Zacarias Moussaoui gave a political lecture at his sentencing today. He mocked victims who spoke, saying the U.S. is hardly the country of peace and love. He said the U.S. lost an opportunity to find out why people like him and Mohammad Attah hate America so much, and if we won't listen, we will feel it..again, they will be back. Of course, there was a "long live Osama." (no link yet, I heard this all on tv.)

The Judge told him that his comment yesterday about winning was wrong, that everyone in the courtroom will be free today to leave and go where they want, smell the fresh air, see the sunlight, and he will be locked in a tiny supermaximum prison cell.

He is going to Supermax at Florence, the media doesn't know when since that's up to the Bureau of Prisons. I remember that after McVeigh's sentencing, he was on his way to Florence either that day or the next. Of course, Denver is a lot closer to Florence but still, now that Moussaoui has been sentenced, I think they will get him out of Virginia very quickly.

by TChris

This is what the House of Representatives, by a mostly party-line vote of 217-213, thinks it can sell the public as "lobbying reform":

The new bill would require lobbyists to disclose more of their activities, increase financial penalties for violations and require lawmakers and their aides to attend ethics training. It also aims to discourage earmarks by requiring House members who write spending bills to disclose them, a move lauded by fiscal conservatives who complain that earmarks waste taxpayer money and drive up the cost of legislation.

That's it. The bill doesn't ban members from accepting private trips on corporate jets. It doesn't stop members and their staffs from becoming lobbyists a year after leaving Congress. It allows members to accepts gifts and meals worth $50. As reform goes, the House bill is weak tea.

I won't be by a computer most of the day, but I will try to check in. Here's your space to talk about whatever you find interesting today.

Our ads are down, our hosting bills are due, if anyone wants to kick in a few bucks, the links are here and I'd greatly appreciate it:

• PayPal
• Amazon (anonymous)

Bump and Update: (TL) I just got to my destination. When the driver turned on the radio in the car leaving the airport, I asked about Moussaoui. He told me the jury came back with life and I shouted "Yes!" and threw my arm up in the air. I proceeded to tell him for the next 20 minutes how proud I was of the defense team in this case and what they had to work against -- not only the investment of the country in a death verdict to retaliate against someone for 9/11 -- but their own client who hated them and not only wouldn't assist them, but tried to sabotage them at every turn. Their dedication and professionalism is astounding. I've read every public filing in the case and they did such an incredible job for this crazy, bumbling holy warrior.

I then launched into a lecture about what was facing Moussaoui when he got to Supermax in Florence, where he will spend the rest of his days. Then we listened to the news and I heard that Moussaoui's words after the verdict were something like "America Lost, I Won" and I said to the driver, "He'll eat those words when he gets to Florence." It's not called Alcatraz of the Rockies for nothing. Without lawyers visiting him and sending him pleadings to read, and with virtually no human contact, lights shining on 24/7 as his every move in his tiny, windowless cell is monitored (at least for the first few months), he'll realize he got the short end of the stick pretty quickly.

by TChris

The latest entry in the American Constitution Society's series of white papers is Police Reform: A Job Half Done (pdf) by Richard Jerome, a former Deputy Associate Attorney General who now provides legal and consulting services that include police and civil rights issues. The paper examines the need for police reform (shining a spotlight on racial profiling), explores the federal response to police misconduct, and questions whether the Justice Department's enforcement efforts have weakened in recent years. It concludes with an overview of policies that law enforcement agencies should implement to help officers comply with professional standards.

Readers who have followed TalkLeft's coverage of the Taser controversy might be interested in this snippet from the paper:

by TChris

It's time for another Ohio election, which means it's time for more ballot problems:

Election officials had trouble printing ballot receipts, finding lost votes and tabulating election results in Tuesday's primary. Some election workers were late or did not show up at all in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, the state's largest. Others could not figure out how to turn on the machines.

Couldn't figure out how to turn on the machines? Good grief.

And then there's this:

by TChris

As TalkLeft reported here, the Bush administration, in response to a lawsuit, will release Secret Service logs of Jack Abramoff's visits to the White House. Yesterday, however, Scott McClellan hinted that the records will be incomplete.

"I don't know exactly what they'll be providing, but they only have certain records and so I just wouldn't view it as a complete historical record," McClellan said.

President Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, famously took the heat for "accidentally" erasing 18 1/2 minutes from an embarrassing White House tape. Who will take the heat for failing to keep complete logs of Abramoff's embarrassing White House visits?

by TChris

Now that public support for the president has weakened, Sen. Arlen Specter seems to have rediscovered one of the central tasks of the legislature: to act as a check against the executive by exercising oversight of presidential power.

''There is some need for some oversight by Congress to assert its authority here," Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview.

Some need? There's been a compelling need for half a decade. Where have you been, Senator?

Specter says the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings in July "into President Bush's assertion that he has the power to bypass more than 750 laws enacted over the past five years." We can predict that Attorney General Gonzales will haul out one of the administration's standard responses: the president's power to protect the nation (from whatever) is limitless, and his interpretations of the Constitution are more important than those of Congress or the courts.

by TChris

Joseph Clark was strapped to a gurney in an Ohio prison yesterday, waiting to die. Technicians spent 22 minutes searching for a suitable vein in which to inject the chemicals that would end his life. After the drugs finally started to flow, Clark grew impatient. After a few minutes, he "was able to raise his head off the gurney and said, 'It's not working.' " The vein had collapsed, forcing technicians to spend more than half an hour looking for another vein.

It seems evident that Clark's death was cruel and unusual. Whether or not he felt physical pain, he was subjected to emotional torture as the minutes dragged by. This is the latest proof that death by lethal injection, far from being a humane alternative to other methods of execution, is barbaric. TalkLeft's recent coverage of the controversy surrounding lethal injection can be found here, here, here and here.

I'll be travelling until Friday so here's an open thread to keep yourselves current. I'll have my laptop with me, so I won't be gone entirely. And TChris and LNILR may check in as well.

If there's PlameGate news, be sure to check Firedoglake, Empty Wheel at the Next Hurrah, and Tom Maguire.

All of the sites on our blogroll are special, so I hope you give them a read too.

The ACLU has released another 9,000 pages of documents it received from the Defense Department pursuant to its Freedom of Information Act request. Check out this document (pdf) charting the detainee deaths prior to May, 2004.

Of 58 deaths, 8 were homicides and several others were unknown or under investigation. It lists each death and a cause. Here are some of them:

"Soldier killed detainee in violation of ROE"; "Soldier killed detainee while handcuffed"; "1 strangulation found outside isolation unit"; "1 blunt force trauma and choking, died during interrogation" (there are three of these); "Soldier drowned detainee, body not found"; and "died sleeping after interrogation."

And that's just one document I happened to click on out of the 9,000 new pages. As to Gen. Sanchez, the ACLU reports:

All has been quiet on the judicial nominations front for a while. A big fire is about to erupt. Two more controversial judges are up again for confirmation -- Terrence Boyle and Brett Kavenaugh. Democrats aren't happy with either, but they are particularly incensed about Boyle.

Democratic leaders said they certainly would filibuster one of the nominees, Terrence W. Boyle, and might filibuster the second, Brett Kavanaugh, if Republicans refuse to call him back for a second hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The partisan rhetoric was the strongest signal yet that the Senate might revisit the brinkmanship that brought the chamber to the edge of crisis a year ago, when a bipartisan group of 14 members crafted a temporary cease-fire.

The Bush family has been trying to get Boyle on the appellate bench since 1991. Bush I was unsuccessful. Now it's his son's turn.