We received this from a colleague on the east coast:

What happened yesterday was absolutely ghastly. The Administration terribly miscalculated the aftermath of the war and as a result four American civilians, good and decent people who were only trying to help the Iraqis, died a horrible death. Unfortunately, we are now subject to the rule of "You broke it, you bought it," and I don't see that we have any choice but to stay and clean up our mess.

But some are taking the wrong message from this. Driving to work today I listened to a conservative talk radio host ranting about "what kind of people burn corpses and string them up from bridges?" You see where this is going, don't you? Because I couldn't help but thinking -- not so long ago, within my lifetime, it was American people who did EXACTLY the same thing to black men. A simple Google images search on "lynching" returns dozens of pictures just as frightful as what we saw yesterday, including tortured and mutilated black bodies hanging before crowds of well-dressed whites.

This sort of inhumanity is inexcusable and incomprehensible whenever it happens. But let's not suggest that the Iraqis who did this are a different breed from us, or there is something unique about Islam or Arabs that leads to cruelty.

In Michigan alone, there are 150 prisoners, ages 17 to 73, doing life without parole for crimes they committed when they were 16 or younger. The ACLU of Michigan has announced a project to examine the cases of these inmates and those similarly situated in Illinois, California, Florida and, perhaps, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Forty-one states allow juvenile offenders to be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Michigan is one of 13 states that has no minimum age for such sentences, although the youngest such prisoner in Michigan was 14 at the time of the murder.....The study will be funded by a $100,000 grant from the New York City-based JEHT Foundation, the ACLU said. The foundation's name comes from its core goals of justice, equality, human dignity and tolerance, according to its Web site.

The report should be finished by the end of the year.

This is a shame. A bill in Florida to allow juveniles serving life sentences without parole a chance to be paroled after eight years if they were under 15 at the time of the crime and had a clean record before the crime, is dead. Even Jeb Bush and state prosecutors gave "tentative endorsement" to the bill. So what happened? Strictly a party line vote--with Republicans voting against the bill.

Election-year politics made the bill a tough sell, [state sen.] Geller said. ''No elected official has ever lost reelection because they were considered too tough on crime,'' he said.

That is just sick. But what can you expect from a prison nation led by Republicans?

The Senate Judiciary Committee today voted 10 to 9 to send Bush's nomination of William Myers for a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to a full vote of the Judiciary Committee. Here is what People for American Way have to say:

“If only this nomination were a bad April Fool’s Day joke. With no judicial experience, William Myers is one of the least qualified nominees the Bush Administration has put forward, and among the farthest from the mainstream of judicial philosophy. “His record demonstrates his willingness to take his private-sector advocacy as a lobbyist for the mining and cattle industries directly to his job as a public servant at the Interior Department. His anti-environmental stance and disregard for the rights of Indian tribes have led to fierce opposition from environmental groups and tribal leaders.

“Like other Bush nominees, Myers embraces a radical, ‘neo-federalist’ approach to the Constitution, so anti-government that it threatens to dismantle hard-won victories in environmental protection, reproductive choice, health and safety and social justice. His particular antipathy toward tribal rights and environmental safeguards make him the wrong choice for the 9th circuit, a huge judicial district that includes vast stretches of fragile federal lands, and is home to millions of Native Americans.

“Myers’ thin judicial qualifications, extremist philosophy and deeply troubling record should be enough to convince a majority of the Senate to reject his nomination outright. If not, we urge Senate opponents to use every means to block this nomination. The Senate has approved 173 Bush Administration nominees to the appellate and district courts, and blocked just six. If necessary, Mr. Myers should be the seventh. ”

Here is PFAW's memo on Mr. Myers.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) issued this press release today opposing the military tribunal procedures at Guantanamo:

NACDL Comments Critical of Guantánamo Detainee Review Procedures

Washington, D.C. (Mar. 31, 2004) – President E.E. (Bo) Edwards of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Joshua Dratel, Co-Chair, NACDL Committee on Military Tribunals & Terrorism, today faxed a critical letter to the top lawyer for the Defense Department, identifying serious deficiencies in the department’s draft administrative review procedures for detainees at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Edwards and Dratel wrote DOD General Counsel William J. Haynes, II, saying they were “deeply troubled” at the department’s failure to address a number of critical issues. Among the problems they see are:

• Lack of criteria for making determination whether a detainee is or is still “dangerous”;

• No time frames for rendering release decisions or re-review;

• No time limits for detention without charge or other disposition;

• Draft review procedures put the burden on detainee to prove he is “no longer a threat.”

The DOJ memorandum asserts that “[t]he law of war permits the detention of enemy combatants until the end of an armed conflict.” But Edwards and Dratel noted that that statement is true only if the alleged combatants are detained pursuant to the Geneva Conventions. The lawyers suggest that the Guantánamo detainees are entitled to POW status unless and until a “competent tribunal” determines otherwise.

by TChris

One question the 9/11 commission will want to ask Condoleezza Rice: Apart from its preoccupation with Iraq, was the Bush administration more interested in implementing its "unproven, money-munching missile defense system" than in protecting the country from Osama bin Laden?

