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.

As we wrote last night, Ashcroft is expected to resign. But will Bush accept it? If he uses his health (pancreatic problems) as a reason, probably yes.

Speculation is rampant about Supreme Court replacements and whether Bush will use a recess appointment before January to replace the ailing Chief William Rehnquist.

Some names being bandied about: Miguel Estrada; former Solicitor General Ted Olsen; Larry Thompson; even John Ashcroft.

Thompson's name is also being mentioned as a replacement for Attorney General. He served as Deputy Attorney General under Ashcroft and resigned last year. He gets our vote of confidence for Attorney General. He's very close to Clarence Thomas though, so I wouldn't be suprised to see him on the Supreme Court.

Ann Coulter says Colorado voters "traded voter registrations for crack cocaine." But why is she so angry at Karl Rove? Did he diss her somehow?

Were Colorado voters really swayed by moral values? Perhaps, but a breakdown of the Bush/Kerry numbers by county show additional trends. I've broken down the vote and provided some non-expert analysis over at 5280.

Some Boulder votes are still outstanding but with most counted, 70% went for Kerry. In Denver and Pitkin (home to Aspen), 69% went to Kerry. Kerry's biggest win was in San Miguel county (home to Telluride) where he got 72% of the vote.

My non-expert analysis:

I’d say the densely populated and higher-end resort towns went for Kerry, as did Boulder with its highly educated voters. The rural, suburban, lower-economic and military-populated counties went for Bush.

Colorado is overwhelmingly Christian state-wide, so I'll leave it to the experts to figure out how that factored in.

Bump and Update: Looks like a lock for Harry Reid. He says he has the 30 votes and Chris Dodd is backing him.

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Original Post: 10/3/04 3:35 pm

With yesterday's defeat of Tom Daschle's re-election bid, it's not too early to begin asking who will replace him as minority leader of the Senate. Some names we've seen around: Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.); Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.).

TalkLeft supports Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, primarily on his record, yet also because he comes from a solidly Democratic state and Republicans won't be able to successfully target him for removal the way they did Daschle.

Dick Durbin is one of the Senate's strongest advocates for civil liberties and fighters against torture and Pentagon abuses in Congress. He is a strong critic of the Patriot Act. He was one of the Senate conferees on the 9/11 Intelligence Reform bill and didn't cave to the House bill with its provisions for more law enforcement powers and death penalty eligible offenses. He supports medical marijuana and is a harsh critic of John Ashcroft. He opposedSen. Diane Feinstein's anti-gang bill. He enjoyed Fahrenheit 9/11.

Hungary announced Wednesday that it will withdraw its troops from Iraq by March of 2005. Hungary now joins Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Spain.

More news in Hungary today: It ended its military draft for the first time in 136 years, and it offered to send its troops to a different military mission if needed.

So much for thoughts that a Bush re-election might increase support from our allies.

What about Poland? As previously announced, it will begin withdrawing its troops in January.

President Bush is failing miserably to quell violence in Iraq. Let's not let election news block out important news about the deteriorating situation there, like this article today informing that a second American has been kidnapped in Iraq this week. In addition to the news of the kidnapping of a Lebanese-American businessman, the article mentions that a videotape surfaced today showing three more beheadings. And on Fallujah, it reports:

Al-Jazeera television broadcast a threat by an unspecified armed group to strike oil installations and government buildings if the Americans launch an all-out assault on Fallujah. The report was accompanied by a videotape showing about 20 armed men brandishing various weapons including a truck-mounted machine gun.

Human Rights Watch has a new report that charges the U.S. with failing to preserve critical evidence necessary for the trial of Saddam Hussein:

U.S.-led forces in Iraq failed to safeguard official documents belonging to Saddam Hussein's regime and protect mass graves of victims, a human rights watchdog charged Thursday, saying that could affect the trials of the former Iraqi dictator and his colleagues.

Coalition forces failed to stop people stealing thousands of official documents in the months after the March 2003 invasion, Human Rights Watch says in a report, ''Iraq: The State of the Evidence.'' The U.S.-led troops also failed to stop people from damaging some of the more than 250 mass graves in their search for the remains of relatives, the report said.

Update: One thing to keep in mind. It's traditional for cabinet members to submit their resignations after an election. Whether or not its accepted is another matter. In Ashcroft's case, the party faithful love him for agreeably serving as Administration whipping post. But, his name is so closely aligned with the Patriot Act, that others may feel Bush has a better chance of shoving Patriot Act II down our throats if he's gone.

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Drudge is reporting that Attorney General John Ashcroft will submit his resignation to Bush within a few days. If Rudy Giuliani is his replacement, I seriously will consider hanging it up. Enough is enough. Clarence Thomas as Chief Justice and Rudy as Attorney General....what's the point?

And don't say we didn't warn you.

by TChris

Sometimes a prosecution witness, sensing that the case against the accused has gone south, decides to help the prosecutor with a little extra testimony, something calculated to turn the jury against the accused. Something like this, as described by Hennepin County, Minnesota District Court Judge Charles A. Porter Jr.:

It was clear from her preparation as a witness, as well as from her participation in the investigation, that Sgt. Murphy knew when she testified...that the case had been going well for the defense and that her testimony was going to be crucial in solidifying this prosecution for the State. Nevertheless, she chose to interject into this case a remark highlighting the existence of a prior record for the Defendant, which was totally inadmissible, had been so ruled by this Court, and could only lead to the declaration of a mistrial once it was said...

This is usually a win-win tactic for the witness. If the judge doesn't grant the mistrial, the inadmissible evidence may prop up a weak case and produce a guilty verdict. If the judge grants the mistrial, the prosecution gets out from under a bad trial and gains time to build a better case.

Not this time. In a blistering order, Judge Porter held that the government witness provoked the mistrial by attempting to thwart the accused's right to a fair trial. By causing a manifest injustice that forced the trial to end, the state forfeited its right to try the accused again. Judge Porter's courageous decision reminds the prosecution that the right to a fair trial trumps the government's desire to punish any particular defendant.