If one state passes such a resolution, it's an event. If 25 of the 50 states pass one, it will be a movement. Contact your state legislators and encourage them to do what legisators in Oregon are proposing:

A group of nineteen Oregon Democrats unveiled a bill Monday that asks the Bush administration to come up with a timeline for withdrawing US Forces from Iraq. Their move comes after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday that US troops could be in the country for up to twelve years.

The Homeward Bound Act of Oregon piggybacks on a bill introduced in Congress earlier this month. It is co-sponsored by Republican Walter Jones of North Carolina, renowned for his efforts to rename French Fries, Freedom Fries.

Jones has changed his views on the war and now wants to force President Bush to announce a withdrawal plan by the end of 2005. Northeast Portland Democrat, Chip Shields, says the Oregon bill may be symbolic, but it could be powerful.

The Wall St. Journal credits Daily Kos readers for creating the buzz on the Downing Street memos (free link.)

In mid-May, three regular readers of Daily Kos, a liberal blog, published their own Web site to publicize the documents. According to its operators, Downingstreetmemo.com was created by a Silicon Valley Web-page designer, a Chicago college student and a Canadian citizen certain they had stumbled onto the smoking gun that could drag the Bush administration down.

They were joined later by three other Daily Kos readers, including Bob Fesmire, husband of the Silicon Valley Web designer. Mr. Fesmire, a marketing executive for an engineering business, said he returned from a business trip to find his wife, Gina, obsessed with the leaked British documents, so he read them. "I said, 'This is it -- this is what's going to crack this whole thing open,' " Mr. Fesmire recalled. He was equally struck by the lack of interest in the documents, even among liberals.

There's more so read the article. The Wall St. Journal deserves credit for making several of their main political articles available free each day--and keeping them online for free for 30 days.

Say Hello to Blog One, the blog for Live 8 and ending world poverty.

As Skippy says,

we are in the wrong part of the world to participate other than with watching it on television and sending our best wishes. but it promises to be an incredible event.

I'm going to weigh in here with Roxanne and Begging to Differ over the strange Washington Monthly post supporting Time Reporter Matthew Cooper and not mentioning Judith Miller.

The Washington Monthly could have, but didn't, distinguish between Cooper and Miller's cases. There is a factual difference between the two: This was Cooper's second subpoena and he complied with the first one. Also, Miller never actually wrote an article about Valerie Plame. She may have just been researching the story. Or, maybe, as I posited here, she wasn't really researching or working on a story, and just got the info gratis as gossip.

Even though it was a losing argument legally, it could be a reason to suggest that only Cooper doesn't deserve to go to jail. But the Washington Monthly doesn't say anything to distinguish the cases to justify its support for only one reporter.

So you thought what drugs you take should be up to you and your doctor? Forget it. The White House has other plans for elderly and disabled citizens. Drugs it finds addictive or habit forming will not be covered under the White House drug plan.

When the federal government's new prescription drug benefit kicks in next year, it will not cover a category of drugs commonly used to treat anxiety, insomnia and seizures.

That means those disabled and elderly people on Medicare who take Xanax, Valium, Ativan and other types of the drug benzodiazepine will have to look elsewhere for coverage or switch to a different, less addictive medication.

I wonder if Colin Powell's Ambien will be covered. This is the worst White House and the Worst President Ever.

Apparently believing we can never have enough prisons, the U.S. plans to expand the number of prisons throughout Iraq.

The U.S. military said Monday it plans to expand its prisons across Iraq to hold as many as 16,000 detainees, as the relentless insurgency shows no sign of letup one year after the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqi authorities.

The plans were announced on a day three U.S. Army soldiers were killed - two pilots whose helicopter crashed north of Baghdad and a soldier who was shot in the capital. At least four Iraqis died in a car bomb attack in the capital.

As if the U.S. military didn't have enough scandals going between Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and the ghost detainees, now we learn it is abusing its own recruits:

The recruits of Echo Company stumbled off the bus for basic training at Fort Knox to the screams of red-faced drill instructors. That much was expected. But it got worse from there.

Echo Company's top drill instructor seized a recruit by the back of the neck and threw him to the ground. Other soldiers were poked, grabbed or cursed. Once inside the barracks, Pvt. Jason Steenberger says, he was struck in the chest by the top D.I. and kicked "like a football." Andrew Soper, who has since left the Army, says he was slapped and punched in the chest by another drill instructor. Pvt. Adam Roster says he was hit in the back and slammed into a wall locker.

Eventually, four Army drill instructors and the company commander would be brought up on charges. Four have been convicted so far.

Via Scotus Blog:

The Supreme Court recessed for the summer Monday morning, with no announcement from Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist of his plans to retire or to remain on the Court. The day's session ended after the announcement of six final rulings. Final orders of the Term will be issued at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Via Scotus Blog: The Court rules against Grokster and StreamCast:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that developers of software violate federal copyright law when they provide computer users with the means to share music and movie files downloaded from the internet.

News coverage of decision here.

File-sharing services shouldn't get a free pass on bad behavior, justices said.

"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties," Justice David H. Souter wrote for the court.

The text of the decision is here. (pdf)

Update: The Wall St. Journal has an ongoing discussion on the decision by several legal experts. The free link to the discussion is here.

Via Scotus Blog:

The Supreme Court on Monday turned aside pleas by two reporters and a magazine urging the Justices to create, for the first time, a right not to be forced to reveal to the government their confidential news sources. The action means that, at least for the time being, the Constitution and federal common law do not recognize a “reporter’s privilege” of confidentiality. (The Court denied review in Miller v. U.S., 04-1507, Cooper and Time Magazine v. U.S., 04-1508.)

News coverage here.

by TChris

Bump and Update: The report is here. The ACLU's statement is here.
........

The Bush administration used "material witness" warrants to detain at least 70 individuals suspected of terrorism, a statistic leading two groups to conclude that the administration has been misusing its power to seek material witness detentions.

Only 28 of the suspects were eventually charged with a crime, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, and most of those charges were not related to terrorism. ... At least 30 detainees were never called to testify before a court or grand jury, the advocacy groups said in a report [to be released Monday]. All but one of those detained are Muslim, they said.

The most publicized abuse was the detention of Brandon Mayfield, but the report accuses the administration of twisting the material witness law "beyond recognition."

Update: You can access the opinions in today's court decisions here.

Update: Ruling in one Ten Comandments Case, via Scotus Blog:

Splitting 5-4 in the first of two rulings on government displays of the Ten Commandments, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld a federal court order against a display of the religious document on the wall of a courthouse in Kentucky.

AP coverage here.

Ruling in second Ten Commandments case goes the other way: