The Washington Post reports that two of the coveted media seats in the Scooter Libby trial will go to bloggers.

After two years of negotiations with judicial officials across the country, the Media Bloggers Association, a nonpartisan group with about 1,000 members working to extend the powers of the press to bloggers, has won credentials to rotate among his members. The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the highest-ranking Bush administration official to face criminal charges, could "catalyze" the association's efforts to win respect and access for bloggers in federal and state courthouses, said Robert Cox, the association's president.

Firedoglake announced last week that with the aid of Arianna Huffington, it had been granted a press pass for the trial.

Here are some excerpts from Bush's speech tonight.

Several Republicans are balking at the plan:

A number of Republican senators -- including Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Sen. Olympia Snow of Maine and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas -- have publicly questioned whether Bush's plan to increase troop strength will help stabilize Iraq.

"A troop surge in Baghdad would put more American troops at risk to address a problem that is not a military problem," Coleman said Wednesday on the Senate floor.

"It would put more American soldiers in the cross hairs of sectarian violence and create more targets. I just don't believe this makes sense," Coleman said.

Democrats are upset, among other things, at Bush's lack of consultation with them over the plan. By the time he met with them, the plan was a fait accompli.

President Bush hasn't even given his speech yet, but the first new surge of troops is already en route to Baghdad and more are scheduled to leave tomorrow:

Ninety advance troops from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in Baghdad today. An additional battalion of roughly 100 troops from the same division are expected to arrive in Baghdad Thursday.

There will also be more call-ups from the National Guard.

What's different about this troop surge? According to military commanders, the troops will be residing in local Iraqi neighborhoods:

New York's losing Attorney General candidate, Jeanine Pirro, won't be crying in her spilled milk.

Instead, she'll be raking in $1 million a year as host of her own Warner Brothers television talk show.

Good luck Jeanine, break a leg. We are all much safer and freer with you on television than directing crime policy.

My prediction: the show will be a big hit. Guilt still sells in America.

Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton has unveiled a new approach to fighting gang crime.

The strategy is to concentrate on the gangs causing the most violence, to have the courts impose "stay away" orders as conditions of probation to make it easier to return violators to jail and to use the abatement and nuisance laws that allow the state to close and seize properties where gang members congregate.

Thoughts?

Two of the most publicized atrocities by U.S. soldiers in the War in Iraq have been Haditha and Mahmoudiya.

Today, the Associated Press reports that its own investigation into Mahmoudiya revealed the U.S. was aware PFC Steven Green, who allegedly raped a teenage Iraqi girl and killed her and her family, was known to have homicidal tendencies and a desire to strike out and kill Iraqis three months before the tragic event.

Now the U.S. is killing suspected Islamocists in Somalia in the name of the war on terror. But it's not releasing any details.

Are we about to get into another pre-emptive war or are we trying to bring democracy to Somalia or do we just believe we can go anywhere in the world and kill people because they might be al-Qaida followers?

Thoughts?

This is absolutely astonishing.

The chief judge in the city’s juvenile courts had a top public defender arrested Tuesday in a bizarre escalation of a fight over changes in the city’s troubled program for representing indigent defendants.

The judge, David Bell, was upset that no public defender was in his courtroom when he was ready to start this morning, and he drove to the defender’s office and waited outside for Stephen Singer, the chief of trials, to arrive.

The judge took Mr. Singer to his courtroom, where he found him in contempt for not being prepared to provide representation and ordered him jailed for 36 days, three days for each of the 12 items on Tuesday’s docket. Mr. Singer then spent about five hours in jail before a state appeals court stayed the order.

The New Orleans criminal justice system has been in a heightened state of crisis since Katrina. If there aren't enough public defenders to go around, the state needs to increase the funding to hire more of them -- not blame the already overworked, overburdened current defenders who are doing more than their fair share of the work.

J. Stephen Griles is now in the Justice Department's cross-hairs.

Federal prosecutors have notified a former deputy secretary of the interior, J. Steven Griles, that he is a target in the public corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff's lobbying activities, sources knowledgeable about the probe said.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that among the possible criminal charges being investigated is whether Griles made false statements to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2005 about job discussions Abramoff initiated while Griles was deputy secretary. Griles's attorneys did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.

When Griles folds, will he implicate former Interior Secretary Gale Norton?

I've been reading all day about the Apple iPhone. It looks very cool. But I kept wondering, what does it have that the Treo doesn't have?

I just got the Treo 680 over the holidays, so the TL kid could take my Motorola Razor - he had a dinosaur of a Nokia.

Aside from the fact that the Treo's phone reception sucks and the battery needs daily recharging, I finally figured out most of its bells and whistles and I like it.

I love my video iPod, but I'm wondering whether I'd shell out $500 to $600 bucks for a new one just because it has a phone and a touch screen.

Logic like this escapes me:

To answer my own question - Yes. But not in the way that is being discussed today by Senator Kennedy:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Section 1. Prohibition on use of funds for escalation of United States forces in Iraq.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal funds may be obligated or expended by the United States Government to increase the number of United States forces in Iraq above the level for such forces which existed as of January 1, 2007, without a specific authorization of Congress by law for such an increase.

Of course, as a practical matter, the President can and will veto any such legislation. But even if such a veto could be overridden, the law would be an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers, impinging on the President's power as Commander in Chief in Wartime. In order to act in the manner Senator Kennedy wishes, the Congress must strip the President of the power the Congress granted him to wage war in Iraq. To wit, the Congress needs to "undeclare" the Iraq Debacle by repealing the Iraq War resolution. A new resolution can be approved authorizing the use of force in Iraq for a purpose the Congress wishes, but I believe Senator Kennedy is wrong when he says:

In October 2002, Members of Congress authorized a war against the regime of Saddam Hussein, not to send our troops into a civil war. I voted against that resolution and feel an escalation of this war only compounds the original mistake of going in the first place.

Congress authorization was broader than this:

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.

This blanket grant of war power to the President was a disgrace. But it was done. And now it must be undone. More.

The first good result from the November elections...

William Haynes, William G. Myers III and Terrence Boyle had all decided to abandon their quest for confirmation. Another nominee, Michael Wallace, let it be known last month that he, too, had asked Bush to withdraw his nomination.

Sen. Patrick Leahy says only consensus nominees have a chance of being confirmed.