Thanks to Tom Maguire for pointing this out. After Judith Miller's testimony, Libby lawyer Ted Wells told the judge he would be moving for a judgment of acquittal on a count pertaining to her. He didn't explain it at the time. Neil Lewis of the New York Times writes:

The Libby defense won a victory of sorts when Judge Reggie B. Walton agreed to exclude part of one of the five felony counts against Mr. Libby. But it remained unclear whether the change, which was not contested by the prosecutors, would matter in jury deliberations.

Tom picks out the part that will be deleted:

Barack Obama's in. A crowd of 5,000 is expected in Springfield, Ill as he makes his announcement.

For Obama, the nation's only black senator, it's an opportunity to compare his political message to that of Abraham Lincoln, another former Illinois legislator who stood in the same building and warned of the dangers of national division.

Obama's website will be running live streaming coverage of the announcement.

What holds 400 illegal immigrants from 30 countries, 170 of them children? The T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center, for which the Corrections Corporation of America receives $2.8 million per month.

A jail by any other name is still a jail. A detention camp is still a detention camp. That the prisoners wear scrubs instead of orange jumpsuits or pink underwear doesn't change a thing.

The Government invited the media today. Surprise, for the first time there was pizza on the menu. How humane. They brought in plastic potted plants to warm up the place. The Government says its more like a community college than a jail.

What a farce. Can the "students" leave? Of course not. It's a jail.

More...

I haven't been following the case of Lt. Ehren Watada, the soldier who refused to deploy to Iraq because he believes the war to be illegal and immoral, who proceeded to a courts martial trial this week, only to have the judge declare a mistrial at the prosecution's request after it had presented its witnesses.

What was up with that? Here's one view. And another.

Rudy Giuliani is trying to cover his pro-choice stance of the past. Rather than doing a direct flip-flop, he's praising President Bush's right-wing extremist judges.

In his recent travels, he has directed questions on the issue toward a discussion about judges, saying he would appoint jurists who believe in interpreting, not making, the law: judges, he said, like Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who he has said he believed would place limits on Roe v. Wade.

“On the federal judiciary I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am,” he said last week in South Carolina. “I have a very, very strong view that for this country to work, for our freedoms to be protected, judges have to interpret, not invent, the Constitution.

I am all in favor of amnesty for undocumented residents. President Bush's plan is neither amnesty nor open borders, but in response to critics who say it is, Karl Rove reportedly gave this ridiculous justification for Bush's plan at a women's luncheon this week:

According to a congressman's wife who attended a Republican women's luncheon yesterday, Karl Rove explained the rationale behind the president's amnesty/open-borders proposal this way: "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."

The Corner's Mark Krikorian responds:

There should be no need to explain why this is an obscene statement coming from a leader in the party that promotes the virtues of hard work, thrift, and sobriety, a party whose demi-god actually split fence rails as a young man, a party where "respectable Republican cloth coat" once actually meant something. But it does seem to be necessary to explain.

Rove's comment illustrates how the Bush-McCain-Giuliani-Hagel-Martinez-
Brownback-Huckabee approach to immigration strikes at the very heart of self-government. It is precisely Rove's son (and my own, and those of the rest of us in the educated elite) who should work picking tomatoes or making beds, or washing restaurant dishes, or mowing lawns, especially when they're young, to help them develop some of the personal and civic virtues needed for self-government. It's not that I want my kids to make careers of picking tomatoes; Mexican farmworkers don't want that either. But we must inculcate in our children, especially those likely to go on to high-paying occupations, that there is no such thing as work that is beneath them.

[hat tip Raw Story.]

Live Medical Examiner Press Conference

She was virtually dead on arrival at the hospital.

Excluded any physical injury such as blunt injury or asphyxia.

No determination of the cause of death. More tests are needed. But, there was no finding of prescription drugs in her stomach. Chemical tests are needed. No conclusion. Three possibilities: medical problems, medication related; combination.

Police Chief says there is no evidence of a crime. No illegal drugs found, only prescripton medicine. Everyone has cooperated fully.

Original Post: 2/8/06
R.I.P. Anna Nicole Smith

Anna Nicole Smith is dead at 39. May she rest in peace. She had such a troubled life.

I'm just catching up on the debate over whether "24" is a right wing show endorsing torture.

Jane Mayer in the New Yorker devotes three pages to the right-wing politics of Joel Surnow, the shows creator and executive producer.

I just started watching the show this season. There's an African-American President who is sensitive to the Constitution even though sometimes conflicted about the right thing to do, his sister who is an ACLU type lawyer and a female high level advisor who advocates against internment camps and argues for constitutional rights to counterbalance the ridiculous positions of the advisor who wants to trample rights (played by an ex- Ally McBeal co-star. There are also two former Six Feet Under characters and one from Commander in Chief now in "24".) There have also been scenes from detention camps revealing that many of the guys locked up had nothing to do with terrorism.

Last week, the show highlighted the absurd policy of making one of the CTU workers go through an extra clearance to log onto her computer because she was of middle eastern heritage. Also, there were plenty of American villains, including Jack Bauer's brother and father, and some guy named McCarthy who was willing to provide someone who could release the triggers on nuclear bombs in exchange for money.

More....

How about an open thread to get the weekend off and rolling? Some things I'm reading:

• A report by the Pentagon's Inspector General says Administration manipulated intel in linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in run-up to Iraq war. Attention is focused on the Office of Special Plans. Scarecrow at Firedoglake has more.

• Fired Seattle U.S. Attorney John McKay disputes DOJ allegations about his office's performance.

• CREW releases a report on the 25 most corrupt officials in the Bush Administration

• Arianna on the two trials going on in the Libby courtroom.

For Anna Nicole Smith, 1967 - 2007

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in

Graphics love to Politics TV.

After hours of more cross-examination of Tim Russert, the prosecution rested today in the Scooter Libby trial. Firedoglake has all the details.

It's hard to know where the defense plans to go — at times they seem to be claiming that Russert had a bad memory, at others that he was lying to cover his ass, and then at still others that he was lying because of malice toward Libby. But it never seemed to come together in some kind of consistent, cohesive view of what happened, and unless they can shake the jury's faith in Russert it's going to be tough to get them to believe Libby's story. The jurors seemed restless and uninterested throughout Wells' cross-examination of Russert, and aside from coming off as a bit of a scum for his First Amendment hypocrisy and his opacity with regard to how easily he gave up Libby's "confidentiality" to FBI agent Jack Eckenrode, he came off as credible.

Team Libby didn't manage to find any chinks in his armor that really seemed to cast much doubt on his really quite simple story about his conversation with Libby.

I guess Wells reverted back to his lumbering style of cross-examination that I witnessed last week. I'm sorry to hear that, not because I'm rooting for Libby but because I like a good,evenly matched trial and I like to see defense lawyers shine.

More....

Via Crooks and Liars:

Mary Matalin tries to talk her way out of her Russert-Hates-Matthews comment in Scooter Libby's notes. Nice try, no cigar. Video here.

Christy at Firedoglake has more of The Trouble With Mary.

Imus: Mary Matalin Is A Liar:  Imus, “None of you can tell the truth, it’s insane. It’s like a disease you guys have.”

Atrios has the transcript from the first call…..And the second call.