by TChris

Eager to return to a happier lifestyle, some New Orleans residents are defying curfews. Bar owners in the French Quarter planned to disobey a midnight curfew until Mayor Nagin extended the curfew to 2 a.m.

Although some bars have been repopulated by prestorm regulars, most of [ Tropical Isle club owner Earl] Bernhardt's patrons are now "Red Cross workers, medical personnel and insurance adjusters who are working long hours" and don't show up until 11:30 p.m., Bernhardt said. The midnight curfew was killing his business, he said.

After New Orleans police administered a post-curfew beating, Nagin announced that the midnight curfew would be strictly enforced, perhaps to protect residents from the police.

I am at the 3 day annual meeting of the Lexis-Nexis - Martindale Hubbell Legal Advisory board. This is the board that Harriet Miers was on until 1999 or 2000, when she went to work full-time for Bush, who was then running for President.

There are four ex-ABA presidents on the board (three of whom are here), and one former U.S. Attorney General. Many have taught at law schools. One is a law school dean. No one on this board who worked with Harriet, including me, thinks she will quit or that Bush will withraw her nomination. About the latter, think about it: When Bush wants someone on the bench whom Congress doesn't want, what does he do? He brings them round again - like Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. Or he does a recess appointment. In other words, he is stubborn as hell. He is not going to withdraw this nomination - and Harriet is tough. She is not going to quit.

by TChris

A federal court has recognized that prisons can’t prevent a female inmate from exercising her constitutional right to an abortion, even if the state adopts a rule that prohibits the expenditure of state funds to transport the woman to a hospital for that purpose. The ruling only makes sense, given the captive woman’s inability to drive herself to the hospital.

"The law is now well established that federal courts have declared that a woman has a constitutional right to choose to terminate a pregnancy rather than carry the pregnancy to term," Chief District Judge Dean Whipple wrote in an order filed in federal court for Western Missouri. "It is also clearly established that these rights of the woman survive incarceration."

(via How Appealing)

Karl Rove testified for the fourth time before the grand jury today. What do you think? Will he sink or swim?

by TChris

Remember when the right wing insisted that any presidential nominee to the Supreme Court was entitled to “an up or down vote”? Remember when conservatives whined that it’s the president’s job to select judicial nominees, and labeled opponents of the nominee “obstructionists”? Those who have an intact memory should be amused at the right wing flip flop regarding presidential power and Bush's choice of Harriet Miers.

A growing number of Republican activists say Bush blundered in naming Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, failing to anticipate the firestorm it would ignite among conservative backers and leading opinion makers who question her qualifications. Bush now may be forced to choose between an embarrassing withdrawal of the nomination or accepting a fissure among conservatives that could jeopardize the party's hold on power.

“Right now the base is completely fractured and people are very concerned about the impact on the 2006 elections,” said Manuel Miranda, who heads a coalition of 150 conservative and libertarian groups and opposes Miers. “The troubling thing is that the Supreme Court was the gold ring and the president's thinking appears indiscernible, unless you're willing to take it as a matter of faith.”

by TChris

Saturday's Million More Movement in Washington D.C. brings together individuals who hope "to create a lasting and broad national movement with the goal of eliminating poverty and injustice." These lofty goals expand the framework created by the Million Man March ten years ago.

The Million Man March 10 years ago focused on black men and the challenges facing them. This time, organizers are hoping to target issues that cross gender and racial lines.

The Movement's website has more details.

by TChris

A NY Times editorial calls attention to a ruling last week by the European Court of Human Rights overturning a British law that prohibits prison inmates from voting. The ruling reflects a greater respect for democracy than we see in the U.S., where incarcerated offenders are rarely permitted to vote, and where many states disenfranchise felons (sometimes permanently) even after they've been released from prison.

Why does the U.S. care less than other countries about the right of these citizens to vote?

Of the nearly five million people who were barred from participating in the last presidential election, for example, most, if not all, would have been free to vote if they had been citizens of any one of dozens of other nations. ... This issue deserves a full hearing in the United States, which shows less regard for the rights of prisoners and ex-offenders than just about any of its peers.

Does anyone else get an ominous feeling from reading this article about Bush's creation of a new spy agency? After deciphering the sci-fi jargon, it sounds downright creepy.

President George W Bush has approved the creation of a national clandestine service within the Central Intelligence Agency to oversee all US espionage operations, the government said on Thursday.

CIA Director Porter Goss has been named the Manager of National Human Intelligence. John Negroponte is in charge and has been named the Director of Human Intelligence.

USA Today takes an in-depth look at the booming marijuana growing business in Northern California and the efforts of CAMP, a group of state drug agents to fight it. It's a losing proposition for CAMP, which they blame on Mexican cartels.

These numbers are pretty astonishing.

A June report for Taxpayers for Common Sense by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron found that despite billions of dollars spent on marijuana suppression — nearly $4 billion by the federal government in 2004 alone — usage is about the same as 30 years ago.

It's a waste of money. Demand is not going to go down.

by TChris

NY Times readers deserve honest answers to questions that Public Editor Byron Calame wants to ask:

"While a multitude of issues need to be addressed," Calame wrote, "I certainly will expect The Times’s explanation to address these fundamental questions that I first posed to the key players at the paper in July: Was Ms. Miller’s contact with the source she is protecting initiated and conducted in genuine pursuit of a news article for Times readers? Why didn’t she write an article? What kinds of notes are there and who has them? Why wasn’t she exploring a voluntary waiver from the source?

Calame says he's posed these questions to "key players" at the paper since July, without response.

by TChris

After enduring eight years of (mostly) unwarranted attacks against President Clinton – every new scandalous allegation reported with utter conviction on the right wing airwaves – it is easy to feel a not-quite-guilty pleasure in the accusations of misconduct directed at Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Karl Rove, and every other miscreant in the reigning Republican government. They might all be innocent, but it is difficult to sympathize with those who built their careers by denouncing the invented transgressions of their political enemies.

Lanny Davis (quoted in this NY Times article) is correct that a “presumption of guilt culture … has come about in Washington in the last 10 or 15 years.” A presumption of guilt culture extends across the entire country. The presumption of guilt has been nurtured by the “get tough on crime” crowd, a movement spearheaded by right wing politicians, although plenty of Democrats have played along. It isn’t fair, but it isn’t unique to this administration. Accused Republicans may feel their guilt has been unfairly presumed, and maybe it has, but they played a part in building a culture that condemns on the basis of accusation, without awaiting due process or the testing of evidence by confrontation and counter-evidence.

Here’s Davis talking about his experience in the Clinton administration:

by TChris

Senator Sam Brownback wants to be the next faith based president. To prove his mettle (and to increase his name recognition), he's taken on the role of "the Republican most publicly questioning the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers." Is Brownback prepared to take on Pat Robertson?

"They're going to turn against a Christian who is a conservative picked by a conservative president, and they're going to vote against her for confirmation?" Mr. Robertson said Wednesday on his television program. "Not on your sweet life, if they want to stay in office."

At the last Republican National Convention, Brownback "rallied a closed-door meeting of Christian conservatives with calls for a 'cultural war.'" It sounds like Brownback will soon be at war with his own culture.