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

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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My quick read of Obama's speech showed me largely nothing remarkable in it. It seemed a boilerplate Democratic speech on foreign policy. In general, I side with Kevin Drum's reaction as well as Matt Yglesias' reaction. Matt Stoller's vitriolic reaction against the speech seems out of left field to me:

What's striking about the speech was no so much what he said, but the reaction. There wasn't one. This was supposed to be a grand pronouncement with a new vision for foreign policy, and yet, the speech could have been ripped out of John Kerry's camapign, Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, or for that matter, Jimmy Carter's.

And this is bad why? Stoller says:

Here's the most annoying line, though there are so many:

I believe that the single most important job of any President is to protect the American people.

Um, Matt Stoller, you don't believe that? Sounds like Kucinich is your man then. What is funny to me is that of all the things in the speech Stoller's criticizes, the one thing he SHOULD have panned was this:

There are five ways America will begin to lead again when I’m President. . . . The first way America will lead is by bringing a responsible end to this war in Iraq . . .

We have to wait until Obama is President to end the Iraq Debacle? Senator Obama won't do anything that will ACTUALLY end the Debacle sooner than that? That is the problem with this speech and with Senator Obama. And it should surprise me that Stoller did not notice it. But sadly, ending the Iraq Debacle has become a secondary issue for some in the Left Blogs.

Responding to Senator Harry Reid's statement:

I understand the restlessness that some feel. Many who voted for change in November anticipated dramatic and immediate results in January. But like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief -- and this is his war."

Cliff May writes:

Actually, like it or not, it's America's war.

May's criticsm of Reid is right. But what does May NOT mention? That America wants the Debacle ended and Bush is defying the wishes of the American People:

Which of these comes closest to your opinion? 1. Congress should block all funding war in Iraq no matter what OR 2. Congress should allow funding only for a limited period of time OR 3. Congress should allow all funding for the war in Iraq without a time limit.
Block all funding 9
Allow only w/time limit 58
Should allow all funding 29
Don't know/No answer 4

The principles of Reid's proposal are supported by 2/3 of the American People. The President is NOT a King Clifford May. He does not get to rule the American People by diktat. The American People do not support the Debacle in Iraq. They want it over. And Harry Reid is the voice for the will of the American People. The view of Bush that you support is at odds with what the American People want. The war in Iraq is a Debacle the American People want ended. Time to do the will of the People Mr. May.