Democrats are furious about a statement by Republicans saying that comparing one of their candidates to presidential candidate John Kerry would be worse than comparing someone to the Ku Klux Klan.

The dispute started when The New York Times inadvertently published a photo of Republican Senate candidate Pete Coors above a story about a KKK member who murdered a black sharecropper. The Times published a correction Saturday.

Cinamon Watson, spokeswoman for Coors, said the error was "so outrageous it's kind of funny. It could have been worse. Pete could have been identified as John Kerry.''

Chris Gates, chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party, demanded an apology. He said Democrats are "out there campaigning positively on the issues, and the Republicans can't help but resort to the lowest level of insult and name-calling.''

Extending spending caps to mandatory spending would address the real problem [emphasis added]– the 7 percent annual growth rate in current entitlement programs – by forcing lawmakers to put all mandatory spending on the table and set priorities.

Congress's task seemed simple enough: Repeal an illegal $5 billion-a-year export subsidy and replace it with some modest tax breaks to ease the pain on U.S. exporters.

But out of that imperative has emerged one of the most complex, special-interest-riddled corporate tax bills in years, lawmakers, Senate aides and tax lobbyists say. The 930-page epic is packed with $170 billion in tax cuts aimed at cruise-ship operators, foreign dog-race gamblers, NASCAR track owners, bow-and-arrow makers and Oldsmobile dealers, to name a few. There is even a $94 million break for a single hotel in Sioux City, Iowa.

Even one of the tax lobbyists involved in drafting it conceded the bill "has risen to a new level of sleaze."

"I said a few months ago, any lobbyist worth his salt has something in this bill," said the lobbyist, who would only speak candidly on condition of anonymity. "Now you see what I'm talking about."

As the post-9-11 emergency spending bill mandates, the president is required to "consult with the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committees on Appropriations prior to the transfer" of any funds. But that never happened, according to Senator Robert Byrd, who as chairman of the Appropriations Committee at the time would have been informed. He said "the White House provided no consultations" about moving funds into Iraq operations. While the administration submitted reports to Congress, it used deliberately vague language, saying only that it was increasing "situational awareness" and "worldwide posture" -- but never mentioning Iraq.

The August 2002 spending bill is the same: while it afforded the administration wide latitude, it required the president to consult with Congress and give 15 days’ notice before moving any money. But as one top Democrat reported, "there was no consultation" -- and there is no evidence that Congress was notified.

According to the Population Fund, the loss of $34 million from the United States led to two million more unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 deaths of infants and children. Bush is expected to withhold the $34 million appropriated by Congress for the coming year as well.

Anti-choice policies threaten the lives of women around the world. Kofi Annan said, "HIV infection and AIDS are spreading dramatically and disproportionately among women. Today, AIDS has a woman's face." The first official action George W. Bush took as president was to reinstate the global gag rule of the Reagan years -- no clinic that so much as mentions abortion, even to women who will die without it, can receive U.S. aid. Between 1972 and 1989, Planned Parenthood used USAID financial assistance to provide 330 million cycles of birth control pills, 1.3 million condoms, 14 million IUDs and provided $92 million in financial assistance to over 439 family planning agencies around the world. The gag rule cut all funding to Planned Parenthood. Of course more abortions were the result.

Former U.S. professional football star Pat Tillman, who gave up a $3.6 million sports contract to join the military's elite special forces, has been killed in a firefight in Afghanistan, a U.S. official said on Friday.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said Tillman was killed on Thursday. The 27-year-old soldier abruptly quit his National Football League career following the 2002 season and joined the Army a year after the attacks on America.

Enlisting with his brother Kevin in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, Tillman turned down a $3.6 million contract from the Arizona Cardinals to become an Army Ranger for an annual salary of $18,000.

Four Republicans who hope to challenge U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold in November had harsh words Thursday for the two-term incumbent's lonely vote against the Patriot Act, with one calling the action "un-American" and another calling it "cowardly."

[edit]

"I believe that Russ Feingold's vote was just terrible. It was really un-American is what it was," said Darrow, who had donated money to Feingold after the 2001 vote.

Darrow said afterward that he did not intend to question Feingold's patriotism, only the "patriotism of that vote."

Lorge, meanwhile, said that Feingold "cast a cowardly vote against the Patriot Act. He was the only one."

