Bush announced his economic plan yesterday:

• Social Security will be privatized
• The tax code will be reformed
• He will cut the deficit in half

All this, he says, within happen within the next four years. Analysts say his promises likely are a mathematical impossibility:

What a difference 35 years makes. In 1969, John Sinclair was sentenced to ten years for two joints. Tuesday, Ann Arbor passed a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana and lower fines for third and subquent offenses relating to non-medical marijuana use--including offenses of using, buying, selling or possessing marijuana.

Ann Arbor residents passed a ballot proposal, to allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, yesterday. Proposal C will waive fines for medical marijuana patients and their caregivers who receive the recommendation of a physician or other qualified health professional to use marijuana for medical treatment.

The proposal also changes the current law in Ann Arbor to lower the fine for the third and all subsequent marijuana offenses for non medical users to $100. These fines include possession, control, use, giving away or selling of marijuana.

[link via Drug WarRant]

John Lennon wrote a song about John Sinclair, called "John Sinclair." Here are the lyrics.

Defense Tech has the details of a new, satellite-guided bomb, especially designed for urban combat. He says it could be used in the massive planned assault on Fallujah.

The AP asked, and the Pentagon responded. In an 800 word document, the military has provided details of eight cases of abuse of Guantanamo detainees. The ACLU thinks there is more than is being disclosed:

We're confident that there's more information out there that hasn't been released," said Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has obtained nearly 6,000 documents about procedures at U.S.-run prisons. He was in Guantanamo to observe pretrial hearings.

Air Force Lt. Col. Sharon Shaffer, who represents one of the charged prisoners, will be filing a petition in federal court to dismiss the charges against him, alleging abuse of her client.

Earlier news reports that incoming Senate Judiciary Chair Arlen Specter warned President Bush about extremist judicial nominations are false. Specter today laid to rest any hope that he would be a balanced, non-partisan leader on judicial nominations:

“Contrary to press accounts, I did not warn the President about anything and was very respectful of his Constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges.

“As the record shows, I have supported every one of President Bush’s nominees in the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor. I have never and would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue and, as the record shows, I have voted to confirm Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Kennedy and led the fight to confirm Justice Thomas.

by TChris

The judicial system is often described as adversarial, but this is extreme:

A former prosecutor was arrested for investigation of attempted murder after he shot and critically injured a lawyer he had been scheduled to face at a court hearing, authorities said.

The shooter, William Joice, now in private practice, was scheduled to appear at a contempt hearing to explain his failure to respond to his victim's discovery requests. The presiding judge expressed surprise, noting that he saw no ill-will between the lawyers when they were last together in court.

Oh come on, this is absurd. The media is jumping on the idea that Bush won because bloggers posted unreliable exit polling data in the afternoon. As Instapundit says:

THE BIG-MEDIA SPIN is that "Bloggers are to blame" for the leak of early exit-poll info. Hmm. Conspiracy theories aside, why blame the bloggers instead of the network folks who did the actual, you know, leaking?

If bloggers (is Drudge a blogger?) are to blame for publishing leaked information from news organizations, then why aren't news organizations equally to blame when they publish leaked information from government officials? Do they really want to go down that path?

And why let Zogby off the hook? Mainstream America is far more likely to listen to him than bloggers. As we and countless other blogs pointed out election day,

This doesn't mean you don't have to go vote. It's a poll, and we all know how reliable those can be. But things are looking good, so go, put it over the top for Kerry.

You know who you are. I just deleted 9 of B.B.'s comments--the first four stayed.

If you don't know if you're included in the group of chatterboxes who are limited to four comments a day, or why we are doing this, go here and here. If you still don't know, e-mail us.

The right will not take over this blog. It can visit and post in moderation, period.

Update: Forget the lectures on freedom of speech and censorship. TalkLeft is not the Government and this is a personal blog. Comments are allowed at my discretion and under the stated terms. No one has a right to comment on TalkLeft.

Deliberations in the Scott Peterson murder trial began yesterday afternoon and continue today. The jury is sequestered. Bad omen for the defense: The Judge gave the jury the option to decide on second degree murder in addition to first degree murder. The difference is that second degree murder doesn't require the prosecution to prove premeditation. Mark Geragos strongly objected to the charge, wanting all or nothing.

My view: There is no evidence of murder in this case, let alone a heat of passion type murder. There is no cause of death, no time of death, no murder weapon, no identifiable crime scene and no witnesses. It's a circumstantial case. The prosecution proved Scott was a liar and a cad, not a murderer. Geragos was right.

Juries like to compromise. The question now is whether some jurors who would have voted "not guilty" if murder one was their only option will now compromise on murder two to avoid a hung jury. A murder two conviction spares Peterson from the possiblity of the death penalty, but an acquittal was more likely when there was only the murder one charge. It will be a good ground for appeal if Peterson is convicted.

Our best wishes go out to Elizabeth Edwards who was diagnosed with breast cancer Wednesday, right after her husband's concession speech.

Elizabeth found a lump in her breast last week and held off going to the doctor until yesterday. A biopsy confirmed the cancer.

Mrs. Edwards is a trooper. She's strong and tough. We join her family in believing she will conquer this. Nonetheless, it's devastating news.

Mrs. Edwards is also a big internet user. When we find a place you can e-mail her good thoughts, we'll post it.

by TChris

Proponents of California's Proposition 66 -- a defeated ballot measure that would have reduced the harshness of California's "three strikes" law -- believe voters would have approved a less ambitious reform. (Background on the initiative is here.) Opponents of the measure succeeded in the usual way: by frightening voters.

"It worked -- the electorate was frightened to death,'' said Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who worked to pass the proposition.

Supported by California's powerful prison guard union, opponents relied on dubious claims that "hardened criminals" would receive "get-out-of-jail-free passes." There may still be room for a fix to assure that no further "third strikes" are based on nonviolent offenses.

San Mateo County District Attorney James Fox, a vocal opponent of Prop. 66, said he believed there "was sentiment out there to make some corrections to three strikes to eliminate the possibility of prosecutorial indiscretion."

The opportunity for reform has not been irrevocably lost. Stay tuned.

by TChris

A man who tried to buy an airline ticket with a credit card receipt protested the airline's refusal to issue the ticket by stripping naked, climbing a fence, running across the tarmac and climbing into a plane's wheel well as it was backing out of its gate. The man was arrested for trespassing after Los Angeles firefighters persuaded him to surrender.