Matt Taibbi writes in the New York Press of his near encounter with Ascroft and the Buffalo Six and the Unocal cases. We won't give away the acid part, go read, but we'll quote Matt's Buffalo Six (now Seven) case thoughts:

So a kid from a Buffalo ghetto travels to Afghanistan, visits a terrorist training camp and comes home. Before he commits any crime, he goes to jail for 10 years. Even the government admits there was no overt violent crime here: "Material assistance to a foreign terrorist organization" was stretched to include the purchase of a uniform at the camp. But if an American company goes overseas and for six years invests millions of dollars and uses slave labor and torture to build some miserable gas pipeline–committing not one crime, but many hideous violent crimes, at a systemic level–it shouldn’t even be sued, according to our attorney general.

Just this week, a seventh Lackawanna suspect, Jaber Elbaneh, was indicted by the Justice Department. He’s overseas somewhere. There would have been an eighth named Kamal Derwish, but he was killed last year in a CIA missile attack in Yemen. In Iraq and everywhere else, the whole world has been informed that it is subject to U.S. law. With a few exceptions."

For those of you following the Miami trial of Fabio Ochoa, charged with rejoining the Medellin drug cartel after leaving prison and receiving amnesty, the jury found him guilty today.

A leader of a mighty 1980s Colombian cocaine cartel was convicted Wednesday of charges he rejoined a smuggling network after he was released from prison in his homeland and given amnesty.

Fabio Ochoa faces a possible life prison sentence on two federal drug conspiracy charges alleging he joined a 30-ton-a-month smuggling network from 1997 to 1999. Sentencing was set for Aug. 19. Ochoa, 46, made a sign of the cross, closed his eyes and dropped to his knees in the courtroom after the verdict was read. Jurors reached their verdict after spending five hours on deliberations over two days. The defense said an appeal was planned.

....''The government was able to spend half of the trial on the exploits of the Medellin cartel,'' Black said after the verdict. The jury found Ochoa ''guilty by history or association or something other than what he was charged with.''

Here's a wrap-up of the case:

We haven't been able to access Instapundit or Matt Yglesias all day. We remembered that Instapundit is hosted by Hosting Matters, so we logged on to its site, and sure enough, there was a fire at "NOC" (whatever that is, some kind of command center we think) and workers was evacuated and the sites they host are down. But they promise to be back up shortly. We don't know if that's where Matt is hosting, but it's a good bet.

From the Institute for Public Accuracy:

Three experts come awfully close to suggesting that Iran may be a new target for the U.S.:

The White House is portraying Iran as having hostile intentions towards the United States. They said the same thing about Iraq, and there's been no evidence of that in either case. Iran has regional interests, but it's never been in an attack mode against the United States. It's actually in a defensive posture against intensifying U.S. and Israeli manipulation of monarchist Iranian opposition in exile. Allegations that Iran is exporting Shi'ite zealotry to Iraq have been contradicted by the top British commander there.

Wisconsin banned the death penalty 150 years ago. That doesn't mean anything to Attorney General John Ashcroft, who is considering directing his minions to file federal death penalty charges in a Wisconsin kidnapping-murder case, whether they want to or not.

That's because the case is being prosecuted in federal court, where U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft makes the final decisions on whether to seek capital punishment. Since Ashcroft took office in 2001, he has overturned local U.S. attorneys' decisions not to seek the death penalty 31 times - often in places like Wisconsin, where the maximum punishment in state court is life in prison.

"It appears that the attorney general is trying to impose his personal beliefs on areas of the country that are less enthusiastic about the death penalty than he is," said Kentucky attorney Kevin McNally, who helps run the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project.

Every time U.S. attorneys prosecute an offense for which the federal death penalty is an option, they must report to the attorney general whether they wish to seek the death penalty and why. A federal committee reviews each case and may consult with the U.S. attorney and defense counsel before making its own recommendation. Ashcroft has the final say and may disagree with the U.S. attorney, the committee, or both.

The LA Times editorializes about the High Court's Martinez decision yeterday in Justice Takes A Beating.

Three cases before the court next term could push at the boundaries of permissible evidence in criminal cases. The Martinez case turns back the clock, and the coming cases could multiply the harm to a civilized justice system.

Our thoughts on the case are here, but make sure you read through the comments to see how splintered the court was and the inconsistency of positions.

Update: Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune has some good criticism of the decision here.

Neil Lewis of the New York Times writes a lengthy article on his review of the documents in the cross-burning case involving Bush judicial nominee Charles Pickering of Mississippi.

While we wrote a long post on this yesterday, Lewis's article contains some new information, so we recommend you read the whole thing.

The prosecutors, documents and interviews show, agonized over how to deal with a hostile federal judge.

