The trial of Tony Rezko is wrapping up. The Chicago Tribune reports the Government is expected to rest Monday.

The Tribune says the evidence against Rezko has been largely circumstantial and without a smoking gun to support the allegations of its cooperating star witness, the self-admitted drug-abuser and fixer Stuart Levine, who sang for his supper for weeks on the stand.

Jurors will have to pull together a variety of moving pieces if they are to agree on Rezko's guilt. There is no smoking gun evidence, no clear money trail of kickbacks into Rezko's pocket and no wiretap that indisputably captured Rezko in the act of scheming. Instead, jurors were taken on a disturbing ride through the dark underbelly of Illinois government.

To fix this, the Government this week called on Ali Ata, who had pleaded guilty days earlier and could use the sentencing break the government was offering for his Rezko testimony (8 years down to one.) The Tribune says Ata was called to support Levine's accounts rather than to provide a smoking gun against Rezko. [More...]

The New York Times reports that states are rescheduling executions now that the Supreme Court has ruled in Baze v. Rees that the three drug cocktail used by states does not violate the 8th Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Fourth Circuit has a new challenge on its hands.In Emmett v. Johnson, Emmett is arguing that the way in which Virginia administers the drugs is unconstitutional because unlike Kentucky and other states, it doesn't allow enough time for the first drug, which anesthetizes and renders the inmate unconscious, to take effect before administering the other two drugs which cause pain. To make it worse, when there seems to be a problem with the first drug, rather than giving more of the drug, Virginia increases the doses of the pain-causing second and third drugs, but not the first.

In its brief (available here pdf) Emmett's lawyers make the argument that there is a painless way to kill someone with just one drug: [More...]

John Zogby, after successfully jiggering his PA poll from an Obama lead to a Hillary 10 point advantage in the last three days before the Pennsylvania primary, has regained some Media cred. He is clearly a charlatan imo. But charlatans have political uses. For example, his latest polls have Obama up 9 in North Carolina (yesterday Obama was up 16 in the Zogby poll, which would NORMALLY mean Obama is cratering, but this is Zogby) and Obama up 1 in Indiana (up 1 from yesterday).

This presents an opportunity for the Clinton campaign in terms of the expectations game. Zogby tells a story of a huge Clinton rally in North Carolina from a 16 point deficit five days out. Zogby tells a story of an Indiana race as tight as a tick. I think you can mark it up now, Obama wins NC by 8-10 points. Clinton wins Indiana by 6-10 points. But in terms of expectations, Zogby gives the Clinton camp a lot to work with.

By Big Tent Democrat

Bob Herbert seems shocked to discover politics is stupid:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is no doubt (and regrettably) a big issue in the presidential campaign. But what we’ve seen over the past week is major media overkill — Jeremiah Wright all day and all night. It’s like watching the clips of a car wreck again and again. . . . We’ve forced Barack and Michelle Obama, two decent, hard-working, law-abiding, family-oriented Americans, to sit for humiliating television interviews, reminiscent of Bill and Hillary Clinton on “60 Minutes” at the height of the Gennifer Flowers scandal.

(Emphasis supplied.) I am not sure if Herbert is saying the Wright story is less substantial than the Gennifer Flowers story in 1992 but it is a strange juxtaposition. But I must say, when Barack Obama gave the "greatest speech ever" about race relations (and never to return to the subject afterwards), Bob Herbert did not think that was overkill. Indeed, just a few weeks ago Herbert wrote:

Barack Obama has been blasting the temporary lifting of gas taxes as political gamesmanship and bad economic sense. He didn't always. While in the Illinois Senate, he woted for it.

Available on Lexis.com: Chicago Defender July 1, 2000,

While Gov. George H. Ryan signed legislation suspending Illinois' five percent sales tax on gasoline for six months and issued an executive order creating state monitoring teams, Mayor Richard M. Daley Thursday vowed to keep an eagle eye on gas prices in Chicago.

