Are Bush's advisors losing it? They let Bush go on national tv yesterday and say that the bulge viewable on his back during the debate was from a poorly made shirt.

"I don't know what that is," Mr. Bush said. "I mean, it is — I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."

As we reported on October 10, his tailor has spoken and said the bulge was a pucker that came from the jacket's back seam.

Georges de Paris, who made the suit worn by Bush, said the bulge was nothing more than a pucker along the jacket's back seam, accentuated when the president crossed his arms and leaned forward.

Earth to Bush: The back seam of a jacket is not the same thing as a shirt.

Dominique Green became the 17th Texas inmate to be executed tonight. The victim's family opposed the execution:

In a rare face-to-face session in a Texas prison between a death row inmate and a relative of a murder victim, Andre Lastrapes-Luckett met for 90 minutes Monday with the man convicted of killing his father.

"Texas is going to put a righteous person to die like an animal, putting him on a table, strapping him up, putting those needles in his arms, putting him to sleep," Lastrapes-Luckett said. "We're not dogs. We're human beings just like everybody else. He's a human being, just like me, just like you."

The execution lasted nine minutes.

Green gasped slightly a couple of times as the lethal drugs took effect and was pronounced dead nine minutes late, at 7:59 p.m.

Who is Troy Kell and why should he be saved? TalkLeft reader Grace Lewis provides this answer:

Troy Kell began paying a steep price for his youthful rage at 18 in a Nevada desert with a life sentence without parole. He was put away with his life oscillating between the banal and the bizarre, existing in a world of repression and violence and racism, a world of killers, rapists, robbers, sexual predators. He continued into this nightmarish existence and, several years down the road, he kills another prisoner, Mr. Lonnie Blackmon, with all the hatred he can bestow.

Both of these prisoners thrown together under these bizarre conditions. - all of the ingredients for a psychic stew designed to deteriorate and erode one's humanity, designed by the State with full knowledge of its effects. Mr. Blackmon certainly deserved better, and through his death we the Citizens can get a good look at what it is like on the inside. His death was not in vain.

Mr. Kell, now backed into a death row corner, the harshest punishment short of death, with solitary confinement, around-the-clock lock-in, no-contact visits, no prison jobs, no educational programs by which to grow, psychiatric treatment facilities designed only to drug you into a coma. He has suffered and will continue to suffer until the day he too shall die...that is certain, and that should be enough. He should not be put to death.

No one should be put to death. As this Sydney Morning Herald editorial stated the other day:

No society grows from its inhumanity; it just diminishes.

Say hello to Dr. Vino and the Bush-Kerry 2004 election guide for wine lovers. There's even an unscientific poll as to which candidate you think would be better for wine enthusiasts.

As for picking a wine to go with their public image, Dr. Vino says Bush is a big, bold Aussie shiraz while Kerry is a subtle white Burgundy. He ranks those a tie.

To Right wing repetitive commenters on TalkLeft (you know who you are, and if you're not sure, ask): You're limited to four comments a day --additional ones will be deleted.

Check out the posting policy at the conservative site RedState--and see how liberal we are for granting four a day.

This site is explicitly meant to serve as a conservative and Republican community. Postings, comments, etc., contrary to this purpose fall under the rubric of "disruptive behavior" and will result in banning. You may or may not get a warning -- it depends on how harried the moderators are. If you are coming from a non-conservative, non-Republican context, you are still welcome here, but you must respect the site's stated purpose.

The posting rules benefit everyone. By promoting civility even in disagreement, they help the site avoid the pitfalls of notorious dens of iniquity like....every unmoderated Usenet thread that has ever existed.

If you missed our prior announcement of the new limits or the reasons for it, you can read them here and here.

Also, off-topic comments are becoming a problem. We consider them an attempt to hijack the thread and will be deleting them.

by TChris

Judges need to send the message that they take their jobs seriously, and they need to maintain the appearance of neutrality. So what's up with this?

A judge welcomed a former fugitive back to her courtroom with balloons, streamers and a cake before sentencing him to life in prison. "You just made my day when I heard you had finally come home," Judge Faith Johnson told Billy Wayne Williams, who had been convicted in absentia of aggravated assault after he disappeared a year ago. "We're so excited to see you, we're throwing a party for you."

Before he was brought into the courtroom on Monday, the judge directed staff members as they placed balloons and streamers around the courtroom. A colorful cake was decorated with his name and one candle to signify the year he spent on the lam.

A life sentence is nothing to joke about. With good reason, the defendant was not amused.

"It seems like everyone wants to have a party, and it's fun for you people, but not for me," Williams told reporters as he was led away in handcuffs.

Fortunately, there are some thoughtful individuals in Texas who recognize inappropriate judicial behavior. One of them is Seana Willing, executive director of the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, who found the incident troubling.

"It's the kind of thing I look at and scratch my head and wonder, `What was she thinking?'" Willing said. She questioned whether the party violated standards of decorum and impartiality. "The whole purpose of it was to mock him, to make him feel bad. I guess she could have put him in the stockade, in the pillory, in front of the town square and let people mock him," Willing said.

