Today is the 50th Anniversary of the [forced] Integration of Little Rock's Central High. Streaming video starting at 10 am CT or earlier is available on the local ABC affiliate's website. It has been a topic of local news for more than a month, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has online (sub. req.) all of the newspapers from that time period. The former Arkansas Gazette won a Pulitzer for its reporting and editorials from that event. The weekly Arkansas Times with refuges from the Gazette has coverage as well.

It is a solemn occasion here, hardly a celebration in my view because of the black eye that 1957 created for this city thanks to former Gov. Orval Faubus, and all of the "Little Rock 9" are present. Their mentor, Daisy Gaston Bates, died years ago. Last night was a black tie dinner with former President Clinton, Jesse Jackson, and others in attendance. Five thousand seats are reserved for today, and we are wondering what national figures will show up.

Little Rock's Central High sits between 14th & 15th Streets and Park on two square blocks. 14th Street was changed to Daisy Gaston Bates Street many years ago. Without her keeping the students strong, it would never would have happened.

Christy at Firedoglake writes about Newt Gingrich's lastest announcement that if he can raise $30 million in the next three weeks, he'll hop in the presidential race seeking the Republican nomination.

Perhaps Newt thinks his marital history won't matter. Before examining his political record, let's take a look back at his personal story. From a post I wrote in 2002, Republican Sexual Hypocrisy:

In 1981, Newt dumped his first wife, Jackie Battley, for Marianne, wife number 2, while Jackie was in the hospital undergoing cancer treatment. Marianne and Newt divorced in December, 1999 after Marianne found out about Newt's long-running affair with Callista Bisek, his one-time congressional aide. Gingrich asked Marianne for the divorce by phoning her on Mother's Day, 1999. [Source: New York Post, July 18, 2000, Newt's Ex Wife Aiming to Pen Book by Bill Sanderson, available on lexis].

More....

Fall weekends are my favorite. While it's still summer-like weather here, the leaves are beginning to turn and I'm heading outdoors.

If you're online, here's a place for you.

Also, check out our new Diaries:

• Randinho, Weldon Calls it Quits.
• Geekesque, The Vote That Counted
• LarryE, Are You Shocked

Chris Bowers writes:

[T]he current conservative governing coalition of George Bush, Bush Dogs, congressional Republicans, and anti-MoveOn, anti-Reid Feingold Senators is opposed to the will of 60% of the American people on Iraq.

This conflation of criticism of Move On's ill advised ad (which is, I suppose, what Bowers is referring to; I condemn Move On for the ad and for its efforts to support the horrible Iraq Supplemental this Spring (Bowers also supported at times) and for its silly waste of a "ratchet up the pressure"/Wait for the Godot Republicans strategy this summer) withsupport for continuation of the war is ridiculous.

And it is unfortunate that Chris chose to demand fealty to Move On in this post as he makes a point of mine of longstanding - there is no compromise on Iraq. The choices now are binary - are you for ending the Iraq War? Then support ONLY funding with timelines. Anything else is de facto support for continuation of the Iraq Debacle.

The National Journal has an interesting new site for folks to test their political prognosticating skills:

Welcome to National Journal's Political Stock Exchange. From now until Election Day '08 NJPSE is the best destination where you can test your political prognostication prowess ... for free! Sign up now and you can be using your 10,000 NJPSE fantasy dollars (NJ$) to compete with other politicos in minutes. By tapping into the most advanced prediction market on the web, Intrade.com, NJPSE lets you buy and sell contracts whose 'price' (always between 0-100) represents the percentage likelihood a given outcome will occur. Think Fred Thompson's rocky rollout has doomed his candidacy? Has Hsu sunk Hillary Clinton? Then sell! Sell! Sell! Do you believe John Edwards can ride an IA victory to Denver? You think John McCain's 'No Surrender' tour can win him NH? Then buy! Buy! Buy! . . .

Could be fun. Check it out.

I'll be in court most of the day, so here's an open thread for you. There's lots of good reading out today. Some things to check out:

• Huffington Post has added a new section, Living Now. Check out the post in the Mind, Body and Soul section by Dr. Timothy Brantly, highly praised by Howie Klein and Jane Hamsher

• Jason Leopold at Truthout reports the Senate Ethics Committee probe of Sen. Domenici is intensifying.

• I have an op-ed in the Washington Examiner today, TV Payback Time for O.J., criticizing those who think he should go to jail as some kind of karmic justice.

More...

A federal judge in Tennessee has ruled the state's death penalty amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

The protocol "presents a substantial risk of unnecessary pain" and violates inmate Edward Jerome Harbison's constitutional protections, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger said.

The new protocol, released in April, does not ensure that inmates are properly anesthetized before the lethal injection is administered, Trauger said, which could "result in a terrifying, excruciating death."

For more on how the current cocktail of drugs fails to assure a pain-free death see the Human Rights Watch Report, So Long as They Die and this article submitted to TalkLeft in 2004, You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way.

For more news coverage of the opinion, see the Stand Down Texas Project.

Update: Here are my photos of President Clinton taken this afternoon in Boulder.

*****

I may have a touch of the Norman Hsu political groupie syndrome. While I didn't bundle any money to attend, I'm off to see Bill Clinton at a Hillary fundraiser in Boulder -- even though it means I have to drive 60 miles afterwards to see a client in jail.

Here's an open thread.

I'll leave you with a quote from Judge Mukasey contained from an article, New York's Federal Judges Protest Sentencing Procedures (The New York Times December 8, 2003, available on Lexis.com) about the Feeney Amendment that raised criminal sentences, limited the ability of Judges to impose downward departures and imposed a reporting requirement on judges who granted downward departures. The report was to be submitted by the Chief Judge and made available to members of Congress.

More...

I've already got a full day's worth of blog posts up. Time to let you take over, while I head outdoors.

Check out the recent diaries and don't forget to hit the "recommend" button for those you like.

• Randinho in Coming to America - Two Tales and Two Methods on a terrible recent immigration death in the desert.

• Michael Gass has several, his latest is The Bush Middle East Oil Gambit.

• Scribe has a diary, If I Were President.

If you'd like to write a diary on TalkLeft, whether as cross-posts or new material, here's the basics.

In the ridiculous item of the day category, who smuggled underpants to two detainees at Guantanamo? The military wants to know. They accused the detainees' defense lawyers who adamently deny being involved.

Both prisoners were caught wearing Under Armour briefs and one also had on a Speedo bathing suit, items the military said were not issued by Guantanamo personnel or sent through the regular mail, according to a Defense Department letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

A spokesman at Gitmo, Army Lt. Col. Ed Bush says this is a very big deal.

"There is no room for error when working in a dangerous environment, and constant vigilance is of the utmost importance," Bush said.

More...

I'm not one to pick a fight (you can stop laughing now), but I do have a bone to pick with Matt Stoller's critique of critiques of Move On's ill advised "BetrayUs" ad. Matt writes:

[This] tut-tut message from a liberal wonk, an email by Rachel Kleinfeld of the Truman Project that actually encourages progressive veterans to write to military journals and denounce Moveon (thank God wonks can't organize). . . . MORE

I'm off to drive to this lovely prison on the other side of the state, away from the mountains, towards Kansas.

Here's an open thread for you.

In the diary rescue department, check out this new one on the Move-On ad by veteran Michael Gass, and Scribe's on Larry Craig's motion to withdraw his plea.

I'll be back tonight.