Via Kevin at Calpundit:

Hey, remember that judge who asked a Lebanese-American woman if she was a terrorist when she appeared in court to fight a pair of parking tickets? Rob Dougherty brings us the good news that he's accepted a lifetime ban from the bench.

Received from Rob Kampia, of the Marijuana Policy Project:

Wednesday, July 23, the U.S. House of Representatives surprised the nation by voting 152-273 on an amendment that would have prevented the DEA and the U.S. Justice Department from spending any more money to raid and prosecute medical marijuana patients and providers. This is the first time in the history of the country that the full House or Senate has voted on legislation to end the federal government's war on medical marijuana.

Today's vote was closer than anyone had expected, in large part because of the letters that members and allies of the Marijuana Policy Project have been faxing to their U.S. representatives. MPP -- in conjunction with the American Liberty Foundation, Americans for Safe Access, Change the Climate, Drug Policy Alliance, Drug Reform Coordination Network, and the Libertarian Party -- generated tens of thousands of faxes, e-mails, and phone calls to Capitol Hill in the past few days, showing U.S. House members for the first time the collective strength of the medical marijuana grassroots movement.

I want to publicly thank U.S. Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX), and Sam Farr (D-CA) for sponsoring the amendment and giving strong speeches on the House floor yesterday in support of today's vote.

From MPP's website:

The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to allow the Bush administration's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to continue raiding and arresting seriously ill medical marijuana patients and caregivers in states that allow the medical use of marijuana. Nevertheless, patients and advocates were cheered by the growth in the number of congressional allies since the last House vote on medical marijuana in 1998 -- and by the fact that more than two thirds of House Democrats voted to protect patients. The overall vote was 152 in favor, 273 opposed, and 10 not voting.

Here's some info on the MPP:

Journalist David Neiwert of Orcinus investigates actor Mel Gibson today, asking whether his cozying up to conservative political pundits as part of a Washington power play to garner pre-release support for his new movie about the crucifixion called "Passion" is indicative that there is truth to the rumors that the film and Gibson are anti-semitic. No one knows what's in the movie for sure, but there are major concerns that it blames the Jews for the crucifixion of Christ.

Here's the guest list for his latest screening in Washington:

Peggy Noonan, Cal Thomas and Kate O'Beirne; conservative essayist Michael Novak; President Bush's abortive nominee for labor secretary, Linda Chavez; staff director Mark Rodgers of the Senate Republican conference chaired by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.); former Republican House member Mark Siljander of Michigan; and White House staffer David Kuo, deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Neiwert explores Gibson in depth. He reprints part of a 1995 Playboy interview with Gibson which is fascinating and appalling--the man is anti-feminist, does not believe in evolution or Darwin, does not think men and women are equal, and reveals several other beliefs we find bizarre. And he uses plenty of profanity to express these views. Why should you read it? As Neiwert says,

Barry Scheck flew into Indianopolis today to ask a federal judge to order a DNA test on Darnell Williams, who is set for execution.

The former prosecutor on the case, now in private practice joined in the motion. Scheck is seeking clemency from the Governor, and wants to establish that Williams was not the shooter. Some of the jurors who returned the death verdict have joined in the request.

The Innocence Project, of which Scheck is co-founder, has agreed to pay the considerable cost of the testing.

If Williams was not the shooter, but instead along for the robbery that preceded the murder, the Governor might commute his death sentence to life in prison.

Update: The New York Times Thursday has this report.

By a vote of 400 - 21, the House today prevented the implementation of the media deregulation plan passed by the FCC on June 2.

The FCC voted to allow single companies to own TV stations reaching 45 percent of U.S. households. The House measure would return the cap to 35 percent.

``It's extremely rare to be able to reverse a regulatory decision that gives away the store to the big boys,'' said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chief sponsor of the provision to derail the FCC change.

The fight now moves to the Senate, where several lawmakers of both parties want to include a similar provision in their version of the spending bill. Broader rollback efforts also are being considered.

Grass roots efforts work.

ImClone Founder Sam Waksal began his 7 year prison term today.

He is at Schuylkill in Minersville, PA, about 75 miles from Philadelphia. It is a medium security institution with an adjacent minimum security camp. The New York Post reports he'll be at the camp. Waksal's first choice was Eglin, but we hear this won't be too bad. He spoke to reporters before going in, and said he's ready.

TalkLeft has been receiving over 10,000 visitors a day for the past several days. There are 222 people on the site right now. Many are coming from search engines looking for Kobe Bryant coverage. Here is a link to all of our Kobe Bryant coverage in one place.

For those of you not interested in Kobe's case, rest assured, we are continuing our coverage of other political and crime-related stories as well.

Update: July 24, the traffic is decreasing somewhat, although it's still above normal. We've created a link near the top right of TalkLeft where you can access all of our Kobe coverage without having to type the name in the search box. We'll probably also add a Kobe news feed over the weekend so we don't have to keep reporting here on each new item.

[comments now closed]

By a split vote of 10 to 9 along party lines, the Senate Judiciary Committee today approved the nomination of controversial Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The nomination now goes to the whole senate for a vote.

Jules Whitcover writes in the Baltimore Sun that Congress is missing the big picture on the war in Iraq.

In this whole saga of Iraq, congressional and other critics are focusing on the trees -- the individual questions about weapons of mass destruction, about hyped intelligence, about an unproven link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, even about whether the war is over.

In doing so, they are neglecting to address the forest. That's the much bigger and more significant question of Congress' responsibility to explore the wisdom, not to mention the constitutionality, of engaging in a pre-emptive war as part of a new and overarching American approach for dealing with the world.

....In any event, Congress needs to wake up and recognize that Mr. Bush's war in Iraq may be only the opening chapter in a foreign policy adventure that can have deep and destructive ramifications for America's role in the world and for domestic well-being and progress at home. Who will step back and examine what is being wrought?

In Counterpunch, David Lindorff writes Ashcroft Rebuked: Lynne Stewart's Big Win

Patriot Watch brings us this important action alert by the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights--Ashcroft is attempting to deny asylum to women who are victims of domestic abuse and gender-based persecution.

The Boston Globe has a front page article today on how blogs are shaking the political discourse. Our blogging pal Oliver Willis is front and center. We highly recommend both the article and Oliver's blog.

Think there aren't enough women bloggers? Check out the blogroll at MS. Magazine....thanks to Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged for the link.

BushWars has the latest in "Plame Gate." Here's today's news on an upcoming probe. Mark Kleiman has a string of posts about it. [link via Democratic Veteran] Calpundit has been writing about it for a week. [link via SKBubba]

Hessiod at Counterspin writes about Turkish analysts who say Turkey's relationship with the U.S. may be damaged beyond repair.

Gary of Statutory Construction Zone and Stephanie Tai of Blue Bonnett Blog have written the first law review article about legal weblogs, published in Volume 5, number 1 of the Journal of Appellate Practice and Process (Spring 2003). You can read the article here.