Human rights groups are calling for an investigation into the death of 81 year old minister Rev. Joseph Dantica, who died in federal custody while seeking asylum.

The Baptist minister fled Haiti to escape from danger and explained that he needed protection when he arrived at Miami International Airport on October 29, 2004. Instead of finding refuge, 81-year-old Dantica was put in an immigration jail by Department of Homeland Security officers. On November 3, 2004, the reverend died while in custody.

.....Eleanor Acer, Director of Human Rights First’s Asylum Program said, “The decision to detain this 81-year-old man was simply inhumane and his treatment should be investigated immediately.” Acer added, “The Department of Homeland Security – just like the INS before it – is totally mishandling the detention of asylum seekers. They have failed to make necessary reforms – and keep jailing ministers and other victims of persecution, instead of making fair decisions about the need for detention in each individual case.”

Homeland Security said the Reverend had a "pre-existing and fatal medical condition" and that the cause of death was pancreatitis. Dantico had traveled to Miami with his son Maxo after Rev. Dantico's church was burned down. When they arrived in Miami, officials separated them and refused to allow Dantico to keep his medicine. They wouldn't allow family members to visit him. Immigration officials may waive detention on humanitarian grounds. Why didn't they do so here?

Baghdad is a mess today as violence explodes throughout the city:

Insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol and a police station, assassinated four government employees and detonated several bombs. One American soldier was killed and nine were wounded during clashes that also left three Iraqi troops and a police officer dead.

Some of the heaviest violence came in Azamiyah, a largely Sunni Arab district of Baghdad where a day earlier U.S. troops raided the capital's main Sunni mosque. Shops were in flames, and a U.S. Humvee burned, with the body of what appeared to be its driver inside.

In other news, Germany and the U.S. have agreed to forgive 80% of Iraq's foreign debt. Does this oil rich country really need such a big reduction?

by TChris

The House ethics committee, perhaps desiring to appear even-handed, found that Chris Bell's ethics complaint against Tom DeLay contained "excessive" and "inflammatory" language. But that seems to be what it took to prod the moribund committee to do its job.

DeLay is crowing that the committee's finding "vindicates" him, and other Republicans are engaging in the same kind of "excessive" and "inflammatory" rhetoric for which Bell was admonished.

Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) absurdly termed the Bell complaint "one of the greatest abuses of the ethics process that the House of Representatives has ever seen" -- as if the ethics committee had not found grounds to admonish Mr. DeLay. Mr. DeLay himself insisted that he had simply been given a routine "mild warning" from the ethics committee. This transparent effort to rewrite history doesn't withstand scrutiny.

As the Washington Post points out, the committee's action against Bell can only have a chilling effect upon the willingness of other House members to complain of ethics violations -- and that may be exactly what the committee intended.

Meantime, the rules for the 109th Congress may be rewritten to make it even harder or riskier to bring ethics complaints. The last thing the House ethics process needs is less vigor.

Administration officials say they most likely will increase U.S. troops in Iraq by several thousand before the Iraqi elections in January.

Where are they going to come from? The plan now is to extend the extend the currently troops service by two months. Steve Gilliard notes:

What troops? Where are they going to come from? The brigades which can go have gone. I would be shocked if the draft doesn't get put on the table by March. Because this is reaching the bottom of the barrel. The Iranians are not worried about any invasion.

Update: It's a done deal . While education and environmental programs take a hit:

[The bill would increase education by less than 2 percent and environmental programs by 2.5 percent over last year, while nearly halving Bush's foreign aid request for countries that embrace democratic change. Such figures made the package a vivid illustration of how the politics of surging deficits has crimped domestic programs.]

... The Defense and Homeland Security departments received 7.4 percent boosts in earlier bills, not counting the tens of billions the Pentagon got for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

*************
They are flexing their muscle already. Conservative House Republicans today tacked on an anti-abortion provision to the spending bill.

The abortion language would bar federal, state and local agencies from withholding taxpayer money from health care providers that refuse to provide or pay for abortions or refuse to offer abortion counseling or referrals. Current federal law, aimed at protecting Roman Catholic doctors, provides such "conscience protection'' to doctors who do not want to undergo abortion training. The new language would expand that protection to all health care providers, including hospitals, doctors, clinics and insurers.

Sen. Barbara Boxer says she won't back down:

Good for Clinton. Check out this exchange between Bill Clinton and Peter Jennings last night on ABC...Paula Zahn has played it twice tonight already:

Clinton added that he doesn't care about what his detractors think about him. Jennings then said it seemed to him that Clinton did care.

The former president responded, "You don't want to go here, Peter. You don't want to go here. Not after what you people did and the way you, your network, what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people repeated every, little sleazy thing he leaked. No one has any idea what that's like."

