TChris wrote last night about a new Justice Department report warns of infiltration by Al Qaeda in U.S. prisons:

Groups promoting extremist brands of Islam have gained a foothold in American prisons, and counterterrorism officials believe Al Qaeda are likely to try to use the prisons "to radicalize and recruit inmates," according to a Justice Department investigation.....the investigation found that the problem of "radicalized" prayer sessions was less a reflection of the chaplains than of unsupervised inmates who were allowed to lead their own worship meetings.

Muslim leaders are wary of the report.

Muslim leaders say they have been subjected to unfair scrutiny and criticism because of their religious beliefs. Several groups that have trained Muslim chaplains have vigorously denied charges of terrorist links, and Muslim leaders point out that charges linking a military chaplain at Guantánamo Bay to possible terrorism largely collapsed.

The report acknowledges the problem isn't widespread. The freedom to practice religion extends to inmates. We don't see how the feds can fairly and constitutionally place limits on Muslim inmates that they don't place on Christian, Jewish, or Buddhist inmates. The inmates must also be free to speak in their language of choice. Any limits on groups of prisoners associating with each other in prayer groups must apply across the board to prisoners of all denoninations or not at all. We think "not at all" is best.

And if faith-based prisons, which we oppose, here are some reasons, are to be tolerated, they must include programs for Muslims, not just Christians.

North Carolina is having a death penalty crisis. The state bar association reports that of the state's 190 death row inmates, more than 35 were represented by lawyers who were disciplined or disbarred. Two wrongfully convicted men were recently released from death row. There is a growing support for two-year moratorium on executions.

TChris wrote about this a few days ago here and here.

Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, recently made these remarks.

The death penalty is really about 98 percent political," Prejean said during a visit to Salem College. "A moratorium is a graceful way for politicians to get out of the death penalty."....The United States is unique among death-penalty countries in that it justifies the practice by saying it is carried out to honor the victims, Prejean said. If that were true, then most families of victims are being ignored because only a small percentage of murderers end up on death row, she said. "It's a political ploy," said Prejean....

The vast majority of executions in the United States are carried out in states that had long ties to slavery, and often involve poor black defendants and white victims, she told an audience of more than 500 people at Salem College last night.

She said the school's religion department should have a course titled "God Is Sneaky," because so much of what she has learned over the years about social justice, civil rights and death row came to her in experiences she was not looking for and was unprepared to handle....I feel really bad for the victims' families," she said. "But what we have is a culture that tells them the way to honor their family member is by sitting on the front row and watching the execution. It's a culture of vengeance.

Want to weigh in? Go over to 2000 Moratorium Org.

by TChris

A Justice Department inspector general's report theorizes that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are likely "to radicalize and recruit inmates." While the IG acknowledges that the problem of terrorism in prisons isn't widespread, the report contains a classified addendum that purports to contain evidence that "people leading prison prayer sessions — including authorized chaplains, volunteers and inmates — may have ties to terrorist groups."

The IG is relying on information supplied by counterterrorism officials. Keep in mind that counterterrorism officials wrongly accused a Muslim chaplin at Guantánamo Bay of aiding terrorists. The IG's office says that "volunteers leading prayer services had been linked to people who showed up on terrorist watch lists," but the addendum is classified, so there's no way to determine whether the information is reliable or whether the "links" are meaningful.

Prison officials say they'll pay closer attention to the people who lead prayer groups, but they're concerned that they won't recognize a call to jihad if they hear one.

Although some chapel services are videotaped, prison officials admitted that they might not be in a position to detect radical religious messages. "Not a whole lot of folks are in tune with that stuff," said an associate warden quoted in the report.

Maybe the prison officials are sleeping through the sermons.

by TChris

When a driver has a blood alcohol content of .24, the driver should expect to be arrested for driving under the influence. James Michael Farris was arrested in Lawrence County, Alabama, but wasn't jailed. Nor was he prosecuted for DUI. Some wonder whether Farris was treated differently because his father is the chief jailer in Lawrence County.

As a responsible governmental official, James Michael Farris' father, James Farris, provided a complete explanation.

James Farris declined to say if he took his son home instead of booking him. "It's a city matter and I suggest you take it up with the city, and that's all I have to say," James Farris said.

Okay, so it wasn't all that complete.

The chief of police acknowledges that he directed the officer who arrested James Michael to write him a second ticket for reckless driving. James Michael entered a guilty plea to that ticket and the DUI was dismissed because ... well, nobody can explain why.

