Dizz Knee Land

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and family are at Disneyland. Here's Dada, I always loved this song:

I just ran away from home
Now I'm going to dizz knee land
I just crashed my car again
Now I'm going to dizz knee land
I just robbed a grocery store
I'm going to dizz knee land
And I just flicked off President George
I'm going to dizz knee land
I'm going to dizz knee land!

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

As expected, Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been indicted. His brother and top aides were also indicted. You can read the Indictment here (pdf). More details here.

In addition to Rob Blagojevich, 53, and fundraiser Christopher Kelly, 50, charged were Lon Monk, 50, a lobbyist and former Blagojevich chief of staff; John Harris, 47, also a former chief of staff to Blagojevich; and William Cellini, 74, a Springfield insider for decades.

DOJ press release is here. The charges: Racketeering conspiracy, Wire fraud, Fraud conspiracy, Extortion conspiracy, Attempted extortion, False statements Forfeiture.

Why is it a Superseding Indictment? When was the first one returned and why did they have to go back to the grand jury for a second one? [Update below]

Jury finds Ward Churchill was only fired for his 9/11 essay. Damages: $1.00. CU will have to pay Churchill's attorney's fees. Still to be determined at separate hearing (not by the jury): Whether Churchill gets his job back or whether he gets lump-sum settlement instead.

Churchill attorney David Lane didn't ask the jury for money, but "to do justice." He says this is a vindication for the First Amendment and academic freedom and was never about money. But, as I said earlier, he will get attorney fees.

Great tweeting of the verdict (More twitter coverage here.) The local television coverage was dismal.[More....]

Here's the latest:

• Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich will be indicted later this afternoon.
• The House passed the tobacco regulation bill.
• The Dow surges and stocks are up.
• Vicente Carrillo Leyva, another suspected Mexican drug lord, has been arrested -- while exercising at a park.

  The announcement came as U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano were preparing to meet outside Mexico City this afternoon with top Mexican security officials to discuss how to staunch southbound smuggling of weapons to drug cartels from the United States.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Yesterday, Defense Attorney Barry Pollack testified on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on "Proposals to Fight Fraud and Protect Taxpayers." At issue: H.R. 1748, the “Fight Fraud Act 2009,” H.R. 1793, the “Money Laundering Correction Act of 2009” and H.R. 78, the “Stop Mortgage Fraud Act.”

While the purpose of various proposals to expand the federal criminal code – protecting the taxpayers from fraudulent transactions – is laudable, that purpose is best achieved through the existing federal and state laws, with whatever increased funding and related resources may be warranted, and by providing adequate resources both to the prosecution and defense functions,

Here is his written testimony (pdf), which makes several important points: [More...]

Miguel Roman served 20 years of a 60 year sentence for killing his girlfriend. Recent DNA tests proved him innocent and charges have been dismissed.

The DNA tests also led to the charging of another man in the murder:

The same DNA tests that exonerated Roman implicated led police in December to charge another man, Pedro Miranda of New Britain. He is accused in the killings of Lopez, 16-year-old Rosa Valentin in 1986 and 13-year-old Mayra Cruz in 1987. Miranda, 51, faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted.

DNA not only frees the innocent, it also helps locate and convict the true perpetrator.

A federal judge has ruled the detainees at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan can challenge their confinement in U.S. court. The opinion is here (pdf.)

[Judge]Bates noted that the detainees are similar to those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Those detainees won the right to challenge their confinements in federal court under a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year.

....Bates ruled that while the sites were "not identical," the "objective degree of [U.S.] control" was not "appreciably different." Obstacles to resolving the detainees' rights "are not as great as respondents claim," Bates said of the U.S. position. "And importantly," he wrote, the obstacles "are largely of the Executive's choosing," because the men "were all apprehended elsewhere and then brought (i.e. rendered) to Bagram for detention now exceeding six years."

The Obama Administration had sided with Bush on the case.

Update: Judge has canceled deliberations for remainder of the week due to a juror's illness.

After a few court holidays and a juror's illness, the Phil Spector jury is back to deliberating his fate. This time around, they have the choice of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, which carries up to four years in prison.

LA Weekly reporter Steven Mikulan has been writing really good articles on the case. His latest, Accidental Suicide? New Involuntary-Manslaughter Option in Phil Spector Murder Retrial, goes through the closing arguments in detail.

One of the two prosecutors is orginally from Vietnam. In her closing, she said: [More...]

(larger version here)

The world seems obsessed with Michelle Obama's clothes. Today's outfit didn't go over as well as yesterday's. (See this picture in which one cardigan sleeve is also patterned.)

It is a strange and (in my view) ugly cardigan but why do people care? Maybe the Jackie O comparisons will stop now.

I have not had much time to look around and really do not know if someone has found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to wash away our economic troubles, but I appreciated this part of a Krugman blog post:

To justify the scheme as announced [the Geithner Plan], you have to either assume that the toxic assets are wildly underpriced, or take as a given extreme political and legal constraints preventing you from doing anything close to the right thing.

And about those legal constraints: it’s funny how GM is being treated as a ward of the state, even though it hasn’t formally declared bankruptcy, in a way that AIG — which is 80% government-owned! — is not.

(Emphasis supplied.) More . . .

The bottom three on American Idol: Megan, Allison and Anoup. I think Anoup will go home, unless Allison is selected but the judges save her.

Update: I was wrong, Megan's going home.

Our afternoon open thread is full, here's a new one. All topics welcome.

Update below: [More..]

U.S. Marshals today seized Bernie Madoff's Palm Beach mansion and two boats.

The 2008 property tax bill was $157,298. Golden said the estate would be "monitored and maintained" and is no longer considered Madoff's property.

Other properties the U.S. is going after that will cost a pretty penny to maintain: [More...]