The L.A. Times reports that the Obama Administration is giving the FBI a bigger role in fighting terrorism.

Bureau agents will gather evidence to ensure that criminal prosecutions of alleged terrorists are an option. The move is a reversal of the Bush administration's emphasis on covert CIA actions.

Under the "global justice" initiative, which has been in the works for several months, FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option, officials familiar with the effort said.

Here's the Government's page on the Global Justice Initiative. Its mission: "the efficient sharing of data among justice entities." [More....]

Retired Major Gen. Antonio Taguba (remember the Taguda report on Abu Ghraib?) told the British press he agrees with President Obama that the photos of Iraqi detainees should not be released:

A former U.S. general said graphic images of rape and torture are among the photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse that President Barack Obama's administration does not want released.

"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them," Taguba was quoted by the Daily Telegraph. "The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it."

The Telegraph article is here. Among the graphic images: [More...]

Does anyone remember Sara Jane Moore, the 45 year old frumpy looking woman who took a shot at then President Gerald Ford and missed?

Apparently she is now 80 and was released in 2007 on mandatory parole after serving 32 years in jail. She was on the Today Show this morning. [More...]

The National Spelling Bee is being televised on ESPN. Go spellers! The Finals will be televised live on ABC tonight at 8 pm EST.

This is an Open Thread.

During the nuclear option fights of the Bush Administration era, I always argued against those who claimed that the Senate owed the President unfettered deference regarding judicial nominees. At best, the argument went, the Senate could only consider the nominee's "qualifications." I categorically rejected that view, arguing that the Senate's advise and consent Constitutional role provides the Senate not only the freedom, but the duty to consider all aspects of a nominee's record, including, maybe even especially, their ideology. After all, Senators are elected too.

I am pleased to see that the hypocrisy of the Republican position on this matter will be exposed now. For example, Republican Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) has already announced he will oppose the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the SCOTUS:

Via Brian Beutler, in Politico, Mike Allen writes:

[T]he media's left-of-center bias is rarely more apparent than during court fights. The coverage running up to the pick was slanted heavily toward the notion of how "pragmatic" Obama's legal views are and how unlikely he was to pick a liberal.

(Emphasis supplied.) Only a right wing ideologue could write about the Media's left bias. As for court fights, the fawning over John Roberts, whose credentials on paper were incredibly inferior to Sotomayor's (Roberts had less than two years on the federal court compared to Sotomayor's 18), contrasts sharply with the Media's racist attacks on Sotomayor's "intellectual heft." Who are you kidding here Allen? At least Allen is now open in his right wing bias.

Speaking for me only

As we wrote here, the child stars of Slumdog Millionaire had their homes demolished by the Indian Government over the past month. The producers had established a trust for them, and announced today that both children will soon be in their own family homes which the Government will not be able to take away from them. The New York Times report is here. [More...]

(Former Congressman and state proseuctor Kenny Hulsof and Dale Helmig)

Don't miss America's Most Wanted on Fox this Saturday Night. Instead of trying to find a murderer, this time the show is trying to free a wrongly convicted one.

“America’s Most Wanted,” scheduled for broadcast at 8 p.m. Saturday on KQFX-TV (Fox 38), will devote an hour to the investigation and trial of Helmig, now 53, who in 1996 was convicted of murdering his mother. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The show is designed to capture bad people and put them away,” said producer Dave Bolton. “This case jumped to our attention because it looked like a huge miscarriage of justice because the bad guy who did the crime was still out there and the innocent guy was put in prison for a crime he did not commit.”

Helmig was convicted of killing his mother. The evidence against him, all circumstantial, was beyond thin. His conviction was overturned in a federal habeas petition (opinion here), but the state appealed. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Dale's conviction and the Supreme Court denied cert. He remains in prison today, having served 12 years of a sentence to life without parole.[More...]

When I was at Daily Kos writing about the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the SCOTUS, I attempted to concentrate on their views on the issues. Particularly with Roberts, I urged that the Senate demand answers on issues like privacy, executive power and other important Constitutional matters. I have never accepted the idea that because an issue could come before the Court, nominees could avoid answering questions on those matters. Unfortunately, the Sotomayor nomination discussion has been derailed by blatant sexism and racism. It should be about the issues. NYTimes' Charlie Savage reports on NARAL bringing the discussion back to the issues and demanding answers from the nominee:

Nancy Keenan, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, urged them to pressure senators to demand that Judge Sotomayor reveal her views on privacy rights before any confirmation vote. “Discussion about Roe v. Wade will—and must—be part of this nomination process,” Ms. Keenan wrote, adding. “As you know, choice hangs in the balance on the Supreme Court as the last two major choice-related cases were decided by a five-to-four margin.”

I agree with NARAL. In addition, there are many other issues that require detailed questioning -among these executive power. Let's get back to the issues.

Speaking for me only

Via Jason Zengerle, here's an anecdote from Judge Sonia Sotomayor's law school days that demonstrates her fighting spirit:

A large Washington law firm-Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge-has been forced to apologize to a Yale Law School senior after a student-faculty tribunal found one of its partners had asked her "discriminatory" questions focusing on her being a Puerto Rican. . . . The questions, according to the tribunal, included: 'Do law firms do a disservice by hiring minority students who the firms know do not have the necessary credentials and will then fire in three to four years? Would I have been admitted to the law school if I were not a Puerto Rican? Was I culturally deprived?" . . . Krall asked the questions of Sonia Sotomayor de Noonan, a resident of the Bronx, N.Y., who had graduated from Princeton before going to Yale Law, during a dinner in New Haven Oct. 2 with several other Yale students.

Sotomayor had the courage to stare down these racist questioners. Not an easy thing to do, especially when you are in your last year of law school.

Speaking for me only

Digby writes:

Al Hunt just told Andrea Mitchell that Obama could have picked a "more formidable intellectual force" for the court but he threaded the political needle very well. When Andrea Mitchell went on to ask if the White House was holding a conference call later to reassure people about her intellectual abilities, Hunt said that she wasn't as bad as Alberto Gonzales.

. . . I'm sure villagers like Al Hunt, who are so willing to believe that snide backstabbing about Sotomayor's intellect despite the clear evidence to the contrary, don't believe that they are on the same page as Limbaugh, but they are.

Al Hunt is not a lawyer and is utterly unqualified to pass judgment on Sonia Sotomayor's legal and intellectual qualities. But he is not shy to provide his views on the matter. Which makes him an idiot. Or a racist. You make the call.

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias writes:

As anyone who knows me can attest, I don’t have what you’d call a strong “Hispanic” identity. . . . But for all that, I have to say that I am really truly deeply and personally pissed off [about] the tenor of a lot of the commentary on Sonia Sotomayor. The idea that any time a person with a Spanish last name is tapped for a job, his or her entire lifetime of accomplishments is going to be wiped out in a riptide of bitching and moaning about “identity politics” is not a fun concept for me to contemplate. Qualifications like time at Princeton, Yale Law, and on the Circuit Court that work well for guys with Italian names suddenly don’t work if you have a Spanish name. Heaven forbid someone were to decide that there ought to be at least one Hispanic columnist at a major American newspaper.

I do have a strong identity with my hispanic background and have been in a rage about this since Jeff Rosen pulled his BS. In such a rage that I have not trusted myself to write on the issue. I am glad to see someone as level headed as Matt is seeing what I am seeing. Lets me know I am not crazy.

Speaking for me only