If you are looking for a great holiday story (that has nothing to do with New Years or crime but a lot to do with social injustice) with a fabulously happy ending, look no further than Memories Shrouded in Doubt in today's LA Times about two women, Regina Louise and Jeanne Kerr Taylor. I could not stop reading it, but clearly, I'm not alone. Not only is it today's most e-mailed article on the LA Times website, but yesterday, Regina Louise's 2003 memoir, Somebody's Someone, was #171,759 on Amazon. Today it is # 5,046. From a book review:

Regina Louise was poor, black, illegitimate, and abandoned by her mother to the care of an elderly woman, Big Mama, more concerned with getting to heaven than the health and welfare of her charge. Writing in the idiomatic voice of her childhood self, the author brings her fear, pain, stubbornness, and intelligence up close as she describes her struggles to find someone to love who will love her back. After a brutal beating at the hands of Big Mama's grown foster child, Regina is shuffled from one home to another, angry, uncooperative, vulnerable, finding solace first in fantasies that her mother will rescue her, then in the dream that she will be taken in by a family like those she sees on television.

It's supremely ironic that the woman who truly loves her happens to be white and is barred from fostering her. This is a harsh, often brutal, but always compelling memoir, and its very existence is proof of the author's personal triumph in the face of enormous odds.

Now read the LA Times' article for the happy ending, one that occurred after the book was published.

John Hinckley, who shot then President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He has been a patient at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington ever since and is now 50. In recent years, doctors at the facility have said he is no longer psychotic or depressed. In 2003, the Judge presiding over his case allowed him to have unsupervised visits with his parents. He also has been allowed to make off-site excursions around Washington and to stay overnight with his parents within 50 miles of the hospital.

Today, the Judge went further, granting Hinckley overnight visits with his parents at their Virginia home, three hours from the hospital.

So Alberto Gonzales has decided the Justice Department will probe the whistleblowers who leaked the information about Bush's warrantless NSA surveillance to the New York Times. Typical. What we need is a special counsel to investigate Bush's actions, not the whistleblowers.

The ACLU has issued this press release in response:

"President Bush broke the law and lied to the American people when he unilaterally authorized secret wiretaps of U.S. citizens. But rather than focus on this constitutional crisis, Attorney General Gonzales is cracking down on critics of his friend and boss. Our nation is strengthened, not weakened, by those whistleblowers who are courageous enough to speak out on violations of the law."

"To avoid further charges of cronyism, Attorney General Gonzales should call off the investigation. Better yet, Mr. Gonzales ought to fulfill his own oath of office and appoint a special counsel to determine whether federal laws were violated."

This sounds like a job for GAP, EPIC's Government Accountability Project.

The Donald is considering a run against Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in the 2006 New York Governor's race, according to Joseph Bruno, the state's Senate Majority Leader.

Republicans are looking for a candidate with name recognition and money to take on the only announced Democratic candidate, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer is far ahead of all candidates for governor in the early polls.

I think the Republicans are dreaming, Trump won't do it....I just can't see him commuting, even by private jet, to Albany every day.

The Central Asian nation Kyrgyzstan today ended the death penalty once and for all.

Kyrgyzstan's president effectively ended the use of the death penalty in this ex-Soviet republic by extending a moratorium on the punishment until its planned abolition, a presidential spokesman said Friday.

President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed the decree Thursday aiming "to humanize and liberalize" the criminal code and urged parliament to support plans to do away with the death penalty, said presidential spokesman Dosali Esenaliyev.

A moratorium has been in place in Kyrgyzstan since 1998. Where is Kyrgyzstan? Right next to Uzbekistan (see this map.) There was a revolution in Kyrgyzstan in March, spurred by protests. Hopefully, it will spread to its authoritarian, torturous neighbor soon.

Bakiyev was elected president in July. The country has 5 million people, 75% of whom are Sunni Muslims. There is a 99% literacy rate for men, and 96% for women. (Stats here.)

You can read more about Krgyzstan here.

I haven't had time to read the news today. Is anything happening? This thread's for you. I'll be back here tonight.

The jail at Rikers Island in New York is closing its facility that houses gays and trans-genders.

For at least three decades, gay and trans-gender inmates had their own housing unit inside Rikers Island's sprawling jail complex. To be admitted, all a new inmate had to do was declare homosexuality, or appear to be trans gender, and ask to be kept out of Rikers's main jails.

