There will be protests around the country March 20 as we mark the one-year anniversary of the Iraq war. Here's what's happening in Taos, NM, where Donald Rumseld has "several area homes."

To mark the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, Action Coalition of Taos and Veterans for Peace will topple a twenty-foot effigy of Taos resident Donald Rumsfeld. This action will take place during a rally at the Taos Plaza calling for the end of the Iraqi occupation, one of hundreds worldwide taking place on Saturday, March 20th with the theme "The World Still Says No to War."

The 20-foot-tall statue, built by area residents, will be pulled down at the climax of the rally, which will begin at 3pm on March 20th at the Taos Plaza in Taos, New Mexico. The event will feature a variety of speakers as well as "The Radical Cheerleaders" who will help entertain the crowd with antiwar and anti-Rummy cheers. The statue will be toppled by the five winning participants of a "Why I want to topple Rumsfeld" contest, who will read their submissions prior to the Rumsfeld’s fall. Rumsfeld, who the activists consider to be a war criminal for his part in promoting the illegal war in Iraq, has been protested in Taos several times before. The largest march was in October of 2002 drawing 3,000 demonstrators who marched on one of his several area homes.

What's happening in your neck of the woods? [link via What Really Happened]

Attorney General John Ashcroft is home from the hospital. But, what would have happened if he didn't have health insurance? It's long, but witty and well worth the read.

So many inmates are executed in Texas -- 320 since 1976 --it's become a rote, mechanized assembly line procedure.

Texas has performed more than one-third of all the executions carried out in the United States in the last 28 years, and the state's execution chamber, a small, brick-walled room painted hospital green, is by far the nation's busiest. Last year, an average of two condemned inmates each month were strapped onto the stainless steel gurney, covered with a white sheet and briskly injected with three lethal drugs. So far this year, the pace is even faster.

They may not agree on much else, but prosecutors and defense attorneys, death penalty supporters and opponents and even the inmates and their guards concur on this: Texas has evolved an exceedingly efficient bureaucracy for putting people to death.

Here's what one guard had to say:

"Yes, it does get automated, because we do it so much," said Jim Willett, the former warden at the 19th Century Walls prison--where the execution chamber is located--who oversaw nearly 90 executions before his retirement in 2001. "But I don't know that I don't feel sorry for the guy working some other place that does three a year. Because if I do one here and I feel really bad about it--something about the guy or his crime, he's young or whatever--it ain't gonna be long till another one comes along. "It's kinda like baseball," Willett concluded. "You have a bad game today, another day or two you're gonna be playing another game."

Texas maintains a comprehensive death row website, which until only recently, included the last meals ordered by the prisoners.

Nathan Newman writes that a feature of the new Iraqi Constitution makes sure the incoming interim government is a complete US puppet regime. President Bush has said that with the new Constitution passed, power will be turned over to Iraqis after June of this year. Nathan says it's a lie:

The new government under the new constitution will be barred from overturning any laws that the US has imposed on the country since the Occupation. Why can't they change them? Because of this provision in the Constitution, Article 26:

A) Except as otherwise provided in this Law, the laws in force in Iraq on 30 June 2004 shall remain in effect unless and until rescinded or amended by the Iraqi Transitional Government in accordance with this Law.

Nathan has a lot to say about what that means.

The following article was submitted to us by the author, Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg of the Medill School of Journalism. We don't normally reprint the work of others, but since it's on a topic we have written about extensively at TalkLeft, we're making an exception. The article is about the upcoming execution of David Clayton Hill in South Carolina.

Hill is scheduled to die March 19, despite a ruling from a federal judge that orders South Carolina to investigate its lethal injection process. One of the drugs that will be used to kill Hill is found inhumane to euthanize animals.

Hill's attorneys are urging people to call the Governor and ask him to stop Hill's execution. The governor's contact information is at the end of the article:

You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way

South Carolina is pushing forward with the execution of David Clayton Hill, despite an order from a federal judge directing the state to investigate its lethal injection procedures.

Lethal injection, contrary to popular myth, is not a peaceful way to die.

According to Hill, South Carolina does not give inmates enough thiopental, the drug which causes the inmate to lose consciousness. If Mr. Hill is executed on March 19 --as the state wants -- he may remain conscious through the other drugs' effects. This means, he could suffer a heart attack, while suffocating. He will be paralyzed throughout the execution from the thiopental.

