Here is the Hillary Clinton campaign's response to the Giuliani ad attacking Move On and Senator Clinton:

Rudy Giuliani is dropping in the polls and is unable to defend his own support for George Bush's failed war. Instead of distorting Senator Clinton's record in the campaign's first attack ad, the Mayor should tell voters why he thinks sticking with the Bush Iraq strategy makes sense. The country wants change and while Hillary Clinton is focused ending the war, Mayor Giuliani is playing politics."

It is worth noting, that Senator Clinton, unlike me for instance, refrained from criticizing Move On for its ill advised "General Betray Us" title. Say what you will about Senator Clinton, she does not criticize activist groups like Move On and the Netroots. Some folks who made a big deal about criticisms of Move On, like Matt Stoller, should take note and commend Clinton for not taking the, I believe, merited shot at Move On. On the flip is the Clinton statement Rudy lied about distorted.

In the ridiculous item of the day category, who smuggled underpants to two detainees at Guantanamo? The military wants to know. They accused the detainees' defense lawyers who adamently deny being involved.

Both prisoners were caught wearing Under Armour briefs and one also had on a Speedo bathing suit, items the military said were not issued by Guantanamo personnel or sent through the regular mail, according to a Defense Department letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

A spokesman at Gitmo, Army Lt. Col. Ed Bush says this is a very big deal.

"There is no room for error when working in a dangerous environment, and constant vigilance is of the utmost importance," Bush said.

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The latest AP poll shows Republicans are divided about who to support for President.

The poll showed the contest remains a virtual tie between Giuliani, the former New York mayor, at 24 percent and Thompson, the actor and former senator from Tennessee, at 19 percent. Not far behind at 15 percent is McCain while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has 7 percent.

The numbers were about the same in last month's poll. Who's supporting Giuliani and Thompson?

Giuliani and Thompson each had about a quarter of those over 50, white males and married men. They also each had about one-fifth of conservatives, Southerners and evangelicals.

As to the Democrats, Hillary's lead remains strong. Here are the numbers:

I've long been skeptical of political polls and "polling inisghts." So of course I love this line from Ezra Klein's review of pollster Mark Penn's new book:

Penn['s] . . . new book Microtrends is so bad that the question—in a fair world—isn’t whether it will destroy his own reputation, but whether it is so epically awful as to take the entire polling industry down with it.

From Klein's pen to God's ears.

It took 25 years to remedy the prosecutorial misconduct that tainted Crossan Hoover's murder conviction. Hoover was convicted of beating a man to death when he was 17, at the direction of his employer, who hoped to turn Marin County "into King Arthur's court, with himself as king and teens as knights."

He might have been found insane if jurors had been given proper instructions and if the prosecutor had not withheld key information from a psychiatric witness, U.S. Magistrate James Larson said in a Sept. 7 ruling.

A court-appointed psychiatrist testified that Hoover was motivated by money, not by mental illness. But prosecutors didn't give the psychiatrist the facts he needed to make an informed judgment.

The psychiatrist, John Buehler, has since said his assessment of Hoover would have been different if he had known that information. "The prosecutor's manipulation of the evidence provided to his expert, Dr. Buehler, so distorted the expert's testimony as to amount to false evidence," Larson said.

If prosecutors decide to bring Hoover to trial again, perhaps this time they'll play by the rules.

(Photo by Reuters)

Today is Alberto Gonzales' last day as Attorney General of the United States.

Who will replace him? Joe Conasen at Salon wonders whether Bush would dare to nominate Ted Olson. Reporter Matt Cooper, who hired Olson for his Supreme Court appeal in PlameGate, praises Olson.

Peter G. points out in the comments here, the valid reasons for not appointing Ted Olson are not his politics, but any lapses in his integrity, principles and competence. Criticism should be leveled at him for his own actions, opinions and choices rather than our opinion of his clients.

