Author: Sara

The BIR for the Gourmet Beer Bill passed in the House, 57-35.
The vote on the House floor was 48-42 in favor of the Gourmet Beer Bill.

Now we just have to hope it gets voted on in the Senate.

(And, Dan will be back with more information later, I’m sure.)

Please note that this is Sara, not Dan.

Not that I mind…but…how the hell is CNN calling Georgia for Obama at 4 minutes after the polls closed, with zero percent of the votes counted? Does that seem a bit premature to anyone else?

Update at 6:08, still zero percent of precincts counted: Fox did too. By the way, I understand exit polls and all of that, but it just seems kind of dumb. People lie.

I just want to point out that Gen. Peter Pace is stepping down as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September. Although this is major news, in my opinion, casual viewers of major news outlets may miss it because (gasp) Paris Hilton is in handcuffs! Stupid.

“You can’t arrest me for minor in possession! You can’t prove anything.” I just wonder why nobody thought of it before.

I said right after Ben Moseley, Matthew Cloyd and Russell DeBusk were arrested that I thought they should get the maximum possible penalty for burning 9 churches in rural, poor West Alabama counties. I’m not sure I’ve softened too much on my position, and I am certain that I think this idea sucks.

I can be honest and admit that I don’t have a brilliant legal background, and those of you who do should feel free to correct me if I’m wrong in this. In my limited experience with people who have been granted youthful offender status, it’s a great way to get out of punishment that someone knows they deserves but isn’t willing to own up to. These guys have already admitted to the crime. I still don’t buy that they weren’t old enough, mature enough, to understand the gravity of their actions.

On the other hand, however, youthful offender status, in addition to limiting incarceration time, also seals the court records. Since they’ll almost certainly serve a substantial amount of time for the federal counts, and sealing the records won’t do them too much good (Oh, Benjamin Moseley? I see you have 9 counts of federal arson and conspiracy on your record, but your state records are clean, so welcome aboard!), maybe it doesn’t matter one way or another.

Is this a possibility for these guys? I was under the impression that “youthful offender” meant “minor,” but it seems I was wrong. Although the Alabama Code, Section 15-19-1, uses the phrase, “A person charged with a crime which was committed in his minority,” this site says that in this state, the cutoff age is 21. So maybe they’ll get it.

NOT Alabama football. I’d like to be the first to point out, unless someone’s beaten me to it, that the season thus far is a poor representation of the tradition that is Alabama football. I’m going to go have a drink to drown my sorrows.

P.S. Roll Tide!

Okay, I’ve spent all day thinking about this, reading about this and discussing this with all sorts of people.

To start at the beginning, I feel like my day really began at about noon, when this guy I went to high school with stopped me on campus and said, “Did you hear about Ben Moseley?” My first thought was, “Oh no, he’s dead.”

But no. Instead, he’s one of the three guys held in the church arsons case. I’ll refer to them as the alleged arsonists because, as Alice Martin reminded the citizens of Alabama today at the Tuscaloosa press conference, they are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

But since they did confess, it seems pretty open and shut to me.

So after Stephen told me about Ben, who went to high school with us as well, I rushed to work to check out the news. I saw that a press conference was planned for 2 p.m. at the Tuscaloosa airport, where ATF has kept a command post since all of this started. I called a couple of friends from high school, one of whom lives in the room directly below Moseley in the Birmingham-Southern dorm. Since he is not known for his propensity for cursing, I was surprised when he said, “He’s fucked.”

That seems to be the general consensus.

The other friend I called went to the press conference with me. It seems that ATF Agent Jim Cavanaugh and District Attorney Alice Martin have been watching too much Scott McClellan, as they pretty much refused to talk about anything not mentioned in the complaint, which isn’t terribly informative. Except that it makes the entire case.

According to Martin, we don’t know when to expect an indictment, but if convicted, each alleged arsonist faces a mandatory minimum of five years per arson.

Interesting point, to me: They’ve only arraigned the two (that I last saw) on one count of conspiracy and with the Ashby Baptist Church burning, both in federal court. As usual, the government is looking at anything possible to make it a federal offense. In the conspiracy charge the complaint explains that the church was “a building used in interstate or foreign commerce.” In point 2 (third page of the complaint), it is mentioned that, “The pastor of the Ashby Baptist Church stated his church purchases Sunday School and other educational materials from out of state vendor on a quarterly basis.” So my guess is, they’re trying to find a link to interstate commerce in all of the other churches before trying to get an indictment on the other churches so they can all be federal.

Don’t get me wrong. I think these guys, if convicted, should be punished to the full extent of the law. If anything, I think the “prank” explanation should get them more time in prison, just for being stupid. And if I were in their position, I’d be glad to be in U.S. Marshal lockdown. Keeps them from getting killed by someone they really pissed off.