The blogosphere is all over the map on whether Monica Goodling has the right to invoke her 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refuse to testify before a Congressional committee investigating the firing of U.S. Attorneys.

• Christy at Firegoglake
• Eric as Is That Legal?
• Talking Points Memo
• Appellate lawyer Peter Goldberger in the comments to Big Tent Democrat's post here yesterday

I think she has the right to take the 5th. And, here's what a TalkLeft reader, who happens to be a former high-ranking Justice Department official during the Clinton Administration, whom I have known for many years and have the utmost respect for, writes in to say:

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Good news from New York. An appeals court has reversed a murder conviction because the Judge refused to allow an expert is eyewitness identification to testify. The 13 page opinion is here.

The holding:

For the reasons that follow, we hold that where the case turns on the accuracy of eyewitness identifications and there is little or no corroborating evidence connecting the defendant to the crime, it is an abuse of discretion for a trial court to exclude expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identifications if that testimony is (1) relevant to the witness's identification of defendant, (2) based on principles that are generally accepted within the relevant scientific community, (3) proffered by a qualified expert and (4) on a topic beyond the ken of the average juror. Taking into account that trial courts generally have the power to limit the amount and scope of evidence presented, we nevertheless conclude that, in this case, the court erred when it precluded the testimony of defendant's eyewitness identification expert in its entirety.

Sad news from the White House today. Tony Snow's cancer has not only returned but spread to his liver. Cancer is not a political disease. I feel badly for him.

May he keep an optimistic attitude and keep up the fight.

In the discussion on the Iraq supplemental funding bill, it seems to me that the arguments in favor of the House bill were based mainly on messaging, not the substantive result of the bill. Certainly Markos' argument is expressly so, seeing the political play as geared towards the 2008 elections. As I wrote, I respect that view more than the one which pretends that the House bill is a "first step" to future steps that will lead to an end to the US deployments in Iraq. Today, EJ Dionne produces a hybrid of the two arguments in favor of the House bill:

Last week's narrow House vote imposing an August 2008 deadline for the withdrawal of American troops was hugely significant, even if the bill stands no chance of passing in the Senate this week in its current form. The vote was a test of the resolve of the new House Democratic leadership and its ability to pull together an ideologically diverse membership behind a plan pointing the United States out of Iraq.

Well, the plan sort of points for a moment but it does NOTHING to get the country moving in the direction it is pointing. Reading the headlines today does not tell you what things will look like months later. The House bill will look bad in a matter of weeks, months and next year when it matters most. Because it is devoid of substantive action on Iraq.

A shortage of volunteers, according to the Administration, is the cause of up to 1,200 Marine reservists being called to Iraq next year.

What happened to the plans for withdrawal? Is this a message it's not happening until we get a new President in 2009?

The mobilization, which was approved by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last week, reflects the increasing manpower shortages the Marines are facing as the war in Iraq continues. Officials said it would have been necessary even without the increase in American force levels in Iraq, which will reach 160,000, including 25,000 marines, by June.

Lt. Colonel Jeffrey Riehl said Monday that the corps was notifying 1,800 members of the individual ready reserve, made up of inactive marines who have not finished their service requirements, with a goal of getting 1,200 marines for one-year deployments in 2008. The affected marines will begin reporting for duty in October, Colonel Riehl said.

Funding bill or no funding bill, withdrawal clause or not, we're not leaving Iraq any time soon. Seems to me we haven't yelled loud enough yet.

Bay Buchanan has agreed to serve as Tom Tancredo's chief advisor in his quest for the Republican 2008 nomination.

Tancredo, R-Colo., will announce within two weeks whether he's joining the Republican primary race. He said last week that his exploratory committee had raised $1 million, which he considered an important barometer of his viability.

"He is a hero to conservatives across this country, and I am honored to have the opportunity to be part of what promises to be an exciting campaign," Buchanan said about Tancredo in a statement.

It's hard to pay too much attention to this. Tancredo is, as the article suggests, the ultimate fringe candidate. He's a one trick pony, all about xenophobia.

