by Last Night in Little Rock

As TChris wrote yesterday, apparently believing that the War on Terror is sufficiently won, the FBI is now restarting an emphasis on adult porn investigations as reported in today's Washington Post.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the GOP is using its Katrina relief efforts to support the GOP agenda.

Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy has announced he will back John Roberts for Chief Justice. Sen. Edward Kennedy said he will vote against him. John Kerry is likely to vote no as well.

Update: Excerpts from John Kerry's statement of reasons for opposing Roberts is here.

My biggest concern right now is that Justice Stevens will retire. That will mean Bush packs the court with three new conservatives.

Update (by TChris): David Corn weighs in, arguing that the Democratic leadership (such as it is) needs to stay in synch with its base rather than dividing on key issues.

by TChris

Sen. Arlen Specter today advised the president to ask Justice O'Connor to stay on the Supreme Court for the coming term. He says O'Connor is willing to do so, but the president ... not so much.

He said Bush was noncommittal on his proposal that she stay on, but that his body language was not positive.

Whether the "body language" consisted of an upraised middle finger isn't revealed in the linked story.

by TChris

An economics professor believes oil companies gouged consumers when gas prices soared in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Eight governors have asked the oil president to investigate his oily industry buddies:

"When the wholesale price of gas went up by 60 cents almost overnight, oil companies were obviously using the most devastating natural disaster in our nation's history to reap a windfall at the expense of American consumers," said the letter, which was initiated by Gov. James E. Doyle of Wisconsin and was signed by governors from Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.

The governors would also like Congress to enact legislation requiring the oil companies to disgorge their excessive profits.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The NY Times today has an article about what the Paleo-Cons in Congress want to cut to finance Katrina relief. But, instead of eliminating current pork barrel spending, like the $250M bridge in Alaska to serve 80 people, PBS is a target:

The Bush Administration continues its policy of handing out top Administration jobs based on cronyism. Did it not learn from Michael Brown? Apparently, not.

The latest: A 36 year old Administration lawyer named Julie Myers, who has no immigration experience, has been nominated to head up ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Let's look at Ms. Myers' credentials - the last paragraph is key:

The Buffalo Springfield:

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong

Today: Battle Lines Behind the Battle Lines

In military communities across the United States, a debate over the Iraq war is being waged by reluctant, neophyte activists. Their microphones chirp and squeak, or don't pick up their quiet voices at all. Their signs are too small. They forget the banners.

"This is my community. I don't want to offend people here. But my husband is a soldier; he can't say anything. So it's my duty as a citizen to speak up," Kara Hollingsworth, a D.C. native and Army wife at Fort Bragg whose husband served two tours in Iraq, said as she took a seat on a panel of antiwar activists last week.

1,900 dead and counting.

Arianna says PlameGate may be inching closer to John Bolton.

According to two sources, Bolton's former chief of staff, Fred Fleitz, was at least one of the sources of the classified information about Valerie Plame that flowed through the Bush administration and eventually made its way into Bob Novak's now infamous column.

Facing ever-increasing recruiting problems, and a death toll of U.S. soldiers of more than 1,900, the Army announced a big change today. It will now accept high-school dropouts who don't have GEDs:

Army recruiters now have a wider pool to find future soldiers in. The Army is reaching out to a slice of America’s youth long ineligible to serve: non-high school graduates who don’t have a General Equivalency Diploma. Recruiters can now go after that demographic through the “Army Educations Plus” option, the Army announced Tuesday.

The Army will pay for the cost of the GED. Of course, at the heart of the matter is the recruiters' failure to meet its goals:

by TChris

When the government builds a case on the word of thugs turned snitches, it shouldn't be surprised at an outcome like this one:

In a startling setback to federal prosecutors, John A. Gotti, the Gambino crime family prince who said he wanted to leave the mob life behind and drive a minivan with his family, avoided conviction today in his racketeering trial, as the jury returned hung verdicts on three charges against him and voted to acquit him on a fourth.

The government says it will bring Gotti to trial again, but there's no reason to think its witnesses will become more trustworthy in the interim. Judge Shira A. Scheindlin rejected the government's request to detain Gotti until the second trial. That ruling only makes sense: having exposed the weaknesses in the government's case, Gotti has little reason to flee.

Sentencing Law and Policy has a thoughtful response to Jonathan Turley's op-ed in the Washington Post on shaming punishments as an alternative to incarceration. Professor Berman says:

....given the questionable efficacy of our traditional approaches to punishment and our over-reliance on incarceration (background here), I am quite open to greater use of alternative punishments, including mild shaming sanctions, especially when they are imposed in lieu of an extended imprisonment term.

Turley, in constrast, opined: