Say hello to our newest adverstiser--Democrat Doug Haines, runnng for Congress in Georgia--the 12th Congressional District (home of Savannah, Augusta and Athens). Also advertising on TalkLeft is John Barrow, running for the same seat.

On the Senate side, Tony Knowles is running in Alaska.

Please go give these folks some contributions. We can take back Congress in '04, but they need some help from us.

We heard a lot this morning about many of the cases we've been writing about on TalkLeft--one item that really stood out was how much the Government spent to prosecute Tommy Chong: $12 million. What an outrage.

Update: Drug War Rant tells us what $12 million could provide:

• $12 million would pay for treatment for 3,500 drug addicts for an entire year.
• $12 million would pay for enough needle exchange programs to prevent 1,258 HIV infections.
• $12 million as a direct grant to me would stimulate spending in my household and help the economy.

Max Potter's story in 5280 on the Air Force Academy rape scandal will be the focus of a special segment tonight on ABC's 20/20.

President Bush released hundreds of pages of his military records, including medical records today, to put to rest allegations that he didn't completely fulfill his National Guard service.

We just got to Scottsdale, AZ where we will be at a legal conference all weekend. We haven't read enough yet to comment, and we've got a function to attend in a little while, but we'll be back later tonight and throughout the weekend--the hotel has high speed internet access and we feel like blogging.

The Enron investigation is about to claim another top gun--former CEO Jeff Skilling is reported to be close to Indictment.

The charges against Skilling being finalized by Enron Task Force prosecutors come on the heels of the Jan. 21 indictment of ex-Enron Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey and the Jan. 15 guilty pleas of former company Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and his wife.

Skilling testifed before Congress and did not invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege. He is expected to fight the charges all the way.

Bruce Hiler, Skilling's Washington, D.C.-based lawyer, said his client did nothing wrong and fairly relied on his subordinates and the accountants and lawyers they hired. Hiler said if Skilling is indicted, many corporate executives need to be afraid of the government.

"If a COO can't rely on the dozens of experts who review and recommend transactions, then no COO should go to work tomorrow, because they may find themselves indicted," Hiler said.

Attorneys involved in the Enron criminal cases expect that Fastow, who agreed to serve 10 years in prison for two counts of conspiracy, gave prosecutors information that will add to the case against Skilling.

Speaking on the Don Imus show this morning, John Kerry said he's ready for whatever the Republicans throw at him:

Front-runner John Kerry said Friday he is prepared for an onslaught of criticism from the Republican Party and is ready to fight back as he moves closer to the Democratic nomination for president.

"We've seen evidence. We know exactly where these guys are gonna go, and I'm ready for it," Kerry told radio broadcaster Don Imus. "I've been at this for a while, Don, and I've been through some tough races. I've been pretty well, you know, vetted and examined from one side to the other. And I think that they're in for a surprise. I'm going to fight back. I am a fighter, and I'm ready to fight back."

We're reading:

Saved by a Hair in LA Weekly--Kevin Cooper gets another month at life.

Lou Dubose, also writing for LA Weekly, says the real question about Bush's military service is how did he get into the Guard in the first place?

Hesiod of Counterspin reports on Drudge's Kerry reports and says it's not true that the media was investigating the story. Here's one article backing up Hesiod's claim

Drudge claimed that half a dozen news outlets were investigating the allegations against Mr Kerry, but most of them denied doing so last night. Leonard Downie, executive editor of The Washington Post, mentioned by Drudge, said: "This is the first we've heard that we're working on a story that we're not working on." A reporter with Time magazine, also cited by Drudge,
said that the weekly magazine was as puzzled by the story as the rest of the world."

John Edwards will be on the Tonight Show tonight. Last night on the show, Dennis Kucinich played "The Dating Game" and won a date with actress Meg Tilly.

This floors us. The Pentagon is now saying that the detainees at Guantanamo may be held for years or even indefinitely:

Senior Defense Department officials said Thursday that they were planning to keep a large portion of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, there for many years, perhaps indefinitely. The officials said they would soon set up a panel to review those long-term prisoners' cases annually to determine whether the men remained a threat to the United States or could be released.

The officials described the panel as a "quasi-parole board" that would comprise three members before whom prisoners could personally plead their case for release. At the same time, the officials said, in the coming months they will continue to release to the home governments many other prisoners deemed not to be a continuing danger.