Among other steps Judge Pickering took, he threatened to order a new trial. When prosecutors asked him on what basis he could do so, he replied, "Any basis you want."

When federal prosecutors from the same Jackson, Miss., office came before him in other unrelated cases, he hectored them, asking them repeatedly what their office was doing with regard to his request to reduce the sentence in the Swan case. Justice Department officials at the time said Judge Pickering was making it especially difficult for Mr. Lacy, a senior trial lawyer in the office who would have to appear many times before him.

In a sealed order, Judge Pickering ordered the prosecutors to take up the Swan case with Attorney General Janet Reno, an unusual demand they did not comply with and one he did not enforce.

Judge Pickering also telephoned Frank Hunger, a friend who was then a senior Justice Department official, to complain. His call may have violated the canons of judicial ethics, several legal experts say. Mr. Hunger said he listened but did not take any action on the complaint.

The New York Times reports that the medical examiner in New York has ruled the heart attack death of 57 year old Alberta Spruill a homicide. Spruill suffered the heart attack when the police threw a grenade into her apartment during a drug raid. They had the wrong house. [link via FourthAmendment.com]

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Harry Pregerson is bucking the trend in California Three-Strikes cases. He refuses to go along with life sentences for non-violent third-strike offenses. His view of "stare decisis" and his obligation to follow the dictates of the Supreme Court differs from that of some more conservative judges.

In good conscience, I cannot vote to go along with the sentence imposed in this case," Pregerson wrote in one typical dissent.

"I think the Three Strikes law should only be applied to a defendant whose criminal history, including his last offense, demonstrates that he needs to be taken off the streets because he poses a realistic threat to the health and safety of the community," Pregerson explained Tuesday. "There are cases where a long term in prison is justified and cases where it is not."

One appeal involved a 25-years-to-life sentence for stealing a $130 television from a Lake Elsinore Wal-Mart. Another involved a third-strike conviction for passing bad checks. In yet another, the defendant was convicted of receiving a stolen .22-caliber handgun.

....Pregerson is described by many as a compassionate liberal. He has been honored for his extensive work with veterans and the homeless. Pregerson said former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren would always ask one question. "Very simple -- 'Is it fair?'" Pregerson said. "That's it. Our system has to be grounded in fairness."

We had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with Judge Pregerson at some length in Los Angeles last October at the swearing-in party for LA Police Chief William Bratton. The Judge is charming, vivacious and a great conversationalist. His conscience does him proud. [link via How Appealing]

Our new ally, Uzbekistan is torturing Islamists and the U.S. is looking the other way.

Independent human rights groups estimate that there are more than 600 politically motivated arrests a year in Uzbekistan, and 6,500 political prisoners, some tortured to death. According to a forensic report commissioned by the British embassy, in August two prisoners were even boiled to death. (emphasis supplied.)

The US condemned this repression for many years. But since September 11 rewrote America's strategic interests in central Asia, the government of President Islam Karimov has become Washington's new best friend in the region.

The US is funding those it once condemned. Last year Washington gave Uzbekistan $500m (£300m) in aid. The police and intelligence services - which the state department's website says use "torture as a routine investigation technique" received $79m of this sum.

Counterspin has more.

A new poll shows Bill Clinton is the third most popular president in history.

Only Abraham Lincoln (chosen by 15%) and John F. Kennedy (13%) finished ahead of Clinton (11%) in the April poll, which asked Americans who was "the greatest" president. George W. Bush managed to tie Clinton for third place.

Ronald Reagan, a conservative icon, garnered 10% of the vote, followed by Franklin Roosevelt, George Washington, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter. Bush's father, the 41st president, was chosen by just 2% of the respondents, tying with Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson.

Clinton was considered the best president by 29% of 18- to 29-year-olds. Only 10% of that group picked Bush.

Link via Oliver Willis, who says, "Silly Clinton. All you did was provide peace and prosperity - why would we ever want that again?

In other Clinton news, rumors are flying that Clinton may challenge Michael Bloomberg to be Mayor of New York

Emma over at Notes On the Atrocities analyzes the prose of various blogs. First there is the "ur-blog/news-digest model"--efficiency and economy--think Atrios:

Atrios is to blogging what haiku is to poetry--economy and efficiency...The style accentuates immediacy....It’s quick and pithy. The speed of news and communication is palpable on Eschaton, and he treats his readers with a prose style that underscores this ethos.

Then there are the essayist blogs. Go read which ones Emma selects to dissect. And then there are the activist blogs. Emma says TalkLeft, like Tom Tomorrow, is an activist blog.

Tom and Jeralyn might make some changes if their blogs were going into the New Yorker. But that’s not really the point. Their directness and candor speak volumes. The posts are more like personal emails mailed out to friends than official publications. We understand that it’s more important for the posts to get posted than it is for them to be posted error-free.

Thanks, Emma!