Colorado Governor Bill Owens, a faith-based Republican, was considered a party superstar until two years ago when he and his wife of 28 years split up amid undisclosed reasons. Owens promptly became a liability to the values crowd. When Sen. Nighthorse Campbell decided not to run for re-election, many expected Owens to put his hat in the ring. He didn't, saying the time wasn't right for him or his family. Friday, the couple announced their reconciliation. Tongues are now wagging as to what's behind the sudden rapprochement.

Denver's increasingly influential monthly magazine, 5280, (a finalist this year for the National Magazine Awards in two categories), just released its May issue with its annual list of the 25 most influential Coloradans. (Sorry, it's not available on line.) Number one on the list is Colorado first lady Frances Owen. With a little humor and amidst great film-noir graphics, the magazine details Frances' ascent and the Governor's political decline. Owens' hand-picked Senate candidate, Pete Coors, lost to Ken Salazar in November. While the state went red for Bush, the state legislature went blue for the first time in 44 years. It seems Gov. Owens is mostly in the news these days for using his veto power (More here.)

by TChris

If you've flown out of LAX recently, you've probably wondered why you have to stand in a ridulously long and slow-moving line just to hand your checked luggage to a TSA employee before moving to another ridiculously long and slow-moving line to be screened before you can enter the boarding area. You may be longing for the good old days, when the counter agent simply tossed your checked luggage onto a conveyor belt, and you may be wondering why TSA isn't screening your luggage when it comes off the belt instead of clogging the lobby with more slow-moving lines.

The answer: it seemed like a good idea at the time. But it turns out that the long wait in line doesn't assure that your checked bags are actually screened.

Because the machines were installed under tight timetables imposed by Congress, they were squeezed into airport lobbies instead of integrated into baggage conveyor systems. That slowed the screening process - the machines could handle far fewer bags per hour - and pushed up labor costs by hundreds of millions of dollars a year. At busy times, bags are sometimes loaded onto planes without being properly examined, according to several current and former screeners.

The mismanagement of security isn't limited to airports. The NY Times reports on the billions of dollars Homeland Security will need to spend to correct the security problems that weren't solved by the billions of dollars already spent.

by TChris

It's tempting for police detectives to "clear" an unsolved case by blaming it on a person who was convicted of a similar crime. Even if unsupported by evidence, placing blame improves their "cases closed" and "crimes solved" statistics without requiring any further work by the detectives. That may have happened in Atlanta, where 29 children were killed between 1979 and 1981.

Wayne Williams, 47, is serving a life sentence for the murders of two young men. After his conviction, authorities blamed him for 22 of the other slayings but never charged him.

The evidence of Williams' commission of the two charged murders was sketchy. Fibers found on the victims' bodies were similar to fibers found on rugs and fabrics in the home and car of Williams' parents. The new police chief of Dekalb County thinks Williams is innocent.

"After Wayne Williams was arrested, there was this decision by some people to close the cases, and I have never been one to espouse that kind of investigation or paint that kind of broad brush," [Police Chief Louis] Graham told The Associated Press. "I have never believed that he did anything."

Williams' prosecutor, of course, refuses to acknowledge the possibility of mistake. Kudos to Graham for reopening the investigation.

by TChris

Crime lab scientists shouldn't feel pressured to produce results that favor the prosecution. They're paid by the government, but they aren't law enforcement officers or prosecutors. Their duty is to seek the truth, not to spin it.

Too often, crime lab scientists view themselves as working for the prosecution, not as working for justice. An independent audit of the Virginia crime lab released yesterday was so critical of the lab's handling of DNA evidence that Gov. Mark Warner has ordered a review of the lab's testing in 150 cases.

Among the auditors' eight recommendations, all of which were accepted by Mr. Warner, were that the governor restrict the work of the lab's chief DNA scientist, Jeffrey Ban; review 40 cases that Mr. Ban has handled in recent years, along with a sample totaling 110 additional cases; and develop procedures to insulate the lab from any outside political pressures.