Indefinitely, as in forever? Life without parole for prisoners never charged with a crime or provided a lawyer? What country is this....Iraq?

San Francisco once again demonstrates it is the epitome of liberalism--or at least, of live and let live. Thursday, in a supreme act of civil disobedience, San Francisco gave out marriage licenses and 50 couples were wed--with the stamp of imprimateur of its new mayor, Gavin Newsom, who supports gay marriage.

In a historic act of civil disobedience, San Francisco defied state law and issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples Thursday, a move expected to ignite a constitutional showdown starting today.

The city's action marked the first time in the United States that gays and lesbians could wed and have their marriages recognized by a government body.
A San Francisco lesbian couple who have been together five decades were the first to marry, followed by dozens of other couples who said their vows in City Hall ceremonies.

The New York Times reports here.

Our view: Go for it, insist on it as your civil right. Marriage should revolve around love and commitment, not gender. Adoption, in vitrio fertilization and other techniques that can bring the joy of children to same sex unions is a blessing.

Say hello to Ralph Don't Run. It is a grassroots campaign that depends on recipients forwarding the message to supportive friends. Once you see the site, if you're so inclined, please pass it along as broadly as possible.

Drudge is reporting that Kerry is preparing a response to the allegations he posted earlier on his website that Kerry had an extramarital affair with an intern (see our earlier post here.)

Daily Kos says the allegations pertain to relationship Kerry had with another lawmaker's intern while he was between marriages. In other words, sex as a single guy. Drudge alleges the relationship was in 2001.

The U.S. papers are not, as yet, covering the allegation. The U.K., Scottish and Irish papers are reporting it, but have no details other than a regurgitation of Drudge. (check Google news)

A reporter on CNN tonight said that Howard Dean said today he will go back to Vermont and consider what to do next if he doesn't win Wisdonsin--which is different than his earlier statements first that he would drop out if he lost Wisconsin and later that he would stay in if he lost Wisconsin. If this new statement is accurate, we think it unlikely that the Kerry story is driving his decision.

Our prediction: The Kerry story is going to fizzle.

Update: Joe Conasen on Drudge's smear campaign.

Is American politics suddenly returning to the bad old days, when Washington journalism became frenzied with sheet sniffing and keyhole peeping? That seems to be the default program of the right-wing media machine whenever Republican poll numbers sink into the red zone.

Late Thursday morning -- with George W. Bush's credibility damaged on several fronts as reporters demanded answers to questions about his National Guard service that should have been asked years ago -- the Drudge Report defamed his leading Democratic challenger with a "world exclusive" smudge of personal dirt.

Law Professor and contributing Nation editor Joel Rogers, writing in the Madison Capital Times, provides a list of reasons why John Edwards is more progressive than John Kerry. First he lists the candidates' similarities, and then he distinguishes Edwards:

Where Edwards diverges from Kerry is in addressing a series of issues of distinctive concern to progressives - inequalities of race and class, abusive corporate power, neoliberal globalization, ghetto poverty and prisons, the importance of worker and community organization outside the state. And what makes him distinctive is not just that he regularly touches these third-rail issues, but is effectively running on them.

He is unabashedly pro-union. He regularly challenges white audiences to confront the white problem of continued racial injustice. His "two Americas" stump speech is all about class. He appreciates and notes the sheer pervasiveness of corporate crime - from tax evasion to union avoidance, predatory lending to environmental degradation, unsafe working conditions to subsidy abuse.

He is sharply critical of the "Washington consensus" on international trade and finance. He talks about the growth of poverty and dead-end poverty jobs. And he's the only candidate who does this in language that ordinary voters understand and are moved by. Better still, Edwards is relentlessly upbeat about America's ability to solve these problems. He's not another Clintonesque "I feel your pain, now let me tell you why I can't do anything about it" sort of guy. He has a real program of democratic renewal. And it is largely ours.

...He wants to raise labor and environmental standards, invest heavily in worker training and continuing education, and build the public infrastructure needed to achieve a shared prosperity. He also wants to get beyond the free trade/protectionism frame for international economic policy and commit the United States clearly to both defending living standards here and enabling sustainable growth in the Third World.

The best news to us:

He also would have us shrink our bloated prison population and return its present members more successfully to society by better distinguishing non-violent drug crimes from other offenses; restoring abandoned treatment and training options; and re-enfranchising those who have done their time.