In my view, this is fair game:

Via atrios, Pennsylvania Democrat and ertswhile Netroots favorite Joe Sestak has caved in on Iraq:

Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) . . . said Democratic leaders should set aside their demands for immediate withdrawal "and begin to help author a comprehensive regional security plan that accepts the necessity for a deliberate redeployment."

. . . Sestak has been among those Democrats who think that setting a "date certain" for withdrawal is the best way to force Iraqis to assume more responsibility.

But he now believes the length of time needed to redeploy, and the potential for the entire Army to "unravel" unless troops are redeployed, require a compromise.

Good bargaining there Admiral. So are we going to support primarying Sestak? The Netroots/activist strategy on Iraq in 2007 has been an abject failure.

September 13, 1971 is the date the infamous New York Attica Prison Uprising ended. It began four days earlier when inmates took over the prison to demand better prison conditions. On the 13th, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller ordered authorities to retake the prison, a bloody assault ensued and in all, 43 people were killed.

At 9:46 A.M. on Monday, September 13, 1971 tear gas was dropped into the yard and State Troopers opened fire. By the time the facility was retaken, ten hostages and twenty-nine inmates had been killed. The final death toll from the riot also included the officer fatally injured at the start of the riot and four inmates killed when "inmate justice" was administered. All ten hostages died from gunfire by state troopers and guards.

The New York State Special Commission on Attica wrote, "With the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War."

Much more is available at this PBS site.

These were the prisoner's demands:

Update: Here is the text (html) of President Bush's speech.

****

President Bush will be addressing the nation on Iraq tonight at 9pm ET. Here's a preview of what he is going to say.

There are 168,000 troops currently in Iraq. His plan to bring some home will leave us at about the same level as in January, before the "surge."

That's not a withdrawal plan either party should accept. As for responses by the Democratic candidates:

Hillary Clinton sent this letter to Bush.

What you are planning to tell the American people tomorrow night is that one year from now, there will be the same number of troops in Iraq as there were one year ago. Mr. President, that is simply too little too late, and unacceptable to this Congress, and to the American people who have made clear their strong desire to bring our troops home, and end this war.

John Edwards will have a two minute ad on MSNBC on the inadequacy of Bush's Iraq plan following the speech. Excerpts from the ad are here.

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Sex offender registration laws provide the illusion of safety while satisfying society's unfortunate urge to continue punishing offenders who have already paid their debt to society, but growing evidence suggests that the laws are actually counterproductive.

Laws requiring widespread public notification of past crimes and restricting where such sex offenders can live have not been shown to reduce the number of new sex crimes, the report says, but rather shun former sex offenders and may be driving them underground.

A new report by Human Rights Watch examines registration laws and their legislative cousins, residency restriction laws. From an HRW summary:

Kos:

There's the Dodd approach:

What was clear to me before, and what should be abundantly clear to my colleagues after today, is that this President is not going to change course unless we force him to. There is only one way to do that - we must set a clear, hard and fast deadline for redeployment and, in order to enforce it, that deadline must be tied to funding.

And then there's the Obama approach:

Despite the unpopularity of the Iraq war, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama predicted Thursday that Congress won't directly challenge President Bush's plans and will focus instead on putting a ceiling on the number of troops deployed to that country.

Which senator is showing leadership, and which one is preemptively capitulating?

I'll answer the rhetorical question - Chris Dodd is leading. Obama is preemptively capitulating.

Marcy at Next Hurrah and Looseheadprop at Firedoglake are discussing the invitation to comment on whether plea agreements should be removed from PACER and public access to them denied.

Here's the notice and comments are being accepted until October 26.

I haven’t decided how I feel about removing access to plea agreements yet. As a blogger, I’d like them to stay up. As a defense lawyer, it’s probably better that access be restricted.

But it’s important to note they are only considering limiting access to a single document, a plea agreement. All other pleadings would remain accessible.

Here's an argument for restricting access to them:

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