R.I.P. Warren Zevon.

We have a brief due tomorrow --here's our selection of choice Sunday reading:

Atrios on the lack of minority anchors and pundits on tv and in some liberal publications. (permalink not working for us.)

This San Francisco Chronicle editorial examining the war on terror two years after 9/11 and finding we're not any safer--just less free.

Howard Bashman of How Appealing , who has the best roundup of the Sunday News, including an article on the newest trend in courtroom attire for white collar defendants . He's also right on top of tomorrow's Supreme Court oral argument on the lawfulness of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

David Neiwert of Orcinus continues his short series on Bush, the Nazis and America. Part I is on falsifying history. Part 2 is on the Bush Fortune. Next up will be the Bush ideology.

Patrick Nielsen-Hayden of Electrolite has an analysis of the increasing presence of group blogs, with links and descriptions of many of them. While he praises some, he's not entirely fond of the design concept.

Lisa English of Ruminate This has a gushing review of Joe Conason's Big Lies and says it is must reading. We've about to start reading it.

SKBubba has an advance copy of Bush's speech tonight and it will make you laugh.

Wampum Blog compares the proposed cost of reconstruction for Iraq with the budget for other agencies, using OMB statistics.

Veiled4Allah provides a history of early Muslim and Arab immigrants to the United States.

Skippy brings his wit to political, war and media issues today. If you run into Jim Capozzola of Rittenhouse Review, will you tell him Labor Day is over and it's time to start blogging again?

We love this op-ed piece in today's Detroit News by Robert Sharpe blasting the drug war for contributing to police corruption:

The combination of informants culled from the criminal underworld and overzealous prosecutors have dangerous implications. Whether or not a defendant is actually guilty, the informant profits when he snitches on someone else, even if it's a lie. This practice lends itself to entrapment and incarceration of innocent people.

Good cops aren't immune to the profit motive. Civil asset forfeiture laws provide an incentive for police to legally seize the cars, cash and homes of suspected drug offenders, and the temptation to steal proves too great for some.

....The institutional corruption created by the drug war stretches from coast to coast and reaches the highest levels. The Los Angeles Rampart scandal involved anti-drug officers selling drugs and framing gang members. And it's not just cops. ....The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

Sharpe points out the absurdity of the war against marijauana: Usage is far higher in the U.S. which prohibits it than in European countries where it has been decriminalized.

He concludes:

The land of the free now has the highest incarceration rate in the world in large part due to the war on illicit drugs. It's not possible to wage a moralistic war against consensual vices unless privacy is eliminated, along with the Constitution. If America is to be a free country, the war on drugs must stop.

We've only included some highlights, so go read the whole thing.

Here's some good news: Even the sponsor of California's controversial Prop 54--the bill that would ban the collection of racial and ethnic data -- concedes passage is unlikely.

Both Bustamante and Scwarzenegger oppose the bill. (Arnold is a new convert, only declaring his opposition yesterday.) Bustamante has said he will use his $4 million advertising campaign money in tv ads to defeat it.

Here is the text of Prop 54. Here are some reasons why it should be opposed.

Bustamante will make a major speech today --in it he will say:

...Proposition 54 is "an attack on our public health system, and it must defeated....No matter how you vote on the recall please join me and the California nurses and doctors in voting no on Proposition 54. It's more important than politics."

Bustamante will also say that he has "decided to resolve the questions raised by the Republicans about my campaign finances" by devoting the bulk of his contributions from unions and tribes to defeat the initiative rather than in his gubernatorial effort.

In other recall news, Arnold has picked up the endorsement of the California Farm Bureau Federation in Sacramento with "88,000 farming and ranching families, and the Western Growers Assn., whose members grow, pack or ship most of the state's fresh fruit and vegetables."

Yet, Arnold was also dis-invited by organizers from participating in today's Mexican Independence Day parade in East Los Angeles. He had been invited to be Grand Marshal. The organizers say that " sponsors and unidentified members of the Los Angeles City Council had threatened to drop out of the parade if Schwarzenegger participated. "

Two women have filed suit against the San Francisco Police Department alleging they were arrested, jailed, strip searched and left naked for hours on the floor of a jail cell.

