It looks like the unidentified (and unindicted) co-ejaculator theory is alive and well in Mississippi.

After being exonerated by DNA evidence, Kennedy Brewer was freed on bond after serving 15 years in prison for a rape and murder. The DA now says he will retry him:

“I perceive that Kennedy Brewer assisted someone else in the killing of the child,” Mr. Allgood said. “Whether he actually penetrated that child or not functionally doesn’t make any difference if he was aiding, assisting and encouraging in her death.”

This case has lots of red flags, including a jailhouse snitch and a suspended forensic dentist who testified about about bitemarks, itself a junk science.

Brewer is represented by the Innocence Project which reports that Mississippi has the second largest (after Louisiana) number of incarcerated residents per 100,000:

"If the system's failure rate is a mere one percent, 215 people in prison in Mississippi are innocent," the project says.

Far from getting ready to close Guantanamo, the U.S. is spending big bucks there to build new courtrooms.

The U.S. military is building a mobile courtroom complex on an unused runway at the Guantanamo Bay naval base and plans to be ready by March to conduct as many as three terrorism trials at a time.

The $10 million project will add two new courtrooms to the existing one, which is being fitted with a new computer projection system to display evidence for the war crimes tribunals set up to try suspected al Qaeda operatives held at the U.S. naval base in eastern Cuba.

The Pentagon now plans to try 80 of the prisoners on war crimes and to hold up to 3 trials at a time. Called a "mobile courtroom complex" the new project appears to be made of tents:

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I don't have much interest in the Republican debate (I'll be watching former President Clinton on Larry King Live)but I think it's telling that Fred Thompson is skipping the debate and will appear on the Tonight Show instead to announce his candidacy.

He's been losing staffers in droves. New Hampshire voters don't sound pleased they're being snubbed:

"There is a genuine interest in Senator Thompson here, a real curiosity about him," New Hampshire Republican Chairman Fergus Cullen said Tuesday. "But that curiosity is giving way to skepticism and maybe even cynicism about him in part because of how he's handling his grand entrance. For him to then go on Jay Leno the same night and be trading jokes while other candidates are having a substantive discussion on issues is not going to be missed by New Hampshire voters."

The other candidates have an 8 month lead on him and more money.

I don't think any Republican candidate has warmed the hearts and minds of voters. Not that I'm complaining.

Sen. Larry Craig told Sen. Mitch McConnell today he will finish out his term in the Senate if he's successful at getting his plea withdrawn.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters that he spoke with Craig this morning. Craig told him that if he could "dispose" of the guilty plea he made last month after being accused of soliciting sex in a Minnesota airport men's room, "it would be his intention to come back to the Senate and deal with the Ethics Committee case . . . and to try to finish his term."

"He is going to try to get the case in Minneapolis dismissed," McConnell added.

I'm sticking by my earlier comments that his guilty plea was defective for failing to advise him of his right to counsel and contain an acknowledgment by him that he understood the right and was waiving it. Minnesota law is very clear on that. His guilty plea form is here.

It shouldn't even require a hearing. A Judge could grant the motion based on the paperwork. I won't be surprised if the prosecutor confesses the motion. I also think Craig's statement to McConnell is based on Billy Martin thinking there's a good chance the Judge will rule on his motion to withdraw the plea within the next three weeks.

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(Guest Post by Matt Stoller of Open Left)

I appreciate the opportunity that Jeralyn is affording me to post on this site in response to Big Tent Democrat's repeated criticisms of my blogging and activism. Here's BTD's essential argument.

If the Democratic Party listens to Shrum, Carville, Stoller and Greenwald on Iraq, and runs on the idea that nothing can be done about Iraq until 2009, Democrats will suffer politically.

If I were arguing that we ought to do nothing about Iraq, I would deserve this scorn, and more. But far from arguing for apathy, a strange position for an activist blogger who is constantly asking his readers to engage in political activities, I'm pushing for the opposite: concerted, strategic action within the political system by activists like us.

Now, I do think it's highly unlikely that the Democrats in Congress will stop the war or do anything meaningful to stop the war until at least 2009, and even beyond then I have no confidence that Edwards, Obama, or Clinton will end the war without extreme pressure from activists and the public. You can read their various pathetic non-withdrawal plans compiled by Chris Bowers, my blogging partner who is obsessively pushing candidates to take a pro-withdrawal stance. But that means our job as activists and voters is clear: to create that pressure.

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Norman Hsu was a no-show at his court hearing to reduce bail today. Instead of reducing bail, the Judge revoked it and said he would be held without bail if apprehended.

His lawyer, James Brosnahan, didn't have a ready excuse:

``Mr. Hsu is not here and we do not know where Mr. Hsu is,'' Brosnahan said outside court. Brosnahan said that ``there was some contact'' with Hsu a few hours before the scheduled 9 a.m. court appearance, but he declined to say how and who talked to Hsu.

Hsu also failed to comply with the Court's order to turn his passport over to his counsel for delivery to the Court.

Say goodbye to Operation Advise, which cost $42 million. The DHS announced today it was scrapping the program, probably for good.

