Our good friend Max disagrees with us on the Draft. He's for it--because he thinks it might reopen the discussion about whether the President should have the power to declare war. [Update: Max modified his position here.]

As a downside to the draft, he says there might be a comeback of Country Joe and the Fish. So once again, two liberals disagree. We love Country Joe and the Fish, and back in October, reprinted the lyrics to the Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag in a post titled War is Not the Answer.

Max also doesn't think that the draft during the Vietnam War had anything to do with anti-war activism. We again disagree. But since there seems to be a lot of disagreement among readers in the comments sections to various blogs on the topic, we encourage everyone to go here and read this series from the BBC containing a succinct and well-documented chronicle of anti-war efforts. The link is to 1969-70, but after reading, scroll down and you will find the links for the other years during the period of 1965-1975.

We responded to Max in his comments section that we cannot support risking the lives of this country's youth to make a political point. They should not be used as pawns in the war debate. For anti-war liberals to support a draft where people would be forced to go to war makes no sense to us--it's a classic cutting your nose off to spite your face, as one of our readers said in the comments section to our earlier post.

One last thing, if Country Joe doesn't grab you, check out Arlo Guthrie's long version of Alice's Restaurant. KBCO, our great radio station in Boulder, used to play it every Thanksgiving at noon (into the 90's at least). The lyrics are too long to print here, but if you click on the more button below, we have included those to the second half about reporting to the draft board on Whitehall Street in New York City--(the first half has to do with Arlo's arrest for littering, at the end it all ties together.)

Daily Kos brings us the unsettling news reported on Political Wire that ultra-conservative Utah Senator Orin Hatch is seeking a Supreme Court nomination from President Bush. And that Bush is leaning towards appointing Clarence Thomas as Chief Justice. Taegan Goddard reports:

"Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orin Hatch ® "has been spreading the word" that "perhaps it's time his name should be sent to" his committee as the next Supreme Court nominee, the Washingtonian reports. "Hatch has surfaced in the past as a potential Supreme Court nominee. If anything works against him now, it will be his age -- 68." But his "renewed interest in the court has confounded judge pickers at the White House. They worry that if they choose someone else, the powerful chairman might not be helpful."

"There's more: "It now looks like Clarence Thomas, and not Antonin Scalia, would replace" Chief Justice William Rehnquist. "The juxtaposition of Thomas's breaking his usual silence to deliver an impassioned lecture against cross-burning and Senator Trent Lott's remarks on the virtues of the 1948 segregationist Dixiecrats was not lost on President Bush. He now believes that elevating Thomas would be the most dramatic way to return his party to being the party of Lincoln and not the party of Lott."

For more, go to the Washingtonian and scroll down the left-side column.

[Thanks to SK Bubba for noticing we mispelled "Court" in the title, it's fixed."

"The Pentagon has ordered some units of the 45,000-member U.S. 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to deploy from California to the Gulf region to join thousands of other American troops preparing for a possible war with Iraq, defense officials said on Friday."

"Spokesmen at 1st Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters in Camp Pendleton, Calif., confirmed that an order to deploy "elements" of the big force was received this week, but would not say how many or exactly when and where they would go."

"...The Army is already beginning to deploy more than 11,000 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division in the state of Georgia as well as hundreds of engineers and intelligence specialists from Germany to the Gulf in a new year surge of troops, warplanes and ships in case President Bush orders an invasion of Iraq. Nearly 60,000 U.S. military personnel are in the Gulf and that number could double in coming weeks."

The Judge in the San Diego murder case of Danielle van Dam, just sentenced David Westerfield to death as the jury had recommended. We wrote about this last night. He will go to San Quentin within 10 days. He gets an automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court.

Filter, the Tech News Column of the Washington Post reports today on their Readers' Favorite Blogs (TechNews.com). Thanks to Mad Kane , who nominated us, TalkLeft was listed as one the readers favorites. So was Jim Cappozola's Rittenhouse Review. We're very flattered, thanks, Madeleine!

If you live in Nevada or one of 16 other states, be aware the state is snooping into your medicine cabinet--every prescribed controlled substance you receive from a pharmacy is reported to a state board and to law enforcement. They say the information is not being used for law enforcement purposes, but to encourage those who take more than "experts" think they should to seek treatment.

