by TChris

The media like to portray "prisons for the rich" as pleasurable summer camps, but that won't be Lea Fastow's experience.

Instead, on July 12, she will move into the austere, high-rise Federal Detention Center downtown. A closet-size cell there will be her home while she serves a one-year sentence after pleading guilty last month to tax evasion.

Besides dealing with the dangers and indignities of prison life -- from the threat of violence and routine strip searches to scratchy toilet paper and narrow bunk beds -- Mrs. Fastow, 42, is likely to find that the mixed-sex, highly secure detention center will be anything but the kind of pastoral prison camp that many people still associate with white-collar criminals. And, former convicts say, her time will be more difficult because she is a woman, white and wealthy.

It's doubtful that Fastow's time will be more difficult because she's white, but prison policies assure that her gender will work against her. She won't be allowed one of the most desirable jobs -- kitchen duty -- because of the sexist assumption that only men can do the heavy lifting that food preparation requires.

Women are not eligible for the coveted jobs -- trimming the trees and shrubbery around the center or loading supplies at a nearby warehouse -- that let inmates go outside; those jobs are also reserved for men. The only sunlight that women at the detention center see is the vague glow that permeates the four-inch-wide frosted-glass windows in their cells.

Prisons are dehumanizing institutions for the rich as well as the poor. Wealth shouldn't dictate the conditions of incarceration -- prison conditions need to improve for everyone -- but treating female prisoners less favorably than male inmates shouldn't be part of the punishment.

If you're going to be in San Francisco this week, check out the new street art. The downtown area has been papered with 'got democracy?' posters, questioning U.S. policy in Iraq:

In the past five days, the posters have appeared mysteriously on walls and buildings across San Francisco. They feature the most enduring image of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal -- the Iraqi man, hooded, his hands tied with electrodes -- but this time, the prisoner is set against an American flag, and this time, the image is juxtaposed with a headline that reads, "got democracy?"

The poster is designed to make people question whether the United States is adhering to democratic ideals if American soldiers have been guilty of widespread prison abuse, if the Patriot Act continues to trample civil liberties, and if Washington continues to instigate questionable policies, says the poster's co-creator, San Francisco novelist Robert Mailer Anderson.

Here's the author's reasoning:

Law Professor Marjorie Cohn at Jihad Unspun examines the Bush Administration's conflicting legal positions on torture in George Bush: Torturer-in-Chief. She concludes that his actions warrant impeachment. She's not the only one. This week more than 400 legal scholars signed a letter asking Congress to consider impeaching President Bush. If he had more time left in his term, we'd agree. Right now, we think it's easier just to elect John Kerry. But Cohn's article is insightful and well worth a read:

Cloaking themselves in the "War on Terror," Bush and his minions methodically wove an intricate web of deception to convince the American people that Saddam was about to launch the "mushroom cloud," ending civilization as we know it. It was our mission, Bush preached, to save the Iraqis from Saddam-the-torturer. But a telling phrase in Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union Address should have prepared us for the emergence of Bush-the-torturer.

Did Bush commit any crimes?

If Bush knew or should have known about the torture, and failed to stop or prevent it, he could be liable for "command responsibility" if prosecuted under the War Crimes Act or the Torture Statute. A federal court in Miami in July 2002 held two retired Salvadoran generals liable for torture, even though neither had perpetrated or ordered it.

That likely won't happen. Nor will impeachment so close to the election. But read once more some of the charges leveled by Iraqi prisoners against the U.S. As Cohn says, "These accounts do not describe conduct befitting a civilized country."

We wrote this morning of the strange twist in the speedy and convenient capture and killing of American hostage Paul Johnson's alleged kidappers/murderers. We said:

For three days they couldn't catch a lead. All of a sudden, they get a report of a sighting of a vehicle which they are immediately able to surround at a gas station and the suspects are shot to death. After dumping a body, who goes to fill up? Why would the leader of the pack go along for the ride to dump the body? That's a lackey's job....Now there's one more piece of news--in the same article: The Governor of Riyadh is denying that Mr. Johnson's body has been found.

It seems pretty clear someone is lying. Yesterday, the Saudi government official said a random witness called in a license plate from the car after seeing Mr. Johnson's body dumped from it. This was the key to authorities tracking the militants to the gas station where the shootout took place that killed al-Moqrin and three others. Today there is no body, and they are not even sure of the general location in which it might be found.

Here's our question: Why isn't the mainstream media all over this?

Update: Archy begins connecting the dots.

According to ChinaView news, this is the website that regularly publishes the statement of al Qaeda terrorists. We couldn't make heads or tails out of it since it's in Arabic, but ChinaView reports this is what appeared today:

"Fighting commander Abdul Aziz bin Issa al-Muqrin fell as a martyr on Friday ... in an ambush laid for him by the soldiers of tyranny in the Malaz district of Riyadh," said the statement signed by "Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. The Mujahideen are continuing the jihad (holy struggle)that they have pledged to God and the killing of their brothers will not weaken their resolve but only increase their determination and commitment," it said.

by TChris

After launching an attack with "precision weapons" that killed 20 Iraqis, including women and children, the Bush administration should start to wonder whether the first directive issued by a sovereign Iraq will be: quit killing us.

