by Last Night in Little Rock

TChris noted yesterday the White House's conservation message. In an incredible piece of irony, Presidential Press Secretary Scott McClellan urged Americans to save fuel by eliminating unnecessary trips during the President's seventh day trip to the Gulf Coast for a photo op as noted in today's NY Times. He noted that the Presidential motorcade had fewer vehicles in it, all for a trip of a few hundred feet to meet with local officials. That was an example of the White House conserving.

by Last Night in Little Rock

In FEMA's haste to play catch-up and provide housing in New Orleans, it contracted with Carnival Cruise Lines for three ships for six months, and did the deal overnight, as reported in today's Washington Post.

The problem with the deal with Carnival was a $236M no-bid contract that effectively paid Carnival twice the per person cost of a cruise, with full crew and entertainment, and the ships never leave port. Yet, the ships are only half occupied, so Carnival reaps even greater profits. Do the math: that's four times the cost of a cruise. Without a full crew, the profit is even greater.

Makes me wonder if anybody at Carnival was a big Republican supporter, or were they just incredibly lucky?

by Last Night in Little Rock

The protestors arrested outside the White House, including Cindi Sheehan, were subjected to "catch and release," according to Raw Story.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) wrote to the Park Police Chief that the problem was that many were held in handcuffs for 12 hours, many were grandmothers and some were senior citizens, and they were released from a holding facility in Anacostia at 4:30 a.m., after the Metro stopped for the night, there were no taxicabs, and people were unfamiliar with the city to walk anywhere.

According to the AP, Tom DeLay's lawyers fear an Indictment charging him with conspiracy could be imminent.

By expanding the charges to include conspiracy, prosecutors made it possible for the Travis County grand jury to bring charges against DeLay. Otherwise, the grand jury would have lacked jurisdiction under state laws.

In my experience, grand juries indict on what the prosecutors ask them to indict on. The prosecutor prepares the charges and presents them to the grand jury. There have been renegade grand juries--the Rocky Flats case comes to mind--but even in that case, there were no Indictments issued. More about that here.

My take: Don't get your hopes up. But, this is one instance where I'd love to be proved wrong. AmericaBlog says it just might happen.

Via Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (via e-mail):

The GAO put out a report yesterday looking at the numerous ways people convicted on drug charges lose federal benefits. Of particular note is that they state that denying financial aid to students with drug convictions not only hurts the determined students themselves, but makes our streets less safe by increasing crime and hampers America's economic productivity by reducing earnings and driving up spending on other social programs.

The full GAO report is available here (pdf). Denying financial aid to students because of a drug conviction is a stupid policy and fiscally irresponsible.

by TChris

A president who jets to the gulf coast seven times in search of photo ops should expect to be lampooned when he urges Americans to be better “conservers” by avoiding unnecessary trips. President Bush has taken heat on Air America all day for promising that federal employees will avoid wasteful travel, all the while traveling on Air Force One for no useful purpose. Dan Froomkin joins the fun:

Bush, who is not known for his strict adherence to grammar when speaking extemporaneously, was unusually unquotable yesterday. Here's a topic Bush knows a lot about: Oil. But his remarks were full of fragment sentences, as well as small-bore statistics and industry lingo.

by TChris

When the military plays the blame game, the blame rolls downhill. Capt. Ian Fishback, the primary source of information about detainee abuse in a recent Human Rights Watch report, fears that military investigators are making no serious effort to trace knowledge of or participation in the abuse up the chain of command.

"I'm convinced this is going in a direction that's not consistent with why we came forward," Captain Fishback said in a telephone interview from Fort Bragg, N.C., where he is going through Army Special Forces training. "We came forward because of the larger issue that prisoner abuse is systemic in the Army. I'm concerned this will take a new twist, and they'll try to scapegoat some of the younger soldiers. This is a leadership problem."

Speaking of leadership problems, Donald Rumsfeld assures us that somebody's head will roll. We can be sure it won't be the Donald's.

Bump and Update: Lynndie England was sentenced to three years in prison.

*****
Original Post: 9/26

Abu Ghraib prison guard Lynndie England was convicted today six of the seven counts against her.

England, 22, was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, four counts of maltreating detainees and one count of committing an indecent act. She was acquitted on a second conspiracy count.

The jury of five male Army officers took about two hours to reach its verdict. Her case now moves into the sentencing phase, which will determined by the same jury. She faces a maximum 10 years in prison.

The AP reports that the White House is close to announcing President Bush's next nominee for Supreme Court Justice. It mentions two names: Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and White House Counsel and former Bush personal lawyer Harriet Miers.

I was on a blogger conference call a few hours ago with Sen. Harry Reid, and he said that he would like to see Ms. Miers get the nod. Sen. Reid also said that if Bush picks any of the 10 nominees the Democrats previously balked at, they will "go to the mat."

This is hard for me because I know both Larry Thompson and Harriet Miers personally - through legal organizations and boards we have been members of together. I know Larry Thompson much better than Harriet Miers, but I like and respect them both. As to Larry, I've previously written:

Ashley Smith has always said it was the power of faith that spared her from being the next victim of the Atlanta courthouse gunman who afterwards made his way into her apartment. Turns out, it might have been the power of meth.

Ashley Smith, the woman who says she persuaded suspected courthouse gunman Brian Nichols to release her by talking about her faith, discloses in a new book that she gave him methamphetamine during the hostage ordeal. Smith did not share that detail with authorities at the time. But investigators said she came clean about the drugs when they interviewed her months later. They said they have no plans to charge her with drug possession.

In her book, "Unlikely Angel," released Tuesday, Smith says Nichols had her bound on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says he asked for marijuana, but she did not have any, and she dug into her illegal stash of crystal meth instead.

David Webber at The Nation has a new article on Judge John Roberts' 1985 AIDS memo to then President Ronald Reagan that Roberts wrote in conjunction with a major announcement Reagan was about to make. According to the article, he refused to disavow the memo when being interviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here's a snippet:

Five days before the press conference, [Roberts] reviewed the presidential briefing materials and recommended deletion of a sentence encapsulating the CDC's conclusion: "As far as our best scientists have been able to determine, AIDS virus is not transmitted through casual or routine contact." In a memorandum, the Assistant Counsel to the President explained, "I do not think we should have the President taking a position on a disputed scientific issue of this sort. There is much to commend the view that we should assume AIDS can be transmitted through casual or routine contact, as is true with many viruses, until it is demonstrated that it cannot be, and no scientist has said AIDS definitely cannot be so transmitted."

by Last Night in Little Rock

CNN just reported that NOLA Police Supt. Eddie Compass is retiring as soon as a transition can be established. CNN.com reports today that 15% of the NOLA PD was AWOL, and Compass has determined that a special tribunal will be established to determine their fates.

Update: Wednesday's Times-Picayune and NY Times have the story.