We saw Bush's recess judicial appointee to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Charles Pickering on "60 Minutes" following Condi Rice. He showed himself to be every bit the conservative judicial activist people have been fearing all along. Rebuttable Presumption gives a recap--and, having worked in a federal probation office, some good commentary.

We were pretty disgusted with Pickering's interview. Of all the cases that show the unfairness of the federal sentencing guidelines--the one case he felt so strongly about he decided he just could not impose the mandated sentence--was that of a cross-burner convicted of a hate crime. He twisted the prosecution's arm to drop part of the charge so that he only had to give the guy 2 1/2 years instead of the recommended 7 1/2 years.

Protecting the independence and integrity of our federal courts is one of the best reasons we can think of for Booting Bush.

Update: For the reasons we oppose Charles Pickering and think he is not an acceptable federal appeals court judge, go here and here.

The President does not have a right to flood the judiciary with far right-wing ideologists, particularly if there is any indication that they will become judicial activists--deciding cases based upon their conservative views rather than the law. We lost on Pickering. The next one coming up is William Meyers. Act now to oppose his confirmation to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Daily Kos was at the Democrat's Unity Dinner in DC this past week. So was Atrios, and Kos has pictures of the uber-anonymous blogger. Kos says Atrios was seated front and center while he was put in Siberia. We think it might have something to do with the fact that Atrios readers have contributed over $100,000. to Kerry so far. What a coup. Kos has a lot of pictures up, and very interesting commentary, so go over and read for yourselves.

We have three more days to go this month and we've exceeded our bandwidth allotment. If any of you are able to chip in, we'd really appreciate it. Just click on one of the buttons below. Amazon is anonymous, paypal is not. Many thanks.

  Amazon

  PayPal

Update: Thanks to all of you who contributed. We are very grateful. We've received more than enough to cover our expenses for the rest of this month and next month too. We always knew the readers make this site!

by TChris

The democratic values that the United States wants to export to Iraq apparently don't include freedom of the press. Saying that articles in the weekly Al-Hawza newspaper increased the threat of violence against occupying forces, Paul Bremer decided to shut the paper down. Soldiers used chains and locks on Sunday morning to prevent entry into the newspaper offices.

The paper has blamed violence in Iraq on American forces and recently carried an article headined "Bremer follows the steps of Saddam." Bremer says the paper will stay closed for 60 days.

by TChris

Last month, TalkLeft asked why American citizens are prosecuted for lying to their government while the government pays Ahmed Chalabi and others associated with the Iraqi National Congress to provide it with false information. Now, according to Newsweek, the General Accounting Office is asking a related question: "Did Chalabi and the INC violate the terms of their funding by using U.S. money to sell the public on its anti-Saddam campaign and to lobby Congress?"

The terms of the grant that the government gave to the INC "strictly excluded" activities "to influence the policies of the United States Government or Congress or propagandizing the American people."

Even so, in 2002 the INC—in an apparent effort to get Congress to continue its funding—submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee a list of 108 news stories published between October 2001 and May 2002. The INC's document said these stories contained "ICP product" from an INC "Information Collection Program" financed by State. The stories included allegations about Saddam's WMD programs and links to terrorism, as well as INC material supporting innuendo that linked Saddam to the 9/11 attacks.

The INC propoganda machine may have played a key role in developing support for the war in Iraq.

Chalabi contends that what the INC said before the war doesn't matter now. Iraq is a better place without Saddam Hussein, says Chalabi, and that's all that matters. But to some, the truth still matters, as does the INC's disregard of the terms of its funding.

by TChris

President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage appears to be a non-starter as some Republicans in Congress resist his invitation to divide the country further over an issue that is better left to the states.

In the Senate, at least one-third of the 51 Republicans have withheld support from the proposed amendment. Some assert that Congress should wait until federal courts or state legislatures grapple with gay marriages. Others believe the measure discriminates against gays and lesbians. Many say amending the Constitution should be a last resort.

Only one Senate Democrat supports the amendment (Zell Miller, a Democrat in name only who supports the reelection of President Bush), while the sole Independent in the Senate opposes it. All Senate Republicans and sixteen Democrats would need to vote in favor of the amendment, as would two-thirds of the House, before the amendment could move forward.

Perhaps to the President's surprise, that level of support just isn't in the cards.

by TChris

Here's a warning for those of you who don't live alone: try not to do so much laundry, and make sure that everyone in your household doesn't take a hot shower on the same day. Not only will you save money on your electric bill, you may save yourself from having your door kicked in by the police.

Dina Dagy's family learned that lesson after the police and their drug-sniffing dog searched the Dagys' Carlsbad, California home. They were armed with a warrant that they obtained on the strength of the Dagys' $250 to $300 monthly electric bill, which the police deemed suspiciously high. Suburban families that use a lot of electricity, the police reasoned, must be growing marijuana in their basements.

