The National Journal has an interesting new site for folks to test their political prognosticating skills:

Welcome to National Journal's Political Stock Exchange. From now until Election Day '08 NJPSE is the best destination where you can test your political prognostication prowess ... for free! Sign up now and you can be using your 10,000 NJPSE fantasy dollars (NJ$) to compete with other politicos in minutes. By tapping into the most advanced prediction market on the web, Intrade.com, NJPSE lets you buy and sell contracts whose 'price' (always between 0-100) represents the percentage likelihood a given outcome will occur. Think Fred Thompson's rocky rollout has doomed his candidacy? Has Hsu sunk Hillary Clinton? Then sell! Sell! Sell! Do you believe John Edwards can ride an IA victory to Denver? You think John McCain's 'No Surrender' tour can win him NH? Then buy! Buy! Buy! . . .

Could be fun. Check it out.

I'll be in court most of the day, so here's an open thread for you. There's lots of good reading out today. Some things to check out:

• Huffington Post has added a new section, Living Now. Check out the post in the Mind, Body and Soul section by Dr. Timothy Brantly, highly praised by Howie Klein and Jane Hamsher

• Jason Leopold at Truthout reports the Senate Ethics Committee probe of Sen. Domenici is intensifying.

• I have an op-ed in the Washington Examiner today, TV Payback Time for O.J., criticizing those who think he should go to jail as some kind of karmic justice.

More...

They're dropping like flies in the Milbert-Weiss law firm investigation into an alleged payback scheme for plaintiff referrals in class action cases.

Named partner Melvyn I. Weiss is expected to be indicted today. He's going to fight the charges, says his lawyer Ben Brafman.

Last year, prosecutors in Los Angeles initially charged that Milberg Weiss paid $11 million in kickbacks to plaintiffs in more than 150 cases, a strategy that allowed it to beat other firms to the courthouse and earn more than $216 million in fees.

Tuesday, it was announced that a former lawyer in the firm, William S. Lerach, agreed to plead guilty and serve up to two years in prison. Lerach is not cooperating against other lawyers in the firm.

[More...]

I can't understand the Judge in the Phil Spector case. Yes, if you're a prosecutor or a judge, it's a drag to try a case for five months and get a hung jury. But when the jury is deadlocked, you don't get a do-over on the charges or the instructions just to force a verdict. That's a recipe for reversal, in my opinion.

Yesterday, the Judge said he was contemplating allowing the jury to consider a lesser charge to solve the impasse. At least a good night's sleep cured him of that.

But today, while deciding against allowing the jury to consider a lesser charge, he decided to modify a critical jury instruction by striking a central statement from it. To make up for any prejudice, he said he'll allow the attorneys to present additional closing arguments.

As the LA Times characterizes it, he "threw the prosecutors a life preserver."

More...

Rudy Giuliani touted his celebrity today during a visit to Great Britain, calling himself one of the four or five most famous people in the world.

When asked who the others were, he answered "Bill and Hillary" before his aides led him out of harm's way.

Rudy is also certain that the Democratic nominee will be Hillary:

"It's not going be about George Bush. It's not going to be about Ronald Reagan. It's going to be about who does America want for their future: Rudolph Giuliani or Hillary Clinton?"

A federal judge in Tennessee has ruled the state's death penalty amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

The protocol "presents a substantial risk of unnecessary pain" and violates inmate Edward Jerome Harbison's constitutional protections, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger said.

The new protocol, released in April, does not ensure that inmates are properly anesthetized before the lethal injection is administered, Trauger said, which could "result in a terrifying, excruciating death."

For more on how the current cocktail of drugs fails to assure a pain-free death see the Human Rights Watch Report, So Long as They Die and this article submitted to TalkLeft in 2004, You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way.

For more news coverage of the opinion, see the Stand Down Texas Project.

Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu waived extradition to California today. He's expected to be returned tomorrow.

According to one news report, a spokesman for his lawyer's office says Hsu may have boarded the wrong train:

Jason Booth says Hsu was “sick and confused” and may have thought he was boarding a Bay Area Rapid Transit Train when he instead caught an Amtrak train to Colorado.

But according to the first article linked above, Booth had no comment on that explanation.

