File this under Dog Bites Man. Via Atrios, NYTimes reports that Citizen Stengel has hired a Wannabee Hugh Hewitt's BFF:

Mark Halperin, who stepped down last month as the political director of ABC News, is moving to Time magazine. Mr. Halperin, a pioneer of online reporting who founded ABCnews.com’s political memo, The Note, will join Time as an editor-at-large and senior political analyst effective next Monday, the magazine said.

At Time, Mr. Halperin will report to Richard Stengel and Josh Tyrangiel, the managing editors, respectively, of Time magazine and the Time.com Web site. Mr. Stengel said that he started talking to Mr. Halperin, a longtime acquaintance, after the ABC announcement last month, with an eye to preparing for Time’s coverage of the 2008 elections.

. . . “Everybody wants to be ahead of the curve in this area, and Mark is the curve,” he said.

He is the Concern Troll Curve. You think Time will call Halperin's blog, "Why Karl Rove Is The Greatest" or "Matt Drudge Sez?" O'Reilly will no doubt be a fan.

My old Kossack friend Kid Oakland uses my analysis of the Iraq Supplemental Funding bill and turns in a very nifty piece of political analysis:

. . . Nancy Pelosi, in my view, is banking on the "political" aspects of this process. ie. Speaker Pelosi, in using language counting on "the courts," really is implying the "court of public opinion." She must be thinking that whatever Bush's obligation to follow the framework of the Iraq bill, if he does not follow the language that Congress provides him, the GOP will be under such enormous political pressure in the court of public opinion that the GOP will cave. That, in a sense, was the bottom line upshot of the blogger's conference call. There was an interesting moment, which I did not mention in that MyDD piece, in which Speaker Pelosi talked about how, at the time of the outset of the war in Afghanistan the the Presient and the GOP very much did not want a bill from Congress. They felt that the President had all the authority he needed. Congressional Democrats insisted on getting a bill because having some bill, any bill, implied some constraint on the President's authority. If that is the mindset here, a mindset of "implied constraint" then it is critical we put pressure on the Democrats in Congress to go beyond that view. Implied constraint on this President does not cut it. Implied constraint is NOT what the voters voted for in 2006.

The inadequacy of implied constraint. Wonderfully phrased by Kid O. That gets to the heart of it. Bush does not give a fig about "implied constraint." It will take more. It will take the NOT spending power.

Episode 81 is tonight: "Chasing It."

This week, Tony hits an unlucky stretch and AJ makes a life-changing decision. Meanwhile, Vito's widow Marie turns to Tony for help with her troubled son.

Is AJ going to decide to join the mob?

The torture case charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonazales, George Tenet and others have been dropped, at the request of the prosecutor.

In her decision, German Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms argued that the case does not confront crimes committed on German soil, nor involve victims or perpetrators with ties to Germany. Harms also stated that the investigation does not have a reasonable chance of succeeding.

The case was filed in Germany because of the country's obligation under the German law of universal jurisdiction to try cases that deal with torture and other serious crimes, regardless of where the crime took place or what the nationality of the victims or perpetrators.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the case, says:

"Fundamentally, this is a political and not a legal decision," said CCR President Michael Ratner. "We will continue to pursue Rumsfeld, (U.S. Attorney General Alberto) Gonzales, and the others in the future -- they should not feel they can travel outside the United States without risk. Our goal is no safe haven for torturers."

The case may be refiled in Spain.

My obsession with urging this Congress to adopt what I believe to be the only viable approach to ending the Iraq Debacle while Bush is President, adopting the goals of Reid-Feingold as the policy of the Democratic Congress. My formulation is this:

I ask for three things: First, announce NOW that the Democratic Congress will NOT fund the Iraq Debacle after a date certain. You pick the date. Whatever works politically. If October 2007 is the date Dems can agree to, then let it be then. If March 2008, then let that be the date; Second, spend the year reminding the President and the American People every day that Democrats will not fund the war past the date certain; Third, do NOT fund the Iraq Debacle PAST the date certain.

