I've never thought Martha Coakley would make a good U.S. Senator. I'm even more convinced now that she has signed her name to a brief restricting death penalty appeals, while claiming to be against the death penalty.

The case, which comes as Coakley is battling for votes in the Democratic Senate primary, involves a convicted murderer from Alabama who has appealed his case to the Supreme Court, on the grounds that his state-assigned lawyer failed to introduce crucial evidence that he is mentally retarded.

“There’s no way this kid should be killed,’’ said Stephen B. Bright, president and senior counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights, an organization that opposes the death penalty. “It’s old-fashioned Southern states’ rights. I was shocked to see that she and the state of Massachusetts had joined that brief.’’

Coakley-speak:

“This, from our point of view, is unrelated to a death penalty or any of the issues around that,’’ Coakley said. “A real concern was that we get a clear determination from the Supreme Court on what is the standard of review of a federal court looking at a state court decision.’’

How is limiting the appeal rights of a mentally retarded person sentenced to die not about the death penalty? AEDPA, which the brief addresses, is the infamously unfair "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act."[More...]

In Southern Somalia, Abas Hussein Abdirahman, 33, was stoned to death for adultery as a crowd of 300 watched. He had confessed to an Islamist court. His pregnant girlfriend will meet the same fate, death by stoning, after she gives birth.

"He was screaming and blood was pouring from his head during the stoning. After seven minutes he stopped moving," an eyewitness told the BBC.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says that if the woman is also killed, her baby would be given to relatives to look after.

Somalia has not had a "functioning government" in 18 years. Last year, a 13 year old girl was stoned to death for adultery -- she had been raped.

Washington prosecutors drop pot charges against Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum:

Prosecutors in Clark County, Wash., and Tim Lincecum have reached an agreement in which the pitcher will pay a $250 fine relating to his possession of a marijuana pipe with the drug possession charge being dropped. Lincecum also must pay a $122 fine for speeding.

[. . .] "Any Joe Blow would get (this deal)," [Clark county prosecutor Grant] Hansen said. "The way we see it, we can do something to him or we can do something for him. If we can give him a little leniency the first time, in my opinion, it goes further for being law-compliant in the future than if we kick him in the teeth."

Lincecum was cited by the Washington State Patrol for possessing 3.3 grams of marijuana and the pipe, both misdemeanors, during a traffic stop on Interstate 5 one week ago.

TPM:

Rep. Bill Owens (D-NY) announc[ed] his support in a press release [--]"This legislation will reform the insurance industry and provide increased access to affordable healthcare without taxing healthcare benefits, cutting Medicare benefits or raising taxes on the middle class, and that is exactly the direction we need to go," said Owens. "There are still changes I would like to make, including raising the payroll exemption for small businesses, but like I said last week, there is a fundamental need for reform and we must act with a sense of urgency."

As regular readers know, the sports teams I live and die with, the ones where I suffer (as do the people around me) when they lose, are the Florida Gators and the New York Yankees. I love all sports, from NFL football to track to soccer to cycling, but those are the teams I am emotionally invested in.

Throughout their history, the Yankees have been TEH EVIL. The newfangled Yankee Haters think they are originals, but Yankee Hating is a longstanding tradition. There was even a Tony Award winning musical about it.

What is new is that Florida has become TEH EVIL nationally (the Ole Ball Coach (aka Evil Genius) inspired plenty of hatred in the SEC and FSU but not so much nationally.) For the time being, Florida has supplanted Notre Dame as the most hated college football team in the country. I dunno, but, like Woody Allen in Annie Hall, the Evil Queen in Snow White is starting to look appealing to me.

This is an Open Thread.

This is typically hilarious from John Hinderaker:

Byron York has been following MoveOn.org's effort to enforce left-wing conformity on the Democratic Party. The latest news is that MoveOn has raised nearly $3.6 million to defeat any Senate Democrat who has the temerity to vote against government takeover of health care.

Heh. Tell that to Dede Scozzafava, Charlie Crist and Carly Fiorina. To be fair, too many progressive bloggers engage in the same hypocrisy. I like to be consistent and I think I am - everybody should be fighting for what they believe in and every public official should face primary challengers. Of course, I will favor those candidates who promote my views. As everyone else should. Pols are pols my friends.

Speaking for me only

With defenders like Jon Chait, President Obama needs no enemies:

Krugman's column employs a pretty good World War II analogy. Let me use another: imagine a scathing column about the 1938 Munich accord that devotes most of its energy to castigating Czechoslovakian President Edvard Benes for his ineffectual efforts to gain the support of Britain and France, rather than putting Britain and France at the center of the story.

Obama as 1938 Czechoslovakia? That's the defense? Wow. I know that the Village wonks (Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Jon Cohn, etc.) have been arguing that Obama is powerless on health care reform, but Chait is the winner, of sorts, in the "defending Obama as impotent" competition. I'll give them this though - they do not use the annoying "Don't Worry, He's Got It" photo of Obama that was rampant in the Obama fan blogs before.

Speaking for me only

NYTimes:

The United States economy shed 190,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent, up from 9.8 percent in September, the Department of Labor said Friday in its monthly economic appraisal.

U6 rose to 17.5%. Relatedly, Paul Krugman writes today:

[E]arly this year, President Obama came into office with a strong mandate and proclaimed the need to take bold action on the economy. His actual actions, however, were cautious rather than bold. They were enough to pull the economy back from the brink, but not enough to bring unemployment down. [. . .] Administration officials would presumably argue that they were constrained by political realities, that a bolder policy couldn’t have passed Congress. But they never tested that assumption, and they also never gave any public indication that they were doing less than they wanted. The official line was that policy was just right, making it hard to explain now why more is needed.

They wanted to please Olympia Snowe. How's that working out for them?

Speaking for me only

Attention! It's Friday Morning. That is all.

This is an Open Thread.

After a four hour hearing last night, the Boulder Planning Board unanimously decided not to recommend a ban or moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries to the city council.

City planners recommended a four-month moratorium while new regulations or a ban are considered. That's the route many other Colorado towns have taken. But after hearing more than two hours of testimony -- none of it from neighbors or business owners concerned about the proliferation of dispensaries -- Planning Board members questioned the urgency of a moratorium.

The board instead proposed a few regulations: [More...]

You will get better information about the events in the Media. I have nothing to say about it other than I hope for the best and for the well being of those injured.

Feel free to add your thoughts below.

On Larry Kissell (D-NC):

Dear friends in Chapel Hill,

It seems like forever ago that I called so many of you, as I've done too many times, to help with a fundraising event in Chapel Hill. In this case, I wanted to introduce you to a new candidate in North Carolina's 8th District, Larry Kissell. After talking with Larry several times, I concluded that he was a thoughtful person worthy of your financial support. Not only that, but he had proved to me that he would listen. I had told him that he needed a more professional photograph for his website, and he took action on that immediately. [MORE . . .]