The idea, city correction officials said, was to protect vulnerable inmates who might otherwise become victims of discrimination or sexual abuse in the rough world of the general inmate population. The only other metropolitan jail to separate gay and trans gender inmates is Los Angeles County Jail. Gay inmates there, however, are forced to live separately from other inmates.

Gays, trans-genders and our youngest inmates need protection. Putting them in isolation, where they spend 23 hours a day in lock-down is cruel. As a society, we have an obligation to protect the most vulnerable among us. Maybe those that endorsed the closure policy should be forced to spend a few days among the general population at Riker's. Maybe, it's the only way they will learn.

There are a million New Years' Resolutions I could make. But, I don't believe in them, unless I make them during Christmas week to get a head start. Who wants to be the person huffing and puffing at the gym on Jan. 2? At least if I start Dec. 26, I'll feel like an old-timer by the time the newbies roll in.

I've decided to forego all of the traditional resolutions this year. I lift however many pounds I can lift. I weigh what I weigh. No matter what resolution I make, I'll never have more money in the bank.

So, this year I'm making a resolution for TalkLeft. Last year I promised myself I would redesign the site, whether I could afford it or not. I'm very proud that I did it, albeit in December, with my own funds and without asking readers for help.

For 2006, I have a new goal. Again, it's one I will do without asking for contributions. It is learning graphic design, and I started the day after Christmas. Like most analytical lawyers, I am very left-brain and very right-brain challenged. Yet, I cringe with envy every time I visit Jane and Reddhedd at Firedoglake and see how they begin every post with an awesome graphic.

I have had Adobe Photoshop 6 for years but no one to teach me how to use it. This week I shelled out the bucks for Adobe CS-2 which comes with a video tutorial, and I promise, that by December 31, 2006, I will be able to make my own graphics.

Former PFC Lynndie England can't catch a break.

England works in the prison's kitchen, where she suffered second- and possibly third-degree burns from being splattered with grease over her chest as she removed chickens from a tall oven, her mother, Terrie England, said in an interview. "She was in severe pain," she said of the December 14 incident. "Everybody in the prison heard the scream."

Terrie England, who is caring for England's infant during her incarceration, faulted prison officials for not giving better treatment during a visit to the emergency room. "They gave her nothing," she said. "When this happened I was furious. ... To think they give you nothing for pain."

BlairWatch is asking bloggers to publish the memos from Craig Murray, Britain's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, detailing how the Uzbek Secret Forces passed intelligence obtained through torture to the U.K. The documents show complicity in Uzbek torture by both the British and US governments.

Britain has an Official Secrets Act, which bloggers there are concerned may be used to prosecute them for revealing the contents of the memos. The more the memos appear on non-UK sites, the less the likelihood that will happen. As to the documents:

The first document is a series of Telegrams that Craig sent to the Foreign Office, outlining his growing concern and disgust at our use of intelligence passed to the UK by the Uzbek security services.

The second document is a copy of legal advice the Foreign Office sought, to see if they were operating within the Law in accepting torture intelligence, and according to Michael Wood the FCO legal adviser; it is fine, as long as it is not used as evidence.

Blairwatch has published the documents in full here, and ask that anyone who can do the same.

• http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/715
  
• http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/714
  
  

Daily Kos has posted the documents, as has Politics in the Zeros. As Markos reminds us:

Since Christmas day, the number of detainees at Guantanamo on a hunger strike has increased to 84.

Forty-six detainees at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, joined the protest on the key Christian holiday last Sunday, said Army Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin, a military spokesman.

...Medical personnel were force-feeding 32 of the hunger strikers with plastic tubes inserted into the stomach through the nose, the military said. Asked the purpose of the force-feeding, Martin said: "Because our policy is to preserve life."

If the policy is to preserve life, why is there a death penalty?

Of the approximately 500 inmates at the prison, only 9 have been charged with a crime.

Newsweek has posted an interview with Markos of Daily Kos in which he handicaps the 2006 races. Some tidbits:

• the hottest race will be in Pennsylvania, between Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr.
• Races in Rhode Island, Ohio, Missouri and Montana are next up.

On whether Dems will win in 2006:

I think Democrats will make gains, but it's 2008 we need to think about. I'm hoping that as we build our machine and repair the Democratic brand, people will start voting for Democrats because they want to vote for Democrats and not just because they want to vote against Republicans.