by TChris

The conservative argument against parole -- that it somehow cheats the public by permitting offenders to escape the full weight of a sentence -- underappreciates the leveling force that a parole authority exerts against disparate sentences. Conservative politicians say they value uniformity in sentencing, but they prefer to limit sentencing discretion by narrowing the range of sentences that judges may impose or by requiring minimum sentences. That philosophy has prevailed in Congress and in most state legislatures for a quarter century, but it has ratcheted up the time that offenders serve while doing little to eliminate disparate sentencing.

The sentencing philosophy of conservative politicians holds that rehabilitation is inachievable, that good conduct in prison deserves no reward, and that punishment and public protection are the only legitimate goals of incarceration. That policy leads to draconian sentences and increasingly fills prisons with elderly, nonthreating individuals who will die behind bars.

As today's must read article demonstrates, the elimination of parole for life sentences -- the proliferation of "life means life" laws -- has turned prisons into nursing homes and elder care centers.

by Last Night in Little Rock

I want to know why lying about sex warrants impeachment but lying about a justification for war that has killed 1935 and wounded 7700 Americans does not?

I want to know why the Republican members of Congress are openly two-faced and get away with it? They are so rankly political that party loyalty comes before loyalty to their country. Isn’t that a form of treason, or at least a violation of their oaths of office?

A good read: Writer Leonce Gaiter of Bourbon Street:

Bennett's comments reminded me of a seminar I attended in LA years ago. The seminar was arranged by right wing freak David Horowitz....One of the speakers was Bill Bennett's wife, Elayne, discussing her Best Friends Foundation, which teaches abstinence education in the DC public schools.

She stood there, this white, bleach-blonde, faux Stepford horror, talking about teaching young black adolescent girls the joys of not f**king, and I couldn't help wonder what other lessons she taught as well. Here she was, the white woman come to save the colored girls from their racial predisposition toward moral looseness. The Great White Mother, preaching abstinence-only to girls who need to know the benefits of delaying sex until intellectual maturity, but who also desperately need to know how to protect themselves now -- should they choose otherwise.

by TChris

Bill Bennett now justifies his racist remarks as a "thought experiment" that proposed a deliberately racist hypothetical to illustrate its "noxious" nature. Bennett indeed proved that he has mastered the ability to think noxious thoughts, but his latest spin defies reason.

Bennett spoke in response to "a caller who suggested that Social Security would be in better financial shape if abortion were illegal, leaving more people to pay into the system." What fallacy in that suggestion does Bennett's response -- that "you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down" -- illuminate? The caller's hypothetical suggests that banning abortion would have a positive consequence, while Bennett argued that forcing abortion (but only with regard to black women) would also have a positive consequence. If this non sequitur was a "thought experiment," the experiment went badly awry.

I haven't connected the dots in a while, but now reading that Cheney was in on the discussions about Wilson's article published the week before Novak's column, it's time for another go at it.

First up: The New York Times reports:

A lawyer who knows Mr. Libby's account said the administration efforts to limit the damage from Mr. Wilson's criticism extended as high as Mr. Cheney. This lawyer and others who spoke about the case asked that they not be identified because of grand jury secrecy rules.

On July 12, 2003, four days after his initial conversation with Ms. Miller, Mr. Libby consulted with Mr. Cheney about how to handle inquiries from journalists about the vice president's role in sending Mr. Wilson to Africa in early 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq was trying acquire nuclear material there for its weapons program, the person said. In that account, Mr. Cheney told Mr. Libby to direct reporters to a statement released the previous day by George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence. His statement said Mr. Wilson had been sent on the mission by C.I.A. counter-proliferation officers "on their own initiative."

by Last Night in Little Rock

Robert William Bennett two days ago proved he was a bigot as noted here. Not to be outdone by the controversy raging around him that he remains completely oblivious to, he goes to the friendly forum of FoxNews with Hannity & Colmes where the questions will be slow pitches he can hit out of the park. Instead, he leans into the pitch and gets beaned. For such a smart man, he sure can act like a dumbas*.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The NY Times reports tonight for Saturday's paper that the Bush Administration's Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal by "making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party" according to federal auditors.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The intrepid folks at the FBI made a not so surprising admission: They have intercepted wrong numbers in PATRIOT Act wiretaps, so reports MSNBC tonight.

Say Hello to Allan Lichtman - political historian and the Democrat's expert witness in the Texas re-districting case - and many such cases before that. He's running for the Senate in Maryland, for the seat being vacated by Sarbanes.

He's also written this article on the DeLay Indictment, based on his experiences in the Texas re-districting case. He didn't send a link to the arcticle, so I'm assuming he wanted me to reprint it:

A few weeks ago I wrote that my 9 month old Dell desktop's hard drive crashed out of the blue. It had my last 9 months of work on it.

Dell replaced it and then I had to decide whether to try a data recovery service to try and restore the files on the old one. They ran the drive and it had 130,000 errors on it but they could find 20 MG of data, which included some valuable stuff for--like old TalkLeft files that are no longer on the server, my Quicken files, my newer client files and my pictures. So, I told them to go ahead.

It cost $1,250.00 for the restore and another $100 for an 80 GB USB hard drive which I'm about to hook up and see how usable the files are. Bottom line: Back up your stuff. $1,350.00 could have bought me a new laptop or a vacation. Now I'll get neither. It sucks that I had to spend it for this. But, it's my own fault for not taking the time to back up onto a cd-rom or dvd.

It's back to work for me, here's a space for you.

This is why lawyers don't want their clients to give TV interviews.

The Houston Chronicle reports Tom Delay said in media interviews that he hadn't been asked to speak to the grand jury. His lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, tells it a bit differently:

In a Wednesday night appearance on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, he said Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle never talked to him or asked him to testify. "Never asking me to testify, never doing anything for two years," DeLay said in the interview. "And then, on the last day of his fourth or sixth grand jury, he indicts me. Why? Because his goal was to make me step down as majority leader."

On Thursday, DeLay said in another broadcast interview that he was under the impression that he wasn't going to be indicted because he hadn't been called to testify before the grand jury. "I have not testified before the grand jury to present my side of the case, and they indicted me," said DeLay, according to the Associated Press.

Dick DeGuerin says:

DeLay actually was invited to appear before the grand jury, where he would have been under oath. The Houston attorney was not yet on the legal team when DeLay was asked to appear, but he said other attorneys advised him not to testify — a decision DeGuerin supports.