Sometimes the Constitution makes strange bedfellows. As is the case with this book review of Fox News' Senior Judicial Analyst Andrew Napolitano's book, Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws, by Cato director Timothy Lynch, in of all places, the right-leaning American Spectator, and TalkLeft, a liberal, criminal defense-oriented site.

From Lynch's review:

NAPOLITANO HAS EARNED RESPECT from lawyers across the political spectrum because of his nonpartisan approach to legal and constitutional analysis. He has wisely brought the neutrality that everyone expects from a judge to his job as a commentator at the Fox Network and to his book about the Constitution. He calls 'em as he sees 'em. Thus, in some places he criticizes Janet Reno; in other places, John Ashcroft. And it is refreshing to see a judge defend not only the First Amendment, but the Second Amendment as well. Napolitano reminds the reader that we ought not to take a cafeteria approach to our constitutional liberties. Hear, hear.

Friday's Guardian reports on documents it has received that disclose torture of prisoners at Bagram and Kandahar in Afhanistan. The documents allege that prisoners were subjected to mock exeuctions, sexually humiliated and, in some cases, raped. "Trophy" photographs were taken of the abuse and destroyed. The Guardian obtained the documents from the ACLU, which received them pursuant to it's Freedom of Information Act request.

Photographs taken in southern Afghanistan showing US soldiers from the 22nd Infantry Battalion posing in mock executions of blindfolded and bound detainees, were purposely destroyed after the Abu Ghraib scandal to avoid "another public outrage", the documents show. Here's one case:

In the dossier, the Iraqi detainee claims that three US interrogators in civilian clothing dislocated his arms, stuck an unloaded gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, choked him with a rope until he lost consciousness, and beat him with a baseball bat.

"After they tied me up in the chair, then they dislocate my both arms. He asked to admit before I kill you then he beat again and again," the prisoner says in his statement. "He asked me: Are you going to report me? You have no evidence. Then he hit me very hard on my nose, and then he stepped on my nose until he broken and I started bleeding."

What excuse will the Administration come up with for its torture of Guantanamo detainee Omar Deghayes?

Mr Deghayes mother Zohra Zewawi, from Brighton, wept as lawyer Clive Stafford Smith described the injuries the detainee has allegedly suffered at the Cuban base.

"In March 2004 the Emergency Reaction Force in Camp Delta came into his cell," he said. "They brought their pepper spray and held him down. "They held both of his eyes open and sprayed it into his eyes and later took a towel soaked in pepper spray and rubbed it in his eyes. "Omar could not see from either eye for two weeks but he gradually got sight back in one eye.

"He's totally blind in the right eye. I can report that his right eye is all white and milky - he can't see out of it because he has been blinded by the US in Guantanamo."

Editor and Publisher spoke to Ari Fleisher about Jeff Gannon. Snippets:

Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was so concerned about Talon News reporter James Guckert's potential ties to the Republican Party that he stopped calling on him at press briefings for about a week in 2003, Fleischer told E&P today.

"I found out that he worked for a GOP site, and I didn't think it was my place to call on him because he worked for something that was related to the party," Fleischer said in a phone interview. "He had the editor call me and made the case that they were not related to the Republican Party. He said they used the GOP name for marketing purposes only."

No charges will be filed against Bill Cosby , according to the Montgomery County, PA District Attorney. Reason: insufficient evidence.

First read this New York Times article about what happened to the Thakur family -- and about how many similarly situated children are deported to countries they have never lived in because of a removal (deportation) order against their parents.

Check out the response by one conservative group, referring to the children as "collateral damage," and the response of government officials who are completely indifferent to the children's plight.

But Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors restricting immigration, calls such children "collateral damage of their parents' lawbreaking" and of a crackdown that is long overdue.

....From the government's perspective, said Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Thakur case was a success. "We did the part that we were responsible for," Mr. Van Pelt said. "We carried out the successful removal of a person who had violated the nation's laws and that the court had determined had to be removed from this country."

What planet do these people come from?

This is ominous. The The Ohio Senate voted 30-1 yesterday to approve legislation (SB 8) criminally sanctioning any person who operates a motor vehicle if trace levels of marijuana or non-psychoactive marijuana metabolites (compounds produced from the chemical changes of a drug in the body) are present in their blood or urine.

Why is it bad and ominous? Because traces of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana stays in your system for up to a month. So the law will apply to and punish sober drivers who may have smoked weeks or days ago. According to NORML's Paul Armentano (received by e-mail, no link yet):

There are two great profiles of lawyers in the New York Times this week. One is of Reid Weingarten, lawyer for World Com's Bernard Ebbers, now on trial for fraud.

The other article is my favorite of the two because it's about my good pal Joe Tacopina, currently representing, among others, Bernie Kerik.

Dennis Wayne Bagwell is scheduled to be executed tonight in Texas. He maintains his innocence. But he says he wants to die.

"My hope is: Hurry up and go through," Bagwell told the Associated Press Wednesday from a small visiting cage outside death row. "I've been waiting for this for over a year now." While maintaining his innocence and crediting his appeals attorneys for caring and trying to save him, "I'm just ready to get it over with," he said.

"If they offered me a life sentence, I wouldn't take it. I'm not walking through these hallways as an 80- or 90-year-old for something I didn't do."

In November, 2003, the Illinois legislature enacted a series of death penalty reforms. One called for the creation of a state committee to study problems in the system. The committee was supposed to issue a report three months ago. It didn't. Why? Because it met for the first time this Monday.

Current Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who has maintained the moratorium on the death penalty put in place by former Governor George Ryan, did not appoint his delegate to the Committee until last week. During the time that the Committee should have been constituted and preparing a report, the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty reports that flaws in the system continue:

The flaws include coerced confessions, crime-lab errors, prosecutors withholding key evidence from defense attorneys, using paid informants, seeking the death penalty for mentally ill defendants and pursuing capital punishment when guilt is not certain, the coalition said in releasing a new report.

College student Alex Koppelman, writing for the Daily Pennsylvanian does some digging and reports:

In November of 2003, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan explained the administration's decision to fight against monetary compensation for these soldiers, tortured while serving the United States, saying, "These resources are required for the urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq."

But, I have learned over the course of the past week, billions more dollars might be available had the Bush administration not decided to essentially legalize fraud during the rebuilding of Iraq. Through executive orders signed by President Bush, as well as orders released by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led former government of Iraq and decisions by the Department of Justice, it has become all but impossible for contractors who did not fulfill their contracts or even committed outright fraud during the rebuilding of Iraq to be held accountable. This story has yet to be fully reported by any other news outlet.

Great job, Alex.

Sabrina Harman standing over the corpse of detainee Manadel al-Jamadi. She is not one of the navy commandos charged with abusing him. Her court-martials trial on other charges is pending.

Let's not get so myopic over Jeff Gannon that we lose sight of the forest....The Associated Press has obtained documents showing that a ghost detainee (one whom the U.S. hid from the Red Cross and didn't put on it lists) died after being hung from the wrists - after interrogation by the CIA. They call it a "Palestinean hanging."