Four special ops soldiers have been disciplined for using taser stun guns on Iraqi Prisoners. This information is coming to light as a result of the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act requests. Background is here. The ACLU press release is here.

As we wrote here, this week's revision of New York's draconian Rockefeller drug laws is hardly something to cheer about. Today's New York Times provides some more damning criticism:

Indeed, to some advocates, the new bill is not even half a loaf, but more like a heel of bread, which will leave many prisoners and their families with dashed hopes.

"The important message to get out is that the laws are virtually as harsh as ever," said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a prison watchdog group. For example, he noted, judges must still sentence drug offenders to prison, rather than to alternatives like drug treatment.

Translated into real numbers, the changes in the law mean this: Approximately 446 offenders may get out early....of the more than 15,000 that were sentenced under the laws.

The United Church of Christ in Cleveland prepared some television ads welcoming members of the gay community as part of the Advent season. All three major networks refused to air them. NBC and CBS found them too controversial or amounted to advocacy.

For the season of Advent, the United Church of Christ had planned a nationwide television ad campaign extending an open welcome to all people, especially gays and lesbians. The message was simple: "Jesus didn't turn people away; neither do we, the United Church of Christ." The visuals dramatized people, including two men holding hands, being turned away by bouncers at the door of a church.

CBS said the ads promoted gay marriage. The ad made no mention of gay marriage. Does Christianity have to be evangelical and conservative to be aired mainstream?

Right-wing/fundamentalist Christianity has so dominated the media that many Americans don't believe liberal/progressive Christianity even exists. The fundamentalist message is the de facto Christian message because such groups have the money to not only buy airtime but to have their own shows. And every time Jerry Falwell blames gays or feminists for society's ills, he shows up on the news.

Think about this "no advocacy" policy. Where was it when the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy put anti-drug ads on the Superbowl? Military recruitment ads during wartime--is that not an endorsement of war? A federal court in Massachussets last week said the transit authority could not refuse to carry ads advocating reform of the drug laws.

Some independent stations are airing the ads anyway. Good for them.

The New York Times has some serious questions about Bush's nomination of Bernie Kerik for Homeland Security Secretary:

A homeland security secretary should be above politics and respectful of civil liberties. But when he stumped for President Bush this year, Mr. Kerik engaged in fearmongering. He told The New York Daily News that he was worried about another terrorist attack and that "if you put Senator Kerry in the White House, I think you are going to see that happen." And he was quoted in Newsday as saying this about opponents of the Iraq war: "Political criticism is our enemies' best friend."

There are chapters of Mr. Kerik's career that are worthy of particular scrutiny. In the summer of 2003, he spent several months in Iraq training police officers. But his time there appears to have been cut short, right around the time of some serious terrorist attacks, and the state of the force since his departure has been bleak. Given the relevance of that work to his new duties, it would be instructive to know what, if anything, went wrong.

And what exactly did Kerik due when he worked for Giuliani-Kerik L.L.C.?

Mr. Kerik should offer assurances that former clients and colleagues will not get preferential treatment. He has had difficulty with ethical lines in the past. In 2002, he paid a fine for using a police sergeant and two detectives to research his autobiography.

How about Kerik's service on the board of Taser International, maker of the stun-gun that has killed 70 people,according to a report by Amnesty International?

Last, but not least, is his limited experience on the national level, with Congress or Washington insiders. Why did Bush pick Kerik over, say, Asa Hutchinson, who reportedly is so offended he didn't get the job he's leaving and going back to Arkansas, to prepare for a 2006 gubernatorial run?

Here are the text of Howard Dean's remarks Wednesday on the future of the Democratic Party. Dean wants to be Chair of the DNC. I'm in favor of Dean for the job, I think he'd be great. I don't want to see a Democratic leader who tries to co-opt the value debate - I'm sick to death of moderates who think the way to win is to be more like Republicans. This is the perfect job for Dean and his passion. Some of his comments today :

We cannot win by being "Republican-lite." We've tried it; it doesn't work. The question is not whether we move left or right. It's not about our direction. What we need to start focusing on... is the destination.

The destination of the Democratic Party requires that it be financially viable, able to raise money not only from big donors but small contributors, not only through dinners and telephone solicitations and direct mail, but also through the Internet and person-to-person outreach.

The destination of the Democratic Party means making it a party that can communicate with its supporters and with all Americans. Politics is at its best when we create and inspire a sense of community... We must use all of the power and potential of technology as part of an aggressive outreach to meet and include voters, to work with the state parties, and to influence media coverage.

