I don't think I've ever seen a bill as destructive as Rep. Sensenbrenner's new drug bill, H.R. 1528, the "The Safe Access to Drug Treatment & Child Protection Act of 2005." You think America's prison population is too high at 2 million? Get ready for 15 million.

The bill may be up for another hearing this week. It's time to act. As TChris wrote a few weeks ago, it's time to Just Say No to Sensenbrenner. An excellent bill summary is here.

You may remember this as the bill that provides for a five year mandatory minimum sentence for passing a joint to someone who's been through a drug treatment program. That's nothing. Read about what else this doozy of a bill will do. Like the "snitch or go to jail" provisions. If you are a college professor or student, you should be very afraid.

Have you been wondering why the Bush Administration is making such a big deal out of nominee Priscilla Owen? The New York Times has the answer: Her entire judicial career has been orchestrated by Karl Rove. At three critical times, he has intervened to push her to the next level.

Rove got her on the Texas Supreme Court.

Justice Owen was, by all accounts, a respected but little-known lawyer in Houston in 1994 when she was first elected to the State Supreme Court with Mr. Rove's support and tutelage. Her experience up to then largely involved obscure legal cases involving pipelines and federal energy regulations.

....Mr. Rove, who had helped select her as the Republican candidate, helped raise more than $926,000 for her campaign, almost half from lawyers and others who had business before the court, according to Texans for Public Justice, a liberal group in Austin that tracks Texas campaign donations. Mr. Rove's firm was paid some $247,000 in fees.

Our immigration-phobic Congress passed a law last week exempting Australian professionals from competition over H-1B visas. It created a new class of visa just for them, called an E-3 visa, and authorized 10,500 of them.

So, will we get their tired or their poor? How about their skilled laborers? Guess again.

We're getting their lawyers.

The new program, widely regarded as a reward for Australia's support of President Bush's policies, opens the door to a vast expansion of the number of Australians working in the United States, only 900 of whom received H-1B visas last year.

Does anyone else sense another elevated terror threat warning is about to occur, coincidentally on the eve of the Republican threat to launch their nuclear option?

Today, Afghan clerics threatened a holy war in three days unless the U.S. turns over the Guantanamo military interrogator who allegedly flushed a Koran down the toilet.

The clerics in the northeastern province of Badakhshan said they wanted U.S. President George W. Bush to handle the matter honestly "and hand the culprits over to an Islamic country for punishment. If that does not happen within three days, we will launch a jihad against America," said a statement issued by about 300 clerics, referring to Muslim holy war, after meeting in the main mosque in the provincial capital, Faizabad.

Here's an update to our earlier post skeptical of Newsweek's retraction of last week's Periscope item(about a military report stating that Guantanamo personnel had flushed a detainee's Koran down the toilet to get him to talk):

There are dozens of news articles referencing detainee allegations that guards threw korans in the toilet prior to the Newsweek article. Here's a sampling, all are available on lexis.com.

The Miami Herald March 9, 2005.

Yet recently declassified court documents allege that, as far back as 2002, some of Guantanamo's staff cursed Allah, threw Korans into toilets, mocked prisoners during prayers and deliberately took away prisoners' pants knowing that Muslims can't pray unless covered. Imagine a U.S. prisoner of war who is a devout Christian having his Bible tossed into the toilet or his rosary taken away. The U.S. government would rightly denounce such offenses as human-rights violations.

The Miami Herald March 6, 2005

Captives at the Guantanamo Bay prison are alleging that guards kicked and stomped on Korans and cursed Allah, and that interrogators punished them by taking away their pants, knowing that would prevent them from praying.

Newsweek now says its report that the officials at Guantanamo flushed a detainee's Koran down the toilet, which was responsible for protests in which 16 people were killed, was in error.

The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza. In the past week it was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League. On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States.

But read closely. Michael Isikoff and John Barry of Newsweek reported May 9 (Periscope Section)that a "knowledgable government source" confirmed a military report that investigators at Guantanamo flushed a Koran down the toilet in order to make a detainee provide information. Now the source is backtracking saying he couldn't be sure.

