Salon.com Wire Story: "Despite his view that death penalty appeals are clogging the courts, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts provided free legal help to an inmate languishing on Florida's death row for two decades.

The 25 hours of legal assistance that Roberts reported to the Senate Judiciary Committee are minuscule compared with thousands of hours contributed by dozens of other attorneys in the case of John Ferguson, who was convicted in 1978 of killing eight people in one of the worst mass murders in Florida history.

But Roberts' pro bono, or free, work as a lawyer at Washington's Hogan & Hartson -- ranging from assisting welfare clients and gay rights activists to advising Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the 2000 presidential election dispute -- suggests a man who kept an open mind when assisting clients, supporters say."

(Via Salon.)

Salon.com Wire Story: "A white supremacist investigated for a child-killing spree that terrorized Atlanta's black community once praised the crimes in secretly recorded conversations obtained by The Associated Press.

Although Charles T. Sanders did not claim responsibility for any of the deaths, lawyers for Wayne Williams, the black man convicted in two of the murders and blamed for 22 others between 1979 and 1981, believe the evidence will help their bid for a new trial.

Sanders -- whose older brother, Don, was a reputed officer of the Ku Klux Klan -- told an informant for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in the 1981 recording that the killer had 'wiped out a thousand future generations of niggers.'

His only complaint was that the killings were prompting police road blocks.

Police dropped the probe into the Klan's possible involvement after seven weeks, when Sanders and two of his brothers passed lie-detector tests, according to documents released this week to the AP following an open-records request."

(Via Salon.)

Military Says Troops Demanded 'Rent' From Iraqi Vendors : "California Army National Guard troops charged unauthorized, off-the-books 'rent' to Iraqi-owned businesses inside Baghdad's Green Zone in Iraq to raise money for a 'soldier's fund,' military officials and sources within the troops' battalion said Friday.

The disclosure is the latest to emerge from a wide-ranging investigation into the conduct of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment of the Guard, which is headquartered in Modesto, Calif.

Military officials had confirmed previously that the battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Patrick Frey, had been suspended and that one of the battalion's companies, based in Fullerton, Calif., had been removed from patrol duties and restricted to an Army base south of Baghdad, the capital.

According to military officials and members of the battalion, soldiers from the battalion's Bravo Company, which is based in Dublin, an East Bay suburb of San Francisco, approached several businesses earlier this year that were owned and operated by Iraqi nationals.

The businesses -- a dry cleaner, a convenience store and the like -- catered to U.S. soldiers and were located on the fringe of the U.S. military's operating base inside the Green Zone, the fortified hub of the Iraqi government, U.S. occupation officials, embassies and contractor headquarters. The businesses were asked to pay the soldiers 'rent.'

Lt. Col. Cliff Kent, spokesman for the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, confirmed Friday that two vendors agreed to pay."

(Via CNN.)

Salon.com Wire Story: " A decade ago, John Roberts played a valuable role helping attorneys overturn a law that would have allowed discrimination against gays -- pro bono work the Supreme Court nominee didn't mention in a questionnaire he filled out for the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The revelation could dent his popularity among conservative groups and quell some of the opposition of liberal groups fearful he could help overturn landmark decisions such as Roe v. Wade, which guarantees a right to an abortion.

An attorney who worked with Roberts cautioned against making guesses about his personal views based on his involvement in the Colorado case, which gay rights advocates consider one of their most important legal victories.

'It may be that John and others didn't see this case as a gay-rights case,' said Walter Smith, who was in charge of pro bono work at Roberts' former Washington law firm, Hogan & Hartson.

Smith said Roberts may instead have viewed the case as a broader question, of whether the constitutional guarantee of equal protection prohibited singling out a particular group of people that wouldn't be protected by an anti-discrimination law."

(Via Salon.)

Editorials from The Roanoke Times-A dubious exercise as the inept wage war: "President Bush should abandon his vacation and head to Brook Park, Ohio, and attend the military funerals of those Marines. He should see, and allow the public to see, the flag-draped coffins of just a few of the 1,828 service men and women killed in Iraq.

When he rises to eulogize those Marines, he needs to tell America again exactly why he sent them to fight.

He can explain the strategic decisions that failed to quell rebel factions intent on blowing up members of Iraq's congress, U.S. military personnel and Iraqi children.

