The late Mildred Loving (of Loving v. Virginia) thought of herself as an Indian.

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“Oh, they’re not as bad as Nixon.”
Actually, yes they are - and so far, they’re getting away with it. Thanks, librul media!
You really need to read this.

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Newspapers are never better than when they dig into a case of past injustice:
Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, Black Panthers from New Orleans who were serving time for armed robberies, were convicted of Miller’s murder. The widow did her best to go on, moving to Jeanerette, an industrial town in the heart of Cajun country […]

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Don Siegelman being treated like a dangerous criminal - and what it means.

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He should be sentenced to work on a help desk:
DENVER - A Colorado man accused of sending hundreds of thousands of spam e-mails has been sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and falsifying e-mail headers.
Thirty-five-year-old Edward “Eddie” Davidson of Louisville was also ordered to pay nearly $715,000 to the […]

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Not too many bloggers have been writing about this, which is a shame. This is an absolutely shameless partisan ruling, and if I believed in hell, I would think that Tony Scalia and his little SCOTUS friends will burn there for eternity:
The Supreme Court’s decision upholding Indiana’s vote ID law was unable to secure 5 […]

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Here we go again:
Eight years after the debacle of “hanging chads,” Florida once again seems to be courting electoral trouble. A handful of laws have been passed since the 2000 presidential recount, with state officials saying they bring order to a chaotic system.
“Some say we err on the side of caution,” said Joe Pickens, a […]

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I fell asleep and didn’t see it, but everyone I know was raving about this week’s episode, when Alan Shore argues before SCOTUS:

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Mark Crispin Miller:
I emailed Scott Horton, to ask him what he makes of Rove’s letter–which, I said, “seems to me to be the outburst of a very anxious man.”
Here is Scott’s reply:
“Rove has been described to me by several of my GOP sources in Alabama as being in a state of panic. He has been […]

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Well sure, if we’ve already agreed on torture as public policy, what’s a little pain with your lethal injection?

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Via Bill’s Big Diamond Blog, an explanation of how voter ID laws cause vote suppression:

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You’ll notice that not one of our presidential candidates did anything to stop this treatment - or this executive power grab:
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president’s […]

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Scott Horton talked about this at Eschacon. As Duncan notes, a very impressive guy. (But never as impressive as NTodd, or his sex toys.)

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Pending appeal. Looks like public opinion turned the tide…

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Hmm. Bob Novak says GOP sleazebag and dirty trickster Roger Stone told right-wing talk show host Michael Smerconish months ago that Eliot Spitzer wouldn’t finish his term.
In an interview last week, Stone cheered the governor’s demise, and hinted further that he’d known about the governor’s fall.
“I didn’t make him go to a prostitution ring,” Stone […]

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MB points out something interesting:
The first Tuesday in February was the 5th, so that 22 days prior would be January 14th. Thus, the Nevada caucuses could be held no earlier than the 19th, the New Hampshire primary could be held no earlier than January 22nd, and so on. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina […]

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You give the Justice Dept. a power and they always figure out another way to use it:
When Congress passed the Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, law-enforcement agencies hailed it as a powerful tool to help track down the confederates of Osama bin Laden. No one expected it would end up helping […]

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The explanation, via Wampum.

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The Mann Act? Something that was passed specifically to be used politically?
Yeah, Spitzer’s a jackass. But he shouldn’t be treated any differently under the law. How often do you hear about johns being prosecuted? Not very often. And with the reputation that this Justice Department has for targeting political opponents, this whole thing stinks even […]

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Scott Horton on the odds of the case against Spitzer being politically-motivated.
Sounds to me like a classic case of selective enforcement:
Enforcement discretion is the ability that executors of the law (such as police officers or administrative agencies, in some cases) have to select who they want to enforce laws against. The use of enforcement discretion […]

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Charles Pierce:
Too many Obama fans seem to believe the guy is made of candy-glass. He’s tough enough. However, there is one speech I want to hear him give. In his usual stumper, he occasionally comes around to a passage in which he says, in the context of the various depredations of the current government, that […]

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The USDA has shut down a Congressional audit. Wonder what they’re going to do about it?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Agriculture Department abruptly ordered congressional auditors to leave its headquarters and told its employees not to cooperate with them.

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Via Duncan:
After Miami handyman Glenn Rudge was accused of shoplifting an $8 set of drill bits at Home Depot, he thought he’d settled the matter when he showed his receipt to prosecutors and they dropped the charge.
But a few weeks later, a law firm hired by Home Depot began sending him letters demanding first $3,000, […]

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I’m sure this Supreme Court is above the political considerations:
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the Bush administration’s domestic spying program.
The justices’ decision Tuesday includes no comment explaining why they turned down the appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU wanted the court to allow a lawsuit by the group […]

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Happy Valentine’s Day to Texas lovers:
A federal appeals court has overturned a statute outlawing sex toy sales in Texas, one of the last states - all in the South - to retain such a ban.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, […]

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