The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Friday rejected the Justice Department's attempt to obtain hospital abortion records. The ruling was based on the womens' right to privacy in their records.

The decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, was the first time an appeals court has weighed in on the politically charged question of whether the federal government has a right to demand abortion records in its defense of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The ruling followed conflicting opinions from several trial courts around the country.

The Justice Department has been subpoenaing the records in various locations around the country. Next week, challenges are set to be heard in New York City, San Francisco and Lincoln, Nebraska.

The Prosecutor asked for six months. The max was three years, nine months. The Judge sentenced Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien to probation--and 1,000 hours of community service--for his fatal hit and run accident.

O'Brien, 68, may be the first Roman Catholic Bishop in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony. He was the head of the Phoenix Diocese.

Judge Stephen A. Gerst said the conviction alone was a significant punishment for a public figure such as O'Brien. "He will bear the quiet glances and whispers of others for the rest of his life," Gerst said.

At the insistence of Attorney General John Ashcroft, two men faced the death penalty in federal court in Binghamton, NY this week. They were convicted in June of killing a rival drug dealer. The jury could not agree on the penalty, which means the pair will get life in prison without parole. A third defendant was found to be mentally retarded the week before trial, and thus could not face the death penalty. He too will serve life in prison without parole.

Please don't feed the trolls.

Wonkette reports that C-Span will be airing its footage of the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner, Saturday night at 8pm.

Bush hits his comic peak at minute 29:30. How good was the president? Well, his opening was some reporter getting an award for a story about maimed soldiers (what a downer!), and Bush still got laughs.

Meanwhile, Kos of Daily Kos was at the Unity dinner in DC Thursday night. He reports:

John Kerry and I were urinal neighbors. And would you believe it, people wouldn't let the guy piss in peace. For my part, I kept my gaze firmly forward.

What does a death row prisoner do on his last day? Read about how Lawrence Colwell, Jr. spent his day. Colwell will be executed in Nevado at 9pm PT, 45 minutes from now. Colwell is a volunteer--meaning he abandoned his appeals. Up until this morning he was talkative. Today he's quiet.

Colwell will be the first Nevada prisoner to be executed since 2001. Here's an strange fact: Of the last 8 executions in Nevada, 7 were of volunteers.

Update: Here's another account of his final hours.

Roy Black, Rush Limbaugh's attorney, has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Rush Limbaugh Has Rights Too . Here's what Roy says the prosecutors have done so far to Rush, without charging him with any crime:

Over the past six months, Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer has: raided drugstores near Rush's home; seized his medical records without going through the required process enacted by the Florida legislature to protect medical privacy; leaked false information to the media that he was about to plead guilty to a felony; threatened to make his medical records public unless he pled guilty to a felony he didn't commit; released to the media confidential letters regarding Rush's situation that he received from my office; and falsely claimed that the Florida Bar and attorney general's office approved of the release.

Roy asks:

So am I wrong to wonder if something is out of whack when the Palm Beach County State Attorney pulls out all the stops in an effort to nail Rush, while giving immunity to the traffickers who supposedly kept him supplied with painkillers, and who, as a result of a deal with the prosecutor, were able to make a six-figure killing selling their "story" to a tabloid?

Roy has a point. We do think Rush is being treated differently than other celebrity drug users who usually slip away into treatment without the cops all over them. It's just hard to work up a lot of sympathy or righteous indignation for him or his predicament. On the other hand, we're 100% behind Roy.

How stupid and counter-productive can prison officials be? In Illinois, they come close to being idiots:

Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet will not allow its prisoners to read a 16-page newspaper written by its own inmates. Officials decided not to distribute "Stateville Speaks" because the maximum-security prison has other priorities, including running the facility that houses more than 2,500 prisoners, Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Sergio Molina said.

The idea for the newspaper, published in newsletter form, came from an essay contest organized last summer by convicted murderer Renaldo Hudson. After 41 inmates at six of the state's prisons submitted entries, Hudson suggested a newspaper, anti-death penalty activist Bill Ryan said. Ryan secured computers, instructors and donations, but prison officials cited safety concerns and refused to allow the newspaper to be published at the prison.

Ryan self-published the first issue, which includes poems and essays about the dangers of drug use, surviving in prison and the hopelessness of being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

by TChris

George Bush should thank Al Gore for inventing the internet. The President is so crazy about the internet that he wants to bring it to your bedroom.

President Bush, hunting for votes in hotly contested Sun Belt states, said Friday his administration is working toward wiring homes throughout America with high-speed Internet access by 2007.

His administration is wiring homes? Cool. As Condoleezza Rice is fishing cable through your walls, maybe you'll have a chance to ask her the questions she doesn't want to answer under oath (new AP story about the administration's latest "public relations nightmare" here).

by TChris

When only 21 percent of voters have a favorable view of a candidate, you've gotta wonder why the candidate is running. The National Annenberg Election Survey finds Ralph Nader to be a much less popular candidate now than he was during the 2000 election. Liberals don't like him. Conservatives don't like him. Even Jimmy Carter doesn't like him.

Former President Carter told fellow Democrats on Thursday that he would advise Nader to go back to "examining the rear ends of automobiles and don't risk costing Democrats the White House this year, as you did four years ago."

by TChris

The Department of Homeland Security seems to have misplaced $1.2 billion. It may have overspent its budget, or it may be having difficulty integrating the accounting systems of the various agencies that were brought together when the Department was formed last year.

Until the Department accounts for the discrepancy, it will stop hiring new employees in two divisions: Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

by TChris

More than two years behind schedule and $120 million over budget, the FBI hopes to finish modernizing its computer system by this summer. Will it all have been worth it?

The upgrade, known as Trilogy, is intended to move the FBI from decades of dependence on paper to the digital age. But congressional investigators and some lawmakers question whether the bureau can even run the new system.

The total cost will be about $600 million, not counting another $20 million that the Bureau wants so that its agents can read classified emails. Let's hope that $20 million is sufficient to keep high school hackers from busting into the system and publishing the classified information on the internet.

The General Accounting Office questions whether the FBI has an "overall vision that provides a guide for moving from current computer needs to those of the future."

Although the FBI is working on such a plan, the GAO said the entire system could be at risk of duplication, overlap and lack of integration. The GAO concluded that the FBI faces "a major challenge" in overcoming these obstacles.

by TChris

Having been burned by President Bush's end run around the "advise and consent" clause of the Constitution by appointing two conservative judges -- Charles Pickering and William Pryor -- who the Senate failed to confirm, Senate Democrats have vowed to halt any new judicial selections unless Bush agrees not to appoint more judges during a congressional recess.

"The President's use of recess appointments to circumvent the advise and consent process puts a finger in the eye of the Constitution," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Democrats are also upset that the White House has refused to fill vacancies on federal boards and commissions that require the appointment of Democrats.