Or not.

What they found when they showed up ... was a wife and mother who does several loads of laundry a day, keeps a dishwashing machine going, has three electricity-guzzling computers and three kids who can't remember to turn the lights out when they leave a room.

Dagy finds it hard to believe that a high utility bill would be enough reason to issue a search warrant. She's right. But police say that they followed standard procedures. In addition to noticing the high bill, they sent the drug dog to sniff around the house, and they viewed the dog's reaction as evidence that marijuana was being grown inside. So much for the reliability of drug dogs, or of the humans who interpret their responses.

They also noticed the family had put its trash out that morning, something police say drug growers often do to hide the evidence. In the Dagys' case, however, it was trash day.

If taking out the trash on trash day doesn't prove guilt, what more evidence could the police possibly need?

While the police should be faulted for invading the Dagys' privacy on the basis of such flimsy evidence, the judge who disregarded the Fourth Amendment by issuing the warrant also deserves a share of the blame. Judges swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. That didn't happen here.

by TChris

Republicans seeking to discredit the testimony of Richard Clarke about the Bush administration's inattention to the Al Qaeda threat prior to 9/11 have called for Clarke's July 2002 testimony before the Senate and House Intelligence committees to be declassified. They contend that his testimony in 2002 contradicts his testimony this year.

Clarke's response: bring it on. But he doesn't want the testimony to be declassified selectively to remove individual statements from their larger context in an effort to mislead.

"I would welcome it being declassified, but not just a little line here or there. Let's declassify all six hours of my testimony," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Clarke wants Condoleezza Rice's testimony declassified, as well, and he wants the White House to release all of his emails, not merely those that, taken out of context, can be used to attack his credibility.

"The White House is selectively now finding my e-mails, which I would have assumed were covered by some privacy regulations, and selectively leaking them to the press. Let's take all of my e-mails and all of the memos that I sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20th to September 11th, and let's declassify all of it," he said.

Having whacked the ball firmly back into the Republican court, we now have the chance to see whether the Bush administration and its Congressional supporters will respond to Clarke's challenge.

Hesiod at Counterspin finds the goods to show the hypocrisy of Bill Frist's criticism of Richard Clarke.

John Hutson once was the Navy's Judge Advocate General--its top lawyer. Now he is dean of the Franklin Pierce Law School in New Hampshire. He is so angry about the Bush Administration's treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo that he has signed onto their brief in the Supreme Court.

The Bush administration is holding about 640 foreign nationals at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, incommunicado, with no legal hearings and no idea whether they'll ever be released. That not only violates international law and U.S. military regulations, but invites other countries to detain American servicemen and women indefinitely and mistreat them, Hutson says. So Hutson, a lifelong Republican who voted for President Bush, has signed a "friend of the court" brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to oversee the conditions of detention. "If there were 600 Americans in a cave in Afghanistan and al-Qaida said they were going to hold them indefinitely, we'd be pretty unhappy," he said.

The two cases scheduled to be heard by the Court in April concern the question of whether the detainees at Guantanamo should have access to the U.S. Courts:

by TChris

Civil rights groups are frustrated that the Democratic party has not worked harder in Florida to restore the voting rights of residents who have felony convictions.

The law [disenfranchising felons] has been on the books since 1868, when Florida gave blacks the right to vote as a condition of the state's being readmitted to the Union after the Civil War. A new State Constitution drafted that year expanded the number of crimes that required disenfranchisement, a change that critics say was meant to affect blacks disproportionately.

More than one in four African American men in Florida are unable to vote. Increasing numbers of ex-felons have had their voting rights restored after the problem became widely publicized following the presidential election in 2000, but the process is cumbersome and the waiting time is significant.

Arguments against disenfranchising participants in a democracy are strong.

"Why should we keep people from voting after we spent all this money rehabilitating them?" Representative Kendrick B. Meek, a Miami Democrat, said. "Why stand in judgment on whether they should vote or not? This is politicians standing in and playing the role of virtuecrat."

Scott Maddox, the Demoratic party chairman, says that Governor Bush and the Florida legislature support the ban for partisan reasons. He also sees hypocrisy in their unwillingness to forgive felons who have paid their debt to society.

"It's amazing to me that these Republicans that keep quoting the Bible seemingly don't believe in redemption and forgiveness when it comes to restoring civil rights," Mr. Maddox said through a spokeswoman.

by TChris

It would be nice to believe that, at this point in our nation's history, we have put cross burning behind us. Sadly, two teenagers have been arrested in Arlington, Washington for setting fire to a cross in the yard of an African American pastor.

He moved his family to an upscale neighborhood in Arlington to give his seven kids a safe place to live. "We live here for the community, for the awesome environment, but something like this happens, it causes you to wonder 'where we're going?'" said [Pastor Jason] Martin.

A crowd of 500 people showed support for Pastor Martin by marching against racism Saturday.