The way we will rebuild the Democratic Party is not from consultants down, but from the ground up....Now we need to build on our successes while transforming the Democratic Party into a grassroots organization that can win in 50 states....We cannot be a Party that seeks the presidency by running an 18-state campaign. We cannot be a party that cedes a single state, a single District, a single precinct, nor should we cede a single voter. We're going to lift our Party up... And we're going to take this country back for the people who built it.

This is your Civil Rights Commission on acid. The liberals in charge have departed and Bush appointed conservative Republicans to take their place. .

Over the past three years, Mary Frances Berry and Cruz Reynoso presided over U.S. Civil Rights Commission meetings that were so frigid that members would sometimes snap at one another or sit back and stare coldly. But after Berry, the liberal chairman, who is black, and Reynoso, the liberal vice chairman, who is Latino, stepped down Tuesday, the composition of the commission changed. President Bush appointed a black Republican, Gerald A. Reynolds, to replace Berry as chairman, and another black Republican, Ashley L. Taylor, to replace Reynoso as a member. Abigail Thernstrom, an independent who is conservative and white, became the new vice chairman.

What was a 5 to 3 liberal majority is now a 6 to 2 conservative majority.

New Orleans school officials bring zero tolerance to a new and absurd level this week as a 4th grader was suspended for bringing "jello shots" to school--even though it has not been determined they contain alcohol.

The girl told the principal that her mother, who works in a bar, makes alcoholic shots at home and sells them at work. The fourth-grader said her mother had instructed her to take the shots to school and sell them, three for $1, to make some money for Christmas, Nowakowski said. The gelatin was turned over to the sheriff's department for testing to see if it contained alcohol.

The girl was suspended for violating school rules against possessing or trying to distribute a "lookalike," or something that appears to contain drugs or alcohol. Under the lookalike rule, the girl's suspension will stand no matter what the sheriff's department finds.

"The school system's position is, it doesn't matter if it had alcohol in it or not," Nowakowski said.

The school also insists on testing the 8 year olds' hair for signs of drug use.

In televised reports, [mother] Adrian Noble denied there was alcohol in the Jell-O and complained about the system's punishment of her daughter. Under the drug policy, the girl can return to school Friday if she completes an assessment program, undergoes counseling and submits to a hair test to make sure she is drug-free, Nowakowski said.

The final vote was 89 - 2. Opposing the bill were Sen. Robert Byrd (D-VA) and James Inhofe (R-OK), undoubtedly for different reasons. Byrd got it right:

Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, said consideration of the 615-page bill was rushed and lawmakers shouldn't have voted on something ``stampeded'' to the floor.

``We cower like whipped dogs in the face of political pressure,'' he said before the vote. Byrd and Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma voted against the bill.

You would think Congress learned their lesson with the Patriot Act. Apparently not. Black mark for Congress today.

by TChris

President Bush this morning offered an "unusually sober" (and unusually truthful) assessment of the war in Iraq: "acknowledging that the insurgency is getting worse, that newly trained Iraqi soldiers are fighting poorly at times and that the war's casualties are taking a heavy toll on military families." Where was that candor in the months leading up to the election? Has the President finally decided to read the morning papers?

Perhaps the President's belated recognition of reality was necessary given that -- with good reason -- the troops are complaining.

by TChris

A series of United Nations seminars entitled "Unlearning Intolerance" teach an important message: people should not be judged by their membership in a particular religion. The focus six months ago was on anti-Semitism. Yesterday's forum confronted Islamophobia.

[Secretary-General Kofi Annan] stressed that Islam "should not be judged by the acts of extremists who deliberately target and kill civilians."

Seyyed Hussein Nasr, professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, said Islamophobia was a question not only of fear but also of hatred -- often by people who know little about the religion.

Equally important was the message of R. Scott Appleby, director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame:

In the United States, Appleby said, patriotism should require a willingness to recognize differences and honest self-criticism, not condescension towards people cast as "the other."

by TChris

The ACLU has filed a federal lawsuit challenging California's Proposition 69, which will eventually require all Californians arrested for a felony (whether or not convicted) to furnish a DNA sample.

"Proposition 69 is an extraordinary assault on the privacy and security of all Californians," said Maya Harris, an ACLU attorney and director of the Racial Justice Project. "It turns the presumption of innocence on its head."

In light of the genetic information revealed by DNA, the lawsuit contends that the collection of DNA from presumptively innocent people (unlike a mug shot or fingerprint) constitutes an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. (TalkLeft last wrote about the issue here.)

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