One of the women was arrested for public intoxication. The other was a peace activist protesting the war.

In California, the use of "sobering" cells is tightly controlled. They are to be used for inmates who "are a threat to their own safety or the safety of others" who should be removed when they are able to continue the booking process, according to Board of Corrections regulations.

Both women's full stories are detailed in the article.

Neither woman was arraigned. No criminal charges were filed against Flick; two felony vandalism charges later were dropped against Bull.

Flick sued San Francisco, its police and its Sheriff's Department in federal court Wednesday. Bull sued the city and the Sheriff's Department in April, asking the federal court to certify her suit as a class action.

The lawyer for the women said:

The barbaric treatment to which they were exposed is reminiscent of 16th century torture chambers," said Mark Merin, a Sacramento attorney representing the women. "It was perverse. . . . We have a right to expect a lot more from our law enforcement than what these women were subjected to."

According to the information provided in the article, the women should neither have been strip searched nor forced to undress:

The Washington Post reports on the state of the Homeland Security Agency, calling it Government's Hobbled Giant :

Six months after it was established to protect the nation from terrorism, the Department of Homeland Security is hobbled by money woes, disorganization, turf battles and unsteady support from the White House, and has made only halting progress toward its goals, according to administration officials and independent experts.

Not only have the two highest-ranking officials under Tom Ridge resigned, but 15 others refused requests to apply for their jobs.

The agency was created in March. It combined 22 federal agencies with 170.000 employees.

Efforts to organize the government's 10 or so disparate lists of potential terrorism suspects, secure airline cargo against terrorist plots and advise local police and firefighters on training and equipment have all foundered, the officials said.

"Not a lot is getting done at the top of the department, and nobody's making them focus on it," said a White House official who handles homeland security issues and who asked not to be identified. "Nobody's got the fortitude to say, 'Sit down and shut up.' . . . It's sad."

Very sad.

The U.S. Marijuana Party writes in that they now have chapters in 25 states. If your state doesn't have one, they'll help you start one. From the site's goal statement:

The goal of forming a Marijuana Party in your state is to become the king-maker in your state election. It is not to actually win any seats in your state house of representatives or senate. Although if you could pull this off your job is definitely well done.

....One of the easiest and least expensive ways to challenge the system is run a Marijuana Party candidate for governor of your state. But the best scenario is to run a full slate of candidates for your state senate or house of reps.

Why? Because in many electoral districts the margin of victory is very narrow, often down to hundreds of votes. Never forget that President Bush won by about 450 votes in one state. This is a lesson about the power of 450 votes. If you get only 1000 votes average for each electoral district in your state, chances are very good that you will cost 10% of the present state legislators their jobs.

The website also has an online tv page where you can watch videos. If this is your issue, go visit.

Jonathan Groner of The Legal Times takes an in-depth look at the withdrawal of Bush judicial nominee Miguel Estrada and says it could mean big trouble for Bush's other controversial nominees. Many people erroneously think that large numbers of Bush judicial nominees are being blocked. Not true.

Overall, Bush has nominated 196 federal judges, 138 of whom have been confirmed. ...The Senate has confirmed 12 Hispanic judges nominated by President Bush.....Eleven African-American Bush appointees have been confirmed

The nominees being blocked are those that the Democrats believe, justly in our view, are right wing ideologues and activists who will insert their personal view of the law into their decisions--Priscilla Owens, William Pryor and Janice Rogers Brown are prime examples of nominees in this camp.

Some of Bush's judicial nominees have sailed through the process. One example, who we endorsed excitedly, is Judge Prado from Texas who is now on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

This week we read that Denver-area attorney Phil Figa left for Washington for a confirmation hearing on his nomination to the Colorado District Court bench. Figa was recommended to Bush by both Democrats and Republicans. He sailed through his confirmation hearing. We are excited about Figa's appointment--he will make an excellent judge.

If Bush would refrain from trying to reshape the federal judiciary in his image, an effort that if successful, would define the judicary for the next several decades, and instead appoint judges whom both sides agree are fair and possess the requisite skills, there would be no need for filibusters--and the effect of Miguel Estrada's withdrawal on the other nominees would be inconsequential. That this may not be the case is Bush's own fault.

