LA Police Chief Bill Bratton is earning kudos in Los Angeles. This LA Times editorial not only praises him, but talks about a second term.

Bratton is only three years into a five-year contract. It's early to talk about a second term(the maximum allowed), but 10 years under a single effective chief shouldn't be too much to hope for.

It was Bratton, not Guiliani, who reduced the crime rate in New York. I hope his success in LA makes more people realize this.

Off topic, but what a great trend. If you can't read the words, Norwegianity has them:

My butt is big
And round like the letter C
And ten thousand lunges
Have made it rounder
But not smaller
And that’s just fine.
It’s a space heater
For my side of the bed
It’s my ambassador
To those who walk behind me
It’s a border collie
That herds skinny women
Away from the best deals
At clothing sales.
My butt is big
And that’s just fine
And those who might scorn it
Are invited to kiss it.
Just do it.

Salon has the story behind the ad, and others like it we can expect to see this fall.

Talk about snake eyes: Jose Luis Betancourt got 24 years for drug trafficking. Then, he lost his lottery winnings, because the court found he bought the ticket with drug proceeds.

The text of the opinion is here (pdf). [link via How Appealing.]

Great post by Nathan Newman on the border as the new color line. Here's a snippet:

Similarly, a politics of national "citizenship" and exclusion of immigrants may juice electoral coalitions in the short term -- although I'm not even convinced of that -- but in the long run such politics of nationalist politics does nothing to address multinational corporations moving jobs around the globe like a chessboard, pitting workers against each other in a race to the bottom. And such nationalist rhetoric just feeds a politics that will likely block the creation of international institutions that can restrain corporate power.

Arianna's latest piece on Judith Miller is up - she says New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, a staunch defender of Miller, is angry at Bill Kovac, who has been critical of her. Arianna wonders, "has the Times learned any lessons from the Howell Raines reign?"

Nancy Goldstein has a new article up on the Equal Justice Initiative and Alabama's death row. She asks, "If you are a poor person of color accused of a capital crime in Alabama, what stands between you and the death penalty?"

This very fine non-profit is trying to turn back the state's bad habit of routinely denying poor people decent legal representation, and then sentencing them to death without access to decent post-conviction appeal. The article also brings up the question of states' rights vs. federal oversight, particularly in Alabama, where almost all socially progressive decisions have been federally mandated, and where voters show a more than subtle inclination towards returning to the days of Jim Crow

by TChris

TalkLeft reported yesterday that four misdemeanor charges were filed against Gov. Taft of Ohio. Those charges were presumably the result of negotiations, given the governor's decision to enter "no contest" pleas to the charges today.

His no-contest plea wraps up the case less than 24 hours after Taft became the first Ohio governor charged with a crime. He was fined the maximum $1,000 for each of four misdemeanor counts. As expected, no jail time was ordered. The charges had carried a maximum sentence of six months on each count.

One day between charging and conviction serves the political strategy of getting this mess out of the press, but Taft's decision to accept the convictions makes it difficult for him to continue his argument that his failure to disclose a variety of gifts, "including dinners, golf games and professional hockey tickets over four years," was accidental.

Update (TL): Crooks and Liars has a video of Taft's apology.

George Hunsinger, professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, and coordinator of Church Folks for a Better America (and frequent reader and commenter at TalkLeft) has a letter to the editor in today's New York Times:

Bob Herbert is right ("No End in Sight in Iraq," column, Aug. 11). We need a serious national conversation about exiting from Iraq.

First, we need to face reality: no good options exist. The American-led occupation is the main cause of the insurgency, not the cure. Yet an abrupt pullout could lead to even more chaos. The last best hope lies in "internationalizing" the peacekeeping forces until Iraq can take over on its own.

Those who object to this path as unrealistic need to explain how we can better extricate ourselves from the biggest American policy disaster since Vietnam.

Altercation today has new ediiton of "Scoring Scotus" - scroll down to "Roberts' Confirmations Hearings: Light on the Mayo or Heavy on the Mustard?" And thanks to Eric for giving me another opportunity to contribute.

If you're going to be in New York August 23, check out the International Film Festival which will be showing "Legacy: I never left my village" as part of the film section "Jewish Experience in Latin America." From its website:

The 72-minute "Legacy" — produced by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation which tells the story of 820 Jews who escaped the pogroms of czarist Russia in 1889 and landed in Argentina aboard the steamship Wesser. Upon arriving in Argentina, these Russian immigrant Jews, who later became know by some as "Jewish Gauchos," settled in Entre Rios, Santa Fe and Buenos Aires, where they founded colonies with the aid of European Jewish philanthropist Baron Hirsch. Deep religious values, an intense cultural life and a strong focus on educating their children suffused the immigrants' daily struggle to tame the inhospitable brushwood.

by TChris

Parents -- not public schools, and certainly not judges -- should decide what, if any, religious beliefs should guide their children. Religious extremists may be disappointed with the Indiana Court of Appeals, but it made the right call in reversing a divorce court decree that ordered a custodial parent -- a practicing Wiccan -- to shelter his son from "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals." The boy's mother, also a Wiccan, joined the father in urging the appellate court to reverse this judicial interference with their choice of religion.

by TChris

In July, members of the Bush administration reviewed files at the National Archives concerning Judge Roberts' writings on affirmative action. Now, when Senate Democrats want to review the files, they've gone missing. The National Archives staff is taking the heat for the "clerical error," and claim they can reconstruct the file, but a suspicious mind might wonder why documents concerning a contentious issue disappeared after the administration reviewed them.