A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows Gen. Wesley Clark tied with President Bush:

The CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll was conducted Sept. 19-21, beginning two days after Clark announced he would become the 10th Democratic candidate for the party's nomination.

Kerry and Lieberman also tied Bush, while Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt fell a little behind him. Bush's approval ratings aren't faring well either:

The president's job approval was 50 percent, with 47 percent disapproving. The public gave Bush high marks for having the personality and leadership qualities of a chief executive. But just over half, 51 percent, said they disagreed with the president on issues that matter most to them, while 46 percent agree.

Massachussetts has long been a state without a death penalty. If Governor Mitt Romney has his way, that may end. Romney announced today he has commissioned experts to draft a death penalty bill for the state.

Putting aside what you believe about capital punishment, this is just stupid in the current economic climate. Are Massachussetts citizens doing that well that they can afford the cost of $1-3 million per death penalty case--as opposed to a cost of $25-$30,000 per year to incarcerate an offender for life?

If we were citizens of Massachussets, we'd vote this Republican Governor out at the next election, and replace him with someone who has a higher regard for our hard-earned dollars.

Update: The Albany-Times Union ran this article on the cost of the death penalty Sunday:

Precise costs are difficult to pin down, but estimates suggest New Yorkers have spent more than $160 million during the past seven years prosecuting, defending and trying capital murder cases, which are exponentially more complex and protracted than ordinary felonies.

Sen. Hillary Clinton blasted the Bush Administration recently, charging he is trying to impose a radical right-wing agenda on the country. She also criticized him for trying to upend social programs, particularly medicare and social security.

We want more, Hillary. Unleash on Ashcroft next time.

Good for Europe! At least they have some sense when it comes to privacy rights.

Europe's willingness to cooperate with a security-conscious United States government appears to have reached its limit. The union's commissioner in charge of data protection issues, Frits Bolkestein, said that while the European Union continues to stand with America in the war on terrorism, it views the latest demands for information about airline passengers flying into the United States from Europe as going too far.

We just got a hold of a copy of Attorney General John Ashcroft's Memo to Proseuctors on "Department Policy Concerning Charging Criminal Offenses, Disposition of Charges, and Sentencing. We've put it up on CrimeLynx, for all to read. You can find it here.

The text of Ashcroft's "Department Principles for
Implementing an Expedited Disposition or “Fast- Track” Prosecution Program in a District" is here.

Update: In case you don't have time to read the whole thing, or don't want to deal with the legalese, here are the AP's description of the exceptions to the no-plea bargain policy:

Bump and Update: Ashcroft's memo went out today to all 94 U.S. Attorneys Offices today as we reported last night it would. See the original post below:

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First update, 9/22
Update: The Wall Street Journal is carrying this article about Ashcroft's new memo to federal prosecutors:

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a move that would further centralize prosecutorial power to Justice Department headquarters, is considering an order to U.S. attorneys to cut back significantly on plea bargaining with criminal defendants. The order, which could be issued as early as today, would require federal prosecutors to "charge and pursue the facts" of the cases they file, and notes that charges shouldn't be filed simply to exert leverage to induce a plea.

The development represents the latest in a series of recent policy changes that Justice Department officials say will bring more consistency to departmental decision making, but which effectively have shifted responsibility to headquarters or placed it in the hands of fewer prosecutors. Mr. Ashcroft has overridden several prosecutors on seeking the death penalty in federal capital cases. In July, he ordered prosecutors to begin appealing all cases in which judges handed down sentences against the wishes of prosecutors when they are more lenient than federal guidelines support.

Joel Steinberg. Hedda Nessbaum. Six year old Lisa Steinberg. Do you remember them? If not, go here.

Steinberg, a prominent New York attorney, is soon to be paroled after serving 17 years in prison for killing Lisa. And, according to his attorney, he has a job waiting upon his release. He will be a television producer for "New York Confidential." It's a local cable interview show. What are Steinberg's credentials for the job?

"He has contacts in prison," [his lawyer] said, explaining that Steinberg, a disbarred lawyer, knows some of the state's most notorious criminals. "He knows how to go into a prison and get a story."

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The Chicago Jewish News calls upon its readers to urge the Chicago city council to pass a resolution opposing the Patriot Act.

Since its passage, the act has severely curtailed the constitutional rights of American citizens and non- citizens alike. Several members of the Chicago City Council have introduced a resolution supporting Chicago's immigrant population and condemning the excesses of the act. Jews, as people who throughout history have understood the need to protect those who are not yet citizens, should vigorously support this resolution by urging their aldermen to vote for the resolution when it comes up for a vote on Oct. 1.

The article details the most objectionable provisions of the act, and continues with:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer denounced mandatory minimum sentences yesterday during a talk in Boston.

Mandatory minimum sentences passed by Congress are "bad policy" because they are unfair in some cases, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said Sunday. Breyer, who was a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in the 1980s, said there must be flexibility in sentencing to make room for exceptional cases.

In a speech to about 550 people at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Breyer said Congress had passed statutes with "no room for flexibility on the downside." "That is not a helpful thing to do," he said. "It's not going to advance the cause of law enforcement in my opinion, and it's going to set back the cause of fairness in sentencing."

Justice Kennedy criticized mandatory minimums at the ABA meeting in August. Breyer says Chief Justice Rehnquist "and others" shares his view.

Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff and others have banded together to bring you the Blogburst index:

Today a group of progressive Texas bloggers are all posting on the subject "What Texas Democrats Should Do Next". [The link above] is a link to everyone's post for today's blogburst, which will be updated through the day as they come in. Please take the time to visit these links and see what a diverse group of people think needs to be done to make the Democrats more effective in Texas.

Good people, good thoughts. Go give them a read.

The Associated Press reports that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has been spilling his guts to U.S. interrogators from his overseas place of detention.

According to the article,

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has told U.S. investigators that he first began plotting the 2001 attacks with terrorist leader Usama bin Laden back in 1996. After examining interregation reports, The Associated Press learned that Mohammed said the original scheme involved the hijacking of five commercial airliners on both U.S. coasts. He said the plan was changed several times in the five years between its conception and execution. Mohammed also divulged that, in its final stages, the hijacking plot called for as many as 22 terrorists and four planes in a first wave, followed by a second wave of suicide hijackings that were to be aided possibly by Al Qaeda (search) allies in southeast Asia, according to the reports.

....Mohammed said al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were among the four original operatives bin Laden assigned to him for the plot, a significant revelation because those were the only two hijackers whom U.S. authorities were frantically seeking for terrorist ties in the final days before Sept. 11.

What we want to know is if Mohammed supports Moussaoui's claim that Moussaoui was not involved in 9/11. While the article gives the details of Mohammed's statements of everyone else's involvement, as to Moussoui, it only reports:

In doing some research on Wesley Clark's position on criminal justice issues, we came across this heartening quote:

I'm concerned about the lock-up policy, the 3-strikes policy, putting people in jails and the way we've treated people in prison. We've got to look seriously at the American penal system and what it does when it returns people.to the streets." Source: WBUR Public Radio interview Jun 19, 2003