We knew this was coming but it's still jarring to see and it is the dead wrong approach to combating Mexico's drug problems.

The Pentagon and Homeland Security Department are developing contingency plans to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border under a $350 million initiative that would expand the U.S. military's role in the war on drugs, according to Obama administration officials.

...The initiative, which was tucked into a supplemental budget request sent to Congress this month, has raised concerns over what some U.S. officials perceive as an effort by the Pentagon to increase its counter-narcotics profile through a large pot of money that comes with few visible requirements.

The White House began briefing House and Senate Committees on the plan this week. I complained last month about the $350 million in the budget for the military's use in the war on drugs here, suggesting the U.S. War on Drugs abroad is getting its own stimulus package. [More...]

The swine flu outbreak in Mexico may have killed 60 people so far.

Mexico City has closed universities and schools until further notice, suspended all major public events and advised people feeling flu-like symptoms to stay home from work. Mexico City's busiest subway stations are handing out face masks to passengers to use on crowded train carriages. The city government has closed museums, including the popular Anthropology Museum.

It is believed to have spread to the U.S. where 8 cases have been reported (Thankfully, no deaths among them.) This is a strain of flu that is quite dangerous and never been seen before.

The virus is an influenza A virus, carrying the designation H1N1 and is spreading from person to person. It contains DNA from avian, swine and human viruses, including elements from European and Asian swine viruses, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.

How do you get it? [More...]

Via George Stephanopoulos on today's LA Times article reporting up to seven of the Uighur detainees at Guantanamo may be released into the U.S.

Hill sources tell me that Congressional leaders were told today that Guantanamo detainees from China - the Uighurs - are likely to soon be released into the United States, most likely to the Virginia suburbs. These notifications follow this front page story today in the Los Angeles Times.

Stephanopoulos quotes Penatagon sources as saying it's not a done deal, just a "toe in the water." Our prior coverage of the Uighurs is assembled here.

As for the remaining detainees, a jail in Montana is considering making an offer to house them. The effort has received approval from the City Council.

Paul Krugman:

[T]he only way we can regain our moral compass, not just for the sake of our position in the world, but for the sake of our own national conscience, is to investigate how that happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible. . . [T]he fact is that officials in the Bush administration instituted torture as a policy, misled the nation into a war they wanted to fight and, probably, tortured people in the attempt to extract “confessions” that would justify that war. And during the march to war, most of the political and media establishment looked the other way.

[More...]

Glenn Greenwald writes:

Bush-defending opponents of investigations and prosecutions think they've discovered a trump card: the claim that Democratic leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman were briefed on the torture programs and assented to them.

An inconvenient truth to both Republicans and Harman hating liberals - Harman opposed torture (see also Marcy Wheeler):

I'll be visiting clients at the jail most of the day, so here's an open thread for you.

All topics welcome.

The Obama Justice Department, in briefs filed by Bush holdover U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan (the one who prosecuted Tommy Chong and successfully sought a prison term for his shipping drug paraphernalia through the mail, and the one who prosecuted a 56 year old recluse for writing obscenity, and the one who has said Obama should let her stay on the job after his election) has taken the position that your whereabouts, as determined from your cell phone through records kept by your cell phone provider, is not protected by the Fourth Amendment.

There has been a split among federal district courts on this. Most say that before the Government can request cell phone providers to turn over cell site locator records -- which show where you are when on the phone by showing where your phone is when it is turned on -- they must submit an affidavit showing probable cause for the request. That's because unlike a pen register, which only shows numbers dialed from the phone, or a trap and trace, which shows numbers calling the phone, cell site tower records show the location of the the phone when being used. That makes it like a tracking device and people have an expectation of privacy in their whereabouts.

The first case to hit the federal appellate courts on the issue is one from the Western District of Pennsylvania -- thus the involvement of AUSA Mary Beth Buchanan. [More...]

More true colors?

The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to overrule Michigan v. Jackson, the 1986 Supreme Court decision that held that if police may not interrogate a defendant after the right to counsel has attached, if the defendant has a lawyer or has requested a lawyer.

[T]he protection offered by the court in Stevens' 1986 opinion is especially important for vulnerable defendants, including the mentally and developmentally disabled, addicts, juveniles and the poor,

This isn't the first time the Justice Department, under President Obama, has sought to limit defendants' rights. [More...]

So much for turning a new leaf on medical marijuana prosecutions.

The U.S. Attorney's office in California will seek a five year jail term for medical pot dispensor Charles Lynch.

Mr. Lynch, who ran a small dispensary in the surfing hamlet of Morro Bay, has become a symbol for the medical marijuana movement since his shop was raided in 2007. A registered business owner, Mr. Lynch has the support of the city’s mayor, city attorney, and the local chamber of commerce.

Medical marijuana advocates see the case as a test of the Obama administration’s policy of non-interference on state marijuana laws. California is one of 13 states that allow the cultivation and sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Sentencing was continued today until June. Attorney General Eric Holder's appointee, H. Marshall Jarrett, is "guiding" the U.S. Attorney in seeking the jail term. Here is the pleading with Jarrett's letter attached. The Judge is George H. Wu, "a Bush appointed jurist who is hearing his first federal case." More here.

I missed the whole day's news due to work, but I'm going to catch up as I watch TV: there's a new episode of Gray's Anatomy, and Southland, the new, depressing LA cop show, is more watchable than Crash.

Think good thoughts for Jay Leno who is in the hospital with an undisclosed but reportedly minor illness. He's expected back next week.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome. What's on your agenda and mind tonight?

Just got an advance copy of Bob Dylan's very soon to be released album Together Through Life.

I haven't listened to the album itself yet--I skipped to the second disc on the Deluxe Edition ("Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour") because I was excited to see that Dylan spins Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "Don't Take Everybody To Be Your Friend."

After visiting the Stax Museum last year I became obsessed with Tharpe, scouring the Internet for any video footage of her that I could find. Interestingly, on his "Theme Time Radio Hour" Dylan recommends that his listeners do the same--he even commands us to go to Youtube in order to bear witness to the genius of Tharpe. "It'll blow your mind," Dylan counsels.

So, here are some Tharpe clips to get you started:[More...]

President Obama continues his zigging and zagging on the torture issue - now joined by Senate Democratic leadership:

Senate Democratic leaders, joining forces with the Obama White House, said they would resist efforts by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats to create a special commission to investigate the harsh interrogation methods that the Bush administration approved for terrorism suspects. At a meeting of top Democrats at the White House Wednesday night, President Obama told Congressional leaders that he did not want a special inquiry, which he said would potentially steal time and energy from his ambitious policy priorities, and could mushroom into a wider distraction by looking back at other aspects of the Bush years.

Emphasis supplied.) Just yesterday, Obama said the opposite:

President Obama today said he is not opposed to some sort of "further accounting of what took place during this period" . . .

Who knows what Obama thinks on these issues anymore. Every day brings a new position.

Speaking for me only