NightBlogger

USA Today
Two white supremacists have been indicted for an alleged plot to assassinate Barack Obama and kill scores of other blacks. A federal grand jury in Memphis, Tenn., charged Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18, with possessing a sawed-off shotgun, planning to rob a licensed gun dealer and threatening a presidential candidate. They were arrested two weeks ago before Obama won the presidential election. They are being held without bond.

NYTimes
From “Scarface” to “Miami Vice,” Florida’s drug problem has been portrayed as the story of a single narcotic: cocaine. But for Floridians, prescription drugs are increasingly a far more lethal habit. An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined. Law enforcement officials said that the shift toward prescription-drug abuse, which began here about eight years ago, showed no sign of letting up and that the state must do more to control it.

“You have health care providers involved, you have doctor shoppers, and then there are crimes like robbing drug shipments,” said Jeff Beasley, a drug intelligence inspector for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which co-sponsored the study. “There is a multitude of ways to get these drugs, and that’s what makes things complicated.” The report’s findings track with similar studies by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which has found that roughly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs. If accurate, that would be an increase of 80 percent in six years and more than the total abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy and inhalants. More

Patrick Martin
In a display of parliamentary maneuvering that combined cynicism and cowardice, Democratic members of the US House of Representatives voted unanimously to kill an impeachment resolution against President Bush introduced by Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

Kucinich himself participated fully in the farce. He introduced the resolution Monday and read out the 35 articles of impeachment for crimes ranging from the lying pretexts given to the American people for the war in Iraq to torture at the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and illegal domestic spying. Then he moved to send the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, whose chairman John Conyers has long rejected any effort to hold Bush constitutionally accountable.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ruled out any impeachment of Bush as soon as the Democrats won control of Congress in November 2006. Impeachment resolutions against Cheney were introduced in May and November of 2007 and killed each time by the Democrats, in the same fashion as the Bush impeachment resolution Wednesday.

There is no question that, unlike Bill Clinton, who was impeached for lying about a private sexual encounter, George W. Bush is guilty of offenses that meet the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard set by the US Constitution. More

Photo axeldeviaje

A judge in Tennessee has ruled that a grand jury should hear the charges against a young woman and two men who allegedly conspired to kill her mother. Investigators said Lauren Morrow, 19, wanted to collect on her mother’s life insurance, the Nashville Tennessean reported. During a hearing Wednesday, Stribel, sitting in court, heard tape-recordings of discussions of the alleged murder plot. A voice police said was Morrow’s said, at one point, “Just don’t shoot her in the face.” Read more