Moral of the story: it's good to have a dad who can check you out of jail.

by TChris

Will Howard Stern deliver the presidency to John Kerry? He says he will.

Some might dismiss this as bluster, but Stern's words should send a shiver up Karl Rove's spine. Stern has a record of successful election-year activism; political observers in New York and New Jersey remember how his on-air endorsements delivered key votes to George Pataki and Christine Todd Whitman in past gubernatorial races.

What's more, although Stern's approximately 8.5 million listeners are often dismissed as overgrown frat boys, they might more accurately be called swing voters. They are overwhelmingly white and male, many are well educated and well off, and they vote. And millions of them listen to Stern's show in battleground states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida -- where the election will be decided.

Whether it's the Bush administration's FCC attacking Stern, or Stern attacking the President, the publicity has been good to Stern. He's number 1 in LA among 25 to 54 year old listeners, a position he hasn't occupied since 1995. If he can influence all those new listeners (and the old ones) to go to the polls to cast a vote for Kerry, more power to him!

Via The Agonist: Here is the link to the text of the Taguba Report:

The report was prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba on alleged abuse of prisoners by members of the 800th Military Police Brigade at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad. It was ordered by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of Joint Task Force-7, the senior U.S. military official in Iraq, following persistent allegations of human rights abuses at the prison.

Our prior description of it is here.

Comment spamming by those promoting websites selling controlled substances and anatomical enhancements is getting out of control here at TalkLeft. We spend hours manually deleting them. The more time we spend deleting spam, the less time we have to blog. We have downloaded various scripts and read the instructions for closing comments on Movable Type blogs on posts older than 21 days and for installing MT Blacklist and we might as well be reading Greek. We've e-mailed a few web designers seeking to pay them to install both on TalkLeft, and gotten no response. So, we're putting out a call. We'll pay you through paypal. Just tell us how much and what info you need.

by TChris

Americans horrified by our treatment of prisoners in Iraq shouldn't forget the abuses that prisoners endure at home.

A guard involved in the alleged sexual assault of a Vermont inmate in his cell at a Kentucky prison has been fired, said an official for the privately operated prison.

Vermont Corrections Commissioner Stephen Gold said Monday that the inmate was inside a segregated detention unit at the Marion facility in St. Mary, Ky., when a video surveillance camera recorded a guard entering the man's cell and leaving 10 minutes later. ... Gold confirmed he was told the inmate might have been handcuffed at the time the sexual assault took place.

by TChris

Don't expect to see Al Gore anchoring the news; he isn't hip enough for the demographic he hopes to reach with the cable news channel that he and a group of investors just purchased.

Mr. Gore said the programming would not carry a heavy political message but would be influenced by what younger viewers wanted to watch. He said the intent was to provide an alternative to networks owned by large corporations.

Who would have thought that military defense lawyers would be compared to William Kuntsler? In the case of those defending the Guantanamo detainees, the praise is well-justified:

The Pentagon wants the military commissions, the first for the United States since the end of World War II, to be seen as fair at home and abroad. But the military lawyers, in playing the kind of attack-the-system role that William Kunstler was known for, have become widely quoted around the world and acclaimed by some as heroes after appearances in London and Australia in which they denounced the tribunals.

Last month, an audience at Oxford University in England was stunned, witnesses said, when two of the lawyers, Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift of the Navy and Maj. Mark Bridges of the Army, said the tribunals were not capable of producing a fair and just result....Murray Wesson, a Rhodes Scholar from South Africa who attended, wrote on his Web log: "What I was unprepared for, given that these were, after all, military lawyers, was how critical of the process they were. Indeed, they went so far as to describe the tribunals as `fundamentally flawed' and insinuated that they would not amount to fair trials."

The lawyers are right and we're proud of them. Now we just need the American media to pay as much attention to them as has the international press.

Via Wonkette, who found it on Craigslist:

Recently Passed the Bar or Awaiting Results? Major TV Network Seeks. . . Charismatic young lawyers for a new reality-based LEGAL show. Compete in mock trials/courtroom showdowns on prime-time TV. The last lawyer standing wins a lucrative job at a law firm. . .

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Third Edition Restaurant/Bar
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It's like "The Apprentice," but featuring contestants who even more craven and obnoxious!

The announcement has since been deleted from Craig's List.

Dave Neiwert of Orcinus has a compelling piece on the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Terry Nichols trial and how quickly America forgets. Lots of stuff on John Doe 2 and the missing leg. Were there others? We don't know, but we question why the Government never seemed to care.

More Neiwart on the conspiracist theory. More from us. Some curious photos.