"The feminist movement for independence is a scourge on our culture. Whatever good they think they’ve accomplished for women’s “rights” has been overshadowed by skyrocketing out-of-wedlock births, masses of single mothers on welfare, and generations of fatherless children across our country. But this weekend, rabid feminists will come together to proclaim their victories and demand even more political power under the guise of “women’s health...the March for Women’s Lives is really a selfish, destructive, pro-death rally for their ideal of female superiority...These rabid feminists’ lifelong goal is to prove life is possible, in fact better, without men."

The rare one-on-one interview with President Bush came about when Tom's mom, Madelyn "Max" Kelly, made arrangements to personally deliver a copy of Michael Kelly's posthumously published book, "Things Worth Fighting For," after the president requested it.

Tom was invited along - but said he'd come only if he had the opportunity to interview the big man himself.

[edit]

Asked what was the least and most favorite about being president, Bush replied, "Let's see. My most favorite part about being president is making decisions that make the world more free and more peaceful. My least favorite part of the presidency is that I can't just walk out the front door of where I live and go for a walk by myself."

A teacher at a Newton County school has resigned after officials say she admitted she told two students to throw a 14-year-old girl from a classroom window.

[snip]

The two boys later told principal Kenneth Daniels that they threw the girl out the window because they did not want to be written up for disobeying a teacher.

Aldrich Urges Kerry to Release FBI Files

FBI whistle-blower, best-selling author and NewsMax columnist Gary Aldrich says it's not enough for Sen. John Kerry to say he'll release his military and medical files because "he continues to withhold some documentation from public viewing."

"These reports include evaluations by his Navy commanding officers, as well as medical records resulting in his first Purple Heart. Kerry has yet to promise the release of his FBI files," The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, of which Aldrich is president, stated today. "These FBI files are the most important, as they outline Kerry’s alliance to North Vietnamese Communists during the Vietnam War."

Campaign spokesman Kevin Zeese said Nader was able to make the request for matching funds two months earlier than he did in 2000, when he announced his candidacy at about the same time. Nader had raised only $198,000 by this time four years ago.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is receiving a little help from his friends - and from George W. Bush's friends.

Nearly 10 percent of contributors who have given Nader at least $250 have a history of supporting the Republican president, national GOP candidates or the party, according to computer-assisted review of financial records.

Among the new crop of Nader donors: actor and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein, Florida frozen-food magnate Jeno Paulucci and Pennsylvania oil-company executive Terrence Jacobs. All have strong ties to the GOP.

House lawmakers recently decided US taxpayers should send $500,000 to Montezuma, Ga., in a transportation bill. It's not to upgrade an interstate highway but to improve the sidewalk, lighting, and landscaping between Cherry and Hampton Streets.

Hey, it's only half a million dollars, but that is one small reason why the bill is now $19 billion bigger than the president's $256 billion request.

Then there's a new tax bill, launched when Congress wanted to fix a $5 billion-a-year export subsidy that turned out to be illegal under global trade rules. Now, measures tacked on outside the normal budget process have expanded the bill's girth to $170 billion in tax breaks:

• $519 million for makers of small jets.

• $8 million for makers of arrows. Yes, as in Robin Hood.

• $25 million for foreigners who gamble at US horse and dog races.

[edit]

Public interest groups who plunge into the minutiae of spending or tax bills to find earmarks say it's often difficult to recognize when a lawmaker has written a special provision into a bill. Special projects are those that bypass normal budgetary processes: They haven't been requested by the president or an authorizing committee or vetted in congressional hearings. They usually serve only a local or special interest. Many appear in the text of a bill just hours before lawmakers vote.

A new poll shows that 57 percent of Americans continue to believe that Saddam Hussein gave "substantial support" to al-Qaida terrorists before the war with Iraq, despite a lack of evidence of that relationship.

Also, 45 percent of Americans have the impression that "clear evidence" was found that Iraq worked closely with Osama bin Laden's network, and a majority believe that before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (38 percent) or a major program for developing them (22 percent).

There's no known evidence to date that these statements are true.

Doctors or other health care providers could not be disciplined or sued if they refuse to treat gay patients under legislation passed Wednesday by the Michigan House. The bill allows health care workers to refuse service to anyone on moral, ethical or religious grounds.

The Republican dominated House passed the measure as dozens of Catholics looked on from the gallery. The Michigan Catholic Conference, which pushed for the bills, hosted a legislative day for Catholics on Wednesday at the state Capitol.

The bills now go the Senate, which also is controlled by Republicans.

