Bump and update: President Bush has signed the legislation, CNN reports at 1:30 a.m, ET. Guess he stayed up late. Have the papers ordering the reinsertion of the feeding tube already reached a federal judge in Florida? Was the case randomly assigned? Will the judge sign the order tonight? Or will Terri's husband's lawyer run to the Florida Supreme Court to have the federal law declared unconsitutional before a federal court gets to rule?

Update: Michael Schiavo on Larry King: The parents are out for Terri's money. He says Terri's father wanted to know "Where's my money?" in the hospital years ago. He also says the parents, with the aid of right wing groups, offered him $700k to walk away 2 years ago. And that Terri was bulimic and would eat like a horse when he was around, but bulimia, he's since learned, is a secretive disease. The parents accused him of trying to strangle her. Why? Because the father wants the money and control. The brother has seen her a handful of times in ten years, he only got interested when the media came around. Schiavo says the brother is lying. His girlfriend has done more for Terri than her own mother. He loves his wife. This is between Terri and himself. [Then why is he going on national tv?] So much dirty laundry on all sides, I really don't want to hear any of it.

Larry King sounded somewhat incredulous at Schiavo's explanation for how Terri, then 25, said to her husband after watching a tv show, I don't want a feeding tube inserted in me. Assuming this is a true statement, I can't help but wonder whether that just a visceral reaction, or a thoguht-out decision.

Schiavo's lawyer says Terri is not brain-dead, she just has no cognitive functioning and she never will.

If it seems like I'm waffling, I'm not. I have always doubted the husband's story. But on a legal level, Congress has no business intervening. Congress could care less about Terri Schiavo. They saw an opportunity to score a goalpoint for their "culture of life" and they ran with it. Shiavo and the Schindler families are being used. The cable news channels, realizing it is the voyeuristic case of the moment, pumps it 24/7. It's like a car accident, repulsive, but no one seems to be changing the channel.

***************
Original Post

The Guardian has a new report on the abysmal state of U.S. prison policy in Afghanistan:

Washington likes to hold up Afghanistan as an exemplar of how a rogue regime can be replaced by democracy. Meanwhile, human-rights activists and Afghan politicians have accused the US military of placing Afghanistan at the hub of a global system of detention centres where prisoners are held incommunicado and allegedly subjected to torture. The secrecy surrounding them prevents any real independent investigation of the allegations. "The detention system in Afghanistan exists entirely outside international norms, but it is only part of a far larger and more sinister jail network that we are only now beginning to understand," Michael Posner, director of the US legal watchdog Human Rights First, told us.

The Guardian reporters traveled to Afhanistan and report first-hand. They also interviewed many former prisoner and Afghan officials:

Denver's Rocky Mountain News had an editorial yesterday calling for journalistic protection for bloggers.

Count us among the growing legions who embrace the notion that Web bloggers deserve the same shield-law protections accorded to other journalists.

The News finds the Apple case ominous:

The problems here are self-evident. First, of course, is that companies could hang the "trade secret" label on almost any material they didn't want published, including, for example, internal memos detailing everything from product flaws to accounting fraud. The media's responsibility is to publish accurate information of broad public interest, not protect the business interests of private corporations.

Second is [Judge] Kleinberg's suggestion that he is the best judge of what constitutes legitimate news. That is simply not true. In a free country, news is what consumers and journalists say it is.

31 states and the District of Columbia have journalistic shield laws that arguably cover bloggers. The feds, and Colorado, do not:

Bob Dylan's new tour opened in Seattle last week. Here's the schedule. Playing with him are Merle Haggard and the Strangers and Amos Lee.

The last time I saw Dylan play was in Chicago, in November, 2002. It was a spur of the moment thing, I was at a criminal defense lawyer's conference, and 15 of us got last minute tickets from a scalper and my seat was in the 2nd row, center. It was a good show, particularly because I could see that Dylan was enjoying himself.

He's playing Denver on March 28. This time, I'd like to interview him for TalkLeft. It's probably a pipe dream, but you never know. I remember that in 1998, I was doing one of many Rivera Live shows on CNBC about Ken Starr and the Clinton investigation. This night, we were talking about Starr's promised report. Lanny Davis and Salon's David Talbot were on too. (CNBC News Transcripts April 9, 1998, available on Lexis.com.)

• Lanny opined, "Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Armey and Mr. DeLay have already characterized the report as going to do damage on the president. They've already politicized the document. Mr. Starr, I believe, is a diminished asset as a credible, objective investigator of the truth, and therefore, I believe that report will have diminished value."

The new mob case, involving two former police detectives charged with conducting multiple hits for the mob, is shaping up to have the stuff of a real prime-time drama. Prime-time players are their celebrity lawyers, Ed Hayes and Bruce Cutler.

For the Defense: In addition to being top lawyers, Hayes and Cutler are good friends and down-to-earth street fighters.

