Via TPM, Brent Wilkes, the multi-millionaire defense contractor whom former Congressman Randy Cunningham named as one of those who bribed him, has added firepower to his legal team by hiring former Scott Peterson defender Mark Geragos. Wilkes is represented in D.C. by Nancy Luque.

Here's a long NYT profile of Wilkes in which he opened up to the paper.

Mr. Wilkes acknowledged that he was a willing participant in what he characterized as a “cutthroat” system in which campaign contributions were a prerequisite for federal contracts. “I attempted to get help and advice from people who could show me the way to do it right,” Mr. Wilkes said. “I played by their rules, and I played to win.”

Mr. Wilkes said he was speaking now to rebut false assertions about him by prosecutors and the news media. While it is unknown whether his account is complete and it is impossible to verify his recollections of certain conversations, many aspects of his story were confirmed by federal records, other documents and interviews with people involved in the events he described.

LEAP, a group of former law enforcement officers opposed to the war on drugs, visits Great Britain this week. Simon Jenkins, writing for the Sunday Timesonline (UK) argues against prohibition and for licensing. He outlines the failure of the war on drugs.

Most drug users can handle the harm it undoubtedly does them personally. To this extent there is no justification for the state interfering in a private activity. As with the control of alcohol, the regulation of outlets should be required only to protect minors, prevent adulteration and collect taxes. Other European countries are moving in this direction, at least with ecstasy, cannabis and heroin.

The Timesonline (UK) has a feature article on Barak Obama:

Obama will appear on Friday at the Saddleback church in Lake Forest, California, where at least 20,000 conservative Christians gather each week for services led by Pastor Rick Warren, the evangelical author of the bestselling inspirational book The Purpose Driven Life.

At first glance Warren and Obama appear the unlikeliest of allies — the conservative white preacher and the liberal black Democrat — yet aides to both confirmed last week that they have formed an intriguing friendship that may prove a key element in the next presidential campaign.

Bible-thumping didn't get Harold Ford elected. Can it help Obama?

Sean Bell, age 23, was shot and killed by police in a hail of bullets last night as he was leaving his bachelor party in Queens, just hours before his wedding.

Sean and his bride-to-be, 22 year old Nicole Paultre, had been together for several years and are the parents of two children, a three year old and a five year old.

More than 50 rounds were fired at the car he was driving. Sean was shot in the shoulder, neck and right arm. Two other young men were wounded.

Nancy Pelosi's pick for House Intelligence Chair has generated a lot of discussion. The two front-runners were Jane Harman and Alcee Hastings (discussed here.)

Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reports today that Pelosi is now considering two others for the position:

One is Rep. Norm Dicks, a onetime strong Iraq-war backer who has since joined ranks with Murtha and now wants a phased troop withdrawal. The other is Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a quiet Texas lawmaker and former Border Patrol official who opposed the Iraq war from the outset. The aforementioned leadership aide notes that Reyes may now have the upper hand for "political" reasons: the Hispanic Caucus is angry because it has no members in the new House leadership or chairing major committees. Pelosi appears to be "leaning toward" Reyes, the aide says, but "the truth is, nobody knows what she is going to do."

Author and lawyer Scott Turow opines in the New York Times Magazine today that Justice Anton Scalia is a civil libertarian who may decide against the Administration in terror cases.

On Scalia's originalist philosophy:

Justice Scalia is led to these seemingly divergent positions by his unyielding adherence to a school of constitutional interpretation called originalism. To Scalia, the Bill of Rights means exactly what it did in 1791, no more, no less. The needs of an evolving society, he says, should be addressed by legislation rather than the courts.

On the warrantless wiretap challenge when it gets to the high court:

The plan:

Over the past two days, warnings have spread through messages delivered to the cellphones of Sunni Muslims. In Arabic, they read:

"Very big armed groups are being formed in Sadr City, backed up by the Interior Ministry, to kill great numbers of the citizens of Baghdad once the curfew is lifted. Spread the word among our people."

It signed off: "A reliable source."

Guests are --

Meet the Press: Schwarzenegger.

FOX News Sunday: Charlie Rangel, Barney Frank, and John Dingell. Trent Lott.

Face the Nation (CBS): McCaskill of Missouri and Brown of Ohio and Corker of Tennessee.