Known as ADVISE and begun in 2003, the Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement program was developed by the department and the Lawrence Livermore and Pacific Northwest national laboratories for use by many DHS components, including immigration, customs, border protection, biological defense and its intelligence office.

Reason for abandonment: It didn't comply with privacy rules.

[T]wo internal Homeland Security reports found that tests had used live data about real people rather than made-up data for one to two years without meeting privacy requirements...

Another weird story of the day: An ethics investigation into Mobile, AL judge Herman Thomas includes these allegations:

Authorities are investigating allegations that now-suspended Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas periodically removed prisoners from Mobile County Metro Jail and spanked them in a room at the courthouse, according to courthouse sources involved in the inquiry.

Once inside the room, according to the sources, the judge would ask the young men to drop their pants and prepare to be spanked with what they described as a wooden or fraternity-like paddle.

Judge Thomas refused to comment on the allegations. The NAACP may hold a press conference this afternoon. Some of the details of the accusations appear to be corroborated:

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atrios liked this from Stoller:

Also, while I'm doing a bit of ranting, stupid articles on what the 'netroots' does or does not do, such as this one, or this one, to take but two examples, that ignore the fact that no top-tier Democrat differs from Clinton on Iraq, are really really stupid. . . . [T]he blogosphere is [not] some top-down organization with centralized management that controls the Democratic party leadership rather than a network of people with somewhat highly trafficked websites held in mild disdain by most Democrats on the Hill with any decision-making authority or useful information. Although to be fair to the previous two really stupid articles, the latter two stupid articles were pretty stupid.

I wrote one of the "stupid" articles referenced. I think Stoller missed my point. I could not care less if the Netroots unites behind any Presidential candidate or blasts away at Hillary. Stoller defends himself by saying Hillary should be opposed (I guess.) He may be right but that is not my beef. Indeed, my complaint has been that the Netroots spends too much time talking about the 2008 presidential election and not enough time talking about the issues of 2007. In fact, I wrote:

I've opined several times that Sen. Larry Craig's plea might be withdrawn because the mail-in plea agreement he signed failed to advise him of his right to counsel. Attorney Beldar points out that Minnesota has a form for defendants who want to plead guilty pro se. Beldar notes, however, there's been no reporting that Craig submitted such a form. Maybe a reporter or lawyer in MN could check the file?

Meanwhile, World Net Daily comes up with another defense for Sen. Craig: Article 1: Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution provides that no member of Congress can be arrested while traveling to or from official session. Craig voted on a bill in Washington at 5:55 pm, which raises the clear inference he was traveling from MN to D.C. to vote.

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Bump and Update: Check out the voicemail Sen. Larry Craig left for his lawyer Billy Martin "on a stranger's phone" minutes before his resignation speech. Roll Call obtained the voicemail after it was offered for sale and refused by the Idaho Statesman. McJoan at Daily Kos posts the entire transcript.

Update: Here's the audio of the call from Roll Call. Sounds more like an answering machine than a voicemail to me, although I don't know it makes a difference.

This story keeps getting weirder by the hour.

"Yes, Billy, this is Larry Craig calling. You can reach me on my cell. Arlen Specter is now willing to come out in my defense, arguing that it appears by all that he knows that I have been railroaded and all that.

"Having all of that, we have reshaped my statement a little bit to say it is my intent to resign on Sept. 30. I think it is important for you to make as bold a statement as you are comfortable with this afternoon, and I would hope you could make it in front of the cameras.

"I think it would help drive the story that I’m willing to fight, that I’ve got quality people out there fighting in my defense, and that this thing could take a new turn or a new shape, it has that potential. Anyway, give me a buzz or give Mike a buzz on that. We’re headed to my press conference now. "Thank you. Bye."

Dan Whiting, confirms the voice is Craig's. Here's the statement Billy Martin released Saturday.

So who did Craig call? Did someone close to Martin sell him out or did he really dial the wrong number? I wonder what the recorded message said on the phone Craig left the voice-mail on. He's not stupid. If it was "Hi, this is John, please leave me a message" he wouldn't have left that message. Something had to indicate to Craig he was calling Billy Martin. No way would Billy Martin have leaked the message. So, who is Roll Call protecting? My theory is below.

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Kudos to Markos and Daily Kos. The FEC issued an important ruling today, finding that blogs are media and like all media since 1974, media activity has been explicitly exempted from federal campaign finance regulation:

The Federal Election Commission announced today that it has unanimously resolved two complaints alleging that Internet blog activity is subject to Commission regulation, finding that the activity is exempt from regulation under the media or volunteer exemption.

In Matter Under Review (MUR) 5928, the Commission determined that Kos Media, L.L.C., which operates the website DailyKos, did not violate the Federal Election Campaign Act. The Commission rejected allegations that the site should be regulated as a political committee because it charges a fee to place advertising on its website and it provides “a gift of free advertising and candidate media services” by posting blog entries that support candidates. The Commission determined that the website falls squarely within the media exemption and is therefore not subject to federal regulation under the Act.

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