Award-winning, long-time (former) New York Times reporter, columnist and professor Anthony Lewis has died. Here is a link to a collection of his writings.

A few examples: The Imperial Presidency and Silencing Gideon's Trumpet and Guantanamo's Long Shadow. In the New York Times Review of Books: Making Torture Legal.

R.I.P. Anthony Lewis.

Carol Rosenberg at the Miami Herald has a graphic and disturbing update of the continuing hunger strike at Guantanamo (background here.)

By this weekend, the U.S. military had defined 26 of the 166 captives as hunger strikers. Eight were being fed nutritional shakes through a tube snaked through a shackled captive’s nose to his stomach. Two were hospitalized, getting nutrition through a tube and intravenous hydration as well. Lawyers for the captives quote their clients as counting dozens more as long-term hunger strikers, who are getting weaker by the day.

Each meal is prepared, brought to the detainee, and when refused, thrown away. [More...]

Is anyone watching the Phil Spector movie on HBO? It's very strange. It's like they are all playing caricatures of caricatures. I'm switching to the Good Wife.

I've been working on TalkLeft's premium page all weekend, trying to add features we have here that Wordpress doesn't have -- particularly in comments. I must have tried 15 plugins, none of them adequate. So even though I think I've figured out the subscription issues, I'm going to tinker with it some more before asking people to use it.

One thing that's very noticeably lacking on older blogs like this one not using Wordpress is the lack of web fonts. They really make the blog so much easier to read. The possibilities are endless -- and of course, not free. It's great that Wordpress offers them in themes -- as does Bootstrap, but figuring all this out is way beyond my skill set and time availability.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Attorney General Eric Holder sent out a memo to Justice Department employees Friday (available here) saying he transferred $150 million from DOJ's funds to the Bureau of Prisons to avoid mass furloughs of prison guards and staffers.

Absent this intervention, we faced the need to furlough 3,570 staff each day from the federal prisons around the country. The loss of these correctional officers and other staff who supervise the 176,000 prisoners at 119 institutions would have created serious threats to the lives and safety of our staff, inmates, and the public.

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The investments:

Indiana -11 over Temple, Illinois +8 over Miami Florida (3 units), Mississippi -3 over La Salle, Ohio State -7 over Iowa State, Minnesota +8½ over Florida, Duke -5 over Creighton (5 units), San Diego State -7 over Florida Gulf Coast (5 units), Kansas -6 over North Carolina (3 units.)

Go Gators!

Yesterday - 5-3 ATS (22-16 in MM), +6 units (+17 units in MM.)

Open Thread.

Day 3. The investments: Louisville -11 over Colorado State (3 units), Butler +1½ over Marquette, Michigan State -6 over Memphis (3 units), St Louis -3½ over Oregon (5 units), Wichita State +6½ over Gonzaga (5 units), Syracuse -7 over California (4 units), Michigan -3½ over Va Commonwealth (3 units), Arizona -10 over Harvard (3 units)

Yesterday - 9-6 ATS (17-13 in MM), +8 units (+11 units in MM.)

Open Thread.

If March Madness is not your thing, tonight at 10 Eastern, you may want to take a look in at a crucial World Cup qualifying game for the US mens team against Costa Rica. The team is reportedly in turmoil. But as Michael Bradley says, "it is time to play."

The home team needs this one bad.

Open Thread.

A suspect in the murder of Colorado prison chief Tom Clements has been killed in a shootout with Texas police. The suspect, a 28 year old white supremacist and parolee from a Colorado prison, was stopped by a police officer in Texas. He shot the officer and took off.

The officer was wearing a bullet-proof vest. Two shots were to the chest and did not injure him. The third shot grazed his head. He was able to radio in the car description.

According to a live news conference I just watched here, it was a a drug interdiction stop. The officer had no idea the driver might be connected to the Colorado shooting of Director Clements.

When officers in Wise County, TX spotted him, they tried to stop him and he stuck his gun out the window and started shooting. A high speed chase ensued, and a big 4-wheeler crashed into Ebel's car, setting it on fire. Ebel got out and started shooting at the officers. They shot him multiple times, including in the head. [More...]

Day 2. The investments:

North Carolina -4 over Villanova, Kansas -19½ over Western Kentucky, Minnesota -3 over UCLA, Notre Dame -1 over Iowa State, San Diego State -2½ over Oklahoma, Pacific +13 over Miami Florida, Florida Gulf Coast +13 over Georgetown, Ohio State -13 over Iona (4 units), Mississippi +6 over Wisconsin, Duke -17½ over Albany (3 units), Creighton -3 over Cincinnati, La Salle +6 over Kansas State, Indiana -22 over James Madison, Illinois -1 over Colorado (3 units), Northwestern State +21 over Florida.

Yesterday, 8-7 ATS, +3 units.

Go Gators!

Open Thread.

I've been spending all my free time and then some tinkering with my new creation. It should be ready in a few days, hopefully over the weekend. I'm also going to check into having a professional add the commenting features everyone asked for.

Tonight my eyes need a break from staring at tiny coding symbols, and I need a break from the computer. The TL kid is bringing Chinese food over from the place we used to get it when he was a kid (I'm no longer in the delivery area)so I'll leave you all with an open thread, all topics welcome.

It starts today. Investments:

Michigan -11 over South Dakota State (3 units), Syracuse -13 over Montana (3 units), Akron +7½ over Va Commonwealth, Missouri -3 over Colorado State (3 units), New Mexico -11 over Harvard, Oregon +3 over Okla. St., Marquette -3½ over Davidson (3 units), Gonzaga -21½ over Southern, Pittsburgh -4½ over Wichita State (3 units), Butler -3½ over Bucknell, Michigan State -10½ over Valparaiso (3 units.), Memphis -1 1/2 over St. Mary's (3 units), Belmont +5 over Arizona, Cal +3 over UNLV, Missouri - 2 1.2 over Colorado St, St. Louis -9 over NM State.

Open Thread.

I think the biggest problem in our criminal justice system for the past 25 years has been rigid mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

Today, Sen. Patrick Leahy and Rand Paul introduced the bi-partisan Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013. According to Sen. Leahy:

The bipartisan Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013 expands the so-called “safety valve” that allows judges to impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum in qualifying drug cases to all federal crimes. By giving judges this greater flexibility, they will not be forced to administer needlessly long sentences for certain offenders, which is a significant factor in the ever-increasing Federal prison population and the spiraling costs that steer more and more of the justice budget toward keeping people in prison, rather than investing in programs that keep our communities safe.

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