He can talk about the blunder made in disbanding Iraq's army and the incompetence in fusing together an inept, partly corrupt police force that he just decided last month needs more hands-on guidance and training.

The president can then speak of the democracy that the Iraqi people would embrace if granted self-determination, and how that meshes with their determination and their nature to form a government in which Islamic clerics will be invested with supreme power. Or how the envisioned pluralistic society that offers freedom and equal protection to all its citizens will fade when women, by law, become subservient.

When Bush finishes explaining all this to the families of the fallen Marines, he can return to Crawford and conjure more rhetoric that runs antithetical to all that has yet occurred."

(Via Martini Republic.)

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: July 24, 2005 - July 30, 2005 Archives: "Another boondoogle Duke Cunningham (R) set up for some generous contributors, before the company they owned failed to provide the government the promised services and went belly up.

On the other hand, things could be worse. This one only cost the taxpayers $3.5 million.

The Union-Tribune's Marcus Stern, who broke the story that began Duke's downfall, has the details."

(Via Talking Points Memo.)

Defense Tech: When Pigs Sail: "The Sea Fighter is the latest example of how the Pentagon's old rules for buying gear aren't keeping up with the defense technology's Lance Armstrong. Jammers to stop roadside bombs are essentially rotting on the vine, waiting for Defense Department bureacrats. Companies like General Atomics, maker of the Predator drone, are self-financing their research, because they can't wait for the endless Washington decision loop to close.

Maybe that works for companies with big bankrolls and Congressional pals. But it leaves out tens of thousands of others who might be able to give American troops a hand."

(Via a DefenseTech.)

Salon.com Wire Story: "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday rejected as 'nonsense' the notion that recent terrorist attacks in London were retaliation for the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

'Some people seem confused about the motivations and intentions of terrorists and about our coalition's defense of the still young democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq,' Rumsfeld said in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

'They seem to cling to the discredited theory that the recent attacks in London and elsewhere, for example, are really in retaliation for the war in Iraq or for the so-called occupation of Afghanistan,' he added. 'That is nonsense.'"

...

And in another Wire story: al-Qaida's No. 2 Threatens London, U.S. — "Al-Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, threatened more destruction in London, saying in a videotape broadcast Thursday that British Prime Minister Tony Blair would be to blame.

Al-Zawahri also threatened the United States with tens of thousands of military dead if it does not withdraw its troops from Iraq immediately.

In Crawford, Texas, President Bush dismissed the threat, saying, 'We will stay on the offense against these people. They're terrorists and they're killers and they will kill innocent people ... so they can impose their dark vision on the world.'

The tape, aired on the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, was delivered exactly one month after the July 7 bombings in London that killed 56 people, including four suicide attackers. In the excerpts aired by Al-Jazeera, al-Zawahri did not directly claim that al-Qaida carried out the July 7 or July 21 attacks.

But he brought the July 7 attacks under al-Qaida's wing and depicted the terror network as still capable of delivering strikes around the world despite arrests in Europe and blows against its leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He presented the attacks as a result of Blair's decision to deploy troops in Iraq.

'Blair has brought to you destruction in central London, and he will bring more of that, God willing,' al-Zawahri said in the broadcast excerpts."

Emphasis mine. Btw, I've spent enough on DNS domains in my life already, but I just noticed that http://www.rumsfeldisatool.com/ isn't taken. Anyone up?

(Via Salon.)

Democrats open Web forum on Supreme Court nominee | News.blog | CNET News.com: "Want to grill President Bush's most recent Supreme Court nominee? Earlier this week, seven U.S. Senate Democrats, all women, launched 'Ask John Roberts,' which houses an electronic form where citizens can shoot off questions to Washington.

The politicians will use the responses as 'guideposts for the materials they submit to the Judiciary Committee,' which will play a large role in the upcoming confirmation process, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said in a statement. Mikulski, who led the push for the site, said people should demand to know Roberts' record on everything from privacy to whether 'it's constitutional to make sure that girls' sports teams get equal funding.'"

(Via C|Net News.)

Martini Republic - Lead, follow, or have a drink.: "Meanwhile, vacationing slackjawed yokel serial liar President Bush told reporters yet again, ''We are defeating the terrorists in a place like Iraq so we don't have to face them here at home,' which is a fucking joke, given how well this fight 'em over there strategy has worked in London.