The Conscientious Objector Policy Act would allow health care providers to assert their objection within 24 hours of when they receive notice of a patient or procedure with which they don't agree. However, it would prohibit emergency treatment to be refused.

While adopting a public posture of cooperation with the Select Committee, presidential staff would make every effort to restrain the investigation and "make it as difficult as possible to get information and witnesses."

[Democratic strategist Dave] POLLAK: All -- the Saudi government are the ones who are funding these things that generate the terrorists. And if you look...

HANNITY: Dave -- Dave, I'd be very careful where you're going here. You do not want to disparage an entire country or a group of people the way you are. And I'd be very careful where you're going.

POLLAK: I'm not disparaging anyone. I'm only suggesting that if there are secret deals this is something that you of all people should try to figure out.

HANNITY: Let me go to Randy.

Randy, one of the things, problem I have with the Democrats is -- I call them black helicopter Democrats.

RANDY TATE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Right.

HANNITY: You've got Howard Dean accusing the president of knowing about 9/11 ahead of time. You've got Dennis Kucinich accusing the president of assassinating civilians.

Ted Kennedy saying that George Bush thinks he's been out there, Ted Kennedy and all of his comments that he's been making about the president.

What is -- I think they're unraveling because they're just doing anything to get their power back.

According to a new Australian-Chinese study published in the International Journal of Cancer, moderate exercise such as housework decreases the risk of ovarian cancer in women. The more and the harder the housework the housewife does, the more she benefits.

The same week, attendees at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Orlando were told that a study at Women's Hospital in Boston showed that modest amounts of exercise can substantially improve women's chances of surviving breast cancer and help them to live longer. The doctor who presented the findings recommended the exercise of walking (but neglected to suggest walking behind a vacuum cleaner).

Head researcher Colin Binns from Perth's Curtin University on Australia's west coast said the two-year study of 900 Chinese women found the risk of ovarian cancer declined with increasing physical activity. Housework was on the list.

"If you are only doing the housework 20 minutes a week ... it does not really count, but if you are doing three to four hours a day, this is fairly vigorous exercise and increases protection from ovarian cancer," Binns told Reuters.

Up to 3,000 people were killed or injured when two trains loaded with fuel collided and exploded at a North Korean station Thursday, hours after leader Kim Jong-il had passed through, South Korea's YTN television said.

[edit]

North Korea appears to have cut international telephone lines to the area to prevent information about the explosion getting out, Yonhap added. The North appears to have declared a type of emergency in the area.

[edit]

Residents in Pyongyang said by telephone there was nothing unusual in the capital. North Korean television was broadcasting military songs and music -- standard evening fare.

"The Republican Party's central committee in northern New Mexico's Sandoval County, saying county Clerk Victoria Dunlap 'has brought disgrace to the party,' voted to censure her for issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

'Other than assassination, all we can do is censure her,' said committee chairman Richard Gibbs."

The whole issue of questions from the audience at the Associated Press annual luncheon was a running joke for the president during his talk. He opened his speech by saying, "I kind of like ducking questions," and said he would be "glad to duck any questions like my mother once told me to do" following his remarks.

In the end he only took three questions, from those submitted in advance by AP members, and read by Burl Osborne, the AP chairman. After replying to one question he apologized for "the long answer, but at least I answered it."

After days of being pressed by Republicans, Senator John Kerry on Wednesday released his military records, which showed uniformly positive evaluations from his commanders in Vietnam.

[edit]

The records depict many instances of bravery in the face of enemy fire and describe a young officer who is smart, articulate and decisive. For example, George M. Elliot, his commander in early 1969, wrote, "In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action, Lt. j.g. Kerry was unsurpassed."

Terry Holt, a spokesman for President Bush's campaign, said the issue was never Mr. Kerry's military service but what he said was Mr. Kerry's hypocrisy in calling for full disclosure of various aspects of Mr. Bush's presidency while Mr. Kerry had not released his own military records or the tax returns of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

"What this reinforces is something very basic about John Kerry - that he only responds to political pressure," Mr. Holt said. "We're going to hold him accountable. But that doesn't mean that it's one of the main themes of the campaign."

The military records that Sen. John Kerry posted on his Web site yesterday raise new questions about the actions he took to earn several prestigious war medals and whether he deserved them.

