We know, we know, we've been talking about Country Joe and the Fish and the Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag for months--tonight Politics in the Zeros talks about him, and leads us to Country Joe's current website--and a transcript of his testimony (which we were unaware of) in the famous Chicago 8 conspiracy trial in Chicago.

Here are the official lyrics to the song. You can listen to it here.


This is Country Joe getting ready to sing the song at Woodstock.

Don't miss the updated versions of the Rag adapted to meet the current situation with Iraq--on a page called Fixing to Die in Iraq. This one's our favorite:

Well come on all you new young men Uncle Sam's in a mess again
Got himself in a terrible jam
With a crazy Muslim named Saddam
So put dowm your bibles pick up your guns
We're gonna have a whole lot of FUN
And it's 1 2 3 what are we fighting for
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
I just know we gotta kill Saddam
And its 5 6 7 open up the pearly gates
Aint no time to wonder why
Big oil is startin to cry

Well come on all of you christian right
We all know you love a good fight
Now's your chance for a last crusade
The whole damn word has got to be saved
Just remember when your children all die
They'll be standing at the good Lord's side

Come on Dubya ,better move fast
Our gas is burnin and it won't last
Your daddy started but he couldn't finish
Now's your chance to make your own image
Aren't you glad you don't have sons
Cause we're callin up the guard for this one

Country Joe served in the army--he was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1965. Here's his certificate of discharge.

We also found the website for Barry "The Fish" Melton, who co-founded Country Joe and the Fish with Country Joe in 1965. He became a criminal defense lawyer, and most recently, serves as the Public Defender in Yola County, California. He still performs his music.

Last but not least, here is the official website for the band, Country Joe and the Fish.

Tim Russert agrees with us that Hillary is gunning for 2008:

Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): "Last week, she secured a position on the Senate Armed Services Committee, a very important strategic move. ... Democrats are unable, unwilling to tackle national security issues, afraid of being labeled as something less than strong or forceful. For the next six years, you'll see Hillary Clinton with the secretary of defense, cross-examining generals visiting military bases here and around the world. And when people suggest that she doesn't have the credentials to run for president of the United States, she will counter, 'I've been on the Armed Services Committee for six years.' It was a very small maneuver. Wasn't paid much attention to. But it was very significant for Hillary watchers. There are a lot of people who want to be president. There are an awful lot of people who don't want to be president. She's positioning herself to run in 2008."

Link via Political Wire.

Dan Forbes in DrugWar on why the Superbowl anti-drug ads won't work.

In other drug war news, Free Ed Rosenthal protests are being held Wednesday at U.S. Embassies around the world. Details here.

Who's Ed Rosenthal? We tell you here. The case went to the jury today, and deliberations begin Friday.

And in still other drug war news, in Denver, Senior U.S. District Court Judge John Kane, Jr. told guests at a packed City Club luncheon at the Brown Palace Hotel that "America's war on drugs is costly, ignorant and doesn't work." Kane got a standing ovation.

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. called for Marlyand to abolish its death penalty today. He noted flaws in the system and the possibility that innocent persons could be executed.

His Press Release stated that due to the system's fallibility, "capital punishment could come only at the "intolerable cost of executing, every so often, the wrong person."

Here is the text of Curran's open letter to the Governor, Lt. Governor and General Assembly. Here is the text of the statement he made at the Press Conference today.

Reaction from Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Attorney General Curran recognizes that the death penalty is error-prone, immoral, biased and a fundamental violation of human rights. Today he reminds us that politics, at its best, is about principled leadership. Eight of the 12 people on Maryland's death row are black, and every single person on death row was convicted of killing a white victim - despite the fact that 80 percent of homicides in Maryland involve black or Latino victims. A study recently released by the University of Maryland found that Maryland's death penalty discriminates not only on the basis of the victim's race, but also on geography - most death penalty convictions occur in largely white, suburban Baltimore County.

1,250 first-time drug prisoners have been freed from jail in Michigan due to the state's repeal of its draconian mandatory minimum sentencing law. "The Legislature last month repealed Michigan's controversial 1973 drug sentencing law that forced judges to impose long mandatory minimum sentences based on the quantity of drugs involved in the crime. The crackdown was aimed at drug kingpins, but also imprisoned were hundreds of first-time non-violent offenders.... Many received longer prison terms than violent career criminals."

