Here is the transcript of Attorney General John Ashcroft's appearance today on Fox News Sunday. He discusses the Patriot Act, Sneak 'N Peeks, Patriot Act II and enemy combatants. It's a must read.

What a great sign--the LA Times reports that Republicans in Congress are increasingly defying Bush.

The GOP-controlled Congress has in recent weeks defied Bush on domestic policies ranging from drug imports to media deregulation to tax credits for the working poor.

Congress is also presenting new challenges to Bush in foreign affairs. Members of both parties have expressed qualms about postwar policy in Iraq. The No. 2 House GOP leader has questioned Bush's "road map" to peace in the Middle East. And the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week criticized the president's policy on Liberia.

The article also explains how we the populace have been affecting Congress and the Republicans --such as on the media deregulation issue. We recommend reading the whole thing.

Grand Theft America on Katherine Harris and the scrubbing of 58,000 voters from the Florida voter registration lists....it's mesmerizing in video with great audio. The gist of the charge is that Harris first scrubbed the names of felons, then people with the same names as felons, and the final list was 85% incorrect. Too bad she's already been elected to Congress. [thanks to Snowdog for the link] .

Jay Caruso of The Daily Rant writes critically of a new law in Illiniois, reportedly the first in the country, that provides that if one partner changes his/her mind after intercourse has begun, and the other partner doesn't stop, it's rape.

To show how such a law can be misapplied, consider this California Supreme Court ruling in January, which we think borders on the ridiculous: A 17 year old female engaged in admittedly consensual intercourse with a juvenile teenage male. During the act, the female said she wanted to go home. She didn't say "stop" or "no," only that she wanted to go home. The juvenile male was convicted of rape, and the California Supreme Court upheld it.

The dissenting justice? Janice Rogers Brown, now nominated by Bush to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and considered to be a contender for a Supreme Court vacancy. Liberals oppose her as a Clarence Thomas clone. We have criticized her, for that and other reasons. But her dissent in this rape case is the only voice of sanity:

The majority provided no guidance about what constitutes withdrawal of consent and what amount of force turns consensual sex into rape. The majority relies heavily on [the defendant's] failure to desist immediately, but it does not tell us how soon would have been soon enough. Ten seconds? Thirty? A minute? Is persistence the same thing as force? And even if we conclude persistence should be criminalized in this situation, should the penalty be the same as for forcible rape?"

Rogers Brown argued:

...prosecutors should still have the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a victim clearly communicated withdrawal of consent, and the perpetrator exercised some degree of force.

She noted that the victim in John Z. had enjoyed the sex, had simply said she had to go and had never overtly told John Z. she didn't want to keep having sex.

We agree that as a matter of legal principle, if prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that consent was withdrawn after the act begins. and that the withdrawal was clearly and unequivocally communicated to the partner, who then forcibly continued, it's rape. But that's a tough burden for prosecutors, and that's why they rightfully are reluctant to file such charges.

But we just can't see how "I want to go home" is a clear and unequivocal "no" or "stop" or "stop now" that a teenage boy is supposed to understand means a withdrawal of consent.

Update: We edited the post as to age. The girl was 17 not 19 as we originally said, and the boy was a juvenile, not necessarily 15.

Happy second blogiversary (ywctp) to The Hamster. Eric has one of the most up-to-date, liberal sites around. We were astonished last year to find out that he was 19 and a freshman at GW. This year he'll be a sophomore. We used to think Matt Yglesias was the youngest, most politically aware blogger we knew (along with Jesse of Pandagon and Andrew Northrup of Poor Man , who vascillate between politics, humor and satire, with a smattering of issues of import mostly to those in their age group,) but Eric has proved himself to be right in their league. If these young men are in any way representative of their peers, and we believe they are, the future is beginning to look a lot brighter to us.

We can't say we're surprised to read that Al Qaeda official al-Zawahri is threatening the U.S. if it harms the Guantanamo detainees:

An audio tape purportedly of top al Qaeda official Ayman al-Zawahri warned the United States on Sunday it would pay a high price if it harmed any of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The voice on the tape, broadcast by the Dubai-based Arabic television Al Arabiya, also told the United States that the "real battle" against it has not started yet.

"America has announced it will start putting on trial in front of military tribunals the Muslim detainees at Guantanamo and might sentence them to death...," said the voice, which Al Arabiya television identified as Zawahri's.
"I swear in the name of God that the crusader America will pay a dear price for any harm it inflicts on any of the Muslim detainees...."

