narcotics and Drug Control Policy has uploaded its anti-drug videos to YouTube.

The Bush administration is taking its fight against illegal drugs to YouTube, the trendy Internet video service that already features clips of wacky, drug-induced behavior and step-by-step instructions for growing marijuana plants.

The decision to distribute anti-drug, public service announcements and other videos over YouTube represents the first concerted effort by the U.S. government to influence customers of the popular service, which shows more than 100 million videos per day.

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report released today, marijuana arrests reached an all-time high in 2005 -- 42.5% of all drug arrests were for pot. Pot arrests have doubled since the 1990's.

In 2005,

Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. In past years, roughly 30 percent of those arrested were age 19 or younger.

by TChris

TalkLeft has repeatedly told the story of Maher Arar, beginning with his arrest in October 2002 (coverage collected here). This post, praising Time Magazine in Canada for naming Arar Canada's Person of the Year, summarizes the story of Arar's secret deportation to a prison in Syria, where torture induced him to give a false confession that linked him to al Qaeda. Arar is walking proof that torture produces unreliable information. If the president were inclined to let facts influence his judgment, a meeting with Arar might convince him to back off on his petulent insistence that it's not worth interrogating suspected terrorists unless torture and abuse are available tools in the interrogation protocol.

Reuters reports the conclusions drawn at the end of Canada's official inquiry -- conclusions that have been obvious for some time:

Judge Dennis O'Connor, asked in 2004 to examine what had happened, said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police wrongly told U.S. authorities that Arar was an Islamic extremist. "The provision of this inaccurate information ...[is] totally unacceptable'' and guaranteed the United States would treat Arar as a serious threat, O'Connor said. "I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada.''

While Judge O'Connor blamed the RCMP for getting the facts wrong, he found no evidence that Canada played a role in the American decision to deport Arar. The American authorities, of course, declined to respond to O'Connor's questions. The administration refuses to be accountable to Congress; it's no surprise that it has no interest in furthering a Canadian investigation into the mistreatment of Arar.

For all you supporters of Duane Chapman, aka Dog the Bounty Hunter, you can view exclusive video and photos of his arrest and bail posting here.

Tuesday night on A&E, there will be a special episode of "DOG: The Family Speaks" at 10 pm ET. You can watch the trailer here.

From A&E's press release today, in case you haven't been following along:

by TChris

Every police officer in the country must have known that pulling over Willie Nelson's bus would be an easy way to make a pot bust. It happened today in Louisiana, after the bus was stopped for "a commercial vehicle inspection."

A search of the bus produced 11/2 pounds of marijuana and 0.2 pounds of narcotic mushrooms, according to state police.

Nelson needs to find a new driver, as Louisiana apparently suspends commercial driving privileges on the spot when a driver is arrested for pot possession.