Among other cases, the lab twice botched the DNA testing in the prosecution of Earl Washington Jr., a man who was nearly executed for a crime he probably didn't commit. Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project and one of Washington's lawyers, correctly argues that Washington's case "raises very serious questions about the legitimacy of the capital justice system." It also raises questions about the legitimacy of less serious convictions that depend on crime lab evidence.

I'm surprised people are still talking about Laura Bush's jokes at the press dinner last weekend. Do people actually think she wrote them herself? Or that her interruption of her husband wasn't scripted?

She practiced those lines for days, coached by jokewriter Landon Parvin, who scripted them. Parvin used to write Ronald and Nancy Reagan's jokes, and George Bush Sr,s and Arnold Schwarzenegger's.

According to the first lady's press secretary, Susan Whitson:

Parvin sat down with the first lady some weeks ago to work out ideas, Whitson said. He then wrote a script and helped Bush with her timing and delivery over several days of rehearsals.

Does anyone really believe she's ever seen Desperate Housewives? She hasn't.

How's this for a tie-in between evangelical houses of worship and the politics of exclusion? The East Waynesville Baptist Church in North Carolina voted out its Democratic members.

Chan Chandler, pastor of East Waynesville, had been exhorting his congregation since October to support his political views or leave the church, said Selma Morris, a 30-year member of the church.

“He preached a sermon on abortion and homosexuality, then said if anyone there was planning on voting for John Kerry, they should leave,” she said. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard something like that. Ministers are supposed to bring people in.”

If true, the church could lose their tax exempt status:

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by TChris

This is an activist judge.

A federal judge on Thursday blocked a county school system from instituting a health curriculum that includes discussions of homosexuality.

U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams in Maryland evidently believes that teaching tolerance of homosexuality advances governmental support of religions that accept (or at least tolerate) homosexuality over religions that condemn it. But sexuality is not an intrinsically religious issue. Religious organizations take competing positions concerning sexual practices and education about sexuality in general, but religious organizations take any number of competing positions about all sorts of things. By Judge Williams' logic -- and maybe this is where it's leading -- a school could not teach evolution because it would be advancing a particular viewpoint to the detriment of a competing religious (albeit unscientific) viewpoint. Nor could it teach any fact of history (like the probable age of the planet) that is contradicted by a religious belief.

Tolerance (like intolerance) might be held as a religious value, but teaching tolerance neither advances religion nor intertwines government with a particular faith. Teaching tolerance of others, like teaching respect for the law, has social value independent of and apart from any corresponding religious value. Telling a school that it can't teach the societal benefit of mutual respect is a stunning display of judicial activism.

Microsoft has redeemed itself. In an about-face today, it has announced it will support Washington State's gay rights bill.

In a turnaround Friday, Microsoft Corp. chief executive Steve Ballmer said the company will support gay rights legislation. Ballmer made the announcement in an e-mail to employees two weeks after gay rights activists accused the company of withdrawing its support for an anti-discrimination bill in its home state after an evangelical pastor threatened to launch a national boycott.

"After looking at the question from all sides, I've concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda," Ballmer wrote.

Justice Anton Scalia, sounding like a Republican politician, reaffirmed his view that the Consitution is not a living, breathing document during a speech in Texas yesterday.

The Constitution, when it comes before a court, should mean exactly what it was intended to mean when it was adopted, nothing more, nothing less."

Scalia criticized the view that the Constitution is "a living document that reflects the values of the time."

Contrast this with the view of the late Justice William Brennan:

"The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and present needs."

Nat Hentoff has a new column in the Village Voice on lack of commitment to the constitutional principle of equal protection. He says that Democrats need to do more than object to Bush's extremist nominees.

Moreover, since George W. Bush is very likely to name the next chief justice of the Supreme Court as well as one or two other replacements before the end of his second term, it is crucial for leaders of the Democratic Party, including future presidential aspirants, to do more than obstruct Bush's nominees. The Democrats have to tell the country what their criteria are for the Supreme Court and other life-tenured federal judges—instead of mechanically objecting to nominees for being "out of the mainstream."

For those who want to pick the topics....this space is for you.