The Washington Post continues its excellent series on abuse of immigrant detainees. Today's segment reveals how immigration officials forcibly injected hundreds with sedatives when preparing them for flights back to their home country.

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

One example: [More...}

This may be our first overnight open thread but I'm blogged out and you all seem to have more to say.

Here's your place. Big Tent Democrat will probably be back in the morning for a W. Va. wrap up posts.

My final thoughts: Obama is likely to do as poorly in KY as he did in W. VA. Counting MI and FL votes (not delegates), she's going to either top Obama or get really close to him in the popular vote total.

As to what you can do, here's my suggestion: [more...]

I'm working today and will return for the results from West Virginia's primary.

Some things to read today:

• The Washington Post's continuing series, Careless Detention by Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein on the merciless and inadequate health care provided to immigrant detainees. Today's segment is on errors in psychiatric diagnoses and the drugs administered, and how gaps in the system resulted in suicides.

• Baze v. Rees, Fearing Too Much Justice, by Elisabeth Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Lis and I co-chaired the NACDL Legislative Committee together for years in the '90's and she is one of the smartest and most committed people I know.

• The defense continues its closing argument in the Tony Rezko Chicago corruption trial.

More...

Even though we added a second dedicated server to TalkLeft a few months ago, we're still having occasional problems. Part of it may be that the average time a reader spends on TalkLeft has gradually increased to an astonishing 7 minutes. We started closing comments at 200 to reduce the demand on the databases, but that still hasn't fixed our problems. We went down the night of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries and again today.

The next step is to increase the memory on the servers. We'll be upgrading from 2 gigabites to 6 gigabytes around 2:00 am ET. The site will be down while the new memory is being installed. It shouldn't take more than 1/2 hour, but since we have quite a group of late night readers, myself included, I'm just giving everyone a heads up.

Server back up now: 12:33 am MT. 'Night everyone, this is an open thread and there's more there's more below.

It's Mother's Day.

I'm thankful my mother is still alive. Although, after 3 years in a nursing home and 5 years in assisted living before that, it's a greater struggle each year to help her enjoy this special day given her rapidly advancing dementia and the physical toll of Parkinsons's Disease. She still laughs, enjoys corned beef sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies and lights up like she won the lottery when I bring her any kind of chocolate or ice cream. She loves the white orchard plant I bring every Mother's Day and the flowers my sister sends from 2,000 miles away, as well as the nightgowns. Another of her favorites is having me read her mother's day cards aloud over and over.

Then it's time for my mother's day with the TL kid. [More...]

Passions are so high between Hillary and Obama supporters. Let's tone it down a notch -- here's a segment of the April 30 episode of Boston Legal where the firm sued the DNC over pledged delegates. It should bring a little laughter and also have everyone asking themselves, "Am I really that bad?" The answer, of course, is yes. We all are.

And a question: Have any of you stopped talking to certain friends, family members or colleagues because you just cannot discuss the race civilly any more? I suspect it's become a fairly common phenonemon, but let us know.

And yes, this is an open thread.

By special request, here's another open thread.

I'm working on my outline for the NORML Aspen Legal Seminar which is due Tuesday. My topic this year: Crackadoodledoo! A New Dawn in Crack Cocaine Sentencing

I'll be back later to see how you are all doing.

I'm off to work, here's an open thread.

Please remember, be civil, no racism charges or personal character attacks and if you have been commenting here less than 30 days, you are limited to 10 comments a day. We only have room for 200 or so on each thread. And, if you are a chatterer, see the rules, you get no more than 20, no matter how long you've been here.

There are inflamed passions out there and I prefer reasoned discussion. Sniping is not appreciated. Drive-by hits without substance will be deleted.

Lots of rules, but these are unusual times and the internet has no eraser. Think before you post, the preview button is your friend.

Update 4:00 pm MT: Comments now closed.

I'm taking a break for Grey's Anatomy. Here's a place to keep the discussion going or start a new one.

I absolutely have to get back to work. I have jails to visit and briefs to write. Here's what I would be writing about if I had the time:

• Never leave a reporter and two lawyers on a jury. Here's a report of the Uma Thurman jury deliberations from a reporter who served on the jury. On the other hand, perhaps he just helped the defendant in a bid for a new trial.

  Tuesday morning, when we reconvened, a couple of my fellow jurors said they woke up sick to their stomachs. Another burst into the room saying he'd seen the drawings sketched by the court artists, and that they'd done a good job depicting us.

  Aren't the jurors admonished to avoid media reports of the trial? Where would s/he have seen the sketch artist's depictions but in a newspaper?

More...

Your turn. This is an Open Thread.

Comments over 200, thread now closed.

Last one. I'm going to bed.

Commnts now closed.