You think you have a difficult client? Check this out.

Anderson attorney Thomas Hamer said that he and his client had gone to a Social Security disability hearing in Indianapolis and they were returning to the Madison County Jail when Hudson suddenly jumped into the back seat and held a knife to his throat. It was not clear where Hudson got the knife.

Hamer told The Herald Bulletin that Hudson forced him to drive to a cemetery, where he bound Hamer's hands behind his back with a belt.

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Update 12:17 pm ET: The Dodd-Feingold Amendment fails by a vote of 32 to 66. Specter's Amendment will be voted on in 2 minutes. It needs 60 votes to pass.

Update 12:37 pm ET: Specter Amendment fails by a vote of 37 to 61, and is withdrawn. The Bingaman Amendment vote will take place in 2 minutes.

Update: 12:54 pm: Bingaman amendment vote: It fails 42 - 56. Obama and Clinton and good Dems vote for it. Lieberman votes against it. Surprise, Sen. Salazar (CO) votes for it (he voted against the other two Amendments.) Senate goes into recess until this afternoon.

The Senate is voting on the first of three amendments to the FISA bill. It's the Dodd Amendment stripping the bill of the telecom immunity provision. You can watch on C-Span here.

The Dodd Amendment needs 50 votes to pass. Both Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton just voted for the Amendment.

This is one of those rare cases in which a District Attorney's office has admitted a mistake without being forced to do so by DNA evidence or other conclusive proof of a defendant's innocence. For that Guy Randolph is grateful, even though he spent ten years in prison and another seven years as a registered sex offender after his release.

Randolph was cleared after prosecutors agreed that the case against him was weak from the beginning. There was no physical evidence tying him to the crime, and the victim initially had said he was not her attacker. During the grand jury investigation, she described her attacker in ways that did not match Randolph.

Randolph was indicted and pleaded guilty under the Alford plea, which allows a defendant to assert innocence while acknowledging that the state has enough evidence for a conviction.

Randolph suffers from schizophrenia, which might account for his decision to enter into an Alford plea. It is difficult to understand why his lawyer would have advised him to do so, if that's what happened, in light of the weak evidence.

Randolph is now seeking compensation from the State of Massachusetts for his wrongful conviction. Whether he will receive it is unclear, given that the burden rests on Randolph to prove his innocence, and the absence of DNA evidence to make his innocence conclusive.

Here is an Open Thread for those who want to discuss things not FISA Capitulation. You are on your own till J and Chris show up. So behave.

Sorry, one last FISA thing. The Senate will have the following issues: (1) Dodd Amendment to strike telco immunity (2) Specter Amendment to require court rule on constitutionality of surveillance programs; (3) Bingaman Amendment to delay immunity until 90 days after completion of Inspector General Report (all will fail).

After that the biggies, a cloture motion (Obama will vote for cloture, what will Hillary do?) and on the bill (ditto).

Via Greenwald, uber Obama supporter Lawrence Lessig writes:

[P]olicy wonks inside the campaign sputter policy that Obama listens to and follows, again, apparently oblivious to how following that advice, when inconsistent with the positions taken in the past, just reinforces the other side's campaign claim that Obama is just another calculating, unprincipled politician.

The best evidence that they don't get this is Telco Immunity. Obama said he would filibuster a FISA bill with Telco Immunity in it. He has now signaled he won't. When you talk to people close to the campaign about this, they say stuff like: "Come on, who really cares about that issue? Does anyone think the left is going to vote for McCain rather than Obama? This was a hard question. We tried to get it right. And anyway, the FISA compromise in the bill was a good one."

But Lessig is a "true believer" in Obama:

That is what a Democratic Congress, with the support of the Democratic nominee for President, will do today:

Efforts to confront President Bush over electronic surveillance laws likely will end abruptly in the Senate, with the White House the clear winner and Democrats dropping the fight until a new administration takes office. . . . Christopher S. Bond , R-Mo., said the bill ended up being essentially what Bush wanted. “There really is not much that is significantly different, save some cosmetic fixes that were requested by the majority party in the House,” said Bond, who strongly supports the bill.