Is it just our imagination, or does it seem like Al Qaeda is rising again, along with the Taliban. It's not looking so certain to us that we won the war instead of just a battle.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is acknowledging the growing effect of international law on Supreme Court decisions, particularly in the areas of the death penalty, race admissions and gay sex:

"Our island or lone ranger mentality is beginning to change," Ginsburg said during a speech to the American Constitution Society, a liberal lawyers group holding its first convention. Justices "are becoming more open to comparative and international law perspectives," said Ginsburg, who has supported a more global view of judicial decision making.

Ginsburg cited an international treaty in her vote in June to uphold the use of race in college admissions....Last month, Ginsburg and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer discussed the death penalty and terrorism with French President Jacques Chirac during a European tour.

Ginsburg said Saturday that the Internet is making decisions of courts in other countries more readily available in America, and they should not be ignored.

Not surprisingly, conservatives are upset by the trend.

Some good news....support for the First Amendment is rising after 9/11.

E.J. Dionee in the Boston Globe says it's too early to count out Gephardt and Edwards.

The Sunday Washington Post has an article called A Key Matchup comparing Eagle, Colorado Prosecutor Mark Hurlburt to Denver defense attorney Pamela Mackey who are on opposite sides of the Kobe Bryant case. We take issue with two items in the article:

Number One:

In a murder case last year, Hurlbert repeatedly reminded the jury that the defendant had lied to police about some elements of the case. He ended his oration with a ringing declaration: "You only lie when the truth will not set you free." The verdict: guilty.

In fact, the verdict was not guilty of the murder one charge sought by Hurlbert, who co-tried the case as a deputy DA with his then boss, Michael Goodbee. The conviction was on the lesser charge of murder two, murder committed during a crime of passion, a significant loss for the prosecution.

From the 3/21/02 Denver Post ( lexis.com):

The nation's largest criminal defense organization, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ( NACDL) voted today that the Administration's rules for military tribunals make it ethically impossible for lawyers to participate in them.

"We took the position that it is unethical for a lawyer to represent a client under current conditions for military tribunals, and if a lawyer chose to do so, he or she must contest all of those unethical conditions," said Barry Scheck, the incoming president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

The organization will issue the ethics statement to its 11,000 members. Lawyers are not legally bound by the organization's positions, but state bar associations sometimes adopt the same reasoning for their rules.

We voted for the resolution condemning the procedures. There was a long debate, at which numous facets of the issue were debated, but the bottom line was, almost all of us felt that these regulations posed the most dangerous threat to due process, justice and the mission of the legal profession that any of us had ever seen. Not only could we not accept the rules, most of us felt that the rules must be actively opposed.

The American Bar Association will be voting on the tribunal procedures at its annual meeting next week in San Francisco. As a member of the ABA Criminal Justice Section Council, we'll be at that meeting as well.

What's so bad about the rules contained in Military Commission Instruction No. 5? If it's not apparent from the rule, scroll down to Annex B and read the affidavit that civilian defense lawyers must sign to be allowed to participate.

Here's more with specifics of the objectionable provisions of the rule.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is in the process of hiring a company to assist it in coordinating the exchange of information about criminal suspects and terrorists. After reading this AP article, we'd say it's something desperately needed:

A man implicated two decades ago in a Bahamian drug smuggling ring has been hired to help create a 13-state anti-terrorism network, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Hank Asher is the founder of Seisint Inc., an information technology company with a $1.6 million contract with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to work on a pilot program for the Matrix network, through which sensitive information on terrorism and other crime suspects would be exchanged.

The Boca Raton millionaire, a member of Seisint's board of directors, friend of recently retired FDLE director James ''Tim'' Moore and a major political contributor, was never charged with drug smuggling. He served as an informant and witness in several trials, and was identified by other FDLE informants as someone who provided police protection for smuggling operations, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

Asher's first company, DBT Online Inc., bought him out for $147 million in 1999 after the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration suspended its contracts over Asher's past and concerns that the company could potentially monitor targets of investigations, the Times reported.

Interim FDLE head Daryl McLaughlin called Friday for a complete assessment of Asher's background, saying previous checks were inadequate.

''You have told me stuff we didn't know,'' McLaughlin told the Times for its Saturday editions. ''We should know more about a company we are doing business with.'' (emphasis supplied.)

You can read more in the St. Petersburg Times, here.

In the past five years he's donated more than $735,000 to Democratic and Republican parties and candidates. Most of his money has gone to Democrats: $505,000 in the past five years and $65,000 to U.S. Sen. Bob Graham's 2002 initiative campaign to re-establish the state Board of Regents.

"He's a good fella," said Moore, who retired Thursday from FDLE.

Update: The 'Former Drug Smuggler' language is that used in the headline of the St. Petersberg Times Article.