Maybe it's not good to give Judge Johnson any new ideas.

Our economy is not in good shape. At least not according to consumers. Consumer confidence is at a seven year month low. What's behind the drop?

• soaring energy prices
• relentless violence in Iraq
• the increasingly bitter end of the presidential election campaign
• record oil prices
• steep health care costs
• concerns over job growth

Hope this makes it into a Kerry campaign ad.

[Ed. edited from "seven year" to "seven month." Thanks to the commenters who pointed out the error and to Skippy who also wrote on the story.]

What a hypocrite. Yesterday in Colorado Bush stumped for Marilyn Musgrave, the Republican Congresswoman primarily responsible for the failed Gay Marriage Amendment. Today on Good Morning America he said he's okay with civil unions and with states making their own choices on marriage discrimination. Brutal Hugs has more.

You heard it here first. Lawyer and uber-legal analyst Mickey Sherman is in the courtroom for the Scott Peterson trial. The courtroom has Wi-Fi, so we are insta-messgaing. Here's what's going on. The defense has rested. Scott Peterson did not testify in his own defense.

Talkleft: Is Geragos making any inroads?
MS: I think he did well with his client's parents. They presented themselves as very nice people and the jury had to feel for them for this ordeal.
Talkleft: But what did they add as far as evidence?
MS: It allowed the jury to explain away some of the items and facts attendant to his arrest near the golf course.
Talkleft: Is the courtroom packed? How many legal analysts vs. regular media?
MS: Courtroom is packed and there is a long line of standby folks outside. The media is well settled in and there are only a few people like me here---those lawyer/analysts who are in some fashion connected to a network.
MS: Petersen family and friends take up first two rows on one side and a bit more---13 seats.
MS: Everyone just coming back in...waiting for the jury.
Talkleft: Who's up for today?
MS: dunno just yet. Supposedly 2 1/2 witnesses.
Talkleft: What's a half of witness?
MS: a dwarf
MS: Judge announcing an update. After Officer Hicks today---THE DEFENSE WILL REST!!!!!
MS: Starting tomorrow at 12:30 pm the state will put on their rebuttal case with 8 witnesses.
MS: The jury and alternates will be sequestered during deliberation "BECAUSE OF SOMETHING THAT WAS BROUGHT TO THE COURT'S ATTENTION." Final Arguments will be next Monday and Tuesday.

Oh, to live in a big swing state. The Kerry campaign just sent out this announcement:

Madison, WI – The Kerry-Edwards campaign announced today that rock legend Bruce Springsteen will hit the campaign trail for the Kerry-Edwards ticket in the closing days of the 2004 campaign.

Springsteen will join John Kerry at campaign rallies in Madison, WI, and Columbus, OH, on Thursday, October 28th, and join the Democratic nominee for an election-eve rally in Cleveland, OH, on November 1st.

Springsteen is expected to perform one or two songs. Further details on the appearances will be released in the coming days.

Voter registration is no longer the issue. It's all about getting out the vote. The Boss will be great for that. Bring him on.

Update: Bon Jovi too.

How does a blogger get on the campaign press bus?

Lawyer Lynne Stewart took the stand yesterday in her terrorism-related trial.

Her testimony, on the first day of the defense presentation of its case, brought new electricity to a long trial that is examining the limits of what lawyers can do to represent terrorists, in one of the most ambitious terror cases brought by the Justice Department of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

On the stand, Ms. Stewart, 65, looked much like the public school librarian she once was, wearing her gray hair in a proper bowl cut and dressed in a conservative black and brown dress and orthopedic lace-up shoes. But, in a presentation full of contrasts, she described an approach to the law that had led her to the no-holds-barred defense of unpopular, unsavory and dangerously violent clients.

Stewart represents the militant and blind Islamic cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted of conspiracy in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. She is charged with helping him communicate with the Egyptian-based Islamic Group from prison. The evidence against her is her jailhouse and telephone conversations with her client, secretly recorded by the Government. You can read the details of her case here.

She is being represented by legendary lawyer and American University Law School dean Michael Tigar, who defended Terry Nichols in the Oklahoma City Bombing trial.

The Bush Administration is busy re-writing policy on rights to be accorded prisoners apprehended in Iraq:

A new legal opinion by the Bush administration has concluded for the first time that some non-Iraqi prisoners captured by American forces in Iraq are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, administration officials said Monday.

The opinion, reached in recent months, establishes an important exception to public assertions by the Bush administration since March 2003 that the Geneva Conventions applied comprehensively to prisoners taken in the conflict in Iraq, the officials said.

They said the opinion would essentially allow the military and the C.I.A. to treat at least a small number of non-Iraqi prisoners captured in Iraq in the same way as members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan or elsewhere, for whom the United States has maintained that the Geneva Conventions do not apply.

The new rule was crafted after this weekend's revelation that the U.S., at the behest of the C.I.A., secretly transported prisoners out Iraq and hid them from the Red Cross, notwithstanding a provision in the Geneva Conventions prohibiting protected civilians from being deported from occupied territories.