"Satan is clinging to our sexual organs and pushes us to use them. Satan's work now is to try to get us to misuse the sexual organ. Westerners may think they have much to impress me with but I have gone beyond that. We must restore the fall and go beyond the misuse of the sexual organs. We are people of power, but it doesn't mean much. One woman claimed she had a relationship with [me]. It was false. I could have collected evidence, but what is important is to educate people about what is right and wrong."

"Democrats and Republicans really function differently on this issue," Miranda said. "The relationship between Democrats and the special-interest groups that support them is really hand in glove. But Republicans do not have that same relationship. Their relationship with outside groups is really arm's length and full of mutual suspicion."

With control of the Senate then in Democratic hands, the Judiciary Committee rejected Judge Pickering's nomination in March 2002. That infuriated fellow Mississippian Sen. Trent Lott, then Senate minority leader. At a White House meeting, Mr. Lott warned President Bush that all this was a dress rehearsal for an eventual showdown over the Supreme Court, according to an individual familiar with the conversation. Republicans were outgunned, the senator said. Neither Mr. Lott nor the White House would comment.

Mr. Lott told veteran Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers Republicans needed a group to go "toe to toe with Ralph Neas," according to a person familiar with the situation. The two agreed on Mr. Gray, who, as White House counsel, had bested Mr. Neas during the emotional fight over the Thomas Supreme Court nomination in 1991.

After hearing from Mr. Rogers, Mr. Gray says, in July 2003 he formed the Committee for Justice, a three-person operation that so far has concentrated on shoring up Republican support for Bush nominees. The committee sometimes coordinates with another group on which Mr. Gray serves as co-chairman, Citizens for a Sound Economy, which usually lobbies on economic issues. The latter group had a 2002 budget of $8 million, but has since spun off part of its operations. The nomination work is only part-time duty for Mr. Gray, who doesn't take a salary from the committee. He is a Washington lawyer and lobbyist for clients such as Citigroup Inc.

Lacking Mr. Neas's troop strength, Mr. Gray works his Republican Party and Bush family connections. The first President Bush has hosted a fund-raiser; so has the current president's nephew. Mr. Gray, who says he has raised about $1 million, has discussed tactics with Karl Rove, the White House's top political strategist. He also meets monthly with Republican senators including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch.

When Mr. Lundell was asked how the Democratic documents were disclosed to the press, he identified Mr. Miranda as the likely source. Mr. Lundell stated that he met Mr. Miranda in the Senate Chef (an eatery in the Dirksen building) early in the week of November 17, 2003, shortly after the story broke. Mr. Lundell stated that he specifically asked Mr. Miranda if he had leaked the documents to the press and that Mr. Miranda said "No." Mr. Lundell told investigators that he then asked Mr. Miranda whether he gave them to Mr. Rushton who gave them to the press. Mr. Miranda's response, according to Mr. Lundell, was to nod his head affirmatively.

Can I ask you to undertake a discreet mission. Mr. Rushton should get a complete relpcate [sic]of the Ame Ex binder. He needs to get up to speed with outr [sic] best info as he build [sic] relationships with the press.

Workers making less than $23,660 a year are automatically eligible for overtime in the new rules, compared with $22,100 in the first proposal. The current cap is $8,060.

The salary figures are set and will not change with inflation. "That means that every year as wages rise, more and more people will lose the guarantee," Owens said.

And are you reading anything interesting now?

I am rereading Dickens's ''Bleak House.''

Do you feel your work as an independent counsel helped the country in any way or just added to cynicism about government?

I am so ill-equipped to say. What I do know is it was a very unhappy reminder that all persons are subject to the law and the legal process, no matter how lofty their station in life. I regret it for the country, but it needed to be done.

Do you believe that atheists go to hell?

I am not going to get into theology.

You're impeding my investigation. You won't answer anything, although you investigate everyone else.

Wait a second. Not everyone. Just one person. And I had a nice legal charter!

I find you unnecessarily secretive.

But I told you about ''Bleak House.'' Now don't forget to mention my book -- ''First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life.'' It's just out in paperback.

Twenty-one of the largest Democratic-allied 527 groups — named after a section of the tax code — raised nearly $57 million in the first three months of this year, according to reports filed last week with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and sorted by fundraising watchdog groups such as PoliticalMoneyLine.com and the Center for Public Integrity.

Yesterday, at a closed-door meeting of trade associations hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on get-out-the-vote practices, Ken Mehlman, manager of the Bush-Cheney campaign, decried the impact of the soft-money groups.