Some people opposed it. Among their arguments:

Dr. Quentin Young, chairman of the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, who said those funds are earmarked for health, education, and human services.

He called the passage of the state's six-month gas tax reduction nothing more than a "pre-November election states-manship" saying this will only force the legislature to compensate in other ways while "compromising the health of Illinois residents with future raids of the tobacco settlement funds and other state-funded programs."

Where was Obama on the issue?

Senators Kimberly A. Lightford (D-4th) and Barack Obama (D-13th) said the bill gives customers needed temporary relief from high gas prices. "Gas retailers must post on each pump a statement that indicates that the state tax has been suspended and that this temporary elimination of the tax should be reflected in the price per gallon of gas," said Obama.

What happened: [more...]

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spoke tonight at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Raleigh, NC.

Hillary has already spoken. Obama's speech is playing here right now.

More than 5,000 attended the dinner.

Who's rooting for the Cylons? This is an Open Thread.

Booman finds great insight in this analysis:

It's been a rough few days for Sen. Evan Bayh. After years of holding a near death grip over so much of the state's Democratic Party establishment, the junior senator from Shirkieville has taken a series of very public hits in recent days.

This is based on the fact that the Mayor of Evansville, Indiana Rep. Baron Hill and DC lawyer/lobbyist Joe Andrew endorsed Barack Obama while Bayh supports Hillary Clinton. I think this is silly analysis. To me Bayh's week is better judged by the fact that Clinton has broken open the Indiana race.

It remains to be seen how Indiana will turn out but to me it looks like Clinton will score a double digit victory. Hard to see how that weakens Evan Bayh in Indiana and the Democratic Party.

By Big Tent Democrat

Jonathan Singer writes:

According to The Hill's Jared Allen and Jackie Kucinich, the House leadership, most members of which have not endorsed in the presidential race, are calling the [gas tax holiday] plan "DOA", or dead on arrival. Specifically, both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer have spoken on the record as to their opposition to such a move.

While this is good imo (Jeralyn favors the gas tax holiday), it is funny how they can not declare FISA telco immunity DOA or how they could never declare Iraq funding without a date certain DOA. I have little respect for the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer.

Illegally marked sample ballots for Obama in North Carolina.

For the record, Obama has nothing to do with it imo. Just making a point about double standards and hypocrisy. Big question though - will TPM refer to the Winston Salem Black PAC as the "Illegal Ballots Obama supporting PAC?" (TPM referred to the Women's Voices organization as the "robocalling Clinton group," as if that was their main business.)

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Via NORML on the death of Timothy Garon:

The medical records will show that he died due to complications associated with massive liver failure. He would have likely survived longer if he received a timely organ transplant but was denied access because he followed his physician’s recommendation, used medical cannabis during his treatments for liver disease, therefore testing positive for THC metabolites and rather than receive the gift of a potentially longer life—instead doctors at the University of Washington deferred to federal prohibition laws and mores, handing Tim a death sentence.

There are no pharmacological or physiological reasons why Tim Garon, or any medical marijuana patient, should logically be denied access to life-saving or life-enhancing organ transplants.

Here's more on Tim Garon’s plight. You can watch this video with a moving news account of Tim and his family.

Here's a prewritten letter you can send Congress in favor of federal legislation that would prevent tragic stories such as these.

Levon "Bo" Jones leaves a North Carolina penitentiary today after serving 13 years on death row.

This is not a DNA reversal.

Levon "Bo" Jones of Duplin County spent 13 years on death row, convicted of robbing and shooting a well-liked bootlegger. In 2006, a federal judge ordered Jones off death row and overturned his conviction, declaring his attorney's performance so poor that his constitutional rights had been violated.

Today, Jones will become the eighth North Carolina man spared execution after charges against him were dropped. Judges turned the inmates loose after discovering a variety of problems in their cases, ranging from hidden evidence to inadequate defense attorneys.

Jones had been awaiting a retrial. The prosectuor intended to go for a life sentence this time around. Then, "his case collapsed" when a key witness recanted. [More...]