However, released detainees have made the same claims for months.

In January, British prisoners released from Guantanamo said guards threw their Korans into toilets and tried to force them to give up their faith. Human rights lawyer Tom Wilner, who represents several Kuwaiti prisoners at Guantanamo, said in February that his clients told him their Korans were thrown on the floor, stepped on and thrown into toilets at Guantanamo.

by TChris

How will kids ever learn to respect and appreciate the First Amendment when schools persist in punishing them for exercising their right to free expression? Kerry Lofy went to his senior prom with a gay friend who didn't have a date. Lofy hoped to make a statement about "fitting in" at the prom by his attire: he wore a dress and earrings, and he carried a purse.

Although school authorities didn't turn away the other attendees who wore prom dresses (they happened to be females), they sent Lofy home. Undeterred, Lofy returned in a leisure suit. Poor fashion sense wasn't enough to dissuade the school administration from letting Lofy in, so Lofy was allowed to enter the prom. He later ripped off the leisure suit to reveal his dress.

I'm about to head out for the day, but here's some good reading.

• The LA Times Magazine has a four page article, The Lone Ranger, on Tom DeLay nemesis, Texas DA Ronnie Earle.

• Naomi Klein in the Nation explains why torture works, using Maher Arar as an example. Hint: It's not because torture uncovers the truth. As we mentioned yesterday, David Cole's article on the Patriot Act is another good read.

• Farhad Manjoo at Salon reports on the Real ID Act, and says it will not make things harder for terrorists, but it will make your next experience at Motor Vehicles "hellish." And check out this list of the hundreds of organizations that opposed the Act.

The terrorism trial of University of South Florida Professor Sami al-Arian begins tomorrow. He is being defended by Bill Moffitt of Washington, D.C., a highly esteemed trial lawyer and former President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. (NACDL) The Government alleges al-Arian was behind the financing of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel.

Al-Arian had established an Islamic academic think tank, a school, a mosque and a charity for Palestinian children - but authorities were questioning whether the true mission of Al-Arian's work was to finance terrorist attacks in Israel.

Al-Arian and four others are accused of 53 counts of racketeering, conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists.

"Much of what people are saying about Sami Al-Arian could have been said likewise about Nelson Mandela," attorney William Moffitt said. "Now Nelson Mandela is a hero for having supported his people. Sami Al-Arian is a villain for being the voice of the Palestinian people. There aren't really a lot of voices in this country who have spoken favorably for the Palestinian people."

The Washington Post reports on the proliferation of Islamic militant websites that track suicide bombers. It finds that the suicide bombers are by and large foreigners....and Saudi.

Who are the suicide bombers of Iraq? By the radicals' account, they are an internationalist brigade of Arabs, with the largest share in the online lists from Saudi Arabia and a significant minority from other countries on Iraq's borders, such as Syria and Kuwait. The roster of the dead on just one extremist Web site reviewed by The Washington Post runs to nearly 250 names....

The Saudi Government says the numbers are inflated. Counterterrorism experts don't believe that's true.

Friday we wrote that a bipartisan group of Senators would be sending a letter to the White House asking why it hasn't moved on the 9/11 Commission's recommendation to create a Civil Liberties Oversight Board as a check and balance on its anti-terror policies. The recommendation was specifically included in the terrorism law passed by Congress and signed by the President last December.

The letter, addressed to Andrew Card and signed by Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democratic Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, is avaiable here.

The New York Times reports on the letter today.

...the four senators asked for a timetable and details on how the panel would be staffed and set up. The letter noted that the White House's proposed budget for the board fell well below the $13 million devoted to a civil rights office within the Department of Homeland Security, the $39 million for the Office of the United States Trade Representative and the $4 million for the Council of Economic Advisers.

Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul has a post on Priscilla Owen that exposes her better than any organization's ads ever could. Only Jeanne's post is not an ad, but a true story. It's the story of Wille Searcy - go read. You won't want to hear the name Priscilla Owen ever again, unless it's to learn that her nomination for a seat on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has been rejected for good.