Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) appeared on Face the Nation this morning. In a discussion about the President's spying powers he made this comment:

"When you authorize our military to use force, they can kill the enemy without a Miranda warning."

Crooks and Liars has the video clip.

An astute reader writes in:

Is Sessions saying that if you can spy on Americans during a time of war then you can also kill them without due process?

Aren't there normally some other small steps between the Miranda warning and the death penalty? Silly things like trials and appeals...

The Philadelphia Inquirer is bucking the trend of U.S. papers by publishing one of the offensive, racist, discriminatory cartoons against Muslims.

Leonard Downie of the Washington Post explains why the Post won't run the cartoon.

"We have standards about language, religious sensitivity, racial sensitivity and general good taste."

Downie, who said the images also had not been placed on the Post Web site, compared the decision to similar choices not to run offensive photos of dead bodies or offensive language. "We described them," he said of such images. "Just like in the case of covering the hurricanes in New Orleans or terrorist attacks in Iraq. We will describe horrific scenes."

The World Socialist Society has this condemnation of the publication of the cartoons.

Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., an optometrist in Fairfax County, Va, was under investigation for gambling. When authorities decided it was time to arrest him, they set up a meeting between Culosi and an undercover agent. They also sent out a SWAT team as backup. The unarmed and non-violent Culosi was shot and killed during the encounter when an agent's gun accidentally misfired.

Why are police using SWAT teams for non-violent arrests? Blogger and CATO policy analyst Radley Balko reveals some disturbing facts and statistics in an op-ed on our over-militarized local police in today's Washington Post.

NYU law professor Noah Feldman has an easy to understand op-ed in Sunday's New York Times Magazine on the likely focus of Monday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Bush's warrantless NSA electronic surveillance program and the possible outcomes.

Prof. Feldman writes that the starting point for the Senators is likely to be Justice Jackson's concurring opinion in a 1952 case named Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer. You can read all of the opinions in the case (in html) here.

The Washington Post Sunday puts the lie to Bush's warrantless electronic surveillance program. Bush claims he doesn't spy on Americans. Cheney claims the program saved "thousands of lives."

The truth, as the Washington Post reports, is that the program has rarely uncovered information about terrorists or terrorists acts; the NSA has eavesdropped on many thousands of Americans without probable cause; and that probable cause or even reasonable suspicion will never exist because of the washout rate and number of false positives.

If this ten page article in the New York Times Magazine on brain mapping as the future lie detector doesn't scare the daylights out of you, nothing will.

Someday the Government will try to introduce this in court, claiming it is more reliable than a polygraph. The defense will argue it's unreliable. A court will rule and the losing party will appeal. I wonder how Judge Alito will rule when it reaches the Supreme Court. That's an even scarier thought.

Georgetown Law Professor David Cole, writing for The Nation, exposes the true myths of Bush's warrantless NSA electronic surveillance program, in response to those claimed by the Adminstration. His article is also a valuable primer for the upcoming hearings. Cole lists the myths, and debunks each one. Here are the key ones:

• Myth 1: Following existing law would require the NSA to turn off a wiretap of an Al Qaeda member calling in to the United States.

• Myth 2: Congress approved the NSA spying program when it authorized military force against Al Qaeda.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. This is Super Bowl XL. (Is that extra large or 40 in roman numerals? Will the Super Bowl in 2206 be 2XL?) I remember watching "the Super Bowl" in my college dorm in 1967. They hadn't yet had to number them.

This will be at least the 30th consecutive year I have not watched the Superbowl. It's always a good time to go to a movie and not worry about crowds.

I know: I'll miss the allegedly great commercials and Janet Jackson's boob. I can catch them on the Internet later.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The alleged shooter in the gay bar shooting in Massachusetts was arrested in Arkansas this afternoon after he allegedly shot a cop. The NY Times story is here and the Boston Globe story is here.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The "culture of corruption" lives anywhere there is something worth giving or taking, and that includes Iraq. How poor is it when it sits on top of a huge oil reserve? The people maybe; those who control the oil, definitely not.

Our war to bring democracy to Iraq (or was it the War on Terror? I forget. No, maybe it is to control the oil.) is bogged down in part because "troubling pattern of government corruption enabling the flow of oil money and other funds to the insurgency and threatening to undermine Iraq's struggling economy," according to Oil Graft Fuels the Insurgency, Iraq and U.S. Say, in tomorrow's NY Times.

by Last Night in Little Rock

This is somewhat off topic, or is it? You are reading this on a computer. Therefore, you get spam. Spam is a fact of Internet life. Therefore, you are interested in this:

Remember the "'Net Lore" false urban legend of "Bill 602P" that would impose 5 cents postage on all e-mails, and you should write your Congressman?

Tomorrow's NY Times, posted on its website this afternoon, has an article that AOL and Yahoo! are on the verge of selling a spam filter avoider to mass e-mailers for 1/4 cent per e-mail.

by TChris

Society can shuttle people between prison and criminal lifestyles, or it can help offenders break that cycle. A rational approach to drug crime (putting aside for the moment decriminalization of marijuana offenses) emphasizes help and support, including drug and alcohol counseling. Equally important to many who are ready to break the cycle is an education that will allow them to compete for meaningful jobs. That's why the congressional decision to make drug offenders ineligible for government-assisted student loans was appalling.

Fortunately, Congress is slowly moving the law toward rationality.

Students convicted while receiving federal aid will still lose their eligibility - for one year for a first possession offense, two years for a second and indefinitely for a third, with harsher penalties for selling. But under the new rules, which President Bush is expected to sign into law, offenders who weren't enrolled in school and getting taxpayer support at the time when they were convicted can apply for aid. The change is expected to benefit mostly older students ... who had finished school before they were convicted and now wish to go back.

An about-face would be an even better course correction.