It's in the high '60's in Denver today. The outside beckons. Here's a thread for you.

Nevada Senator and Minority Leader Harry Reid is calling for the resignation of HSA Chief Michael Chertoff.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called for the resignation of Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff on Wednesday, one day after the government dropped Las Vegas from a list of cities considered potential high-risk targets eligible for special anti-terrorism grants.

Reid, D-Nev., joins Clark County Sheriff Bill Young in calling for Chertoff to step down as a result of the decision jeopardizing millions in additional federal funding that Nevada currently receives as a result of being considered a potential terrorist target.

Here's Chertoff's explanation:

Chertoff defended the scaled-back approach as one that focuses federal grants on those areas most needing to make preparations, with the 35 locations decided by 3.2 billion calculations aimed at determining regions most susceptible to terrorism.

The ever-blunt Sen. Reid had one more complaint: "He did a lousy job on Katrina."

It's hard to quibble with that one. And yes, I agree with Reid that Nevada fund should not have been cut.

You won't believe what this guy has to do for his roadside sobriety test. The video is laugh-out loud funny. 21:17:34 is where I just cracked up and laughed for the rest of the way through. [Via Crim Prof Blog.]

First Jane, then John at Crooks and Liars. Crooks and Liars got a Wal-Mart rep on the phone. Wal-Mart responds personally to Jane and issues a public apology. The Washington Post reports how Jane and Crooks and Liars broke the story.

John at AmericaBlog thinks it was a bona fide error. Steve Gilliard does not.

My take: It was not an intentional act by Wal-Mart. I think it was programmed into a black film category by a lone sick employee and Wal-Mart should track the perp down and fire his or her a**.

“An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight. When my innocence is proven, I hope Americans will realize the injustice of the death penalty as all other civilized countries have.”
- Roger Coleman’s last words before he was executed by the state of Virginia May 20, 1992

Roger Coleman was executed in Virginia in 1992 (background here.) Today, Governor Mark Warner ordered DNA tests in his case. If Coleman is innocent, it will be the first documented case of the execution of an innocent person in the United States. The first, but probably not the only one.

This was not a sudden decision on the part of Gov. Warner. He's been sitting on the request for years. In 2003, Leonard Pitts at the Miami Herald wrote Death Penalty an Error Free Myth :

The Guardian reports that doctors rule out a return to office for Arial Sharon, should he survive.

Ariel Sharon's political career was at an end last night as he remained on life support after hours of surgery to stop "massive and widespread" bleeding in his brain. Political leaders publicly offered statements of support for Mr Sharon, but there was a growing acceptance that, even if he were to survive, the 77-year-old former general would not return to office. Doctors said the Israeli prime minister would struggle to recover from the stroke.

The Guardian's Jonathan Spyer says Sharon will leave "The Biggest Shoes to Fill."

As world leaders react to the health crisis of Ariel Sharon, the New York Times analyzes the hurdles ahead for Kadima, his new and centrist party. The main question seems to be, is Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert up to the task of replacing him?

Miami defense lawyer David Markus was in court today during Jose Padilla's court appearance.

The case was continued until tomorrow at 4pm so Padilla's New York lawyers could be present.

The Financial Times reports today that the U.S. is planning to build a high-security prison in Afghanistan to which it will transfer an unknown number of Guantanamo detainees.

The site selected for the jail is Pol-e-Charki, a rundown prison near Kabul dating from the Soviet era. Some of the base’s prison facilities have recently been refurbished as part of a European Union-financed criminal justice reform programme backed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The transfer of prisoners of Afghan origin from Guantánamo to Afghanistan is intended to take pressure off the US administration, which continues to face strong international criticism for holding detainees without trial or other legal recourse.

So they can be tortured in an Afghan-run, U.S. jail and Bush can still say, "We don't torture." As if we should close our eyes because it's not happening on our soil.

The U.S. is currently holding around 500 prisoners at Bagram and Kandahar. This does not include the terror suspects who are in secret jails in Afghanistan.

CNN reports that Jose Padilla is flying to Miami and scheduled to appear yet this afternoon in federal court in Miami.

At least he'll have a lawyer. And an Article III judge presiding over the process.

Update: Talking Dog posts his interview with Padilla lawyer Andrew Patel

Update: Miami Herald reports that Padilla appeared in court after 5 and has a picture.

Meet Russ Tice, a whistleblower in the NSA warrantless electronic surveillance program and former NSA official, fired last year, who is asking to testify at Congressional hearings on the program.

"I intend to report to Congress probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency and with the Defense Intelligence Agency," Mr. Tice stated in the Dec. 16 letters, copies of which were obtained by The Washington Times.

The letters were sent the same day that the New York Times revealed that the NSA was engaged in a clandestine eavesdropping program that bypassed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The FISA court issues orders for targeted electronic and other surveillance by the government.

....In his Dec. 16 letter, Mr. Tice wrote that his testimony would be given under the provisions of the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which makes it legal for intelligence officials to disclose wrongdoing without being punished.

[hat tip Patriot Daily.]

As more and more of us find ourselves with parents in need of skilled nursing facilities, articles like this are our biggest nightmare. First, the names of the facilities: the Jennifer Matthew Nursing Home in Rochester, NY and the Northwoods Nursing Home in Cortland, NY.

Hidden cameras recorded nursing-home patients being left in their own waste while staffers watched movies, and 19 workers at two facilities have been arrested, prosecutors said Thursday.....Videotape from that facility, the Jennifer Matthew Nursing Home in Rochester, showed a patient and other residents who hadn't been repositioned to avoid bed sores and were often left for hours to lie in their own urine and waste, Spitzer said. Medications and treatments were not provided as prescribed, he said.

Staff had moved call bells away from patients and stopped doing their rounds so they could socialize, watch movies, sleep or leave the building, Spitzer said. Some employees were also accused of falsely filing records that claimed they provided required care.

by TChris

Raymond McNealy mooned his neighbor during an argument. No, McNealy isn't 12; he's 44. He was charged with indecent exposure, a crime that, in Maryland, carries up to 3 years in prison. McNealy won't be going to prison for dropping trou, because a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge ruled that buttocks are not among the "private parts" that cannot be publicly exposed under state law.

"If exposure of half of the buttock constituted indecent exposure, any woman wearing a thong at the beach at Ocean City would be guilty," Judge John W. Debelius III said after the bench trial, reversing the ruling of a District Court judge.

The judge noted that McNealy would have been convicted if he'd been prosecuted for being a jerk. True, although there isn't enough jail space in the country to hold everyone who could be convicted of jerkiness.