For more details on this, see our prior post here, and Families Against Mandatory Minimums ( FAMM).

The repeal will save Michigan $41 Million.

The GOP successfully propelled the judicial nomination of Miguel Estrada out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, headed to a full Senate vote. "The committee sent Estrada's nomination for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to the full Senate on a 10-9 vote. All Republicans voted for Estrada and all Democrats opposed the nomination."

If confirmed, Estrada will sit on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Speculation has it that Bush wants Estrada on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The vote could come as early as tomorrow. "Republicans...hold a two-vote advantage in the Senate, where a filibuster is the only likely option for Democrats to stop a presidential nominee. "It'll be an intensive debate and they'll fight against him, but I think in the end we'll be able to get Miguel out," said the committee chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah."

We hope there's a filibuster. Here's why. Here's more.

Earlier this month we wrote about Ashcroft's new directive to the Bureau of Prisons to return certain offenders serving sentences in half-way houses to federal prison facilities. The directive was signed by Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson. Ashcroft promoted this directive as targeting white collar offenders. We learned from Philadelphia attorney Peter Goldberger that this was not the case. (See above post for his comments.)

Several federal courts around the country have been granting temporary injunctions against the policy. Last week, Judge Huvell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia entered a permanent injunction against the policy, ruling:

principles of equitable estoppel and due process preclude BOP from relying on its new policy to remove petitioner from her current placement. The Court will therefore grant petitioner’s motion, and enter an order enjoining BOP from transferring her from Fairview on the basis of the newly-announced DOJ policy regarding BOP’s lack of authority to substitute halfway house placement for imprisonment.

Here is the Order the Court entered:

For the reasons set forth in the attached Memorandum Opinion, it is hereby ORDERED that petitioner’s motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence is GRANTED IN PART; and it is FURTHER ORDERED that the Bureau of Prisons is enjoined from transferring Shawna Culter from the Fairview Community Confinement Center pursuant to the new inmate designation policy described in the December 16, 2002 Memorandum from Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson to BOP Director Kathleen Hawk Sawyer. It is so ordered.

Goldberger was correct in his assertion that females were disproportionately affected by the policy change. Judge Huvelle states in her ruling (Page 10, note 3):

At oral argument BOP reported that 132 CCC inmates nationwide have been affected by the Bureau’s 150-day rule. Interestingly, the burden of the changed policy and this arbitrary cutoff has fallen more heavily on female inmates. Over a third of those now faced with transfer (45 of 132) are women, compared with an overall federal inmate population of only 6.9% female. (Oral Argument Tr., 1/21/03, at 27-28.)

Todd Bussert of Connecticut and Peter Goldberger of Philadelphia wrote the Amicus Brief on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in the case. Federal Defender A.J. Kramer wrote the principal brief.

Judges in San Diego, North Carolina and elsewhere have granted temporary restraining orders against the new policy. At last count, only one federal court-- in Detroit-- has refused to do so.

Correction: Todd Bussert and Peter Goldberger wrote the Amicus brief in an Eastern District of New York case, not the District of Columbia case. Other courts granting relief include two New Jersey courts, and courts in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Massachussetts and Idaho. An Eastern District of New York court denied habeas relief in one case.

Gary Hart's response to Bush's State of the Union Address:

The President is still either unable or unwilling to provide concrete evidence of current Iraqi involvement in terrorism sufficient to justify possible substantial loss of American lives in a war in Iraq. He also is unable or unwilling to provide assurance to the American people that our homeland is sufficiently secure from terrorist attacks before such a war is initiated. As our Council on Foreign Relations Task Force Report of October 25 documented, America is still unprepared and still at risk. We should not go to war until America is prepared to defend itself at home from terrorist attacks that the Central Intelligence Agency has said will most probably occur when we go to war in the Middle East.

