by TChris

Hoping to continue benefitting from the culture of corruption, some House Republicans are complaining that their leaders are "overreacting" to Republican scandals. They oppose proposed reforms.

In a tense, 3 1/2 -hour closed-door session, many Republicans challenged virtually every element of the leadership's proposal, from a blanket ban on privately funded travel to stricter limits on gifts to an end to gym privileges for lawmakers-turned-lobbyists.

No gifts? No transportation on corporate jets? What's the point of being a Republican legislator if you can't cash in?

As a consequence, reform proposals are delayed.

House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), who was to unveil a draft of the full lobbying reform package yesterday, instead announced it was not ready.

Andrea Yates, awaiting a retrial on charges she drowned her five children, has been granted $200,000. bail. She must reside in a mental hospital until the retrial.

This is what she has needed all along.

From Think Progess:

In a letter to Scooter Libby's lawyers, Patrick Fitzgerald says he has learned "that many e-mails from Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy."

Why am I not surprised. But, Kevin writes it's time for some followup. I think it's time for Fitz to expand the scope of his investigation.

Update: Raw Story has a copy of Fitzgerald's letter (pdf) advising of the e-mails.

The House is preparing to extend the Patriot Act another five weeks.

Republicans are stalling. They have not done a thing to compromise since December. Since no one is gong to let the bill die a natural death, an extension is better than the Republicans jamming their version through.

I'm at a Judges/Journalist conference in Reno. During a break, one of the judges asked me why no one is writing about President Bush's mention of the line item veto in his speech last night. It's another unbridled attempt by him to grab power from the legislative branch.

I was struck by his comment on the equality of the two branches of government, the executive and the legislative. Was his omission of the judicial branch intentional? The three branches are co-equal. So many things Bush has done has been in an effort to reduce the oversight power of the judiciary.

by TChris

Robert J. Stein Jr. was a contracting official for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-controlled entity that ran Iraq for more than a year after the president's "mission accomplished" declaration. Stein helped bring a culture of corruption to the CPA. He's scheduled to enter a guilty plea today to charges that he conspired with Philip Bloom and others to steal reconstruction money and to enrich his friends while pocketing more than a million dollars.

Stein, who has an earlier federal fraud conviction, used the money he stole or was paid by Bloom to buy a single-engine Cessna airplane, a top-of-the-line Porsche and other cars, grenade launchers, machine guns, diamond rings and other jewelry, and property in North Carolina, he said in his signed statement. Stein said he helped steer more than $8.6 million in contracts to companies controlled by Bloom, a U.S. citizen who has lived in Romania for many years.

Bloom also faces conspiracy and money laundering charges. Court documents indicate that five "U.S. Army Reserve officers also have been implicated in the theft and kickback scheme."

by TChris

The Electronic Frontier Foundation believes AT&T was too willing to help the NSA eavesdrop on its customers' conversations. It filed suit against AT&T on behalf of three AT&T customers, asserting that the telecommunications company "violated wiretapping and electronic privacy laws, since intercepting communications is prohibited except where authorized by law."

"As best we can tell, the NSA program is apparently the biggest fishing expedition ever devised, scanning millions of ordinary Americans' calls and e-mails for suspicious patterns," said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the suit.

"Based on the published reports and after a reasonable investigation, we think that discovery is going to show that AT&T has opened up its network to direct access by the NSA," Bankston said.

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, is based in part on "a Los Angeles Times report that the National Security Agency had access to an AT&T database tracking calling records."

by TChris

UPDATE: The arrest of Cindy Sheehan served its purpose. Cindy was spirited away from cameras to purify the background for the president's speech. Now that she's not a threat to the president's image, Capitol Police have released her and plan to apologize. No charges will be pressed, as the Capitol Police belatedly discovered that no rule prohibits expressive attire. One might have expected the police to have inquired about the law before arresting Cindy for an imaginary crime.

Perhaps to prove that they are bipartisan transgressors of the right to free speech, the Capitol Police also removed Beverly Young, the wife of Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, from the audience, having spotted her sporting a "Support the Troops" shirt. Rep. Young took to the House floor to admonish the Capitol Police -- "Shame, shame" -- for treating a patriot so poorly. Beverly Young said it best:

"They said I was protesting," she told the St. Petersburg Times. "I said, 'Read my shirt, it is not a protest.' They said, 'We consider that a protest.' I said, 'Then you are an idiot.'"

But Young was only ejected while Cindy was arrested, albeit briefly. Why?

Capitol Police did not explain why Sheehan was arrested and Young was not.

ORIGINAL POST:

What were the biggest lies? The low points? How did Tim Kaine do? Any predictions as to whether there will be a bounce for Bush tomorrow?

Arianna will be on Anderson Cooper 360 discussing the speech right afterwards. Are any liberals live-blogging? Let us know in the comments.

[Graphic created exclusively for TalkLeft by CL.)

by TChris

TalkLeft has frequently written about Wilton Dedge, the wrongfully convicted Florida man who spent 22 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. While Florida recently compensated Dedge for his unjust imprisonment, his story shouldn't end there. Florida Today continues to call for an investigation of the official misconduct that caused such a miscarriage of justice.

What should come next is an outside investigation of how Brevard County prosecutors in the state attorney's office used jailhouse snitch, murderer and recently convicted child-rapist Clarence Zacke to help keep Dedge behind bars.

by TChris

A report released today by Amnesty International asks whether current constitutional caselaw is adequate to safeguard the mentally ill from execution. If it is categorically wrong to execute children or the severely retarded, is the execution of a mentally ill convict consistent with contemporary standards of decency?

If the diminished culpability associated with youth and mental retardation render the death penalty an excessive punishment when used against offenders from those categories, what about people suffering from serious mental illness or impairment other than retardation, such as serious brain damage, at the time of the crime? Should they not also be ineligible for execution?

The question is made timely by the large percentage of mentally ill offenders on death row and by the criminal justice system's emphasis on punishment, rather than treatment, of the mentally ill. Yet judges too frequently discern no constitutional barrier to killing the mentally ill.

Good news. The 9th Circuit today became the second circuit to declare the partial birth abortion bill unconsitutional.

A federal appeals court declared the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Tuesday, saying the measure is vague and lacks an exception for cases in which a woman's health is at stake. The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the second federal appeals court in the country to hold the law to be unconstitutional.

The bad news: When it reaches the Supreme Court, Judge Alito will be a sitting Justice.