I believe the need for THIS Congress ending the Debacle is especially acute because the next President will be very reluctant to be saddled with having "lost" the war. Today, on the McLaughlin Group, Tony Blankley articulated my fear, that a Democratic President will not end the Debacle, instead slipping into some "sensible, sober" Broderist mindset. I believe Blankley is right. And of course, a Republican might win the election in 2008. It is thus incumbent on this Congress, this Democratic Congress, to end the Iraq Debacle.

David Broder and Fred Hiatt both seem intent on destroying what little is left of the reputation of the Washington Post Opinion pages. Earlier Broder talked crooked about McCain's "straight talk". Today, Hiatt makes it up on McCain's delusion:

The central issue of this election is the war in Iraq, and the senator is the candidate most identified with making the case for war in the first place and for not leaving precipitously now. He did not shrink from the issue in his announcement, admitting the war "has not gone well" and referring to it in appropriately cautionary terms. . . . Mr. McCain did not say so, but he has been making these points since well before the invasion. Whatever your position on the war, then or now, Mr. McCain deserves credit for foresight and consistency about how the war should have been waged.

Hiatt is not telling the truth here. McCain did not consistently say these things. I will evidence this on the flip.

Former Senator Gary Hart lays into Rudy Giuliani in his new post at HuffPo.

He asks Rudy, "Where were you on terrorism between January 31, 2001, and September 11th?"

Hart then writes,

Before you qualify to criticize Democrats, Mr. Giuliani, you must account for your preparation of your city for these clearly predicted attacks. Tell us, please, what steps you took to make your city safer.

Until you do, then I strongly suggest you should keep your mouth shut about Democrats and terrorism. You have not qualified to criticize others, let alone be president of the United States.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made an unannounced trip to Harvard Saturday for his 25th law school reunion.

He was heckled by protestors.

"When the photographer was getting everybody set up and having people say 'cheese,' the protesters yelled: 'say torture, instead,' 'resign' and 'I don't recall,'" said Nate Ela, a protester and third-year student.

....the protesters followed Gonzales into the law school's library, chanting "shame" and "resign," before the attorney general's security detail took him to his motorcade.

From one of the protesters:

"The departure was clearly undignified," said Thomas Becker, a second-year law student who wore the black hood and orange jumpsuit during the protest. "He looked really annoyed."

The protesters were not large in number. But I bet that had the trip been announced ahead of time, more would have shown up.

Raw Story reports Gonzales had to leave through the back door.

As President Bush continues to dig in on staying the course in Iraq, our troops keep dying. Nine were killed this weekend.

April has been the deadliest month for U.S. soldiers in Iraq this year. The latest deaths raise to nearly 100 the number of U.S. soldiers killed this month.

Anonymous Liberal has unearthed what appears to be an incriminating e-mail in which Monica Goodling instructed DOJ personnel to destroy documents that were clearly pertinent to an ongoing Congressional investigation. The e-mail, dated February 12, 2007, states in relevant part:

These are new and updated USA documents which can be used with the media or friendlies. Please delete prior versions. . .

Why could this be a criminal situation? Because of the federal obstruction statute. This article provides a nice background on the subject:

The New York Times reports on self-pay county jails in California, where for a fee of around $100 a day, inmates can get special accomodations and privileges.

For offenders whose crimes are usually relatively minor (carjackers should not bother) and whose bank accounts remain lofty, a dozen or so city jails across the state offer pay-to-stay upgrades.

... Many of the self-pay jails operate like secret velvet-roped nightclubs of the corrections world. You have to be in the know to even apply for entry, and even if the court approves your sentence there, jail administrators can operate like bouncers, rejecting anyone they wish.

As for amenities,

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Before you get too excited, count me in the group (I hope there will be one) that is unimpressed with the action taken last night by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to reduce crack cocaine penalties.

If I understand Law Prof Doug Berman's description (he's excited about the change) the mandatory minimums will stay in place and the reductions are these:

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