Why don't we just call out the firing squad and shoot all sex offenders? That's what it's coming down to. Latest example: Florida has banned sex offenders from hurricane shelters. Instead, in the event of a hurricane, they are to report to prison, where they will be held in the visitor's waiting room (so they know they are free to leave.)

Sex offenders have to sign a form that outlines instructions, wear an ID badge, and they can be searched by authorities at any time.

An ACLU official makes the appropriate point:

the more steps you take to isolate and ostracize them ... there are very few options for them to live their lives and not reoffend," he said.

John Cole writes about today's New York Times' article outlining the paltry evidence against Mohamed Yousry, defense lawyer Lynne Stewart's translator in the Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman case.

Both Yousry and Stewart were convicted of terrorism-related charges and are awaiting sentencing.

“I still don’t know what it is that I did that was even wrong, much less illegal,” said Mr. Yousry, alternately indignant and mournful, in an interview in the Manhattan office of one of his lawyers, Mr. Stern. “I followed a process that was designed by the lawyers. They said this is what we’re going to do, and I followed that. .... “The fact that I now know that these lawyers were following a strategy that the government didn’t like, that makes me a criminal?” he asked.

What Mr. Yousry finds most confounding is that he was convicted of aiding Mr. Abdel Rahman’s fundamentalist Islamic cause even though the prosecutors acknowledged that he was nonviolent, did not support the sheik’s politics and was not a practicing Muslim.

Michael Isikoff in Newsweek writes that when Deputy Attorney General James Comey leaves the Administration this week, he could be replaced by Bush Crony Robert McCallum.

The significance of this is that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, in charge of the Plame investigation, reports to the Deputy AG. So, if McCallum replaces Comey, Fitzgerald may find himself with reduced power - or no power at all.

Comey was the only official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recused, department officials say they are still trying to resolve whom Fitzgerald will now report to. Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is "likely" to be named as acting deputy A.G., a DOJ official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter tells NEWSWEEK. But McCallum may be seen as having his own conflicts: he is an old friend of President Bush's and a member of his Skull and Bones class at Yale.

• Murray Waas on the Libby-Miller meeting which I blog about here in ridiculously long post. Only those obsessed with the story should even bother with my post
• Arianna on Judith Miller
• Digby on Judith Miller and Karl Rove
• Digby on Libby and the Waiver
• Paul Begala in Huff Post on why Bush will pardon Rove
• Tom Maguire on Rove and Novak's long-standing friendship and on Russert's deal with Fitzgerald to discuss what he told Libby.

Murray Waas has a new column in which he says Judith Miller met with Lewis Libby on July 8, 2003, six days before Robert Novak published his column outing Valerie Plame Wilson. While much of what Waas writes today is more in the nature of a summary or wrap-up, I found this to be a "new dot" for me:

In an affidavit prepared by Miller to respond to the request [for documents requested in the subpoena], Miller said she "did not receive any documents" from the person she met, but declined to say who the person was that she met on July 8. In subsequent court papers filed in federal court by attorneys for Miller and The New York Times, the newspaper said that Miller "had no documents responsive" to Fitzgerald's request of any documents given to her on July 8, 2003.

But Miller's affidavit and other court filings by the Times -- and the narrow language contained therein -- did not say whether Miller might have read or reviewed any documents that might have brought to the July 8, 2003, meeting.

I think that's the crucial question at this point. Why would Miller and Libby meet in person unless it was to do something they couldn't do over the phone - like review a document. What we don't know is whether Miller showed Libby a document she received from another source or whether Libby showed Miller a document. Libby has testified and thus provided his version to Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald needs to question Miller to determine whether Libby told the truth.

The British National Archives has released 500 pages of documents from Mick Jagger's 1969 drug bust at his London apartment. Marianne Faithful was also present. Read Mick's version: The detective planted a small amount of white powder in a Cartier box on the table and then told Mick for $1,000. he could arrange it so Marianne pleaded guilty and he walked.

What makes Mick's story so credible is that the bribe required a guilty plea from Ms. Faithful. Why add that if you're making up a tale? If he were making it up, I think he would have said the detective told him they both would walk.

In the end, the detective was not prosecuted. But...

Several years later, senior detectives of Scotland Yard's drug squad were tried on charges of corruption much like the kind Mr. Jagger described.