The chemical used in lethal injection to induce a heart attack -- pavulon -- is found inhumane to euthanize animals in South Carolina and nineteen other states. Pavulon is banned in South Carolina.

"You wouldn't do a dog this way," said Jerome Nickerson, Hill's attorney in a phone interview. "The state of South Carolina needs to investigate its procedures for lethal injection as the federal court has directed."

by TChris

Paul Minor, a Mississippi lawyer, has been indicted in federal court for an act that the government deems corrupt: guaranteeing and partially paying a $75,000 loan to a judge's former wife. The judge in question, Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver E. Diaz Jr., did not participate in any case involving Minor after the loan was guaranteed, but the government contends that Justice Diaz repaid the favor by joining a unanimous decision that benefitted Minor's father, who was a defendant in a libel case.

Whether or not the government can prove that Minor expected to receive such an attenuated benefit from Justice Diaz, the financial relationship between Minor and Justice Diaz doesn't pass any reasonable smell test. Nonetheless, Minor contends that the government's motive for prosecuting him carries a much ranker stench.

Mr. Minor, a former president of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association, contends that the United States attorney here, Dunn Lampton, a Republican, singled him out for prosecution for political reasons, because he is a big contributor to Democratic candidates and a vocal opponent of efforts to limit injury awards.

Minor asserts that Richard Scruggs, a Mississippi plaintiffs' lawyer who happens to be married to the sister of Trent Lott's wife, also guaranteed and paid off a loan to Justice Diaz. The difference between Scruggs and Minor is that Scruggs' law firm had two cases pending before the Mississippi Supreme Court at the time. So why isn't Scruggs being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney who is so eager to pursue Minor? This is the answer given by Minor's lawyer:

"When the Republican U.S. attorney looks at Republican supporter Mr. Scruggs's actions, he sees them in a way that avoids any criminal overtone. When the same U.S. attorney looks at Democrat Paul Minor's actions, he sees racketeering. This is just not right."

The U.S. Attorney's office argues that Minor is basing his selective prosecution defense on unreliable news reports and "innuendo," although there seems to be a good deal of "innuendo" involved in the charges against Minor given his lack of any direct benefit from Justice Diaz.

If it doesn't derail before then, the case is set for trial in August.

by TChris

Those sneaky French! Just when we learn to order freedom fries, it turns out the French are on our side after all.

France's senior military officer said today that Osama bin Laden had on several occasions narrowly escaped capture by French troops working alongside American forces in Afghanistan, although he conceded that Mr. bin Laden's capture would not in itself suffice to dismantle Al Qaeda.

He said that 200 French special forces troops were participating alongside American forces in Afghanistan in the hunt for Mr. bin Laden. "Our men have not been far," he said. "On several occasions, I even think he slipped out of a net that was well closed."

Will President Bush be suitably chagrined if the French, of all people, capture bin Laden?

by TChris

First the Mayor of New Paltz was charged with a crime for conducting marriage ceremonies for same sex couples (TalkLeft coverage here). Now a district attorney in Kingston, New York has charged two ministers with criminal offenses for marrying thirteen gay couples "in what is believed to be the first time in the United States that clergy members have been prosecuted for performing same-sex ceremonies." So much for separation of church and state.

Unitarian Universalist ministers Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were charged with multiple counts of solemnizing a marriage without a license, the same charges leveled against New Paltz Mayor Jason West, who last month drew the state into the widening national debate over same-sex unions.

Each charge could carry up to two years in jail.

Although District Attorney Donald Williams disclaims any desire "to interfere with anyone's right to express their religious beliefs," a less Demagogic mind might think that forcing a minister to preach through the barred windows of a jail cell constitutes a serious infringement of that minister's right to freely exercise her religion.

No physical evidence. No witnesses. A recanted confession. So why is Max Soffar still on death row? Kinky Friedman is on the case. Here's a snippet, go read the whole thing:

For the past 23 years, since confessing to a cold-blooded triple murder at a Houston bowling alley, Max has been at his final station on the way: the Polunsky Unit, in Livingston. But he long ago recanted that confession, and many people, including a number of Houston-area law enforcement officers, think he didn't commit the crime. They say he told the cops what they wanted to hear after three days of interrogation without a lawyer present. At the very least, they say, Max's case is an example of everything that's wrong with the system. In the words of my friend Steve Rambam, who is Max's pro bono private investigator, "I'm not anti-death penalty; I'm just anti-the-wrong-guy-getting-executed." Another observer troubled by Max's case is Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judge Harold R. DeMoss Jr., who wrote in 2002, after hearing Max's last appeal, "I have lain awake nights agonizing over the enigmas, contradictions, and ambiguities" in the record.

Chief among these Kafka-esque elements is the fact that Max's state-appointed attorney was the late Joe Cannon, who was infamous for sometimes sleeping through his clients' capital murder trials. Cannon managed to stay awake for Max's, but he did not bother to interview the one witness who might have cleared him. There are, incidentally, ten men on death row who were clients of Cannon's. Then there's the evidence—or the total lack of it..... [link via Brian at Ain't No Bad Dude.

by TChris

Camilo Mejia had enough of war. Tired of being used as bait to lure Iraqi fighters into the open, and uncomfortable with the efforts taken by the military to avoid civilian casualties, Mejia made a decision when he returned home on leave last fall. He wasn't going back.

Now, after five months in hiding, Mejia ... aims to become the first Iraq war veteran to publicly challenge the morality and conduct of the conflict. At a time when Americans increasingly hold grave concerns about the bloody war, Mejia intends to seek conscientious objector status to avoid a court-martial.

Soldiers aren't supposed to question orders, but Mejia knew he couldn't live with himself if he continued fighting a war he believed to be unjust. That realization was partially motivated by an order to shoot at Iraqi protestors who, in Mejia's judgment, were too far away to harm troops.

"It was the first time I had fired at a human being," Mejia recalled. "I guess you could say it was my initiation at killing a human being. ... It was part of a general feeling that we had no right to be there, and every killing, whether provoked or not provoked, was unjustified because we had no right to be there."

Although Mejia could face execution for deserting during time of war, his lawyer thinks that extreme outcome is unlikely. He's probably right, as about 600 other soldiers have gone AWOL during home leaves from Iraq, and an administration facing reelection might have a difficult time explaining why it would want to execute more American soldiers than have died in combat.

That doesn't mean that Mejia will be granted conscientious objector status or spared a court martial. A soldier recently convicted of deserting, Kenneth Carter, received a six-month sentence in a Fort Knox prison after his court martial.

Mejia's company commander complains that Mejia is nothing but a "mommy's boy." His view may parallel that of the military establishment. But not everyone agrees with that assessment.

by TChris

"I'm not a reporter, but I play one on TV." That disclosure is missing from videos prepared by the Bush administration that tout the new Medicare law -- videos that are designed to look like, and to substitute for, objective journalism.

The administration provides the videos to local news stations, and helpfully provides a script for the local anchor to read as a lead-in to the video. One script reminds viewers that "President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare." The script goes on to say "there have been a lot of questions about how the law will help older Americans and people with disabilities. Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details." The video ends with a voice-over that says "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

Except that Karen Ryan isn't a reporter. She's an actor hired by the company that produced the videos for the administration.

Why would the Bush administration want to disguise its "educational" materials about the new Medicare law as the product of objective journalism? Could it be that the videos are transparent efforts to assist the President's reelection campaign?

Several of the videos include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare drug-benefit law on Dec. 8.

It's bad enough that the government's number one financial analyst for Medicare was ordered to withhold information about the true cost of the Medicare package to assure its passage by Congress. Now the administration wants seniors to think that unbiased reporters agree that the new law works to their advantage.

But when seniors get their information from sources other than the Bush administration, they come to a different conclusion.

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey indicated that only a fraction of the U.S. seniors understood the law, and the more they learned about it, the less they liked it.

Hence the need to mislead seniors into believing that their local news stations have investigated the Medicare changes and have concluded that the President gave seniors a great benefit by pushing for the new law.

by TChris

President Bush was spectacularly unsuccessful in his efforts to recruit foreign governments to join the United States in its plan to invade and occupy Iraq. Now one of the few governments that supported Bush has paid the price, as voters in Spain handed an election victory to the country's Socialist party on Sunday.

Spain's incoming leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Monday he would probably pull Madrid's troops out of the "disastrous" occupation of Iraq, in a major swing from his predecessor's pro-American foreign policy.

Zapatero said his Socialists' surprise win in Sunday's general election -- overshadowed by the Madrid train bombings that killed 200 people -- was the first consequence of the unpopularity among Spaniards of the Iraq war. "The second will be that the Spanish troops will come back," he told a Spanish radio station. "Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush must do some reflection and self-criticism... you can't organize a war with lies."