Jason Booth, a friend of Hsu's and a spokesman for the San Francisco law firm representing him, would not comment on an Associated Press story that reported Hsu was disoriented and ill and got on Amtrak train thinking he was boarding San Francisco's rapid-transit system.

Did James Brosnahan's office hire a friend of Hsu's as their spokesman? I tend to doubt it. I'm also having a little trouble crediting the wrong train scenario. His English reportedly isn't perfect, but still, he bought a sleeper ticket. And one would think after an hour or so on the train, he might have noticed, asked, or called someone.

The Spector-Leahy bill to restore the right of habeas corpus to detainees has been defeated. An "aye" vote of 60 Senators was needed. The final tally was 56 to 43. The nay votes included 42 Republicans and Joe Lieberman.

The roll call vote is here.

What it means: Executive imprisonment without judicial review. President Bush can continue to designate and detain individuals as "enemy combatants" and they have no meaningful ability to challenge their confinement.

People for the American Way:

Once, people the world over had faith that America was a country where you couldn’t just suddenly ‘disappear,’ taken away by the police in the night, never to be heard from again. Guilty or innocent, you would have your day in court.”

No more.

[Via live tv] The judge has set O.J. Simpson's bail at $125,000. There was no legal battle, the defense and D.A. agreed on the amount. He can post it in cash or using a bail bondsman.

O.J. can return to Florida, he must surrender his passport and he can't have any contact with witnesses.

My view: an appropriate result.

Most bizarre moment: Watching former O.J. prosecutor and current entertainment reporter Marcia Clark leave the courthouse. Talk about flashbacks.

Matt Browner Hamlin informs us:

The cloture vote on the Leahy-Specter-Dodd amendment to restore habeas corpus will take place this morning at 10:30 AM Eastern. We need 60 votes to overcome the Republican filibuster of this crucial legislation. As you can see, we're closing in on the votes we need to take this first critical step towards restoring America's moral authority in the world. With almost 700 calls logged through our Citizen-Generated Whip Count tool at Restore-Habeas.org, we've watched the number of "Yes" votes steadily rise. This is going to be a close vote. Almost every Republican office is punting on telling their constituents how they will vote. It seems most will announce whether or not they think America should continue to stand by the Great Writ of habeas corpus with their vote alone.

Like other progresssive blogs, I support the Webb Amendment, but I think for reasons different than they do. For example, Matt Stoller writes:

If there is still any chance for the 110th Congress to draw down the war in Iraq, it probably rests on the fight over this amendment. Already, Bush will be forced to end the escalation next summer because there are not enough fresh troops to keep it going, and this measure would restrict the amount of troops that can be used in Iraq far more. Of course, 60 votes is still not 67, and there is not word on how much Republican support this bill would have in the House. Still, this is a major step forward, and makes me think that as long as there is another funding fight in a few months time, this might be one piece of legislation where a veto-proof majority is possible.

A veto proof majority is a pipe dream. The Webb Amendment will be useful in making clear to the entire country that the only way to end the Iraq Debacle is to not fund it after a date certain.

Kevin Drum highlights this Why Is Bob Herbert Boring? piece by T A Frank that I find ok, but lacking in self examination. Consider this:

All fair enough. Nevertheless, many of my sources who criticized Herbert's column underscored their admiration for the work of writers like Jason DeParle and Katherine Boo, who also illuminate the lives of the poor. Granted, these writers operate outside of the column format—in longer articles and books—but their ability to generate interest in Herbert's chosen subjects suggests that elite readers aren't incontrovertibly apathetic about the lives of those less fortunate.

The idea that Jason DeParle and Katherine Boo are big agenda setters seems laughable to me. Sounds like the people who mentioned them were name dropping in the way people do to seem deeper than they are.

I have read Bob Herbert since he was a columnist at the Daily News and no one doubted Herbert was an influential columnist or thought he was boring then. Of course, he wrote about New York mostly then.

Frankly, I think Drum and Frank let themsleves and the "elite" of this country off the hook. The problem is them. Not Bob Herbert. And yes, I am a Bob Herbert fan and read almost every column he writes.

P.S. Will Washington Monthly be doing a "Why Is Nick Kristof Boring?" column? Just wondering.