This Week (ABC): King Abdullah II of Jordan and then Dick Durbin and Sam Brownback.

Late Edition (CNN): Senators Cornyn and Reed.

Rangel, Frank and Dingell being portrayed as Commies on Fox will be the lowlight - but they can fight so . . . that is what I would watch. Probably I'll just roll over and zzzzzzz.

I liked this from Stanley Fish on the emptiness of "bipartisanship:"

the phrase “common ground” is trickier than might first appear, for there are (at least) two kinds of common ground – one philosophical and one pragmatic – and the odds of success will change dramatically depending on which you are hoping to find. If you are seeking the philosophical version of common ground, you have entered a conversation that has been going on for thousands of years. The aim of that conversation is to identify the values or needs all men and women share simply by virtue of being human.

Countries, customs, economies and political systems differ greatly, but if there were something common to all of them – something cross-cultural or even trans-cultural – it could serve as the basis of cooperation even between those who disagree on almost everything. Even in the midst of conflict that appears to hold out no hope of resolution, the gridlock (one of our favorite words these days) could be broken if the warring parties reminded themselves that although they are divided on many issues, something basic unites them. Invoking “the welfare of the American people” (or some other facile piety) won’t do it, because what best promotes that welfare is precisely what people are arguing about. It has to be something at once deeper and more precise, something with an appeal so universal that merely to name it is enough to get combatants to lay down their swords and beat them into plowshares.

What Broder and Lieberman and Klein and Obama think is by merely invoking "common ground" and "bipartisanship" you have done something meaningful. Anyone not an idiot knows this is nonsense. Lieberman and Obama certainly know this. I doubt Broder does. Klein may not either. It is just political posturing. The essential emptiness of Broder-ism, Lieberman-ism and Obama-ism.

Pyschodrama as the best tool to win over jurors? The LA Times explains.

The article focuses on personal injury lawyers, but it is also used by criminal defense lawyers. It's a really interesting topic, bound to provoke strong reactions from non-lawyers. The article begins:

The lawyer stood sobbing in the center of a darkened hotel conference room, ringed by dozens of other personal-injury lawyers. As the attorney recalled the final moments of his mother's life, his voice cracked and his body shook with repressed grief. And all around the circle, the lawyers watching him also began to weep.

Then the others began to make their own confessions: "My parents died … ," one began, his voice husky with tears. "I was disconnected from my father …," another said. "All of a sudden, I thought about my mother … ," a third added.

The seminar leader is a lawyer named Judd Basile,who learned the method from Gerry Spence who has been teaching it at his trial college for years. Every lawyer I know how has attended Spence's 3 week course in Wyoming swears by it.

Iraq:

In a wave of reprisal killings, Shiite militiamen attacked Sunni mosques in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq on Friday, defying a government curfew and propelling the country further toward full-blown civil war. The exacting of revenge for the deaths of more than 200 Shiites on Thursday came as powerful politicians linked to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to pull out of Iraq's coalition government if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki attends a scheduled meeting with President Bush next week in Amman, Jordan. A boycott by loyalists of Sadr, on whom Maliki relies for political support, could upend Iraq's fragile unity government.

All hail the new leader of Iraq - Muktada Al Sadr. Well done Bush. Well done Dick. Well done Rummy. Well done Condi. Wolfowitz, Hadley, Bolton, Feith, McCain - Lieberman.

The glory is yours.

Matt Stoller, who has been on fire the last few days BTW, takes DC Gasbag Tom Edsall (who seems intent as being as successful as the car with the similar name) to task:

[Edsall] is one of the Old Wise Men of Washington, or a Very Serious Person, as Atrios would say. After that, I would sometimes read his work in the Washington Post and think 'who is this silly man?' His sources are obviously heavily stacked towards neoliberal insiders on the Democratic side, and he dismisses progressive activists and voters alike. Even though voters rejected an anti-labor anti-choice political party, the lesson for Edsall is that voters embraced an attack on labor and more restrictive abortion laws. It's not hard to figure out why Edsall believes this - peer pressure. Edsall's crowd is that of Harold Ickes, Rahm Emanuel, and Steny Hoyer, people who live in a rarefied world of Democratic elitism.