There's been lots of blogging coverage of Scooter Libby's first day of trial. In addition to those I mentioned in earlier posts, Christy at Firedoglake who was in the real (not media) courtroom posts this wrap-up.

As to Ted Wells' opening argument, I'm a bit surprised he chose to go after Rove so hard. It leads me to believe Rove won't be a witness. If Libby were to call him, surely he'd be a hostile witness after today's opening. I don't think Ted Wells wants to go mano - a - mano with Rove, not with Fitz backing Rove and Rove not impeachable on grounds he got a deal. There's no evidence Fitzgerald gave Rove anything for his multiple grand jury appearances.

Until today, Wells had a clean defense: Libby forgot and didn't intend to mislead investigators or the grand jury. Wilson's wife was just a speck in the grand scheme of things. Now, he's put Libby in the midst of an alleged frame-up. That's going to be a tough sell to the jury. But, given the Judge's refusal to allow a decent instruction on the principles of memory, maybe Wells needed a backup defense.

But that's not the headline for today. The real headline is much bigger and with far graver consequences to Libby. More below the fold.

Kudos to TalkLeft contributer Last Night in Little Rock (aka John Wesley Hall of Little Rock, AR) for filing a motion challenging Alberto Gonzales' firing of U.S. Attorneys across the country and replacing them with political "appointees" who do not have to be confirmed by the Senate.

Hall was appointed by the court to represent a death penalty defendant last week and filed this motion (pdf) today. He argues that the "appointment" of U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin violates Art. II of the Constitution and Sec. 541 of Title 28 of the U.S. Code.

Why did Gonzales replace U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins with Griffin?

So far, seven U.S. Attorneys around the country have been fired and replaced by political appointees without confirmation by the Senate. The requirement was abolished by a provision in the Patriot Act that allows recess appointments.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched its biggest series of arrests of undocumented residents this week in Los Angeles as part of Operation Return to Sender. 761 people were arrested, most of them at home or in local jails.

The government says most of them were under deportation orders or had previously been deported.

What about the rest of them? How many had merely overstayed a visa or had no prior contact with law enforcement?

Those that were arrested in jail will have to finish serving their sentences before being turned over for deporation. Guess who pays for their incarceration? You, the taxpayer. Why not just deport them now?

If you missed out on Hillary Clinton's live webcast last night, you can participate tonight.

Have a question for the Senator? Log on and ask it.

Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-CA) has introduced the Federal Election Integrity Act (H.R. 101.) It would prohibit chief state election officials from engaging in political activity on behalf of federal candidates over whose elections the officials have supervisory authority.

How would this help? According to Rep. Davis's office (received by e-mail, no link)

This bill would prevent the troubling conflicts of interest that we saw in the cases of Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris.

Whether the bill gets a hearing or even traction, depends in part on you. If you support it, contact your own member of Congress and ask them to sign on as co-sponsors of H.R. 101.

Empty Wheel is live-blogging part two of Ted Wells' opening statement.

Finally, some news of who got immunity to testify against Libby: Ari Fleischer, for one. Wells told the jury:

When the FBI wanted to talk to Ari, he pled the fifth, refused to testify unless he was immunized. After being immunized he said he had this conversation with Libby.

Here is some TalkLeft background on Ari's involvement in the case, and why he is such a harmful witness to Libby.

Update: Marcy reports (link above) Wells tells the jury Ari leaked to NBC reporter David Gregory.

Ari dislcoses to David Gregory on July 11 that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.

The Innocence Project reports that Roy Brown, the 8th New York prisoner in 13 months, will be freed from prison today because DNA testing has established his innocence.

Roy Brown solved the case from his jail cell.

“This is unlike any case we’ve ever seen. Roy Brown broke the case from his prison cell and confronted the actual perpetrator, who in turn killed himself. The true perpetrator’s courageous daughter then volunteered her own DNA sample, only to have the judge who oversaw Roy’s trial refuse to release him – saying that he had more confidence in the highly questionable practice of ‘bite-mark’ analysis than in the hard science of DNA.

Only after the true perpetrator’s body was exhumed and subjected to DNA testing did prosecutors accept the truth,” said Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence Project. “Today, exactly 15 years after he was convicted, the truth has finally set Roy Brown free.

This is just more evidence that New York needs to establish an Innocence Commission:

Eyewitness testimony, often the worst evidence a jury can rely upon, sent Willie Williams to prison more than 21 years ago. Today he walks free, thanks to the Georgia Innocence Project, which used new DNA testing to establish that he wasn't the man who raped a woman in 1985.

The victim told the jury that she was certain of Williams' guilt. Unfortunately, the jury didn't know that the certainty of an identification doesn't correlate with accuracy. Victims typically focus their attention on guns and the trauma of the moment, not on faces. And they typically believe the police officers who assure them that the "right guy" has been arrested.

The DNA evidence was marked for destruction, and it was only by happenstance that the evidence was preserved until a 2003 Georgia law required the state to maintain DNA evidence. Every state should enact a similar law to help free people like Willie Williams from their wrongful imprisonments.

A huge thanks to Empty Wheel who live-blogged Fitzgerald's and Ted Wells' opening statments this morning over at Firedoglake. Wells will continue his statement this afternoon.

Shorter Version so far: Libby says the White House set him up to take the fall for Karl Rove.

Attorney Theodore Wells, in the opening statements of I. Lewis Libby's perjury trial, said Libby went to Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003 and complained that the White House was subtly blaming him for leaking Valerie Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak.

''They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb,'' Wells said, recalling the conversation between Libby and Cheney. ''I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected.''

More below the fold, to be updated throughout the day. Also, if you'd like your own place to discuss the trial, you can use the TalkLeft Libby Forums. Free registration is required as they are on a different part of the TL server than the blog.

In striking down California's sentencing law yesterday which allowed judges, as opposed to juries, to determine aggravating factors warranting an increase in a criminal sentence, the Supreme Court further solidified the principles it began with its Apprendi, Blakely and Booker decisions. The New York Times provides this analysis.

First, the prior cases in a nutshell,

[Apprendi]invalidated New Jersey’s hate-crime statute, which gave judges the power to make the specific factual findings that converted an ordinary crime into a hate crime, with an enhanced sentence. The court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury gave that role to juries.

As President Bush gets ready for yet another State of the Union Address, his poll numbers have dropped to levels that rival Richard Nixon's.

President George W. Bush's approval ratings are now the lowest for any president the day before a State of the Union speech since Richard Nixon in 1974, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said they disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as president while 33 percent approve. The rating matches Bush's career low in a May 2006 poll.

Seventy-one percent of Americans said the country is on the wrong track, up from 46 percent in an April 2003 poll, the month after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. A majority of those polled this month don't approve of how Bush is handling the Iraq war, terrorism or the economy.

CNN's most recent poll also shows a big drop for Bush.

The jury has been seated in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Christy at Firedoglake reports the jury is composed of:

9 Women, 3 Men
10 Caucasian, 2 African American And one of the Caucasian women may or may not be Hispanic — there's some uncertainty there.)

....The alternate jurors are summed up as 2 African American women, 1 white woman and one white man.

As for occupation: