Reads

Starting out here at home:
Julie Hilden has an article in FindLaw's commentary section on the Guilford Colege student that placed the box cutters, et al in Southwest Airlines' bathrooms. The article doesn't so much go into whether or not the student should be prosecuted; rather, she argues that the punishment ought to be on the minor end of the possible ten year jail term.
One important point: I keep hearing folks argue that his crime deserves greater punishment because of the cost and trouble it put on the airlines (having to comb through every bathroom). Hilden: "costs like these can be addressed through civil liability, not the criminal law. It's one thing to ask Heatwole to pay for the costs he caused, and quite another to send him to jail. Thus, these costs are properly taken into account in figuring out what fine, or civil settlement, Heatwole should pay. But they should not pay a large role in assessing what prison term he should serve -- since they can be recouped separately."



On the 9/11 Commission: NY Times Op-Ed: "The independent commission's mandate is to supply a definitive account of the government's handling of the terrorist plot that killed almost 3,000 people. But the White House continues to fence with requests for classified documents crucial to the inquiry."


Accomodating Scarves:
(from awhile back, but worth mention). Professor Balkin makes good points regarding Nashala "Tallah" Hern, the Oklahoma girl, whom the school suspended because her Muslim head scarf violates dress code policies. Because of Employment Division v. Smith, the Free Exercise clause will not give the girl a positive right to wear the head-scarf so long as this is a non-religiously based regulation that is generally applicable.
The problem here is that the school official does not seem to understand that he may, should he choose, grant an exception. Balkin:

The school's policy makes no exception for religious headgear, and school officials stated that they would not create one:
"As I see it right now, I don't think we can make a special accommodation for religious wear," said school attorney D.D. Hayes. "You treat religious items the same as you would as any other item, no better, no worse. Our dress code prohibits headgear, period."
...
Generally speaking, the Establishment Clause does not prevent government from lifting a burden on religion it has itself imposed through a rule of general applicability. Such a rule could be unconstitutional if it specifically mentioned particular religions by name for exemption, or if it gerrymandered the exemption with the intention of benefiting some religions for accommodation but not others. But a well drafted rule can usually avoid such problems.

lies and the lying liers
Josh Marshall chimes in on the quite blatent lie-like response from Bush yesterday. This all swirls around the "Mission Accomplished banner that hanged behind Bush during his speech aboard the USS Abraham. Here's Bush:

I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way.

The banner was, in fact, supplied by the White House. The response now is: "It was the Navy's idea to have the banner."
This is all absurd, as Marshall points out. Absurd all over- as Marshall ends:

I doubt the Navy actually suggested this idea. But if they did -- and they may have -- there is no way that the idea was not debated, planned, vetted and everything else in the White House's political and communications offices. No way.

Everybody knows that it's ridiculous. And yet the president is on the record saying it.

And unlike a lot of other inherently more important issues, this is the sort of thing the White House press corps grabs onto and won't let go of.

In any event, this is all the type of parsing that Bush many voters supposedly despise when they vote for the simple, plain spoken Bush. Tip: he, too, is a politician.