Report: 1 Percent of U.S. Adult Population Behind Bars

An astonishing and alarming statistic

From The Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) -- For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America's rank as the world's No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars.

Using state-by-state data, the report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 - one out of every 99.1 adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it's more than any other nation.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

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Did Ex-Alabama Governor Get A Raw Deal?

(CBS) Is Don Siegelman in prison because he’s a criminal or because he belonged to the wrong political party in Alabama? Siegelman is the former governor of Alabama, and he was the most successful Democrat in that Republican state. But while he was governor, the U.S. Justice Department launched multiple investigations that went on year after year until, finally, a jury convicted Siegelman of bribery.

Now, many Democrats and Republicans have become suspicious of the Justice Department’s motivations. As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, 52 former state attorneys-general have asked Congress to investigate whether the prosecution of Siegelman was pursued not because of a crime but because of politics.

Article and 60 minutes video.

Christians Pray for Death of Americans United Staff

From Atheist Revolution:

You can put this in your "and Christians accuse us of not being moral?" file. Americans United for Separation of Church and State complained to the IRS that California pastor Wiley Drake was violating federal law by using his church to campaign for Christian extremist candidate Mike Huckabee. Drake's response was to once again call for imprecatory prayers against Americans United staff. That's right - this Southern Baptist Pastor is asking his followers to pray for the deaths of AU's staff.

From the Americans United press release:

Wrote Drake, "In light of the recent attack from the enemies of God I ask the children of God to go into action with Imprecatory Prayer. Especially against Americans United for Separation of Church and State…. Specifically target Joe Conn or Jeremy Learing [sic] and their leader Rev. Barry Lynn. They are those who lead the attack."

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Granted it's a little indirect, but would this constitute a death threat for legal purposes?

"Cunt" on Live TV - Why all the fuss?

Feb 14, 2008, NBC's Today Show. In reference to "The Vagina Monologues", Jane Fonda (presumably) accidentally uses the word "Cunt".

Frankly, this should be a non-issue, but for some reason our government, through the offices of the Federal Communications Commission, has taken it upon itself for years to choose which words may be spoken at least in the broadcast media. Frankly, this practice is disgusting and demeans the dignity of all of us. The notion of "protecting" our children from language they'll encounter soon enough in school anyway, is a poor excuse for imposing a largely Christian agenda on a government agency.



Bravo, Jane. Do not appologize. It's high time we grow up and break this ridiculous taboo.

The Thinking Man's Madrassa Smear

From Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo:

If things continue on their current trajectory and Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee we should get used to much more of the still largely subterranean effort to scare Jews and broader portions of the electorate into believing that Obama is anti-Israel. The truth is that there's little apparent difference between Obama's position and Hillary's or, for that matter, anyone else in the mainstream of the Democratic party or most of the non-Taliban wing of Republican party. Here's a relatively mild example of the effort -- a story in the New York Sun about how Obama supporter Zbigniew Brzezinski (the article calls him an 'advisor' -- he's probably something between a supporter and advisor) is leading a delegation to Syria sponsored by the highly controversial left-wing Rand Corporation.

On another front, here is a recent post at The Politico about emails sent out by a member of Clinton's finance committee asking friends and acquaintances to "read the attached important and very disturbing article on Barack Obama." The enclosed article is this one by the neanderthal American Thinker blog by Ed Lasky.

There's much more of this going on than you realize. And it may be prepping to expand dramatically.

Islamic Justice?

Does this even remotely resemble justice to you? Is this a religion of peace?

From CNN.COM:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.

The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.

"Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don't know who to be afraid of."

(full story)

Mark This Day

This is no bluff

From Talking Points Memo:

By David Kurtz

(tpm)

Attorney General Michael Mukasey is back on the Hill today, testifying to the House Judiciary Committee. Paul Kiel is covering it at TPMmuckraker.

So far, he's dropped two big bombshells. DOJ will not be investigating:

(1) whether the waterboarding, now admitted to by the White House, was a crime; or

(2) whether the Administration's warrantless wiretapping was illegal.

His rationale? Both programs had been signed off on in advance as legal by the Justice Department.

Cynics may argue that those aren't bombshells at all, that the Bush Administration would never investigate itself in these matters. Perhaps so. But this is a case where cynicism is itself dangerous.

We have now the Attorney General of the United States telling Congress that it's not against the law for the President to violate the law if his own Department of Justice says it's not.

It is as brazen a defense of the unitary executive as anything put forward by the Administration in the last seven years, and it comes from an attorney general who was supposed to be not just a more professional, but a more moderate, version of Alberto Gonzales (Thanks to Democrats like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer for caving on the Mukasey nomination.).

President Bush has now laid down his most aggressive challenge to the very constitutional authority of Congress. It is a naked assertion of executive power. The founders would have called it tyrannical. His cards are now all on the table. This is no bluff.

Late Update: TPM Reader RF:

David Kurtz's "Mark This Day" blurb misses the most important point -- it's not just that the Attorney General's position is that a DOJ Order makes the subject activity legal but that, as Nadler brought out, there is now no recourse to a judicial test, either criminal (through refusal to prosecute) or civil (through the state secrets privilege based solely on a DOJ affidavit). The DOJ is entitled to take whatever position it wants, however self-serving and unitary, but now there is no avenue for judicial review and so that is the end of the story. That is the important point here.

Circle gets the Square?

Well, this one's a little out of date but worthy of mention nevertheless - right up there with modern-day (did I say "modern?") ID morons.

From Wired:

1897: Egged on by an amateur mathematician, the Indiana General Assembly almost passes a bill adopting 3.2 as the exact value of pi (or π). Only the intervention of a Purdue University mathematician who happens to be visiting the legislature prevents the bill from becoming law, saving the most acute political embarrassment.

(full article)