Bump and Update: It looks like it will be a stand-alone bill. A reader just wrote in:

FYI-- Congresswoman, Rep. Kathy Castor, (D-FL-11th) who serves on both the Armed Services Comm. AND is the only freshman on the powerful Rules Committee which makes decisions about moving bills forward, met with Armed Services Chair Ike Skelton early this morning and they have decided to file a stand alone bill to restore habeas corpus rather than put it in the Defense Authorization Bill.

I spoke to her Chief of Staff personally, and he said she promises to work to move the bill along, so everyone will have to vote up or down on restoring habeas, and we'll all know by their vote where exactly everyone in Congress stands on restoring habeas.

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Original Post: 5/8/07

Via McJoan at Daily Kos and Matt Stoller:

I'm told there's an outside shot that House Democrats on the Armed Services Committee will put a restoration of habeas corpus into the Defense Department Authorization Bill being marked up tomorrow and Thursday. Apparently Chairman Skelton has the votes but there are concerns about whether to have this fight now.

More...

Via Vote Vets.Org:

In a stunning, new half-million dollar ad series from VoteVets.org being launched today, three retired Generals, two of whom were commanders in Iraq, directly take on the notion that the President listens to commanders on the ground in Iraq, and declares that his plan for Iraq endangers American security. This is the first time in the history of the war that former commanders are taking to the paid airwaves to challenge the President, and push Members of Congress to oppose his policy on the war.

The first in the series of three ads features Major General (ret.) John Batiste, who was commanding general of the 1st Infantry Division from August 2002-June 2005. During this timeframe, he conducted combat operations in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. ... Batiste twice voted for President Bush and is a lifelong Republican.

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MSNBC's Keith Olbermann will receive the Molly Ivins Award today from the Alternative Association of Newsweeklies today.

The award was recently named in honor of Ms. Ivins, who served as co-editor of AAN member Texas Observer early in her muckraking career, and who died of breast cancer on January 31, at the age of 62. It is intended to recognize a journalist or media figure who's reporting or commentary has had a profound impact on the public's understanding of vital national issues, and who's work embodies the spirit of Ivins' courageous legacy.

Olbermann says he's honored to receive the award and still wants to be Molly Ivins when he grows up.

Congratulations, Keith.

Phillip Workman's request for a last meal was unusual:

The 53-year-old requested a vegetarian pizza be delivered to a homeless person in Nashville, Workman's attorney confirmed.

Offered the choice between the electric chair and lethal injection, Workman just said no.

"I'm not going to play no killing game," he told CNN in an exclusive interview last month.

The State chose to end his life with a lethal injection last night. Workman was executed for killing a police officer more than 25 years ago.

Yesterday I wrote about the FBI's acknowledgment that there was no known connection between those charged in the Fort Dix case and al-Qaida.

After all, they trained not in Afghanistan but in the Poconos.

Wonkette makes a good point:

Ok. So, the plot was: six dudes from New Jersey buy some guns and storm Fort Dix. The Fort Dix that is full of lots and lots of Army reservists with way, way more guns. And, like, extensive military training and sh*t. Yes, thank god these terrorists have been caught and locked up before they could be killed within minutes of deciding to carry out the dumbest f*cking terrorist plot we’ve ever heard of.

TRex at Firedoglake also has some thoughts well worth reading.

Seven men and five women have been selected as jurors in the trial of accused enemy combatent and "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla. Opening arguments begin Monday. The trial could last all summer.

There is no "dirty bomber" charge against Padilla.

Instead, Mr. Padilla and his co-defendants, Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi, stand accused of participating in a “North American support cell” that, the government says, sent money, goods and recruits abroad to assist “global jihad.”

The prosecution and defense attacked each other's juror exclusions:

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Who do you believe in a case like this? Where one cop is on trial and a former cop testifies against him, expecting a reduced sentence for his own misdeeds?

A former Chicago police officer testifying against an officer on trial for robbing drug dealers as part of a corrupt ring of Englewood cops was challenged in federal court Tuesday about his own history of crimes.