(Emphasis supplied.) Way to go Dem Congress! You have truly earned your 9% approval rating.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Yesterday, Barack Obama said:

Obama blamed criticism from "my friends on the left" and "some of the media" in part on cynicism that ascribes political motives for every move candidates make. "You're not going to agree with me on 100 percent of what I think, but don't assume that if I don't agree with you on something that it must be because I'm doing that politically," he said. "I may just disagree with you."

I do not believe Barack Obama. I will go further. I do not want to believe him. Because the alternative is worse. Because if Obama believes the BS he said about the FISA Capitulation bill, then he is not fit to be President. More . . .

In case you weren't one of the 7 million people who watched the Bachelorette finale last night, Deanna picked my favorite, Colorado Snowboarder Jesse Csincsak.

As I predicted, more than 1,000 fans signed up on Jesse's MySpace page today (which overnight became a joint page for him and Deanna). But, more than 2,000 fans signed onto Jason's page today.

I was on the media conference call with them today -- two segments, one with Deanna and Jesse and the other with Jason. (Summary here.) Jason will be just fine and he's a class act. Congrats to Deanna and Jesse.

This is an open thread... and my last post on the Bachelorette -- at least until winter when they move back to Colorado. Apologies to all for the lame 80's bubblegum song but it just seemed to fit.

Did anyone see the Access Hollywood interview with the Obama family? The kids are cute. It will be airing in parts for a few days.

Obama's donors apparently are resisting helping Hillary retire her campaign debt. The comments are nasty. So far, his donors have contributed only $100,000 or so.

On an unrelated note, the iPhone goes on sale Friday. Is anyone here going to stand in line to buy one? I'm thinking about it.

This is an open thread. Remember, disagreement and criticism are fine, but no personal attacks or insults.

Sen. Barack Obama released a statement yesterday explaining why he's going to vote for the FISA bill. I'm sure Big Tent Democrat has previously addressed the substance of it.

Since I oppose all the FISA bills believing that FISA isn't broken and therefore needs no fixing, I've pretty much stayed out of it. What I find interesting about Obama's statement is this:

Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That's ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have. After all, the choice in this election could not be clearer. Whether it is the economy, foreign policy, or the Supreme Court, my opponent has embraced the failed course of the last eight years, while I want to take this country in a new direction. Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change. But if we come together, we have an historic opportunity to chart a new course, a better course.

I'm still not convinced he will chart a new course, but I am convinced he will chart a better course than McCain. FISA is not a deal-breaker for me. [More...]

In Georgia today, Sen. Barack Obama today denied allegations he's moving to the middle, including on guns, the death penalty and Iraq.

"The people who say this haven't apparently been listening to me"....

Obama blamed criticism from "my friends on the left" and "some of the media" in part on cynicism that ascribes political motives for every move candidates make. "You're not going to agree with me on 100 percent of what I think, but don't assume that if I don't agree with you on something that it must be because I'm doing that politically," he said. "I may just disagree with you."

Obama then went on to explain his views on faith and government. [More...]

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has been charged with "taking on some of the weightiest issues in government -- examining the role Justice's lawyers played in formulating administration interrogation policies for suspected terrorists and in endorsing a National Security Agency program of warrantless electronic surveillance." The Los Angeles Times reports that OPR is operating in the stealth mode that characterizes the Bush administration:

[T]he internal unit that polices the lawyers' conduct has been operating under a growing shroud of secrecy, shutting down what were once regular, public disclosures about its activities. ... [O]fficials have declined to say whether even one government lawyer has been found to have engaged in professional misconduct in connection with the war on terrorism -- despite often fierce criticism from civil liberties groups, defense lawyers and judges. ...

After President Bush took office in 2001, the Justice Department reversed a decade-old policy of publicly disclosing detailed summaries of OPR investigations of department lawyers found to have committed professional misconduct.

It would be useful to know the reasoning behind OPR's undisclosed and unexplained decisions in controversial cases like these: [more ...]