"Nevada is one of 17 states in which police are able to collect the information under the auspices of a federal program that has pharmacists file regular reports that include patients' names, the names of their prescriptions, the amount of the medication they receive and the names of their doctors. The states' programs fall under the national umbrella of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program."

Nevada's Prescription Controlled Substance Abuse Prevention Task Force "tracks everything from hard-core narcotics to prescribed painkillers and anti-anxiety medication like the frequently prescribed Xanax and Valium pills. It is composed of representatives from boards that license doctors, veterinarians, dentists and pharmacists as well as physicians who specialize in the treatment of addiction. One member is from the Nevada Division of Investigations."

George Washington Law Professor Jonathan Turley reminds us today in his LA Times op-ed article that that Liberty Ebbs by Degrees--and that Bush is slowly twisting the Constitution to fit his war plans and no one is doing anything about it. Here are his examples:

* Holding citizens indefinitely without access to the courts or counsel.

• Monitoring library withdrawals and Internet communications.

• Taping attorney-client communications.

• Attempting to create a national reporting system for citizens to monitor one another in their day-to-day activities.

• Developing a massive computer system to monitor every purchase by every citizen, from hospital bills to gasoline.

• Establishing a huge surveillance system, including the expansion of searches ordered by a secret court without satisfying the probable cause standards of the Constitution.

• Claiming the right to create a military tribunal system to try and execute suspects without applying the Constitution or federal laws.

• Assisting private organizations in creating the foundation for a national identification card that could easily become a type of internal passport for citizens.

• Recommending state laws (already adopted in many states) that give governors virtual dictatorial control after they unilaterally declare emergencies because of "potential" health threats.

• Expanding the use of the military in domestic law enforcement.

• Endorsing the broad use of assassination as an alternative to capture, including the possible assassination of citizens.

• Refusing to apply the Geneva Convention and then later agreeing to apply only part of it. Most recently, it was disclosed that the U.S. created a facility in Afghanistan where suspects reportedly had been tortured by U.S. officials or sent to surrogate nations for more aggressive torture.

A fight is brewing in the Arizona courts over the rights of inmates to use the web:

Critics say the Arizona measure violates the free-speech rights of inmates and their supporters and that it targets only prisoner-advocacy groups since the Corrections Department continues posting information about death-row inmates on its own website. David Fathi, an attorney for the ACLU's National Prison Project, calls the law unconstitutional. "It's not about prison security," he says. "It's not as if they're trying to prevent someone from sending instructions into prison for how to make a bomb, or plans on how to escape."

In December, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction and blocked enforcement of an Arizona law that prohibited all information about state prisoners from being published on the internet and banned communication between prisoners and organizations that might publish information about them on their web sites. In granting the injunction, the Court cited its fear that the law would cause irreparable harm to the First Amendment. As a result of the injunction, prisoners who violated the law couldn't be punished.

The ACLU brought the lawsuit last July seeking to invalidate the law, which "barred prisoners from corresponding with a 'communication service provider' or "remote computing service" and faced discipline if any person outside prison walls accessed a provider or service website at a prisoner’s request."

"The ACLU’s organizational clients are the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, which has information about 45 Arizona prisoners on its website; Stop Prisoner Rape, a group that seeks to end sexual violence against individuals in detention; and Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a group that organizes public education campaigns with the intention of abolishing the death penalty. All of the ACLU’s clients maintain websites with prisoner information."

Since the Judge's decision was in the form of a temporary injunction, in the next few months the Court will make a final ruling on the constitutionality of the statute.

As we have opined many times before, inmates do not lose all constitutional rights when they pass through the prison doors. Among the rights they retain are those guaranteed under the First Amendment. Unless the state has a compelling interest in regulating a certain kind of activity and does so with a law that is narrowly tailored to apply only to the conduct it's trying to prohibit, the law won't pass muster.

"We see these (laws) as periodic attempts to silence prisoners and keep the eyes of the public away from what goes on in our nation's prisons and jails, where two million American citizens live," said the ACLU's David Fathi.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has joined Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) in calling for a national draft. Their reason: "children of the rich should serve alongside less privileged Americans in the war on terrorism."

Rangel and Conyers said they will "ask the House to consider legislation to reinstitute the draft, perhaps as early as next week, at the start of the 108th Congress. The United States has not drafted troops since 1973."

