by TChris

The FDA's recent claim that marijuana has no medical benefit is a triumph of politics over science, of turf protection over compassion.

Several officials in the 11 states that allow medical marijuana disputed the F.D.A.'s contention that there was no research supporting the drug's medical use. They noted, in particular, a 1999 review by the National Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific advisory panel, which found marijuana to be "moderately well-suited" to some conditions, including wasting disease from AIDS and the nausea that often results from chemotherapy.

The scientists who authored the National Institute of Medicine report have good reason to take issue with the FDA.

by TChris

It's official. Historian Sean Wilentz, writing for Rolling Stone, declares George Bush a contender for the title of Worst President in History. Here's a summary of his thorough analysis:

Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties -- Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush -- have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures -- an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.

The New York Times reports the identity of the fired senior CIA employee who disclosed information on the CIA's secret prisons to WaPo reporter Dana Priest.

The C.I.A. would not identify the leaker, but several government officials said it was Mary O. McCarthy, a veteran intelligence analyst who until 2001 was senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council, where she served under Presidents Clinton and Bush. . At the time of her dismissal, Ms. McCarthy was working in the agency's inspector general's office, after a four-year stint at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based organization that examines global security issues.

Agent McCarthy apparently 'fessed up after failing a lie detector:

Defense lawyer Abbe Lowell, representing former AIPAC lobbyist Steven Rosen in a case in which he and fellow lobbyist Keith Weissman are charged with receiving and disclosing classified National Security information, has subpoenaed Secretary of State Condi Rice and other officials, alleging that they also disclosed such information. The Government sought to quash the subpoenas but it the Court has approved them.

The point is not to go after Rice, but to demonstrate to the judge that the law prohibiting disclosures is overly vague, and it is often not possible to discern what is legal from what is illegal to receive and disclose. The Judge has said he's close to tossing the Government's charges because of the vagueness and overbreadth of the law which may impermissibly infringe on protected free speech.

This is a continuation of yesterday's post, Duke Accuser's Photo Identifications of the Lacrosse Players.

The defense received a copy of the lineup details Friday. Sure enough, the only photos shown were of Duke lacrosse players.

To obtain the identification, Durham police showed the woman photos of the 46 lacrosse team members one at a time, sources said. The woman said she was 100 percent certain that Finnerty and Seligmann were involved and 90 percent certain that a third player was involved.

....Defense attorneys also noted that two people at the party who aren't on the lacrosse team weren't included in the photos shown to the woman. Those two people also have never submitted DNA samples to authorities for testing, attorneys said.

This increases the chance for misidentification. But, as I wrote yesterday,

On April 13, the judge in the Scooter Libby case issued an order (pdf) asking both sides to submit grounds in writing why a gag order should not be imposed as a result of disclosure of non-public information to the media and statements lawyers had made to the media about the case. Their responses were filed today. [Libby Response, Fitz Response, Fitz Affidavit.]

Shorter Fitz: His office didn't leak anything and because his office doesn't talk to the media about the case he takes no position on whether there should be a gag order.

Shorter Libby: Team Libby admits to two disclosures, explains and justifies them, (quite well in my opinion) and opposes a gag order.

I think the Judge will not issue a gag order based on Libby's response. The longer version:

by TChris

This isn't the way most of us want to die.

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- A defense lawyer [Tom Farris] was arguing a drunken driving case when he fell on the courtroom floor and died of an apparent heart attack, officials and friends said.

It's becoming more common for defibrillators to be installed in public buildings, but neither the courthouse nor the rescue workers had one. It may not have made a difference, but it's sad that the county dragged its feet in making the purchase.

The county allocated money last year to buy the paddles but has been studying where they are needed.

The second dancer -- not the accuser -- in the Duke Lacrosse story has identified herself as Kim Roberts and tells her story.

She's angry -- and if the slur she describes actually were made by one or more lacrosse players, and I don't doubt her on this since the defense lawyers seem to concede the racial slurs, she has every right to be.

"Don't forget that they called me a damn n*gger," she said. "She (the accuser) was passed out in the car. She doesn't know what she was called. I was called that. I can never forget that."

But Roberts acknowledges she doesn't know if the accuser was raped.

Update: It seems the second dancer is reaching out to pr firms like 5W Public Relations to "spin this to her advantage." More on the CEO of the company who wrote the blogpost here.

by TChris

Parents of students at the Nacogdoches High School are criticizing police and school officials for their response to an alleged "riot" that resulted when students from Nacogdoches provoked students who were displaced from New Orleans.

[Shirley] Gentry said she didn't understand why, "when the kids here jumped on the New Orleans kids, the New Orleans kids were the ones who were thrown in jail and put in alternative school."

Some parents think the incident exemplifies a larger issue of racial injustice.

There are double standards regarding punishment at NHS by the police and administration, according to [Pam] Martin.

"Just last week, students were being sent to ISS for dress code violations (mostly black and Hispanic), while white students were overlooked, and one white student was allowed to call her parents for clothes," Martin said. "Black students are arrested and slowly taken out by the police in handcuffs through the commons at lunch time, while white students are taken out through side doors while class is going on."

by TChris

Raw Story points to new evidence that Rep. Bob Ney underreported to Congress the value of his golfing trip to Scotland (TalkLeft background here).

A pre-trial motion filed by federal prosecutors in the case of indicted former Bush administration official David Safavian ... provides the first formal evidence that powerful Ohio Republican Bob Ney - then-chairman of the House Administration Committee - provided false figures for the cost of his own trip to Scotland. Ney has been under fire for his role in allegedly helping Abramoff help his clients in violating of House ethics rules and possibly federal laws.

by TChris

Think Progress summarizes an MSNBC report (with a link to the video) that adds more fuel to the speculation that Karl Rove will soon be indicted. There's not much new to TalkLeft readers in the report (TalkLeft covered some of this ground here and here), but this tidbit, while perhaps entitled to little weight (the past is not always a reliable predictor of the future), is intriguing:

[W]e've known for months that in the Scooter Libby indictment when they refer to Official A, Official A is Karl Rove. ... But we've looked at prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's record as far as designating people as Official A or Official B, and in every single case we have found, Keith, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald when he designates somebody as Official A in an indictment, that person eventually does get indicted themselves.

Crooks and Liars also has the video and a transcript.

Update (TL): We wrote about Fitz always going for the top dog here and his pattern with respect to Official A's in his indictments, such as in the case of Ill. Gov. George Ryan here.

by TChris

The funniest political race this year has to be Katherine Harris' inept campaign for a Senate seat. Despite pledging to spend $10 million of her own money to resurrect her sinking campaign, every day seems to bring more bad (but comical) news for Harris.

Today's news tells us that Mitchell Wade, who bribed Randall "Duke" Cunningham, spent $2,800 on wine and food while entertaining Harris at the Washington restaurant Citronelle.

In her interview Wednesday, Harris acknowledged for the first time that Wade had paid for the dinner at Citronelle, reversing a statement from her congressional spokeswoman earlier this year.

Part of Harris' defense is based on ignorance.