But we can hope his candidacy will negatively impact the other Republican nomination seekers.

Phillip Thompson, an aide to Virginia's Democratic Senator Jim Webb, was arrested today for bringing a semiautomatic, 9 millimeter pistol and two magazines through security at the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. Thompson faces felony charges of carrying a pistol without a license and possessing an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition.

Another Congressional official briefed on the case said the aide had told the authorities that Mr. Webb gave him the pistol while being dropped at the airport and that he inadvertently took it to the Capitol complex.

Webb gave him the gun? He inadvertantly took it through security? There has to be more to this story.

The writing was on the wall last night. Australian detainee David Hicks, brought before a military tribunal at Guantanamo today, agreed to plead guilty to one charge of providing material support to terrorists.

The guilty plea is sure to be seen by administration supporters as an affirmation of its efforts to detain and try terrorism suspects here, although the government’s detention policy still faces significant legal and political challenges.

Baloney. The plea is nothing but a sign that David Hicks wanted to be free one day, and this was the only way to assure it.

I have noted before that I consider David Sirota a good friend and a good progressive who wants the Iraq Debacle to end. I have also noted my almost complete disagreement with his analysis of the Dem House Iraq supplemental bill. One of my major points was that the strength of the anti-Iraq War movement was much more prevalent in the House than in the Senate and thus the "line in the sand" needed to be drawn there so that the inevitable "compromises" that the Senate would require could start from a more anti-Debacle position. And of course, Bush would veto any concrete anti-Debacle legislation. Thus ultimately, a staredown with the President would be required. That is why I endorsed this approach:

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.

The House bill does none of these things.

Remember David Stockman, President Reagan's budget director and eventual critic of "trickle-down" economics? Stockman became a top executive at Collins & Aikman Corp., a company that ended up in bankruptcy court in 2005. Now Stockman finds himself under indictment for securities fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, and associated crimes.

At a news conference, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said Stockman and his co-defendants "resorted to lies, tricks and fraud" from 2001 to 2005 to hide the truth about his failing company from investors and creditors. Garcia said Stockman let the company's employees mislead creditors about the company's revenues and the ability of Collins & Aikman to pay its bills ...

A federal law criminalizes the "pandering" of child pornography. The pandering law is violated by one who promotes "material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material" visually depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Note that the "material" need not actually depict sexual conduct, or even a minor. Note also that the panderer need not actually believe, and need not intend to advertise the belief, that the "material" depicts minors engaging in sexual conduct. Seems like an awfully vague law that doesn't carefully target actual wrongdoers, doesn't it?

In this lengthy opinion (pdf), the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the law is overbroad. Congress, the court concluded, may not "burn the house to roast the pig." Echoing a concern that Sen. Leahy raised, the court worried that the law "federally criminalize[s] talking dirty over the Internet or the telephone when the person never possesses any material at all." The court was particularly troubled that the law criminalizes speech that "reflects the belief" that material is pornographic een when the belief is unsupported by reality, and thus infringes not only upon freedom of speech but upon freedom of thought.

The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to review the Eleventh Circuit's decision, making another attempt to bring clarity to the murky world of child porn laws, which too frequently target material that isn't pornographic and that doesn't actually depict a child. The Court's prior child porn jurisprudence is summarized in the Eleventh Circuit decision, linked above.

Just sayin'

Nearly three-quarters of Americans (73%) – including 77% of Republicans, 78% of independents and 66% of Democrats – say Congress is doing only a fair or poor job dealing with Iraq. Just 22% say Congress has done an excellent (3%) or good job (19%) in this regard.

For Democrats, much of this frustration is linked to the sense that Congress has too little influence on Iraq policy, and has not aggressively challenged President Bush's approach. Most Democrats (56%) believe that . . . Democratic leaders in Congress have not gone far enough in challenging George W. Bush's policies.

Many independents share these criticisms – a plurality (41%) says that Democratic leaders in Congress are not going far enough in challenging Bush's Iraq policies. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) That's a lot of purity trolls.