“Thanks to 527s, we will be outspent by the Democrats,” said Mehlman, according to a participant who took notes of the meeting. “MoveOn.org is a huge threat and has hurt the president. Every action makes a difference.”

So far this year, the groups have spent close to $52 million, much of it on television ads and other campaign activities designed to affect the presidential race and other federal contests. At the beginning of April, the Kerry campaign announced it had raised $50 million during the first three months of the year.

Approximately $14 million of the $15 million raised by the Joint Victory Campaign, a joint fundraising committee for the Media Fund and Americans Coming Together (ACT), was disbursed to those to groups, according to Political MoneyLine.com, making their fundraising totals appear greater.

Nevertheless, the groups’ fundraising total for 2004 is likely to come close to matching the Bush-Cheney campaign.

An official with the president’s re-election campaign said it had raised a few million over $50 million during the first three months of the year. The campaign will disclose its Federal Election Commission (FEC) report for March today.

The 21 left-leaning groups surveyed matched in three months what they raised in all of 2003.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz yesterday denied a report in a new book that the Pentagon in 2002 secretly diverted $700 million to a covert military construction program in Kuwait linked to a future war with Iraq without adequately informing Congress.

Wolfowitz, responding to questions by members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, took strong issue with an account of the Pentagon spending contained in "Plan of Attack," by Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward.

The book describes a $700 million plan, approved by President Bush, to use money that Congress had approved for the war in Afghanistan and the general war on terrorism to finance airfields and pipelines in Kuwait, setting the stage for a "giant invasion." Congress, Woodward wrote, "had no real knowledge or involvement."

In testimony yesterday, Wolfowitz said that the U.S. Central Command had prepared a $750 million contingency plan for Iraq by July 2002. He said that the Pentagon had earmarked $241 million of the total before Congress voted for an Iraq war resolution in October 2002. But the money, he said, went only "to strengthen our capabilities in the region," and "no funding was made available for those things that had Iraq as the exclusive purpose."

The administration, Wolfowitz said, had tried "scrupulously" to live up to reporting requirements to Congress.

The saga of ousted Senate Republican aide Manuel Miranda continues, but this latest chapter shows Miranda's friends may not be doing their champion any favors. The American Conservative Union is pushing to get Miranda rehired by a Republican — any Republican — on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Miranda appears to have pretty well scotched that option thanks to an article he wrote for last weekend's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Sunday magazine. In his piece on 'Memogate,' Miranda managed to slam both Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee, as well as Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who is in line to be the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee... Miranda's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article has sections titled 'Pocket Liberals,' 'Emasculated GOP' and 'Seduced by Access,' and is basically one long screed against Hatch and Specter... And finally: 'I do admit that reading these documents on an unprotected server to help defend the president's embattled nominees was political hardball, and I have learned one shouldn't play hardball with limpwristed teammates.' When asked how the article helped his future job prospects on Judiciary, Miranda said that was ACU's crusade, not his.

Salem Chalabi, a U.S.-educated lawyer and nephew of the head of the Iraqi National Congress, was named as general director of the tribunal, and he has named a panel of seven judges and four prosecutors, INC spokesman Entefadh Qanbar said.

As promised, the judge in the Oregon same-sex marriage case ruled quickly, and his decision on Tuesday put an immediate stop to Multnomah County officials issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.


The decision shut down the last remaining U.S. civic outpost for same-sex nuptials.


Multnomah County Circuit Judge Frank Bearden said he believes the Oregon Constitution "would allow either a civil union or [marriage] privileges to same-sex couples," the Associated Press reported.

The Bush White House believes that "good policies make for good politics." But critics like John DiIulio and Paul O’Neill complain that the administration has sacrificed solid policy analysis on the altar of political expediency. They cite such policies as tariffs on steel, the Medicare drug benefit, and runaway federal spending as examples of politics undermining good policy. Have the hacks routed the wonks in the Bush administration?

Anyone who has information that is damaging to Clinton's presidency has conveniently, and mysteriously, died. The list of Clinton dead makes Charlie Manson look like a petty criminal. Among those I haven't discussed is Luther Parks, and it illustrates most clearly what happens when you threaten Bill Clinton.

Parks was owed $81,000 from Clinton for providing security for the former Governor. He had kept a file about Clinton's dealings when he was providing security. After publicly threatening to talk if he wasn't paid, he was gunned down in Little Rock, Ark. by four or five assailants. His son was quoted as saying ". . . they had my father killed to save Bill Clinton."

