The Detroit News is running a series on a lengthy investigation it conducted into prison guards who sexually assault female inmates .

From April 2002 to spring of the following year, Renee Williams says she received gifts from a prison guard with whom she was having a sexual relationship. When they had a falling out, Williams says the guard withheld her mail. When she complained, he had her committed to a mental services unit claiming she was delusional.

The Justice Department has brought several lawsuits against the state over the abuse:

The Wall St. Journal has an article (online for free) on an overlooked issue in the judicial nominations fight: Bush's picks could tip the balance in many circuits. To me, this is an additional reason the compromise being proposed by moderate Senators should fail. The Journal reports:

Janice Rogers Brown, for instance, has made scathing assessments about the reach of the federal government -- and she is nominated to the appellate court that handles the majority of appeals of government-agency rulings.

William Myers, who has advocated against environmental groups, is in line to join the appellate court that sorts through land-use battles.

William Pryor, who called a section of the Voting Rights Act "an expensive burden that has far outlived its usefulness" -- may be headed for an appellate court with jurisdiction over parts of the old Confederacy.

The compromise under consideration would result in an up or down vote on these three nominees - and possibly all 7 of the contested nominees - in order to preserve the right to filibuster "in extreme circumstances" through 2006. Since Republicans have a majority in the Senate, this means certain confirmation for these nominees.

The parents of former NFL Player Pat Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, have lashed out at the military:

Former NFL player Pat Tillman's family is lashing out against the Army, saying that the military's investigations into Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan last year were a sham and that Army efforts to cover up the truth have made it harder for them to deal with their loss.

More than a year after their son was shot several times by his fellow Army Rangers on a craggy hillside near the Pakistani border, Tillman's mother and father said in interviews that they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country. They say the Army's "lies" about what happened have made them suspicious, and that they are certain they will never get the full story.

The Associated Press this week obtained 2,000 pages of documents related to the military tribunals held at Guantanamo.

Their stories are tucked inside nearly 2,000 pages of documents the U.S. government released to the Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Representing a fraction of some 558 tribunals held since July, the testimonies capture frustration on both sides - judges wrestling with mistaken identity and scattered information from remote corners of the world, and prisoners complaining there's no evidence against them.

The detainees' accounts are harrowing. Testimony from at least 60 prisoners have been filed as part of a federal court habeas lawsuit challenging their detention. You can read them here.

In the upcoming issue of Newsweek, Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas have a new article on detainee claims of Koran mishandling by officials at Guantanamo. It refers only to Pentgagon documents - incident logs created by guards and/or other military personnel. The article reports the Pentagon's conclusion, that none of the log entries reporting mishandling of the Koran were credible.

In fewer than a dozen log entries from the 31,000 documents reviewed so far, said Di Rita, there is a mention of detainees' complaining that guards or interrogators mishandled their Qur'ans.

Isikoff totally ignores claims made by released detainees. (pdf) Does he really think a guard who threw a Koran in the toilet, or worse, is going to write himself up in a log report?

Thanks to reader Diane who mailed in a contribution to TalkLeft this week. I don't know her e-mail address so I can't write her personally.

Our web hosting bill just came due, and if any readers would like to contribute a few dollars, it would be very appreciated.

If you missed our weekend coverage, scroll down. Between TChris and me, there are 30 new posts.

From MoveOn Pac:

Senator Bill Frist has pulled the trigger on the "nuclear option." We now have less than 72 hours to stop him from seizing absolute power to stack the courts — including the Supreme Court. The vote is still too close to call. If we raise our voice, we can win.

We've launched an emergency petition we'll be delivering to congress every three hours, from Monday morning until the final vote is complete. Our allies will read your comments on the Senate floor, and every senator will know the American people are standing ready to hold them accountable. Please sign today and pass it on .

Via Raw Story we learn of the snafu in New York State whereby 198 sex offenders received Viagra through Medicaid. Here's the Press Release from the New York State Controller's Office.

After his Office found that in New York 198 Level 3 sex offenders are receiving Viagra paid for by Medicaid, New York State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi has asked Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to change federal policies on distribution of the drug, Hevesi announced today. Level 3 sex offenders are those considered by the courts most likely to commit crimes again.

Here is an interesting assemblage of photographs of Guantantano. They were taken by reporters. See how artfully arranged some of them are, particularly those of the possessions of detainees, including religious items like Korans, which also are pictured hanging inside surgical masks. There's also photos of a board with leg irons, of cuffs protruding from the floor and stark interrogation rooms.

Considering this is a prison, conditions don't look too bad, but keep in mind these are government-approved photos.

by TChris

The San Diego Union-Tribune writes about the forgotten women who languish in Mexican prisons because of the war against drugs. Often single mothers with low incomes, they are enticed to cross the border carrying drugs for couriers. The temptation is easy to understand.

"They started telling me that I would get ahead, that I could fix my house," said Rosa María Morales Rivera, 43, who had been supporting five children on her hotel-maid wages. "I wouldn't have to be killing myself in the hotel, washing and making up rooms and ironing when my back pain was unbearable."

Women who are caught as they attempt to cross the border face decades in Mexican prisons.

Amid the spectacular headlines of the drug war, these women are overlooked. Their capture merits only passing mention in news accounts. No one celebrates their exploits in narcocorridos. They're cut off by the people who sent them, and the women rarely speak out, fearful of repercussions for those back home. They spend years behind bars and are lucky to have families still waiting when they get out.

by TChris

The Bush administration deserves credit for finally getting something right. It wants to end a program that gives federal money and federal law enforcement assistance to High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas.

The initial five HIDTAs have expanded to several dozen in 43 states. They are no longer a concentrated effort focused on a few drug hot spots. One might conclude that having that kind of targeted money and resources is a good idea, so doing it in a lot of places around the country is a good idea. The Bush administration, however, sees it as congressional pork.

"The sheer magnitude of this expansion raises questions about whether the drug trafficking in all of these areas meets the intent of the statute as enacted," according to the Bush administration’s critique. "Congressional pressures have been primarily responsible for this expansion."

Indeed, federal agents who are forced to cooperate with drug investigations initiated by local cops often end up arresting minor players for drug crimes that wouldn't otherwise merit federal prosecution. The law is designed to attract federal dollars for local law enforcement, not to allocate federal resources wisely.

Truly the news of the weird today...a blogger writes a post about letting his sister's boyfriend into the house, and within hours, the siblings are dead. Police zeroed in on the boyfriend after finding the blog post, decimating the guy's alibi. [Via the Drudge Retort.] Here's the blog post:

Anyway today has been weird, at 3 some guy ringed the bell. I went down and recognized it was my sister's former boyfriend. He told me he wants to get his fishing poles back. I told him to wait downstair while I get them for him. While I was searching them, he is already in the house. He is still here right now, smoking, walking all around the house with his shoes on which btw I just washed the floor 2 days ago! Hopefully he will leave soon...