President-elect Barack Obama will hold a news conference today and name Colorado Senator Ken Salazar as Secretary of Interior and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as Agriculture Secretary.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter will name Salazar's Senate replacement. Tonight the local news is reporting the top names are Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Reps. Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter and John Salazar. One clue may be Ritter's statement today:

Wwe are mindful that there is a great deal of work to be done at the very beginning of Congress, the very early parts of January, so we'll take all that into consideration.

That signals to me he will pick someone already in Congress. Also important: Who is a proven fund-raiser. The 2010 election isn't far away and Republicans will make a strong attempt to get the Senate seat back. [More...]

Jesse Jackson, Jr. has been providing the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago with information about alleged bribes by Rod Blagojevich and details of meetings for months. Some call him an informant. Jackson rejects the label.

I would ask this: If Jackson, Jr. went to the feds to report what he perceived to be a personal bribe by Blagojevich -- a scheme in which Jackson believed himself to be a victim -- is that informing or reporting a crime?

Ratting and snitching are done for personal benefit -- either money or rewards of leniency for one's own misdeeds or for promises to lay off family members. Reporting a crime you witness, without needing, asking for or receiving any personal gain in exchange for the information doesn't seem to fit the label.

Snitching and ratting are bad. I don't think any site attacks the practice of Government purchased testimony from informants, snitches and rats more than TalkLeft. But... [More...]

I'm watching the Biggest Loser live finale tonight. I hope Michelle wins. The first hour of the show will recap the season in case you didn't watch. All the contestants show up and you get to see how much they've changed. Update: No spoilers please, we're all on different time zones and I want to be surprised.

If I weren't watching Biggest Loser, I'd watch the 1978 movie FM (trailer here)which is replaying on VH1. I've seen it many times, and I've liked Michael Brandon since the 70's when he was in Lovers and Other Strangers and did a tv movie with Kim Novak called "Third Girl From the Left", a Maggie May type story where Novak plays an aging chorus girl who falls for Brandon who delivers her groceries. (Here's a great photo of him from back then.)It's never been released on VHS or DVD that I know of. Brandon was briefly married to Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner and moved to England years ago when he married his co-star in Dempsey and Makepeace. A few years ago he starred in the London play "Jerry Springer the Opera."

What are you watching tonight?

Amnesty International, USA has released a new report on police use of tasers. 334 people have now died from being tasered. The report finds 90% were unnarmed. CA and FL are the states with the most deaths, while Phoenix and Las Vegas have the highest death rates among cities.

The report says police should suspend the use of taser guns.

Amnesty International’s report -- which includes a study of 98 autopsies that were independently reviewed by a forensic pathologist -- found that 90 percent of those who died after being struck with tasers were unarmed and many did not appear to present a serious threat. Police officers used tasers on schoolchildren, pregnant women and even an elderly person with dementia. More than 30 individuals died after being shocked in jails, where tasers are also widely used, or in the booking area of police stations after they were already under police control.

[More...]

We have Con Air for inmates and Ghost Air for detainees and now there's ICE Air. Tonight, Nightline examines ICE Air, the airline that deports the undocumented:

ICE has 22 detention facilities all over the country. When illegal immigrants are caught, they're flown to one of three hubs in Texas, Arizona or Louisiana. From there, ICE Air has daily flights to Central American countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and also frequent flights to Nicaragua, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and the Caribbean. When it gets enough immigrants to fill a plane, it also flies to Asia, eastern Europe and Africa. ICE Air leases nine planes, and sometimes it also charters commercial jets. It flies six days a week.

Business is brisk. [More...]

Three more Guantanamo detainees are being released and returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are Mohamed Nechle, Mustafa Ait Idir and Hadj Boudella.

The transfers would be the first releases from the prison made by the Bush administration because of a court order.

....The transfer, which has not been formally announced by the Pentagon, was a signal that the administration was acknowledging its defeat in the first habeas corpus case to reach a full factual hearing since the Supreme Court ruled last June that detainees at Guantánamo had a constitutional right to contest their detentions in federal court.

Five Bosnians were ordered released by the Court. What about the other two? [More...]

The legal documents that start a lawsuit usually must be served in person upon the defendant to assure that the defendant has notice of the suit. Some jurisdictions permit service by mail if the recipient acknowledges service, with personal service required as an alternative if no acknowledgment of the mailing is obtained. When a defendant can't be located, service is sometimes allowed by publication in a newspaper or by affixing the document to the defendant's front door.

Australia has added an interesting wrinkle (a glimpse of the future, perhaps?) by permitting service via Facebook.

In what may be a world first, lawyers from Canberra law firm Meyer Vandenberg persuaded a judge in the Australian Capital Territory's Supreme Court to allow them to serve the [mortgage default] documents over the internet after repeatedly failing to serve the papers in person. Lawyer Mark McCormack came up with the Facebook plan after it became clear that the couple did not want to be found.

What's next? Service via TalkLeft comments?

The brother of Muntadar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush says he's been beaten in custody, a charge denied by the Iraqis.

Muntadar al-Zaidi has allegedly suffered a broken arm, broken ribs and internal bleeding, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC.....Earlier, Dargham al-Zaidi told the BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Baghdad he believed his brother had been taken to a US military hospital in the Iraqi capital.

Demonstrations in support of al-Zaidi continue and huge amounts of money are being offered for the shoes.

Here at home, the National Lawyers Guild has started a campaign to support him through charitable giving to Americans: [More...]

Tony Rezko's sentencing was postponed indefinitely today. Looks like he's cooperating with the feds again.

A few weeks ago, Rezko, tired of being held in solitary at the detention facility, asked the judge for immediate sentencing. The judge complied and set sentencing for Jan. 6. Then, Gov. Rod Blagojevich got charged and Rezko changed his mind and asked the judge to pull the sentencing date. [More...]

I will be out of pocket for the rest of the business day. So here is an Open Thread to tide you over until J and TChris arrive.

This is an Open Thread.

Update: The impeachment effort stalled Tuesday. And, as I speculated below, Patrick Fitzgerald isn't happy about being asked to turn over documents pertaining to his ongoing indictments and investigation.

****

By a vote of 113 to 0, the Illinois House has approved an impeachment proceeding against indicted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

But the House also held off on calls to strip the disgraced governor of his power to appoint Obama's successor, angering Republicans who accused Democrats of a power play aimed at protecting their dominance of state politics.

The House panel is expected to hold several weeks of hearings, scheduled to begin Tuesday, and has the power to issue subpoenas and compel witnesses to testify. The panel also will seek information from the U.S. attorney's office as well as information gained from other parts of the federal investigation, such as information arising from the conviction of top Blagojevich adviser and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

I imagine U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald won't be happy about turning over information obtained during his investigation. [More...]

As someone who does not think experience matters much in politics, I have no real objection to Caroline Kennedy as Senator. I do think she should speak publically about her positions on the issues. Jane Hamsher, who mars her piece with a very sexist line ("doing her nails"), does make a good point:

I thought at least she's get out before the cameras and start making her case to the public before she announced her intentions . . .

That seems reasonable. I do not agree with the "dynasty" objections - life and politics has never been fair - but the public knowing her positions on the issues seems a reasonable request.

Speaking for me only