60 years ago today, the U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb called "little boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. More than 55,000 people attended a memorial service in a Hiroshima park today.

There is a gripping series in Der Spiegel today about the history of the making the bomb and what led to the decision to drop it, and the effects. The series begins with the recollection of 16 year old Keijiro Matsushima who was in a classroom when the bomb hit. He survived. This is some of what he saw:

Matsushima, bleeding from multiple wounds, drags himself into the schoolyard under swirling, thick, dark clouds of dust. Many of his classmates are already lying outside, some spitting up dark blood. He sees grayish burn wounds through their torn clothing.

Downtown Hiroshima is completely destroyed in the blast. Horribly disfigured people emerge from the direction of the city, clumps of skin hanging detached from their swollen bodies, their reddish muscle tissue exposed.

Many are covered by nothing but their underwear, and their hair -- made frizzy by the intense heat -- protrudes wildly from their heads. To keep their wounds from touching, the victims walk with their arms outstretched. When Matsushima recalls the gruesome scene, he calls it a "procession of ghosts."

by TChris

Cindy Sheehan has a question for President Bush: "Why did my son die?"

Her son, Casey, 24, was killed in Sadr City, Iraq, on April 4, 2004. He was an Army specialist, a Humvee mechanic.

Cindy is in Crawford, as close as she can get to the vacationing president. She planned to camp out until Bush answers her question, but she's having trouble getting his attention. The local police have played games with Cindy and the protestors who accompany her, preventing her from getting closer than four or five miles from the president's ranch.

Cindy decided the president needed to be held accountable after she heard him say that the troops have died for a worthy cause that must be seen to its end.

Eleanor Clift profiles Markos of Daily Kos and the Hackett race in Newsweek... an inspiring article, go read. [Via Skippy]

One of Markos' great points:

“It’s not about ideology, pro-war, antiwar, it makes no difference,” he insisted. “In the online world, we need Democrats to stand up, not be afraid of Republicans, not be afraid of the right-wing noise machine … We don’t care about ideology. We care that you stand up for the party and don’t run scared.” He pointed out that bloggers backed Democrat Stephanie Herseth in South Dakota, who, he says, ran a Republican Lite campaign. “We’re pragmatic,” he says. If candidates aren’t 100 percent on the environment or they’re kind of iffy on choice, progressives should overlook these differences for what Moulitsas terms “the greater good,” which is restoring the Democrats to a governing majority.

[Thread hijacked, comments closed]

Before the House voted to extend the Patriot Act, Henry Hyde slipped in a little-noticed new drug provision:

Offered by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), the successful amendment would make manufacture, sale, possession with the intent to sell Schedule I and II drugs, or conspiracy to do any of the above "narco-terrorism" if it "directly or indirectly, aids, or provides support, resources or anything of value to: (a) a foreign terrorist organization; or (b) any person or group involved in the planning, preparation for, or carrying out of a terrorist offense."

A "narco-terrorism" conviction would draw a mandatory minimum 20-year prison sentence, with the possibility of a life sentence. Under the provision, "the government need not prove that the defendant knew that an organization is a designated foreign terrorist organization,'" according to the House floor summary.

Who comes under the provision? It's not entirely clear, but it could be your corner street dealer who has no ties at all to terrorism.

The Guardian reports on the negotiations underway to send many Guantanamo detainees back to their home countries for continued incarceration. The countries include Afghanistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

The principal issue is whether there will be, or even can be assurances that the returned detainees won't be tortured. These countries are known for human rights violations. The Washington Post has an editorial noting this today.

The New York Times reports:

The new transfers to Afghanistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia would be explicitly for those countries to take over the detention and not release any individuals immediately.

Amnesty International has released this statement of concern.

by TChris

Doug Hanks abandoned his race for a city council seat in Charlotte after a newspaper revealed that Hanks posted more than 4,000 comments to a white supremacist website over a three week period. Hanks, who had been seeking the Republican nomination, claims he was merely posing as a racist to research a novel he's writing. Hanks found inspiration for his novel in The Turner Diaries, "a racist novel by William Pierce that begins with a truck bombing of FBI headquarters as part of a war against the government."

Hanks says he isn't a white supremacist, but was trying to target the novel to white supremacists to improve sales. That subtle distinction is undermined by Hanks' other antics: