Editorial writer Jac Wilder VerSteeg of the Palm Beach Post cuts Rush no slack:

...it is not the case that Mr. Limbaugh, who has not been charged, would be the first to face prosecution for doctor-shopping. Nor would he be the last. But in Florida and elsewhere, it is likely that the people who face prosecution won't be able to afford defense lawyers of Roy Black's caliber. Under the provisions of Senate Bill 1064, the state would pay much closer attention to Medicaid patients' prescriptions. Medicaid patients who lied to get drugs would be denied benefits. The bill also would make it easier to discipline doctors who fraudulently prescribe drugs to Medicaid patients. Patients who sell fraudulently obtained OxyContin and other prescription drugs on the black market would be guilty of a felony.

Mr. Limbaugh, who has admitted his own addiction, seems to favor leniency for people addicted to prescription medications.....The compassion is new. What would Rush Limbaugh, before confessing to his own addiction, have said about Medicaid patients guilty of doctor-shopping for OxyContin? Mr. Black points out that hypocrisy is not a crime. He said he doubts that Florida would jail Medicaid patients who go doctor-shopping solely to feed an addiction to prescription pills. I think he's wrong about that last part. Perhaps Mr. Limbaugh should get a pass because Medicaid patients are ripping off taxpayers while Rush, even if he was doctor-shopping, spent only his own money. Regardless of who pays, though, doctor-shopping is a crime....If the state is determined to crack down on Medicaid recipients suspected of doctor-shopping, it is only fair to crack down on everyone suspected of doctor-shopping. Mr. Limbaugh's public-relations defense is "poor me." In that case, prosecutors should treat him the same as the state intends for them to treat the poor.

Two wrongs don't make a right. We don't think the state should go after anyone who takes pills for pain, whether they doctor shop or not. We think doctors must be free to prescribe whatever amount it takes to alleviate their patients' pain. Ashcroft is wrong to go after doctors; Florida is wrong to go after Medicaid recipients; and Florida is wrong to go after Rush, hypocrite or not.

From Ryan Lizza's Campaign Blog at The New Republic, describing the newest Bush campaign ad, dubbed by one of their readers as the Muhammed Horton ad:

ANOTHER CAMPAIGN FIRST: Bush's first round of ads became immediately famous for using images of Ground Zero and a flag-draped body being carried away from the rubble of the World Trade Center. His newest spot, "100 Days," might soon become famous for another campaign first. It is the first ad to use the image of a dark-skinned man who is obviously meant to be a terrorist.

The ominous slow-motion footage comes about halfway through the 30-second ad. A female voiceover darkly warns about John Kerry's agenda, charging, "On the war on terror: weaken the Patriot Act used to arrest terrorists and protect America." On the left of the screen flash the words "John Kerry's Plan." On the bottom a red box warns, "Weaken Fight Against Terrorists." If you look closely, on the right side of the screen you can see an airplane taking off.

The center of the screen is filled with three different rectangles of slow-motion video. In the top panel travelers at an airport study the arrivals and departures monitor. In the center panel there is a shadowed image of a person wearing a gas mask. And on the bottom there is a close-up of a swarthy, somewhat sinister-looking man with darting eyes who slowly turns toward the camera. He is clearly the terrorist in this scary montage.

Daily Kos reports the Bush campaign says the terrorist in the ad is not Arab. You decide. We just saw the ad on Fox and think the depicted "terrorist" is clearly Middle Eastern.

Update: Poor Man has the complete story board.

California's Supreme Court put the kabosh on gay marriages today--but it will revisit the issue in May or June. In San Francisco, more than 4,000 same sex couples were married during the past month. In Oregon, 1,800 couples have requested licenses since March 3. The practice is spreading around the country. Yet, religious leaders say they have been marrying same-sex couples for some time:

In New York, a group of religious leaders said they would challenge the state's interpretation of the law on same-sex marriages in the coming weeks. Jewish Rabbis and Christian ministers told a news briefing that some of them had officiated at religious marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples for 23 years but were barred by law from issuing civil marriage licenses.

The group responsible for the Madrid bombing which has claimed the lives of more than 190 people, and injured another 1,400 remains in doubt. Spanish officials seemed confident earlier today that the Basque separatist group ETA was responsible. But, a letter has been received taking responsibility that is purportedly from an Al Qaeda group.

Did the two groups collaborate? It doesn't seem likely but it is not being ruled out either. Bin Laden has previously mentioned Spain as a country that could be attacked. It would be a very disturbing development, according to one analyst we heard on CNN.

Al Qaeda also sent a letter to a newspaper today saying that another attack on the U.S is "90% ready."

We've closed the comments to our earlier thread on the Spain bombing, so as to move on to the new developments.

The defendants in the Tulia, Texas drug sting will share a $5 million settlement.

The agreement with the city of Amarillo, announced Wednesday, was cheered by the NAACP and attorneys representing people who were snared in the Texas Panhandle town of Tulia by Tom Coleman, the task force's only undercover agent.

Attorneys said it was not just a victory for the 46 people arrested in 1999 - most of whom are black - but also a blow to law-enforcement task forces that they allege allow police misconduct to go unchecked.

"It's not simply that Tom Coleman was a rogue officer," said Vanita Gupta, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund who also represents the plaintiffs. "The city of Amarillo has recognized that federally funded task forces are ineffective tools of law enforcement and they operate as rogue task forces because they are unaccountable to any oversight mechanism."

You can access all of our Tulia coverage here.

In only 9 days, a jury has been seated for the Oklahoma murder trial of Terry Nichols. We find this shocking. Even with a change of venue to Denver, and a trial in federal court-- which is known for limited voir dire as compared to that allowed by state courts-- jury selection lasted a month in Terry Nichols' case and three weeks in the case of Timothy McVeigh.

With so much prejudice against Nichols in Oklahoma, the short jury selection process--with most of the questioning done by the judge--gives us very little confidence that this will be a fair trial.

Big win for Kobe Bryant today. The Colorado Supreme Court has declined to hear (PDF) a prosecution appeal of the trial court's order allowing the defense to question the accuser at a closed door hearing about her past sexual history.

Here is an example of the very best in lawyering - from an article from The Daily Oklahoman. Fern Leona Holland, dead at 33, was a graduate from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Tulsa Law School. She worked for a prestigious Tulsa law firm and set up legal clinics in Guinea and Iraq to work for women's rights. Her's was a life well-lived. We're sorry we didn't know her.

Fern Leona Holland, 33, was killed as she traveled near the town of Hillah. Holland, along with another civilian and a translator, were stopped at a checkpoint where they were shot by gunmen posing as Iraqi police, a military source said. Holland's family said she was the leader of Iraq's women's rights movement, a brilliant woman who loved democracy. "She believed in freedom," said her sister Vi Holland of Oklahoma City. "She believed that every man and woman born should enjoy the right of freedom."

Fern Holland had been working in Iraq as a member of the Coalition Provisional Authority. She was investigating human rights violations, setting up women's rights conferences and assisting with the new constitution.

After Guinea, the U.S. hired her to set up women's clinics in Iraq.

Holland set up women's centers across Iraq and organized a trip in October for a group of Iraqi women to travel to the United States and meet President Bush...."She wasn't military, she wasn't a soldier," [a former partner] said. "She was over there working for human rights, and because of that, those people assassinated her."

Four bombs exploded at a Madrid train station at rush hour this morning killing 170 people. Who's responsible?

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, but Spanish officials said they suspected militant Basque separatists from the group E.T.A., whose initials stand for Basque Homeland and Freedom in Euskara, the Basque language. E.T.A. was placed on the United States's list of terrorist organizations in 2001 because it was determined by the State Department to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism. "I do not have the least doubt that it is E.T.A.," said the interior minister, Ángel Acebes, in a statement broadcast on the radio.

Not so fast?:

...but the latest attack was on a scale far larger than anything attributed to ETA in the past. For that reason, some commentators have speculated that other terror groups, including al Qaeda, may have been involved. Some fear that Spain's strong support for the United States in the run-up to war with Iraq could make her a target. This was picked up by the leader of the banned Basque separatist party Batasuna, Arnald Otegi. He rejected claims that ETA could have been behind the attacks and instead pointed the finger at "the Arab resistance".

Here's more on reaction in Madrid to the bombing. The death toll is now at 186, and undoubtedly going to climb. UPI reports on the bombing as the possible hallmark of Al Qaeda.

We're back at work today, so here's an open thread to discuss it.

Update: The mystery deepens:

Police probing the Madrid terrorist attacks found a van with detonators and an Arabic-language tape with Koranic verses, and officials said they are not ruling out any line of investigation.

[comments now closed, new thread here]

Say hello to Jeff Smith from Missouri. He's running for Congress and taken out an ad on TalkLeft to raise funds. Please help him. Here's what one of his blogger supporters emailed us:

He is challenging one of the worst candidates I've ever seen in Russ Carnahan. But besides Carnahan there are several pro-life candidates in the race and of the candidates who are viable, Jeff is the only one who is against the death penalty and he has a strong stand on the Patriot Act. If the others win, while they are decent people and I'd vote for them as long as they voted for Pelosi, for a relatively safe district it'd be a shame. Jeff is having good success outside of the district, but the machine has cut off most local funds. He is trying blog ads to see if that can be another source of funds.

As we learn more about other Democratic candidates around the country, including but not limited to those who advertise on TalkLeft, we'll write about them. And don't forget to support the DNC. We can take both the White House and Congress this year if we put our minds, hearts and wallets into the effort.

Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking) spoke at Salem College in North Carolina this week. Here's a recap of her 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."

Sister Prejean is writing another book, The Death of Innocents, detailing her experiences with two death row inmates.

Rodi Alvarado's fate is now in Ashcroft's hands. We wrote about it today over at American Street.