Think Progress reports that the House Judiciary Committee has voted to grant Monica Goodling immunity for her testimony about the firing of U.S. Attorneys.

On MSNBC yesterday, fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, in addition to saying he filed a Complaint with the Office of Special Counsel against Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales (and Goodling) for violating the Hatch Act,

It’s is something I filed back on April 3 of this year…based on, you know, Special Counsel having powers to investigate where evidence goes. I actually filed a Hatch Act complaint against Gonzales, McNulty, Sampson and Goodling and they’re already getting documents from the Justice Department and possibly from the White House. […]

...I think Monica Goodling is holding the keys to the kingdom. I think if they get her to testify under oath with a transcript, and have her describe the process between the information flow between the White House counsel, White House and the Justice Department, I believe the picture becomes a lot clearer.

As to Rove,

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The House of Representatives will vote today on the compromise legislation to pull out of Iraq, as part of the Iraq funding bill.

I was on a blogger conference call with Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday. Here's what she had to say:

She is proud of the conference report. The President should either sign the bill and honor it or veto it.

The goal is for troops to be out of Iraq by March, 2008. If the Iraqi government is not meeting the benchmarks by July, 2007, redeployment would begin this July. If they meet the benchmarks, the redeployment would begin in October, 2007 and must be with a goal of completion in 180 days, by March, 2008.

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At 11:00 a.m. E.T., Rosie O'Donnell will announce she's leaving "The View".

(Clip available on TMZ at 11:15 a.m.)

I've never seen the show, and I don't really get what the fuss is all about with her, but she's been making the news a lot lately, so I thought I'd report it.

Update: Her contract was up and they couldn't agree on terms for the next year. Barbara Walters says she's sorry to see her go.

The U.S. is getting a new airline company. It brings new meaning to the term "no-frills." It's more like nickel and diming you to death. I won't be flying on it anytime soon.

Skybus, based in Columbus, Ohio, is charging extra for many items — $5 to check a bag, $10 for a preferred seat, $2 for a soft drink — and it aims to sell a lot of the stuff. Carrying food on board is not allowed, according to Skybus’s Web site, “unless you brought enough for the whole plane.”

The airline will sell tickets only through its Web site, avoiding the expense of maintaining a reservations call center or paying a sales commission to travel agents. Skybus is also outsourcing its maintenance, the staffing of ticket counters at airports and its baggage handling, all to keep costs low.

“Don’t call us,” the Web site explains. “We don’t have a phone number.”

The Supreme Court today heard oral argument in a case that will decide whether a passenger, as well as the driver, has been seized for 4th Amendment purposes during a traffic stop.

The question of whether a “reasonable” passenger would feel free to leave was significant because that perception is a principal part of the court’s test for whether a “seizure” has taken place within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

If a reasonable person would not feel constrained, then he or she has not been “seized” and has no basis for complaining that the police have violated the Fourth Amendment. The converse is also true: a person who reasonably feels detained by the police is entitled to challenge the validity of the police action and perhaps to keep illegally seized evidence out of court.

Thanks to Justice Souter for pointing this out:

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Via mcjoan, Harry Reid cracks wise on Cheney:

Mr. Reid said he was not going to engage in a tit-for-tat with the vice president. "I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating," Mr. Reid said.

Heh.

Now that we know the Pentagon lied about the attack on Jessica Lynch and the death of Pat Tillman, who's going to be held accountable?

Now that we know Bush will veto the compromise Iraq funding legislation with a suggested timeline for leaving Iraq, what comes next -- other than a misguided attempt to blame Sen. Harry Reid.

We need to keep the pressure on. It's our only way out of Iraq.

As a foundational principle, there can be no official, government-established religion in the United States. All religions are free to compete for adherents without governmental preference, and all who are within the country's borders have the freedom to worship (or not) as they please. For that reason, the religion of Wicca is entitled to the same governmental respect as every other sincerely-practiced religion.

It should not have taken a lawsuit to motivate the Department of Veterans Affairs to approve the engraving of a Wiccan religious symbol, the pentacle, on veterans' tombstones.

There are 1,800 Wiccans in the armed forces, according to a Pentagon survey cited in the suit, and Wiccans have their faith mentioned in official handbooks for military chaplains and noted on their dog tags.

Veterans Affairs officials no doubt shared the same view as noted constitutional scholar George Bush, who said of Wicca in 1999, "I don’t think witchcraft is a religion." Apart from mistaking (and trivializing) Wicca as "witchcraft," Bush previewed the arrogance we came to know in the ensuing years of his presidency. Who is George Bush to decide what faiths or spiritual beliefs deserve recognition as a religion? More importantly, how could an officeholder with the slightest understanding of constitutional law believe that the government is entitled to prefer some established religions over others? He must have been getting his legal advice from Alberto Gonzales.

The blogosphere has been abuzz today with the report in the L.A. Times that the little known Office of Special Counsel will investigate the U.S. Attorney firings and political activities led by Karl Rove.

Before you get too excited, let's look at who's in charge of the investigation. It's Scott Bloch, a Bush appointee who's been under investigation himself.

Bloch, a Kansas lawyer who served at the Justice Department's Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives, was appointed by President Bush three years ago. Since he took the helm in 2004, staffers at the OSC, a small agency of about 100 lawyers and investigators, have accused him of a range of offenses, from having an anti-gay bias to criticizing employees for wearing short skirts and tight pants to work.

David Corn has many more details in his new Nation column.

I was skeptical this morning. Now, I'm wondering why the LA Times reporter omitted this critical information about Bloch. As Corn says,

It is a dizzying situation. The investigator investigating officials who oversee the agency that is investigating the investigator. Forget firewalls. This looks more like a basement flooded with backed-up sewage--with the water rising.

There can be nothing better for the fortunes of Democratic leaders in Congress than to be attacked by Vice President Cheney, especially on Iraq. Today, Cheney Accommodated Dems:

The battle of words over an Iraq war-spending bill intensified this afternoon as Vice President Dick Cheney suggested that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, was indulging in cynical political calculation. Mr. Reid dismissed the vice president’s words as the utterances of President Bush’s “attack dog,” and said the administration remained in thrall to a failed policy, one that Democrats would continue trying to change.

Can you doubt that Dems are thinking "more please" from Mr. "Shoot Them In The Face," whose personal approval rating is around 32%?

Privatizing governmental services might not always be a bad idea, but adding a profit motive to governmental functions that have nothing to do with profit often spawns disaster. Take the case of privately run prisons. They can be quite profitable, and states (urged along by lobbyists) are increasingly turning to private enterprise to deal with the prison crisis that politicians have manufactured. This despite evidence that private prisons are neither more accountable nor more cost effective than government-run prisons.

Perhaps the New Castle Correctional Facility in Indiana was dysfunctional before the state turned over its management to the GEO Group, Inc., but it's fair to ask why a riot broke out in its first year of private management.

A "full-scale riot" broke out Tuesday at a medium-security men's prison, according to the mayor, and pictures taken from television helicopters showed at least two fires burning in the courtyard.

Will GEO Group, Inc. pick up the tab for all the taxpayer-funded law enforcement that's trying to clean up the mess it couldn't control?

Omar Khadr was a 15 year old Canadian, captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. You can read the details here.

The Pentagon today officially charged him with murder.

Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade that killed U.S. Delta soldier Sgt. Christopher Speer during a firefight in Afghanistan July 27, 2002.

He was 15 at the time and was held for three months in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay, where he remains today. In addition to the charge of murder, Khadr will also stand trial on attempted murder, providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy and spying.

Omar should not be tried by military tribunal. As Human Rights Watch said,

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