Don't miss this audio collection from the Mike Malloy Radio Show with one quote after another about the fictitious WMDs. Many are from Bush, but the other culprits are here as well... Rumseld, Colin Powell , Ari, Condi Rice and the rest of the gang. It's near the bottom under the heading "WarGate" (If you have windows and want to save a copy, right click the mp3 fileand select 'save target as')

Another good related flash video is here ...

[thanks to Kelley of Demopower for the tip]

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President Bush will appoint John McCain to a nine member panel to investigate intelligence failures regarding Iraq.

We've never been particularly fond of McCain. Is this supposed to be good news? Since the results of the panel won't be released until after the November election, does it even matter?

With Massachussetts front and center in the controversy over gay marriages, some news articles are speculating that John Kerry's position on the issue may take on increased significance. He supports civil unions but opposes gay marriages. Yet, he was one of 14 senators voting against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Here's an article describing all of the Democratic candidates positions on civil unions and gay marriage.

Michael Meehan, a senior adviser for the Kerry campaign, told Fox News yesterday that Mr. Kerry opposes homosexual "marriage," but that he still "thinks there's a lot of gay bashing going on, and he won't stand for that."

...Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has said he was "proud to sign the nation's first law establishing civil unions for same-sex couples," but has also said he opposes raising that status to official marriage. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has said he favors letting states decide the question of gay "marriage." Wesley Clark has generally avoided the issue on the campaign trail, but has said that "families come in many shapes and sizes" and was in favor of giving same-sex couples the "same rights and responsibilities" as heterosexual couples.

Since all the major candidates oppose gay marriage, we're not sure why it is perceived to be that big of an issue. The issue to us is Bush's plan to push a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage--now that, must be stopped.

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Yesterday we wrote about Roderick Johnson, a black, gay male who endured being raped in a Texas prison nearly every day by more than 100 men over an 18 month period.

Today we learn that a Texas grand jury has refused to indict anyone in the case.

Gina DeBottis, the chief of the state's Special Prosecution Unit that prosecutes prison crimes, said the grand jury considered allegations concerning sexual assault by convicts and organized criminal activity. None of the 49 convicts alleged to have committed the attacks against Roderick Johnson was indicted, she said Thursday.

In April 2002, seeking compensation, Johnson filed a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and more than a dozen prison officials. He alleged officials looked the other way while he was repeatedly beaten and raped by prison gangs who sold him as a sex slave while he was incarcerated at the Allred Unit near Wichita Falls. The lawsuit is pending in federal court in Wichita Falls.

Prison officials have denied the allegations and on Thursday for the first time made public their investigative report refuting Johnson's allegations with new ones -- that he had consensual sex with several of the alleged attackers, that he concocted his story for money, that he even wrote letters to two convicts he alleged raped him.

He consented to sex with "several" of the inmates? What about the remaining ones who raped him? Out of the 49 inmates investigated, not one was indicted. Not a single guard or prison official. We smell a whitewash.

Dick Gephardt has given his support to John Kerry. Kerry is leading in Michigan.

John Edwards has pledged to stay in the race through Wisconsin, even if he loses Tennessee and Virginia next Tuesday. Edwards raised $200k over the internet in the 24 hours after his South Carolina win.

New York City yesterday became the 251st "civil liberties safe zone" when its City Council passed a resolution rejecting portions of the Patriot Act. You can read the text of the resolution here. From an e-mail from the Bill of Rights Defense Committee:

The Council of the City of New York approved a resolution denouncing parts of the Patriot Act and affirming that “security measures [must] enhance the public safety without impairing constitutional rights or infringing on civil liberties.” The resolution makes New York the 251st ‘civil liberties safe zone,’ and raises the zones’ population to 43 million nationwide, according to the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, which tracks the movement and encourages communities to join in a national debate on these issues. Four of the country’s five most populous cities—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia—are now ‘safe zones,’ along with the states of Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont.

