By AARON BEARD, Associated Press Writer
from YAHOO! NEWS

RALEIGH, N.C. - A tearful Mike Nifong said Friday he will resign as district attorney after admitting that he made improper statements about three Duke University lacrosse players who were once charged with raping a stripper.

“My community has suffered enough,” Nifong said from the witness stand at his ethics trial on allegations that he violated rules of professional conduct in his handling of the case.

The players were later declared innocent by state prosecutors.

The North Carolina State Bar said Nifong withheld DNA test results from the players’ defense attorneys, lied to the court and bar investigators, and made misleading and inflammatory comments about the three athletes, who were cleared of charges they raped a stripper at a team party in March 2006.

Nifong said he did not make all the mistakes alleged by the bar, “but they are my mistakes.”

“It has become increasingly apparent, during the course of this week, in some ways that it might not have been before, that my presence as the district attorney in Durham is not furthering the cause of justice,” Nifong said.

Nifong’s soft’spoken statements were barely audible in the courtroom, where observers leaned forward in their chairs as they struggled to hear Nifong through his tears. He stunned even his own attorneys and staff with the news, who said they had no idea what he had planned.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

Aziz Huq
from “THE NATION”

Early this week, judge advocates halted two prosecutions in the Guantnamo military commissions established under the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA). This is not the first setback the Administration’s second-tier court system has hit; the Supreme Court invalidated an earlier iteration of the commissions in 2006. And it won’t be the last. But while this week’s setback likely will be speedily surmounted, it casts an unexpected light on the MCA’s real purposes, and what’s at stake when the Bush Administration plays politics with national security.

Understanding the significance of this week’s ruling means delving into a bit of procedural arcana. The devil in the MCA is, almost literally, in the details–and unless we attend closely to the rococo details of the statute, we’ll miss the ways in which the Administration intends to slowly erode our liberties.

At the beginning of this week, the military commissions’ two judges–Army Col. Peter Brownback and Navy Capt. Keith Allred–dismissed charges filed against Omar Khadr and Salim Hamdan. The rulings focused on a question of categorization–basically, the judges found that Khadr and Hamdan had been wrongly classified. But how did this happen?

The MCA, which created the military commissions, states that only an alien who is an “unlawful enemy combatant” can be tried in a military commission. It also defines “unlawful enemy combatants” in tremendously sweeping terms to include anyone who has “materially supported hostilities.” Many civil libertarians, including myself, expressed grave concerns about the scope of this provision. Read in tandem with recent Supreme Court cases, it might be taken not merely as a gateway to trial by military commission but also as a sweeping new executive detention authority.

The MCA doesn’t say how a person gets designated as an “unlawful enemy combatant.” But all except one of the detainees at Guantnamo have already all been classified as enemy combatants by a procedure known as a CSRT, or Combatant Status Review Tribunal. (The one exception is a prisoner recently transferred to the base.) CSRTs are shoddy summary procedures in which the detainee has barely a role and cannot respond to the secret evidence used to detain him.

read more at THE NATION

By ELIANE ENGELER, Associated Press Writer

GENEVA - More than 4 million Iraqis have now been displaced by violence in the country, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday, warning that the figure will continue to rise.

The number of Iraqis who have fled the country as refugees has risen to 2.2 million, said Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. A further 2 million have been driven from their homes but remain within the country, increasingly in “impoverished shanty towns,” she said.

Pagonis said UNHCR is receiving “disturbing reports” of regional authorities doing little to provide displaced people with food, shelter and other basic services.

“Individual governorates inside Iraq are becoming overwhelmed by the needs of the displaced,” Pagonis told reporters in Geneva, where UNHCR has its headquarters.

More than half of Iraq’s 18 governorates are preventing displaced people from entering their territories, either by stopping them at checkpoints or by refusing to register them for food aid and other basic services.

Astrid van Genderen Stort of UNHCR said checkpoints are increasing in northern governorates, specifically along the “green line” that divides Kurdish-controlled zones from the rest of the country. Displaced people are also being stopped on the roads leading out of the cities of Karbala and Najaf, which are both south of Baghdad and considered holy by Shiite Muslims.

While many of the checkpoints were originally established for security reasons, they are being increasingly used to prevent displaced Iraqis from moving around the country, van Genderen Stort said.

Almost half of all displaced people have no access to official food distribution programs, according to U.N. estimates.

…took another hit this morning. Thank you, Mr. Bush.

The MONITOR:

Court Limits Suits on Pay Discrimination

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Tuesday limited workers’ ability to sue employers for pay discrimination that results from decisions made years earlier.

The court, in a 5-4 ruling, said that employers would otherwise find it difficult to defend against claims “arising from employment decisions that are long past.”

The case concerned how to apply a 180-day deadline for complaining about discriminatory pay decisions under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Lilly Ledbetter sued Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., claiming that after 19 years at the company’s Gadsden, Ala., plant, she was making $6,000 a year less than the lowest-paid man doing the same work.

Ledbetter claimed the disparity existed for years and was primarily a result of her gender. A jury agreed, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because she had waited too long to begin her lawsuit.

The deadline set in the law means nothing if employees can reach back years to claim discrimination, the company argued to the court.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, agreed that Ledbetter’s claim was untimely.

The decision broke along ideological lines, with the court’s four liberal justices dissenting.

From THE ARMY TIMES

Troops don-t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.

The Bush administration had asked for a 3 percent military raise for Jan. 1, 2008, enough to match last year’s average pay increase in the private sector. The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5 percent pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 through 2012 that also are 0.5 percentage point greater than private’sector pay raises.

The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.

Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.”

“When combined with the overall military benefit package, the president’s proposal provides a good quality of life for service members and their families,” the policy statement says. “While we agree military pay must be kept competitive, the 3 percent raise, equal to the increase in the Employment Cost Index, will do that.”

The House of Representatives plans on passing the bill tomorrow. The Senate Armed Services Committee has announced it will start writing its version of the bill next week.

Two items in the House defense bill could lead to a veto, the policy statement warns. One is a change in the National Security Personnel system that would back away from the pay-for-performance initiative pushed by the Bush administration and reverse some of the flexibility provided in current law. The second issue that could prompt a veto are Buy America provisions in the bill that White House officials said “would impose unrealistically arduous requirements.”

read more at THE ARMY TIMES

by Chris Cillizza

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) is never going to win any popularity contests among his party’s liberal base — a fact he seems decidedly unconcerned about despite his 2006 Democratic primary loss to Ned Lamont.

Democrats’ 2000 vice-presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, left, is helping raise money for Republican Susan Collins of Maine, right.

Not only has Lieberman endorsed Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine.) — one of Democrats’ biggest targets in the 2008 cycle — but he’s planning to co-host a fundraiser for her on June 21 in Washington, D.C.

The event, which will be held in a Capitol Hill location still to be determined, will feature Lieberman and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) — a very rare bipartisan fundraiser. Attendees are being asked to raise $3,000; $2,000 would come in the form of a political action committee donation while the other $1,000 would be a personal contribution, according to an electronic invite for the fundraiser obtained today by The Fix.

“Let’s try to make this a bi-partisan tour de force,” reads the invite.

“Senator Specter approached Senator Collins with the idea of doing a joint fundraising event with Senator Lieberman,” said Collins spokeswoman Jen Burita. “Both senators are colleagues with whom she works well and good friends, so we thought it was a great idea.”

Lieberman’s willingness to work openly for Collins’s reelection will surely not sit well with Democratic strategists who want Rep. Tom Allen (D) to oust the two-term incumbent. For Lieberman, his support of Collins is payback. She was one of a handful of senators who campaigned for him in the general election following his loss in the Democratic primary to Lamont. (He ran for and won reelection as an independent.) Lieberman and Collins also serve together as the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the Senate.

The Republican strategy in the race is clearly to kill Allen’s candidacy in the crib. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is up with an Internet ad that dissects Allen’s own Web announcement.

read more at THE WASHINGTON POST

By Michael Alison Chandler and Joby Warrick

Walter McKenzie’s assignment toward the end of the Cold War was to mop up after mishaps at a nuclear weapons factory. With a crew of other laborers from rural Georgia, he swabbed away leaks and spills inside the secret buildings, until one day his body became so contaminated with radiation that alarms at the factory went off as he passed.

“They couldn’t scrub the radiation off my skin — even after four showers,” McKenzie, 52, recalled of his most terrifying day at the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant near Aiken, S.C. “They took my clothes, my watch and even my ring, and sent me home in rubber slippers and a jumpsuit.”

Later, when doctors discovered the first of 19 malignant tumors on his bladder, McKenzie followed the same torturous path as thousands of nuclear weapons workers with cancer: He filed a claim for federal compensation. It was denied.

Unable to access secret government files, or even some of his own personnel records, McKenzie could not sufficiently prove that he was exposed to something that may have made him sick. Nor can most of the 104,000 other workers, retirees and family members who have sought help from a federal program intended to atone for decades of hazardous working conditions at scores of nuclear weapons facilities around the country.

Since its inception in 2000, the compensation program has cut more than 20,000 checks and given long-delayed recognition to workers whose illnesses were hidden costs of the Cold War’s military buildup.

Yet, of the 72,000 cases processed, more than 60 percent have been denied. Thousands of other applicants have been waiting for years for an answer. Overall, only 21 percent of applicants have received checks. Even as the nation continues to close and dismantle many nuclear weapons sites, a growing number of those who helped build the bombs are turning to lawyers and legislators to argue they are being treated unfairly.

Many complain that the compensation process is slow, frustrating, even insulting. “You get exposed to something that’s so bad you have to leave your clothes behind,” McKenzie said, “then they try to tell you it’s not their fault that you got sick.”

Some evidence suggests the government has tried to limit payouts for budget reasons. Internal memos obtained by congressional investigators show the Bush administration chafing over the program’s rising costs and fighting to block measures that would increase workers’ chances of compensation.

Read more at THE WASHINGTON POST

We’ll have a special report on the Immigration rally scuffle on this weekend’s edition of the Blue Herald “Week In Review” podcast. Available Saturday at 5:00 AM

LOS ANGELES - Investigators will review hundreds of hours of video of an immigration rally where police clashed with the crowd, wielding batons and firing rubber bullets to break up the demonstration, the police chief said Thursday.

Chief William J. Bratton said in an appearance on CBS’s “Early Show” that he was “not happy” when he watched videotape of the events at MacArthur Park late Tuesday, when officers fired 240 nonlethal rounds to clear demonstrators.

He said police and news media video would aid investigations into whether the officers’ tactics were appropriate.

“We have to really try to determine exactly what happened. We’re fortunate in this instance that we have a lot of video to look at,” Bratton said. “We have literally hundreds of hours of video to review to make our decisions.”

News images showed police hitting a television cameraman to the ground, shoving people who were walking away from officers and injuries from the rubber bullets.

Rally organizers denounced the police action as brutal.

WASHINGTON - The Chungs, immigrants from South Korea, realized their American dream when they opened their dry-cleaning business seven years ago in the nation’s capital. For the past two years, however, they’ve been dealing with the nightmare of litigation: a $65 million lawsuit over a pair of missing pants.

Jin Nam Chung, Ki Chung and their son, Soo Chung, are so disheartened that they’re considering moving back to Seoul, said their attorney, Chris Manning, who spoke on their behalf.

“They’re out a lot of money, but more importantly, incredibly disenchanted with the system,” Manning said. “This has destroyed their lives.”

The lawsuit was filed by a District of Columbia administrative hearings judge, Roy Pearson, who has been representing himself in the case.

Pearson did not return phone calls and e-mails Wednesday from The Associated Press requesting comment.

According to court documents, the problem began in May 2005 when Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alteration to Custom Cleaners in Northeast Washington, a place he patronized regularly despite previous disagreements with the Chungs. A pair of pants from one suit was not ready when he requested it two days later, and was deemed to be missing.

Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.

But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. That’s when Pearson decided to sue.

Manning said the cleaners made three settlement offers to Pearson. First they offered $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000. But Pearson wasn’t satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants.

Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, part of his lawsuit calls for $15,000 - the price to rent a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.

Read More at YAHOO!

XI’AN, China - Clutching a grimy tote bag filled with legal documents and photos of her executed son, Meng Zhaoping is trying to argue her way past a security guard at the provincial high court for the second day in a row.

All she wants is an audience with a court officer, she says, her voice echoing down the building’s empty hallways. All she has are two questions: Why was her son put to death? What happened to his body?

The answer to the first question is in the charge sheet: He knifed a man to death in a brawl. The second answer, she is convinced, lies in a much-criticized Chinese practice - taking organs taken from executed prisoners for transplant surgery.

“Let me talk to someone! Give me justice!” Meng shouts as the guard blocks her way.

Ever since her son was convicted and executed in January 2005, Meng has been searching for an explanation. She never saw his body. His corpse, tagged No. 207, was put in a hospital van and taken to a crematorium.

By then, Meng believes, the body had been stripped of its organs.

Full story (long read, but worth it) at YAHOO!

Another story that makes me glad I am an American.

MOSCOW - Riot police beat and detained protesters as thousands defied an official ban and attempted to stage a rally Saturday against President
Vladimir Putin’s government, which opponents accuse of rolling back freedoms Russians have enjoyed since the end of Soviet communism.

A similar march planned for Sunday in St. Petersburg has also been banned by authorities.

A coalition of opposition groups organized the “Dissenters March” to protest the economic and social policies of Putin as well as a series of Kremlin actions that critics say has stripped Russians of many political rights. Organizers said only about 2,000 demonstrators turned out.

Thousands of police officers massed to keep the demonstrators off landmark Pushkin Square in downtown Moscow, beating some and detaining many others, including Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who has emerged as the most prominent leader of the opposition alliance.

read more at YAHOO!