In a bloody surprise attack, the U.S. military launched precision weapons into a poor residential neighborhood of Fallujah on Saturday to destroy what officers described as a safe house used by fighters loyal to Abu Musab Zarqawi and perhaps, at times, by the fugitive terrorist leader himself. ... Images from the site of the blast showed two collapsed houses, with people in white robes picking through the rubble looking for buried victims and lost property.

Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt admits that they didn't know whether Zarqawi was in the house, but justifies the attack because intelligence indicated that several of his operatives were there. The second house apparently got in the way of the precision weapons, but families of the innocent dead will be comforted by Kimmitt's assurance that the attack's "collateral damage estimate was within permissible limits."

[comments now closed. Off-topic comments deleted. This post is about Iraq and the United States.]

by TChris

While grand juries in most jurisdictions are easily led to indict by the prosecutors who control them, the experience in New York may point the way to welcome reform of the grand jury system. The target of a grand jury investigation in New York has the right to testify. By telling their side of the story and explaining away circumstantial evidence, many targets have been able to avoid indictment.

[I]n Brooklyn alone this year, nearly 14 percent of felony suspects have testified before grand juries investigating their cases this year, and slightly more than half of those cases have ended with no charges, according to the district attorney's office.

It's risky for an accused to talk to anyone but a lawyer before trial, but testifying before a grand jury might be a risk worth taking for someone who can credibly rebut weak or circumstantial evidence. That means grand juries in New York are doing their jobs -- saving the innocent from needless prosecutions -- when given a chance. The New York procedure deserves to be adopted everywhere.

by TChris

It's tough to maintain a relationship with a child -- especially a young child -- while serving time behind bars. Parents often don't want their children to experience the frightening image of confinement; sometimes, they just can't overcome their shame so they ask the kids to stay away. And even when kids and parents want to visit, they need to find transportation and a willing adult escort.

The Long Distance Dads program is trying to help. Operating in about 160 facilities in 26 states, the program helps incercerated fathers build parenting and relationship skills while working to keep them in touch with their children.

Such programs "can make a difference not just in the lives of children, but in the recidivism rate - keeping these guys out, and making them productive citizens," says Charles Stuart, the former director of incarcerated father programming for the National Fatherhood Initiative, which runs Long Distance Dads.

by TChris

The Bush administration would like voters to believe that all will be well (at least for the U.S.) come June 30 when Iraq becomes "sovereign," but former ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy says the administration "has oversold the significance of the June 30 handover."

The new Iraqi government is not all that new. Some of its leaders have been on the U.S.-appointed interim Governing Council for the past year. The Bush administration's biggest challenge will be to help the incoming government gain credibility while convincing Iraqis that it represents real change and a meaningful step toward an Iraq under Iraqi control.

Conditions in Iraq won't change on July 1, and the U.S. military presence won't disappear. It would be absurdly optimistic to believe that Iraqis will view the new non-elected government as differing substantively from the current non-elected governing council.

Murphy wants the administration to let the new government exercise real power so Iraqis will feel invested in elections, confident that they are taking control of their country. He argues that the Bush administration should "bend over backwards" to tolerate Iraqi disagreement with U.S. policy. If Iraq will be sovereign (as Bush insists), deference to the new government's autonomous decision-making should be automatic. The Bush administration plainly isn't expecting much independent thinking from the transitional government, and isn't likely to be as tolerant of defiance as Murphy suggests it should be. We'll see over the next few months just how sovereign Iraq has become.

by TChris

When the Bush administration isn't responding to critics by attacking them, it tries to intimidate them. Defense attorney Michael Tigar made that point Friday as he argued that the government's attempt to subpoena reporters to testify in the trial of his client, Lynne Stewart, was another administration effort to intimidate the media. (TalkLeft background on the prosecution is collected here.)

"This administration has tried to intimidate, manipulate, harass, and if necessary punish any independent voice that questions its relentless pursuit of power," he said.

Prosecutors have subpoenaed staff reporters working for Reuters, the New York Times, Newsday and a freelance journalist who have written about Stewart. Tigar said the subpoenas were an "effort to use the media as an instrument of prosecutorial policy."

The Houston Chronicle reports that within the next two weeks, prosecutors will ask a federal grand jury to indict former Enron CEO Ken Lay for conduct that occurred during his last few months at Enron.

Prosecutors have been busy calling witnesses to the grand jury this past week, purporedly asking about Lay. While the prosecution is under a rule of secrecy, witnesses are not in the federal system. Here's what the prosecutors are believed to be asking about:

· Lay's receipt of three memos or e-mails warning of financial trouble and fraud at the company within weeks of Jeff Skilling's abrupt August 2001 departure as CEO.
·His public statements to investors and analysts.
·Lay's attempt to find an alternative to having to substantially write down the "goodwill" or excess price paid for assets.
·His trades of company stock for millions of dollars in company cash in those last months.

Sounds like they can't prove he was a participant in the main crimes, so they're going for the aftermath and coverup.

Daily Kos makes a good argument that Osama bin Laden will do what he can to ensure Bush's re-election.