• Ed Hayes: Represents Stephen Caracappa. Lawyer turned book agent (brought out Bill Bratton book) and Court TV anchor (shared Friday "Closing Arguments" hosting with Rikki Klieman), was executor of Andy Warhol estate; played himself in the movie "Goodfellas", a celebrity criminal and media lawyer who represents Robert DeNiro, and was the inspiration for a defense lawyer in the Tom Wolfe novel, "Bonfire of Vanities."

• Bruce Cutler: Represents Louis Eppolito. Former lawyer for John Gotti, and numerous others. Epitome of the word "mouthpiece." Profile here.

Key Snitch: Burton Kaplan, A 71 year old former heroin smuggler and garmental, doing a federal sentence that will keep him in prison for life. Think, Hyman Roth in Godfather II. He was stand-up, until he got to prison.

The New York Times Sunday Magazine has an interview with Jeff Gannon. This exchange told me all I needed to know, I didn't bother with the rest.

Scott McClellan, the press secretary to President Bush, called on you and allowed you to ask questions on a nearly daily basis. What, exactly, is your relationship with him?

I was just another guy in the press room. Did I try to curry favor with him? Sure. When he got married, I left a wedding card for him in the press office. People are saying this proves there is some link. But as Einstein said, "Sometimes a wedding card is just a wedding card.''

You mean like "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar''? That wasn't Einstein. That was Freud.

Oh, Freud. O.K. I got my old Jewish men confused.

Ok, I looked at one more snippet. Gannon looks to the future and says:

Have we just become immune to the injustice of Bush's war on Iraq? In Europe, tens of thousands turned out to protest today on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. In London alone, 45,000 protested as they marched from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square.

Consider all that the Administration has done in the name of bringing freedom to Iraq:

• Detained hundreds of persons at Guantanamo for over two years without criminal charges or access to lawyers
• Engaged in interrogation techniques the Geneva Convention and civilized world deem to be torture
• Tortured and killed prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Bagram
• Shipped detainees to countries that practice torture and hid them from the Red Cross
• Sustained a loss of life of 1,500 plus American troops and thousands of Iraqi civilians.
• Spent billions of dollars when our economy at home is suffering and social security may topple from the deficit.

Consider that Osama bin Laden is still at large.

How much longer will the American people remain complacent about the unjust war being waged in their name?

Update: Politics in the Zeros has pictures and podcasts from the March 19 protests in L.A.

The latest Newsweek poll shows almost 60% of Americans favor keeping the filibuster.

Neutering the filibuster would be unpopular with Americans, nearly six in ten (57 percent) of whom would disapprove. Even one-third (33 percent) of Republicans say they would object to such a move.

[link via Buzzflash.]

The patrons of the Woody Creek Tavern outside of Aspen have been finding new things to occupy them since Hunter Thompson's passing. One idea they've come up with: Turn Yourself In Day.

In the spirit of worthy projects, my friend Coyote called the other morning with a scheme to honor the fallen. He called it "Turn Yourself in Day" and it went something like this. On a specific day and time every pot-smoker in America would head down to the nearest police station and turn him or herself in (signed, notarized confession optional). Admitted drug felons all, these umpteen millions of people would create an unprecedented logjam. Forget the obvious cop-shops and municipal buildings - every aspect of American civilization and culture would come to a screeching halt because of the vast numbers of quiet pot-smokers. Hospitals, schools, banks and head shops would shut down for lack of employees, armies would stop marching, racers would stop running. Businesses would have no customers, no employees. The Republican nightmare come true, their worst fears confirmed.

It might even reach beyond America:

The House and Senate have reached a compromise on Terri Schiavo. The new legislation will allow her case to be reviewed by the federal courts. It could be passed at a special session tomorrow. It then goes to President Bush for signature.

Bottom line: Assuming the legislation becomes law, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube will be reinserted pending the outcome of federal review.

The measure would effectively take Schiavo's fate out of Florida state courts, where judges ordered the feeding tube removed on Friday, and allow Schiavo's parents to take their case to a federal judge. DeLay said that would likely mean restoration of the feeding tube "for as long as this appeal endures."

by TChris

The Bush administration has no business disguising propaganda as news, but publicity surrounding the administration's effort to manipulate local news coverage may have sent a wake up call to local broadcasters.

With the abundance of independent sources for video feed -- all three major networks, CNN and the Associated Press have wire services that supply national news to local stations -- there is no excuse for airing government-sponsored news stories, television officials said.

According to Jim Morris, news director at WABI in Bangor, the lack of reporters and resources at small stations is a "lame excuse for airing government-sponsored news packages" -- particulary when the station neglects to inform the viewer that the piece was created by the government, not by the station's news department.

Late Thursday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Martha Stewart can be resentenced because the guidelines are only advisory, not binding, since the Booker and FanFan cases.

Martha's lawyers may seek to end her period of house arrest, asking that she be allowed to do community service or probation instead. The Judge can re-impose the same sentence or a different one.

The ruling is a routine one that has been granted by the appeals court in all cases in which the defendant was sentenced before January 1, 2005, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. [hat tip Sentencing Law and Policy.]