The question arises from a speech that Rice never had the chance to give.

A speech that was due to be delivered on the day planes crashed into the Pentagon, a field in Pennsylvania and the World Trade Center is getting particular attention: The Washington Post reports national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was due to make remarks that day that discussed national security threats, but never mentioned al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. Instead, the remarks focused on the need for missile defense.

Although the Bush administration contends that the President was privately concerned about bin Laden, CBS reports that none of Bush's speeches or public remarks before September 11 mentioned the al Qaeda threat.

by TChris

In 1995, Miami police officers shot two fleeing suspects in the back and then planted guns near their bodies. After years of investigation, a partially successful federal prosecution that charged a pattern of planting guns during four police shootings from 1995 to 1997, a four week trial and three days of deliberations, three officers were convicted for their roles in covering up the truth.

Lt. Israel Gonzalez and Officer Jorge Garcia face up to 10 years in prison for committing perjury to a grand jury and obstructing justice by lying in sworn depositions and conspiracy. Sgt. Jose Quintero faces up to five years for conspiracy for planting one of the guns.

Suspicions were raised when the guns were examined: they had no fingerprints, and one was loaded with the wrong ammunition. The outcry that followed led to important changes.

All the officers belonged to elite plainclothes units when the department was under international pressure to halt a string of deadly tourist robberies. The scandal over the shootings rocked the department and scarred its image, ushering in a new police chief, new shooting policies and a civilian review board.

by TChris

School administrators love to enact dress codes that substitute conformity for individuality in heavy-handed, albeit ineffective, attempts to keep "gang dress" out of public schools. TalkLeft reported yesterday on a school's misguided effort to prevent a Muslim student from wearing a hijab. Now read about Clifford Pierce Middle School in Merrillville, Indiana where students are discouraged from wearing pink, and where students who wore pink to protest the policy were told to change their clothes.

Perhaps school administrators struggling to Leave No Child Behind might want to focus their scarce resources on educating kids rather than telling them how to dress.

A new poll by the Los Angeles Times shows that a majority of Americans believe Richard Clarke's charges against Bush.

Nearly three-fifths of those surveyed echoed the contention by Clarke that Bush placed a higher priority on invading Iraq than combating terrorism. And a smaller majority agreed with the charge by the onetime White House counterterrorism chief that Bush did not focus enough on the terrorist threat before the Sept. 11 attacks.

What does this portend for the presidential race? Still a statistical dead heat, says the Times:

Indeed, while the new questions about Bush's initial response to the terrorist threat could pose a long-term problem for him, the poll suggests the controversy has not significantly changed the dynamics propelling the country toward another close presidential race. The survey found presumed Democratic nominee John F. Kerry holding a 49% to 46% advantage over Bush among registered voters, a difference within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Not suprisingly, more Democrats than Republicans agreed with Clarke's charges:

By 57% to 37%, those polled agreed with Clarke's contention that "President Bush was more focused on attacking Iraq than dealing with terrorism." Almost four in five Democrats agreed with the claim, while two-thirds of Republicans disagreed.

Strangely, a majority of those polled thought Bush has made this country more secure. Good news: The economy still is a negative factor for Bush --53% disapproved. His overall approval rating: 51%, with 44% disapproving Both of these numbers are down since November.

Give a big welcome to The Majority Report, the new blog for Air America Radio. Here is the link to listen live.

And we're happy to report that Neal Pollack is back to blogging.

by TChris

Did the White House counsel feed questions for Richard Clarke to Republican members of the 9/11 commission?

White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales called commissioner Fred F. Fielding, one of five GOP members of the body, and, according to one observer, also called Republican commission member James R. Thompson. Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, wrote to Gonzales yesterday asking him to confirm and describe the conversations.

Waxman believes such ex parte contacts would be improper because "the conduct of the White House is one of the key issues being investigated by the commission."

In fairness, let's hear the other side of the story:

White House spokesmen were unable to get a response from Gonzales. Fielding did not return phone calls seeking comment. Thompson declined yesterday to say whether he spoke with Gonzales.

Maybe we'll hear their story when they've got one ready.

by TChris

Presidents claim executive privilege on behalf of their advisers because (they say) their advisers might be discouraged from giving honest and candid advice if the advice could become public. Executive privilege might prevent Congress from asking "What advice did you give to the President?," but it should not be invoked to prevent Congress from asking "Did the administration lie to Congress?"

The Bush administration, having abandoned executive privilege for Condoleezza Rice, is invoking it to keep health-policy adviser Douglas Badger mum. Congress wonders whether Badger gave the President more accurate estimates about the cost of the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit than the President gave Congress.

Several Ways and Means Committee members wanted to know whether Badger suppressed or passed on to senior Bush administration officials figures he obtained in early June indicating that the drug benefit might cost more than $500 billion in its first 10 years. When lawmakers narrowly passed the measure in November, many relied on a $395 billion Congressional Budget Office estimate.

The inquiry follows Richard Foster's disclosure that Medicare administrator Thomas Scully threatened to fire him if he reported the higher estimate to members of Congress.