SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - U.S. lawmakers visited the maximum-security prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay on Wednesday, a day before an Australian prisoner designated as a candidate for a military tribunal was due to become the first inmate to see a lawyer.

In a one-day trip, Sen. John McCain, an R-Ariz., Sen. Lindsey Graham, a R-S.C., and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., met with military officials at the American base in eastern Cuba.

The visit was the latest in a series by U.S. lawmakers to the base, where the approximately 660 prisoners from 44 countries have until now been denied access to lawyers.

9:53:52 PM  Google It!  

[Washington Post: Editorial]   By Harold Meyerson 

There are two kinds of Democrats in George W. Bush's America: those who are on the outside and know it, and those who are on the outside and don't. And the peculiar fascination of the Democratic presidential campaign is to watch the interplay between these two groups.

It is the Bush White House and the Republican Congress that set up this dynamic. By winning office with a negative 540,000-vote margin and then proceeding to govern in the most relentlessly partisan fashion from the right, the president has made unmistakably clear that the concerns of Democrats are of no interest to him. On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, the Republican leadership relies solely on Republican votes to get its measures passed, going so far as to exclude mainstream Democrats from conference committees. When America's new laws are to be negotiated, Republicans talk only to themselves. ...

9:20:51 AM  Google It!  

[Washington Post: Editorial]

A POLICE CHIEF'S responsibility is to preserve the peace and protect life and property in his or her department's jurisdiction. That is a tall order, especially for the chief of the U.S. Park Police, whose 620-member force is responsible for patrolling the national shrines and landmarks on the Mall, major parkways in the D.C. area and most of the large plots of public greenery in Washington. When something stands in the way of a chief's ability to perform prescribed law enforcement duties as expected, it is incumbent on the chief to make appropriate recommendations. U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa C. Chambers, encountering such a situation, recently offered a set of professional recommendations for corrective action. And for that, she has had her badge and gun taken away and her police powers revoked. She has been placed on administrative leave and kicked out of her office by the National Park Service. A more unworthy and sordid move by Park Service leadership is hard to imagine.

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[Washington Post: Editorial]

IT SHOULDN'T have taken a manslaughter conviction to slow South Dakota's lone House member, Rep. William J. Janklow (R), on the highway.

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[Washington Post: Nation and Politics]  

By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer

The report by Environmental Defense, based on six-month-old computer modeling data from the Environmental Protection Agency, showed that the vast majority of mercury pollution in these "hot spots" came from nearby coal-fired power plants and other facilities. The finding runs counter to assertions by the utility industry that mercury pollution is globally ubiquitous -- literally carried around the world by the wind -- and cannot be adequately regulated by federal standards. ....

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