Do not miss Georgetown Law Professor David Cole's new article in The Nation- On the Road With Ashcroft. Cole delivers the goods and explains why Ashcroft has chosen to limit his audiences to law enforcement groups and how he has fudged on the details and effect of the Patriot Act. Cole also explains why the public is becoming so concerned about the Administration's unprecedented grab for power and erosion of civil liberties. Here's a small sample, but go read the whole thing:

Public concern is not limited to the Patriot Act's four corners but arises from a whole range of measures this Administration has advanced, from secret detentions to ethnic profiling to "Total Information Awareness" and the "enemy combatant" designations. The Patriot Act has become shorthand for these excesses. Ashcroft's defense, however, ducks virtually all this criticism, focusing only on a handful of the act's provisions. He doesn't mention, for example, its most troubling sections, those affecting immigrants. They allow the government to exclude foreign nationals for their speech, to deport them on the basis of wholly innocent associations with any group Ashcroft blacklists and to lock them up on his say-so, without showing that they are dangerous or a flight risk (the only two constitutionally recognized justifications for preventive detention). Nor does he bother to defend a provision authorizing freezing of assets based on secret evidence. And his website makes only passing reference to the act's dramatic expansion of FISA power to authorize search warrants in criminal investigations without probable cause of criminal activity.

The Horse has the results of the newest Zogby poll:

George W. Bush’s job performance ratings have reached the lowest point since his pre-Inauguration days, continuing a steady decline since a post-9/11 peak, according to a new Zogby America poll of 1,013 likely voters conducted September 3-5.

Less than half (45%) of the respondents said they rated his job performance good or excellent, while a majority (54%) said it was fair or poor.

A majority (52%) said it’s time for someone new in the White House, while just two in five (40%) said the president deserves to be re-elected.

The poll also has Dean leading the Democratic contenders.

He is followed by Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (13%), Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman (12%), and Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt (8%). No other candidate polled more than 3%.

Update: Our report on the CNN/Time poll from yesterday is here.

Here are the details of the "new evidence" in the Michael Skakel/Martha Moxley murder case. The source of the information, Tony Bryant, who kept it quiet for 26 years, is coincidentally, a cousin of Kobe Bryant.

The essence of the new information is this: Three young black males, including Bryant, traveled to Belle Haven the night of the murder. They were hanging out with another Belle Haven kid who was then 11, and who died of a drug overdose at 17. Two of the black males were obsessed with Martha and planned to kill her "caveman style." The third, Tony Bryant (Kobe's cousin) wanted no part of it and returned to New York. Days later, the other two reportedly confessed to Bryant, telling him they had picked up a golf club on the Skakel's lawn and used it to bash Martha's head in. Bryant sat on the info until December, 2001, when he told another classmate, Tres Mills, who had been trying to write a screenplay about the murder and had sought out Bryant's help.

Bryant and Mills attended the same private school in Greenwich as Moxley. Mills said Bryant refused to tell his story to the police, even after Skakel was convicted. Mills says he approached both the prosecution and defense before the trial with Bryant's story but wouldn't reveal Bryant's name. He identified him only as "one of two blacks in the class."

Skakel's new lawyers confirm that Bryant has now "reluctantly" told his story to their investigators. Tres Mills now speaks publicly about the incident. He used to work for CBS News but was fired after he shook up Dorothy Moxley with his story during one of her appearances there.

How viable is the new information?

The judge presiding over the Terry Nichols death penalty case has granted Nichols' change of venue request ruling that Nichols cannot receive a fair trial in Oklahoma City.

The trial will be moved to another Oklahoma county. The Judge will announce which county on Monday.

Nichols' lawyers had requested a three year abatement so that the prejudicial pre-trial publicity could die down, or alternatively, that the trial be moved outside Oklahoma. The judge denied both requests, saying he had faith in the jury system and that he lacked authority to move the trial outside Oklahoma.

One glimmer of hope: The Judge said he will dismiss the charges if twelve impartial jurors cannot be found during jury selection. The trial is scheduled to begin on March 1, 2004.