That is what happens to people who threaten this president. They die, they die fast and they die before they can do any damage.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the administration has announced its intention to make John Negroponte our first ambassador to postwar Iraq, to take up residence in what will be the world's largest embassy after June 30. Negroponte was one of the key figures in the Iran-Contra scandal, the cockeyed plot that sold U.S. arms to Iran and used the money to finance an illegal war in Nicaragua. So, our first ambassador will be a man who armed Iraq's enemy during that war.

[He] facilitated a clandestine quid pro quo deal, under which the Reagan Administration sent aid to Honduras in return for Honduran assistance to the contras, at a time when Congress had banned the Administration from assisting the contras. Negroponte's embassy also suppressed information about human rights abuses committed by the Honduran military.

The Federal Election Commission has opened a formal probe into a star-studded Aug. 12, 2000 Hollywood fund-raiser for then-first lady Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign, Fox News Channel reported on Sunday.

And some say the development is at least partly responsible for Sen. Clinton's claim that she's not interested in joining John Kerry's presidential ticket.

I agree with the majority that Ramirez's sentence is inappropriately harsh. For shoplifting a $199 videocassette recorder, having previously shoplifted twice before, he was sentenced to spend between 25 years and the rest of his life in prison, with no eligibility for parole until he has served at least 25 years. Even Hammurabi limited the penalty for an eye to an eye.

[snip]

Even the reasonable victim of such a crime would not want to visit such harsh punishment on the criminal. Nor would a reasonable person favor spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to incarcerate Ramirez for decades to protect stores from the occasional $200 shoplifting. And despite his criminality, a fair sentence cannot, of course, ignore the impact on Ramirez. Our societal norm against stealing is not intense enough to justify a sentence comparable to what people get for rape or murder. What Ramirez has done, repeatedly, is just not bad enough to justify wasting most of the rest of his life in a cage.

As the majority points out, Ramirez argued his own case before us pro se. He did it so well that I did not realize until well into his argument that he was the petitioner and not a lawyer for the petitioner. My impression from the record and from our extensive colloquy with this man during oral argument is that he is a good and intelligent man whose self control occasionally gives way under the stresses of life to a criminal impulse that he expresses by stealing something from a store. The 5 1/2 years he already served for his most recent crime seem like an adequate social response even with his having done it twice before.

But these are all thoughts I would have were I the sentencing judge. I am not. We are not. The question whether a writ of habeas corpus should issue to a state prison warden is quite different from whether the sentence is justifiable. It is even different from whether we think the sentence is grossly disproportionate to the crime. We can only grant relief if the sentence was grossly disproportionate and if the state court's determination that it was not grossly disproportionate was contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court law.

[snip]

In the end, what prevents me from joining the majority, which I would very much like to do, is the word "unreasonable" in AEDPA. The Supreme Court has said, on several occasions, that "unreasonable" means not just wrong, but so wrong as to be "objectively unreasonable." The Court told us in Andrade that even "[t]he gloss of clear error fails to give proper deference to state courts by conflating error (even clear error) with unreasonableness."

[snip]

Andrade means, as a practical matter, that the federal courts, on habeas review, have extremely limited authority over the harshness of state sentences. It operates more as a federalism decision than as an Eighth Amendment decision. Ramirez's sentence would stand, under my reluctant reading, not because it is just as between California and Ramirez, but because it is lawful as between the state and federal judiciaries. Thus, I do not think we have the authority to do what the majority does, and what I would like to do.

For stealing a total of $153 worth of videotapes from two different K-Mart department stores on separate occasions in November 1995, Andrade was sentenced, in light of his prior theft-related offenses, to two consecutive Three Strikes sentences of 25 years to life, with no eligibility for parole until he served 50 years in prison. Id. at 66. Like the plurality in Ewing, the Court looked beyond Andrade's two most recent convictions to detail his extensive criminal history, during which he had been "in and out of state and federal prison since 1982." Idat 66.

Ramirez, who has a history of using drugs and stealing, also argued his own case in front of the 9th Circuit. He said he wasn't nervous when he appeared in front of the circuit panel July 18 because he received all the legal advice he needed after converting to Christianity while in prison.

"I trusted in the Lord that he would complete this," Ramirez said. "He was the greatest lawyer of all."