The New York Times details Gary Hart's back door campaign:

By next month, Mr. Hart intends to have spoken on national security, foreign policy, the economy and civic engagement. Call it a back-door campaign: He drops into the nascent contest for a harmless cup of coffee and then, before you know it, is sitting down at the dining room table in debates with everyone else in the field.

Gary returns from England this weekend. He has not yet decided whether to run. He is concentrating on getting his positions on issues out in the public domain.

February 10 he'll be speaking in San Francisco, details will be available at Gary Hart News.com - Calendar.

John Walker Lindh, known as the "American Taliban", has been transferred to Victorville, a medium security federal prison in the California desert, east of LA , to serve his 20 year sentence. There is an adjacent minimum security camp for female offenders. It has a lot of vocational and educational programs. The cells hold two prisoners. There is a law library and a leisure library.

Don't miss Instapundit Glenn Reynolds and Dave Kopel in Feel Like Dancing? over at NRO today on Tom Daschle's sneaky attempt to pass the anti-Rave Act--by calling it the Crack House Statute Amendments and burying it in a terrorism bill called "Justice Enhancement and Domestic Security Act of 2003" (S. 22). Here's a taste:

The Daschle bill extends the federal "crackhouse law" — which makes it illegal to maintain a building for purposes of drug consumption — to cover musical performances and other events of a temporary nature, and to make liable even those who make their premises available at no charge. The idea is to make the promoters of musical events liable for drug consumption at those events — even when the consumption is entirely incidental, and has nothing to do with any action by the promoters. The legislation is, in effect, an admission of failure by the Drug Enforcement Agency: Unable to control drug use, it's looking to force concert promoters and theaters to do it, on pain of imprisonment.

The potential prison term: Up to 20 years.

We've also written about this in detail here.

P.S. We're behind on our news update on the left side of TalkLeft, we'll get to it this afternoon. And if you're watching the "Shoe-bomber" sentencing today at 2pm EST, we hope you will watch it on Fox News--we'll be there.

48 year old Sal Magluta was wronged last week when he was sentenced to 205 years in federal prison for murders a jury found he did not commit.

Criminal defense lawyers Milton Hirsch and David Marcus explain why in this op-ed article in today's Miami Herald.

Miami's last cocaine cowboy rode into the sunset last week.

Salvador Magluta, considered one of Miami's most notorious narcotics dealers, was prosecuted in federal court for having witnesses murdered and for laundering millions of dollars in drug proceeds. A federal judge then punished Magluta with a 205-year sentence. Magluta, 48, will live in prison till the day he dies.

But Magluta was never convicted of the homicides for which he was sentenced. A jury of his peers found Magluta not guilty of the murders, and guilty only of the nonviolent money-laundering charges -- crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 20 years. The jury's verdict notwithstanding, the judge decided that Magluta was responsible for the homicides and sentenced him accordingly.

In a watershed 1997 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal judges, in imposing sentence, may ignore jury verdicts of acquittal and determine whether defendants have done wrong. The Herald applauded the punishment, and the new U.S. attorney claimed that such a sentence sends a message about justice. It does indeed: The message is that prosecutors can lose and still win, that a jury no longer stands between an accused American and a life sentence.....

We couldn't have said it any better ourselves.

The sentencing for "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid, who intended to blow up an American Airlines commecial flight in December, 2001 by lighting a match to an explosive in his shoe, is set for tomorrow at 2pm EST.

The range of his sentence will be between sixty years and life. We doubt anyone will be suprised if he gets life. It's very possible his lawyers may not ask for less. Reid will likely serve his time at Admax (the Supermax prison) in Florence, Colorado.

We think this case shows that our criminal justice system is well equipped to handle terror cases. There is no need to keep the suspects in military custody, cut off from lawyers --or to try them in military tribunals. Reid pleaded guilty to all counts and received no promises of leniency or other sentence concessions. This is a case we don't have a lot of complaints about. Reid had excellent counsel and a U.S. District Court Judge.

True, his conditions of confinement were a little too strict for our First Amendment sensibilities (denying him a radio, for example, and only allowing him censored copies of Time Magazine), but all in all, this case shows how adaptable our criminal justice system can be.

We'll be providing legal analysis of the proceedings live on Fox News Channel, between 2 and 3.