"You never had to live in a time when people you knew and cared about were being indicted, carted off to jail, bankrupted, ruined, because they were Democrats and because they would not lie," he said. "So, I think we showed a lot of moral fiber to stand up to that. To stand up to these constant investigations, to this constant bodyguard of lies, this avalanche that was thrown at all of us. And, yes, I failed once. And I sure paid for it. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the American people. And I'm sorry for the embarrassment they performed."

This is not good news. The House and Senate negotiators are getting closer to inking a deal over a compromise version of the 9/11 Intelligence Reform bill. The House version stinks. And the House negotiators apparently are still insisting on keeping the worst provisions in their bill:

But the negotiations continued into the evening, with lawmakers and their staffs suggesting that the talks might still collapse over a small number of issues, including the insistence of House Republicans that a final bill contain law enforcement and immigration provisions that were not directly related to the commission's recommendations and that have been criticized by civil liberties organizations.

It makes us nervous that Joe Lieberman is taking a leading role. Senator Durbin, where are you? Here's the list of negotiators. If you live in the district of one of the Democratic Senate negotiators, call tomorrow. Tell them not to compromise unless the House law enforcement provisions are put out to pasture.

Skippy is in an apologetic mood. Very classy. Very Skippy.

Mad Kane has an ode to Alberto Gonzales.

Avedon Carol's Sideshow is offline, we're getting a message when clicking there that she's exceeded her bandwidth and been removed. When she comes back on, if she has a tip jar, send her a few bucks so it doesn't happen again.

Roger Ailes has news on former Tom Delay staffer, Tom Scanlon, and how he is now the subject of a Texas grand jury investigation.

Gov. Arnold is homeless in Sacramento. He's been staying at the Presidential suite at the Hyatt for $6,000 a month, paid for by campaign funds. No more. The law limits him using such funds to a year after election, and that's now over. So where does he go? What does he envision in a Governor's home?

"This is California, and we should have a really fantastic place where we can entertain world leaders," Mr. Schwarzenegger said in a recent interview, describing imaginary grounds with a fountain, a circular driveway and hedgerows.

"It should have a room for dining and dancing and a place for after dinner,'' he said. "We could invite world leaders like the chancellor of Germany or the prime minister of South Africa."

To be fair, the people of California probably wouldn't foot the bill, private donations take care of it. Still, with his state in such a fiscal crisis, perhaps he should keep these dreams to himself.

Troy Kunkle won a stay tonight from the U.S. Supreme Court. It's the second time he's received a stay, both times while in the execution chamber. Tonight's stay came 40 minutes after the scheduled start of his execution. At least they waited.

Kunkle has been dubbed by the press as the "Metallica" killer.

According to testimony at his capital murder trial, Kunkle was 18 when he fatally shot Stephen Horton, 31, then chanted: "Another day, another death, another sorrow, another breath" -- the refrain from the Metallica song "No Remorse" on an album called "Kill 'Em All." A pool of blood is depicted on the album cover....Prosecutors also remembered him at one point playing an air guitar in the courtroom at his trial as lawyers discussed whether the Metallica song could be admitted into evidence.

Like the stay granted to another Texas inmate this week, the Court found that the Texas court improperly prevented the jury from considering mitigating evidence.

"Plainly, Mr. Kunkle's sentencing hearing was marred by the same constitutional flaw," attorney Robert McGlasson said. "The jury heard evidence that could have persuaded it to spare Mr. Kunkle's life, but was limited to instructions that gave it no vehicle for expressing that conclusion."

Rolling Stone magazine's 500 best songs of all time has just been released. The judges included Joni Mitchell, Brian Wilson, Berry Gordy, Art Garfunkel,Ozzy Osbourne, Jakob Dylan and someone named Tweedey of a group called Wilco.

Little seems to have changed since the magazine's heyday. It affirms what needed no affirmation, that the 1960s was the pre-eminent decade of rock music, followed far behind by the 1970s.

Drumroll, please, here's the top song of all time:

Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone

Followed by:

The Rolling Stones, Satisfaction

Here's the rest of the top 10:

John Lennon's "Imagine," Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" and Aretha Franklin's "Respect." "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys, "Johnny B Goode" by Chuck Berry, the Beatles' "Hey Jude," Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Ray Charles' "What'd I Say."

Some I would have ranked higher than did the Judges:

21: Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run 1975
27: Derek and the Dominos, Layla 1971
28: Otis Redding, (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay 1968
32: Rolling Stones, Sympathy For The Devil 1968
38: The Rolling Stones, Gimme Shelter 1969
41: The Band, The Weight 1968
49: The Eagles, Hotel California 1977

Here's the rest of their top 25:

Uber-right family values chief James Dobson had this to say about Arlen Specter's approval for Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

We are disappointed by the announcement that Sen. Specter will become the Judiciary chairman; however, he will assume his new position on a very short leash. The senator will have ample opportunity in his new position to follow through on his pledged support for the values of the Bush administration, the Senate leadership and the majority of this nation's voters. As the outcry of the past two weeks demonstrates, neither the Republican Party nor the American people will tolerate obstructionist politics when it comes to the confirmation of judicial nominees.