We said our piece on this yesterday and we stand behind it-- in strong opposition to Conyers and Rangel.

A federal court has denied a motion by the Office of Homeland Security seeking to keep its activities private . The Court ruled that the agency must answer questions about its operations and activities.

The Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center last March requested Office of Homeland Security records on proposals for standardized U.S. driver's licenses, records associated with a ``trusted-flier'' program and other proposals concerning biometric technology for identifying individuals.

The Office of Homeland Security sought to have the case against the office and its director Tom Ridge dismissed, arguing that it could not be subjected to the Freedom of Information Act information requests because it was not an agency and that its sole function was to advise and assist the president.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly's ruling granted the Electronic Privacy Information Center's (EPIC) request to obtain information that would establish the status of the White House Office of Homeland Security.

You can access the full text of the opinion here. You

Via Walter In Denver:

"South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow has pardoned libertarian and AIM activist Russel Means. From the Sioux Falls Argus Leader:"

"The Means pardon deals with a felony conviction for riot to obstruct justice. The law was repealed by the Legislature in the late '70s, but with no retroactive provision for those convicted, Means said. He recalls the incident in the Sioux Falls courtroom."

"I refused to stand up for Judge Joe Bottum. There is no crime for not standing up for a judge, but it is a polite show of respect. So he sent in the riot police to deal with us, and we (Means' supporters - W.) beat up the riot police," Means said. "I did my time, one year, three days, 22 hours in the Sioux Falls penitentiary."

We agree with Walter that while Means might have committed other transgressions in his younger days, "The charge for which he was actually imprisoned is bogus. Federal and local authorities pulled out all the stops to try to convict Means of something, anything, but that was the only charge that stuck."

The parents of slain San Diego 7-year old Danielle van Dam have sued David Westerfield , her convicted killer, for an unspecified amount of damages. Westerfield gets sentenced tomorrow, most likely to death. That's what the jury recommended, although the judge can override its decision.

"In their lawsuit, the van Dams ask that the self-employed Westerfield be restrained from transferring any of his assets, which include a design engineering firm."

We certainly don't begrudge the van Dams damages from the person who killed their daughter.

But we would like to point out the cost to the taxpayers of prosecuting and defending a death penalty case as opposed to a murder case where the punishment sought and obtained is life in prison without the possibility of. Here are the reasons why and the breakdown of the cost differentials.

Most defendants facing a capital trial are indigent and must have court appointed counsel. A study done by the Sacramento Bee argued that California would save $90 million per year if it were to abolish the death penalty. The average cost of a capital trial in Texas is $2.3 million--three times the cost to incarcerate an individual for 40 years. The average cost of a capital trial in Florida is $3.2 million. (same source as above)

"Various state governments estimate that a single death penalty case from arrest to execution ranges from $1 million up to $7 million. Cases resulting in life imprisonment average around $500,000 each, including incarceration cost." (In accord, here.)

More from Death Penalty Focus:

"A 1993 California study argues that each death penalty case costs at least $1.25 million more than a regular murder case and a sentence of life without possibility of. Families of murder victims undergo severe trauma and loss which no one should minimize. However, executions do not help these people heal their wounds nor do they end their pain; the extended process prior to executions prolongs the agony of the family. Families of murder victims would benefit far more if the funds now being used for the costly process of executions were diverted to the provision of counseling and other assistance."

"There is a better alternative. California judges have the option of sentencing convicted capital murderers to life in prison without the possibility of. There are currently over 1,700 people in California who have received this alternative sentence which includes no appeals process. According to the Governor's Office, only one person sentenced to life without has been released since the state provided for this option in 1977, and this occurred because he was able to prove his innocence."

We don't know how much Mr. Westerfield's design firm is worth, but he was declared indigent before his trial and his attorneys' and expert witness fees and defense costs from that point forward have been borne by the state. By the time the appeals are through, appeals not brought for delay but which are automatic pursuant to statute, well over a million dollars will have been spent. We would much prefer Mr. Westerfield, if he loses his appeals, to spend the rest of his life in prison, with the money saved on the death penalty prosecution and defense going to the Van Dams and family members of other murdered victims.

Here are some of our prior posts on the Westerfield case.