I say it all the time……..I can’t believe Bush is getting away with this shit.

NEW YORK (AP) - One year after his arrest, an Associated Press photographer is still being held at a prison camp in Iraq by U.S. military officials who have neither formally charged him with a crime nor made public any evidence of wrongdoing.

Bilal Hussein was taken prisoner in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on April 12, 2006. Twelve months later, the U.S. military claims it is justified in continuing to imprison him merely because it considers him a security threat.

“April 12 is a sad anniversary for Bilal’s AP colleagues worldwide,” said the AP’s executive editor, Kathleen Carroll. “He has now been held by the U.S. military in Iraq for an entire year without formal charges or the due process that a democratic society demands.”

Paul Gardephe, the lawyer handling the case for the AP, recently returned from an extended visit to Iraq, where he spoke with military officials, journalists, Iraqi citizens and - for more than 40 hours - Hussein himself at the Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad’s airport.

“Bilal has done nothing to justify a year in detention without charges,” Gardephe said. “The military has not provided any credible evidence to support the various accusations of criminal conduct that it has made.”

Read more at The Guardian

H/T Bat for this post!
And I wonder how many innocent people have been executed in Texas???

DALLAS - James Curtis Giles spent 10 years in prison for a gang rape he has long said he did not commit. On Monday, more than a decade after his release, a prosecutor told the court that his arrest had been a case of mistaken identity, and the judge recommended he be exonerated.

If the appeals court formally approves State District Judge Robert Francis’ recommendation as expected, Giles, now 53, will become the 13th Dallas County man to be exonerated since 2001 with the help of DNA evidence.

The Dallas County District Attorney’s office and Giles’ Innocence Project lawyer, Vanessa Potkin, both said they had evidence showing Giles was innocent of the 1982 gang rape of a Dallas woman.

It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, said Assistant Dallas County District Attorney Lisa Smith.

More at Yahoo News

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

Welcome to the Chart Project! This is the first and probably weightiest installment of a week-long series. All of these charts are works in progress, imperfect and perhaps dealing in gross overgeneralizations, but they result from my desire to try to visualize some of the dynamics at work in society and politics today.

Derrida and many post’structuralists would argue that Western civilization tends to see everything in terms of binary oppositions, and furthermore, that one half of the pair is seen as slightly superior: male-female, white-black, etc. Regardless, it’s certainly the case that much political reporting and commentary traffics in oversimplifications, false dichotomies and false equivalencies.

For instance, most media outlets will approach any political issue using this framework:
Read more »

“As long as everyone is willing to understand that they are part of the whole, then I think we’ll play very well together. And if we don’t, then I think we will be in the minority again.” -Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass.

Provisions for Impeachment are written into law. It’s a given. Rules, meant to be followed, adhered to, were broken… and our Constitution provides for this. Are we simply going to ignore our Constitution (too), and let the fear of losing our majority guide us? If we do, then we are no better than those we scorn. The question of impeachment is NOT partisan. It’s the law of the land! Throw up any reason or excuse you want… you’ll still be wrong.

Liberal lawmakers face new challenges

WASHINGTON - There’s one certainty for the Capitol’s most liberal lawmakers now that Democrats will control Congress: They won’t have to meet in the basement anymore.

“One time they put us in the most obscure, smallest meeting room in the farthest corner,” Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio said of life for progressive Democrats under GOP control. Now, “we should be able to score a regular and accessible meeting place.”

That may be the easy part.

Accustomed to pleading in obscurity for causes like universal health care, come January these progressives from Northern California, Massachusetts and elsewhere will be part of the congressional majority and in a position to actually do something about them.

Yet they risk getting pinched between liberals itching for impeachment hearings and a quick end to the Iraq war, and more centrist Democrats looking to make common cause with Republicans on fiscal issues.

And that’s assuming progressives can settle on their own goals from a long list of priorities, including universal health care, action on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, voting reform and fixing the trade imbalance.
…

Progressives have already had to disappoint some constituents by deciding not to pursue impeachment hearings against President Bush. “That’s a huge, huge disappointment to people in my district,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, who co-chairs the Progressive Caucus with fellow Northern California Democrat Barbara Lee.
…

After that, progressives hope to turn to their pet causes. But there’s one fate they want to avoid: losing the Democratic majority and being forced back into the basement. And that’s a powerful incentive to compromise.

“As long as everyone is willing to understand that they are part of the whole, then I think we’ll play very well together,” said Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., a Progressive Caucus member. “And if we don’t, then I think we will be in the minority again.”

Source: ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer - Yahoo! News