The fact of the matter is that fightin' 'em over there has no discernible impact on where have to face them here at home, except to the extent Bush's clusterfornication in Iraq makes it easier to recruit terrorists to carry out the attacks.  Al Qaeda's attacks abroad, and especially in the United States, have always followed a slow, deliberate pattern of developing the capabilities and plans to strike.  Eight years transpired between the two attacks on the WTC.  The 9/11 plan itself took years to plan, train, and carry out.  Increased attention to homeland security and screening potential terrorists from the US has undoubtedly made what was always a difficult proposition for al Qaeda — striking in the US — even harder.  But only a goddamn fool, or a liar, would continue to spout off the kind of idiotic nonsense our Peace War President Curious George continues to spew. "

(Via Martini Republic.)

Salon.com Wire Story: "Two Yemeni men say they were held in solitary confinement in secret, underground U.S. detention facilities in an unknown country and interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside world, Amnesty International charged Wednesday.

Amnesty and human rights lawyers argued that the report added to long-standing claims that the United States has held 'secret detainees' in its war on terror.

'We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of U.S. secret detentions around the world,' said Sharon Critoph, a researcher at Amnesty International who interviewed the men in Yemen."

"Extraordinary Rendition"

(Via Salon.)

The Poor Man Cafe » Phase II is where you go fuck yourself: "Yeah. Um, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s not going to be a Phase II report. There was no Earthly reason not to handle all the intel issues in one report, but you agreed, for reasons that remain unclear to me, to give Bush the political cover he wanted and not force any questions about just what the fuck was up with all that aluminum tube bullshit. There were too many issues to deal with? Give me a break. There appeared to be ample time for endless, pointless panty-sniffing around Joseph Wilson - for some reason, the issue of whether some guy who wrote a critical editorial is a bad person could get addressed right away. Were we lied into war? That question can wait forever, apparently. Bullshit.

Democrats, clue in: ‘I’ll gladly pay you Thursday for a hamburger today’ is not a good deal. Hamburger stands don’t work that way, because it’s not a good deal. So stop agreeing to it. Fucking figure it out. If the Republicans wanted two reports, let Phase I deal with the issues of substance, and let Phase II be an in-depth Congressional Intelligence report exclusively devoted to concerns that Joseph Wilson is a bad man who squeezes the toothpaste tube from the middle or whatever. You got chumped, chumps. They chumped you chumps again."

(Via Martini Republic.)

Salon.com Wire Story: "The Pentagon acknowledged on Monday that two former members of the military team handling prosecutions of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, alleged last year that the trial system was rigged in favor of the government.

Officials said the prosecutors' claims of ethical lapses and potential criminal acts had been reviewed and dismissed as unfounded. Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said an investigation determined they were 'much ado about nothing.'

In a later written statement, the Pentagon said an 'operational assessment' of the chief prosecutor's office -- undertaken in response to the allegations -- recommended a restructuring, including unspecified personnel changes."

(Via Salon.)

Salon.com Wire Story: "Saudi Arabia's King Fahd sought to modernize his desert kingdom while balancing change against tribal tradition and orthodox Islam, but a stroke a decade ago left him a ruler in name only during tumultuous times for the world's biggest oil producer. His death Monday came as the Saudi government pursues an aggressive clampdown on Islamic terrorism and unprecedented reforms.

The portly, goateed Fahd inadvertently helped fuel the rise of Islamic extremism by making concessions to hard-liners in an effort to boost his Islamic credentials. But he also brought the kingdom closer to the United States and agreed to a step that enraged many conservatives: basing U.S. troops on Saudi soil after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait."

(Via Salon.)

Salon.com Wire Story: "Former President Jimmy Carter on Saturday said the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United States.

Speaking at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, central England, Carter also criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq and said it was 'unnecessary and unjust.'

'I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.,' he told a news conference. 'I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.'

Carter said, however, that terrorist acts could not be justified, and that while Guantanamo 'may be an aggravating factor ... it's not the basis of terrorism.'"

(Via Salon.)

The end of the IRA’s “long war”: "The Irish Republican Army has declared a commitment to ‘exclusively peaceful means’ in its campaign against the British state."

(Via NervousFishBlog.)