Corey Flagg testified that he shook down dealers for narcotics and cash while he was on a team of tactical cops, just as defendant Eural Black is accused of doing.

Black's lawyers went for blood as they cross-examined Flagg:

Flagg, who also has pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy, was quickly attacked by defense lawyers and accused of having no credibility. Instead of a potential life term, Flagg could serve just 10 years in prison or even less for helping the government, they pointed out.

Flagg admitted that he expects to get a deal even though he acknowledges taking part in armed robberies, home invasions, falsifying police reports and lying to judges and grand juries while he was with the department.

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Lt. William Kallop testified yesterday at a military Article 32 hearing on the atrocities at Haditha. He said that there were two live children among the dead.

``I saw one breathe. That's how I knew,'' 1st Lt. William Kallop testified on Tuesday at a military tribunal at Camp Pendleton. ``The little boy who breathed was about 6 or 7 and when I touched him, the little girl jumped up. She was about 11.''

The two injured children were the only survivors of a Marine Corps assault on two Iraqi homes near the site of a bomb attack on a Marine convoy that left one Marine dead and two injured. Prosecutors contend that the surviving Marines swept through the town on a revenge spree, killing 24 civilians with grenades and guns.

The case in which he testified was that against Capt. Randy Stone. Stone was,

More....

Digby points us to this fine James Fallows article on Thomas Wales, the Seattle federal prosecutor who was murdered, and not grieved, for the suspected motive of his views on guns:

The killing took place on October 11, 2001. . . . [Wales] was 49 years old, and he had spent the previous 18 years as a federal prosecutor in Seattle, mainly working on white-collar crime cases. . . . A significant detail is that one of the civic causes for which Tom Wales worked was gun safety and at the time of his death was head of Washington Cease-Fire. . . . As best I have been able to tell from a distance, through the years law-enforcement and political officials from Seattle and Washington state have frequently complained that federal officials in Washington DC were not putting enough resources or effort into the case. The same Seattle Times story mentioned above goes into one of the disagreements. Everyone on the Seattle side of the story remembers that the Department of Justice in Washington DC sent no official representative to his funeral.

(Emphasis supplied.) No official representation from the Bush Administration at the funeral of a slain federal prosecutor who may have been killed for his services to the security of our country.

My very good friend Maryscott O'Connor takes the a bait laid by Jonah Goldberg, hook, line and sinker:

[GOLDBERG:] IT'S IRONIC. At precisely the moment so many people think that the Republican Party and the conservative movement went off the rails, the people who hate the right the most want to copy it.

Me again, sorry. I just want to remind anyone reading this that I've been saying the same thing for years, now.

Only someone who truly does not understand what the Right is and how it became what it is could possibly write that. MSOC has allowed her rage at the Left blogs, a sentiment I share on the Iraq issue (which MSOC never writes about by the way, so I throw My Left Wing in with the failing Netroots on Iraq), to blind her to the obvious - the Right does not respect the truth, like them or not, the Left blogs do.

I addressed this issue regarding Jon Chait's article and MSOC is just as wildly wrong now as Chait was in his article on this point.

As TalkLeft reported here, Alan Crotzer spent more than 24 years -- more than half his life -- behind bars for crimes he didn't commit. Having been responsible for the wrongful incarceration, one might think that Florida would want to compensate the man.

[F]or the second time in as many years Florida's Legislature has failed to pass a bill that would give Crotzer financial compensation for his wrongful conviction .... Though the House passed a measure that would have given Crotzer $1.25 million, the state senate didn't act on the bill in the recently ended legislative session.

It took the state more than 24 years to correct Crotzer's unjust loss of freedom. Will it take another 24 to recognize his entitlement to financial justice?

Via How Appealing (which has the order posted here), the D.C. Court of Appeals has refused to review en banc the decision a panel of judges issued in March finding that the Second Amendment conveys an individual right to bear arms.

The appeals court decision had struck down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. That opinion is here (pdf).

I agree this means it's more likely the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue.

More at Scotusblog; Volokh; Cato Institute.