Say hello to Media for Democracy:

Media For Democracy 2004 is a non-partisan citizens' initiative to monitor mainstream news coverage of the 2004 elections and advocate fair, democratic and issue-oriented standards of reporting. The project links voters with more than 100 independent media reform groups in a targeted campaign to prevent the types of media mistakes -- such as early, erroneous and politically biased projections -- that plagued the 2000 election.

Here's a heads-up on tomorrow's article, Campaign Roadkill: Pay-To-Play
Formula Steamrolls Underdogs, accessible now:

The murky relationship of money, media and politics becomes crystal clear when it comes to advertising. If a candidate can't deliver cash to buy political spots from local broadcasters, his or her run for office is dead on arrival.

Republican Senator Charles Grassley has a prediction: Osama bin Laden will be caught before the November 2 election.

Grassley also says John Edwards is a bigger threat to President Bush than John Kerry:

Although President Bush’s re-election prospects would no doubt be boosted if bin Laden is found, Grassley said Democrats may have a better chance if Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) wins his party’s presidential nomination rather than the current front-runner, Sen. John Kerry (Mass.).

“ I would say that Senator Kerry is more of a threat than [Howard] Dean but less of a threat than Senator Edwards” because of the latter’s strength in the South, he said.

[link via Cursor.]

Hank Skinner is on death row in Texas. His supporters say his is a terrible case of wrongful conviction. Now, you can read about his case in English or French and learn how you can help in his quest to overturn his conviction and sentence.

The Pentagon has agreed to relax some of the arduous rules imposed upon private defense lawyers representing defendants in Guantanamo military tribunal proceedings. Among the most significant change is that defense lawyers will not have to sign an affidavit acknowledging that their conversations with their clients may be recorded.

The Pentagon has not dropped its insistence that agents can listen in, but the reworked rules are much more explicit about how the government chooses which suspects, if any, it will monitor, and which government agency will do the monitoring. A defense lawyer would be notified about planned electronic monitoring and could object to it at trial, [Miami Attorney Neal] Sonnett said.

Another big change: The Pentagon will remove the ban on private lawyers receiving help from their home offices or outside counsel in their representation of detainees at military tribunals, even if such lawyers are not on a Pentagon-approved list.

The new rules are not finalized yet, but here is the Pentagon's site on military commissions. You can read what's wrong with the current rules here.

Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean says he will quit the race if he does not win Wisconsin:

``We must win Wisconsin,'' the former Vermont governor said in a memo to supporters. ``A win there will carry us to the big states on March 2 -- and narrow the field to two candidates. Anything else will put us out of the race.''

Can he win Wisconsin?

Roderick Johnson is doing something about the indignities he suffered in a Texas prison. A gay, black man, Johnson was raped by more than one hundred men--nearly every day for 18 months. He's suing the Texas Department of Corrections and developing a program to "aid the re-integration of troubled young adults into mainstream society as productive, responsible citizens."

Hearing him speak, however, it seems the lawsuit embodies not an attempt at payback, but a demand for justice. "What's done is done," said 35-year-old Johnson. "I have harsh feelings, but I'm not vengeful."

....he was placed in Allred Prison, a maximum-security facility outside Wichita Falls, Texas. For Johnson, it was like being thrown into a viper's nest, he said. "I was in prison with people serving two life sentences," Johnson said. "They don't care about anything. Their lives are over."

At first he tried to survive as an independent - someone unaffiliated with any of the various gangs that Johnson said controlled the atmosphere inside. Soon, Johnson took another role, one forced upon him by inmates because of his sexuality, he said. "I became a 'she'," Johnson says. "In their eyes, I'm a woman."

Some of the inmates made him clean their cells and cook their food, he said. Then the rapes began. According to Johnson's lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, he was raped nearly every day for 18 months. He attempted seven times to convince a prison committee to move him into the safekeeping wing of the prison, where vulnerable prisoners such as known homosexuals and ex-police officers remain segregated from the general population. Each time, the committee refused his appeal.