[California Attorney General Bill] Lockyer's office said it was reviewing the decision and would not comment on whether it plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The opinion also criticizes the AG for not trying to reach a settlement with Ramirez -- which the court asked Lockyer to do -- instead of litigating at the 9th Circuit.

[snip]

The opinion is unusual in that it is openly critical of another judge, San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Margaret Powers, who is quoted in Wardlaw's ruling. Because Ramirez used security tape to package up the VCR box and because he already had a buyer for the property, Powers said Ramirez had clearly become a "professional thief," even though five years had passed between the theft and the earlier robbery counts.

[snip]

Upon release, Ramirez went to work for his church, New Hope Family Worship Center in Corona, doing maintenance and running the church's prison ministry. He said he now plans to file a writ in federal court to remove a monitoring device from his ankle.

Ramirez said he hoped his story encourages people to vote for a new initiative that would change Three Strikes so that only violent offenses would count as strikes. Proponents have turned in about 700,000 signatures, which is nearly twice the number needed to qualify for the November ballot.

On July 10, 1973 when John Mitchell [Nixon's Attorney General who resigned to head his reelection campaign] testified before the Senate Watergate Committee, he explained why he withheld information about the Watergate break-in from the police and the FBI; why he failed to report information about Donald Segretti's dirty tricks campaign that Mitchell called "the White House Horrors"; and why he did not report information about individuals who he knew had committed perjury to cover up these crimes. One committee member reminded Mitchell that during the 1972 campaign he knew that Magruder, Hadleman, Erlichman, and persons "all around" the president were "involved in crime, perjury, accessory after the fact, and you deliberately refused to tell Nixon." The senators then asked the former attorney general, "Would you state that the expediency of the election was more important than that?" Mitchell replied, "Senator, I think you have put it exactly correct. In my mind, the reelection of Richard Nixon, compared with what was available on the other side, was so much more important that I put it in just that context." The next day Mitchell testified again and repeated the logic behind his perjury and obstruction of justice: "The most important thing to this country was the reelection of Richard Nixon and I was not about to countenance anything that would stand in the way of the reelection."

One of the more bizarre by-products of the Pentagon Papers affair was a plan either to raid or to firebomb the Brookings Institution and to pilfer papers there belonging to Leslie Gelb and Morton Halperin, former National Security Council aides. These papers allegedly represented a Pentagon Papers analogue for the Nixon years. The Brookings plan has been described by three people: Erlichman, Dean, and Caufield. All agreed that Charles Colson pushed the idea, but all asserted that Nixon inspired it.

By bowing to Hatch's ill-advised leadership on the propriety of reading the Democrat [sic] memos, Republicans rendered themselves emasculated from investigating the corruption evidenced in the Democrat [sic] memos themselves.

From matters constitutional to those fiscal, Specter is a twisting, porking, Scottish law-invoking wild-card sophist whom Republicans serious about reforming government can no longer afford or trust. Specter as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee? Horrors!

Does an arrest violate the Fourth Amendment when a police officer has probable cause to make an arrest for one offense if that offense is not closely related to the offense articulated by the officer at the time of the arrest? Some federal circuits, including the Ninth Circuit below, have held that an arrest is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment only if there is probable cause to arrest for crimes that are "closely related" to the crime or crimes articulated by the arresting officer. Other circuits deem an arrest reasonable if there is probable cause to believe that any violation of law has occurred.

A battle for control of the Jefferson County Republican Party turned physical last weekend, after an argument that one GOP delegate said left him with a bruised arm.

Now John Lawlor has sworn out a warrant against Peter Hayes, charging him with assault. He says Hayes punched him in the arm hard enough to cause a bruise.

Hayes said: "I asked him how come you didn't do the right thing, and he said, `It's because you're a Moonie and I don't want to work with you.' Then, he started saying, `Moonie, Moonie, Moonie, Moonie, Moonie.'"

Lawlor recalled saying only "Moonie, Moonie, Moonie."

Hayes said he believes Lawlor, who serves on the party's nominations committee, blocked his candidacy because of his religion. That violates his constitutional rights, Hayes said.

And across the Delaware River in the Garden State, New Jersey's only Catholic university, Seton Hall, will host an awards ceremony named after Sandra Day O'Connor, a pro-abortion rights Supreme Court jurist. O'Connor was a key vote in striking down a ban on partial-birth abortion. Nonetheless, Seton Hall is more than willing to open its arms, and the hearts of its students, to an ideological cholesterol that is determined to clog the arteries of the Catholic theology.