Bump and Update: It's 24 years for Skilling who went down fighting, proclaiming his innocence to the court. His guidelines were 24 to 30 years.

In a Houston courtroom today, former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling will learn his fate.

With the untimely death of his co-defendant, former Enron CEO Ken Lay, Skilling now stands alone atop the smoldering ruins of a company that once claimed revenues of $111 billion and was named "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years.

I expect Skilling will get a hefty sentence, but I don't buy the theory that it will be heavier because Lay's death leaves him the only one to be held accountable. I think the Judge will give Skilling the same number of years in prison he would have imposed if he were sentencing both Skilling and Lay today.

At TAPPED, Scott Lemeiux catches Justice Scalia fibbing again:

One student asked whether Scalia believed the 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore was an example of judicial activism . . . "My first response to that question always is, it's six years ago. Get over it!" Scalia said. He then explained that "It surely is not activist to apply the text of the Constitution, which is what the court did."

Six years? Get over it? Heck, Roe was 33 years ago. When you gonna get over that Justice Scalia? But the more serious point is the claim of textualism for Bush v. Gore. Let's discuss it on the other side.

Bob Menendez's new ad is a good one. I agree with Greg Sargent:

Dem Senator Robert Menendez has a new ad up which is definitely worth a look, because it does something we haven't seen in a Dem ad this cycle: It takes a key Republican attack line -- the idea that big things like our safety and freedom are "at stake" in this election -- and turns it on the GOP. The ad, aptly called "Big," unabashedly proclaims that big things are indeed "at stake," which is exactly why you should vote Democratic.

Menendez draws a strong contrast with his GOP opponent on Iraq, Social Security and Choice. Other Dem candidates could use other issues like the minimum wage and stem cell research. This is the way to go down the stretch it seems to me.

Josh Marshall writes a very good one on the psychology game that the Bush Administration is playing with the American people on Iraq:

Think of the president as a failed or deadbeat entrepreneur (again, not such a stretch) who's already lost his investors a ton of money. He goes back to them and says, 'Okay, fine. You think I'm a moron and a screw-up who lost you guys a ton of money. Fine. But do you really want to finally, totally, conclusively kiss that $300 billion goodbye. You wanna just totally call it quits? Admit it's a total loss? What about giving me just another $10 billion and maybe somehow I'll actually pull this off? Or, since that's just not gonna happen, a mere $10 billion to put off for six months having to write the whole thing off as a loss, having to come to grips once and for all with the fact that all the money's gonna and the whole thing's a bust?'

That's really what this is about. And I think we all know it pretty much across the political spectrum. In this way, paradoxically, the very magnitude of the president's failure has become his tacit ally. It's just such a big thing to come to grips with. And reinvesting in the president's folly, even after any hope of recouping the money is gone, carries the critical fringe benefit of sustaining our own collective and increasing threadbare denial.

It is all just political skirmishing now. Iraq is lost. The question is when do we admit it? And how many American soldiers die until we do?

Bob Herbert says:

The giddiness surrounding the Obama phenomenon seems to be an old-fashioned mixture of fun, excitement and a great deal of hope. His smile is electric, and when he laughs people tend to laugh with him. He’s the kind of politician who makes people feel good. But the giddiness is crying out for a reality check. There’s a reason why so many Republicans are saying nice things about Mr. Obama, and urging him to run. . . . If I were advising him, I would tell him not to move too fast. With a few more years in the Senate, possibly with a powerful committee chairmanship if the Democrats take control, he could build a formidable record and develop the kind of toughness and savvy that are essential in the ugly and brutal combat of a presidential campaign.

After accusing Democrats of emboldening the terrorists by criticizing President Bush's Iraq Debacle, the shameless unprincipled hack de facto Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut now wants to bring the troops home.

What a piece of work. Joe will say anything to save his and President Bush's political skins.

I'm working at my day job today and tomorrow in beautiful Telluride. The weather is spectacular, it's off-season and the town is empty and it's days like these I really appreciate what I do for a living.

For those of you with the time and inclination, here's an open thread and I'll check in late this evening. (Yesterday we worked nonstop from 9 am until 11 pm, I suspect today will be a repeat.)

When I defended Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy earlier, I must admit it was not because I was thinking of this:

Could it be that Howard Dean is really a savvy political strategist? . . [F]ollowing the Mark Foley scandal, Democrats are talking about not just winning the House but piling up as many as 40 new seats and also capturing the Senate. And some of the places where they are now competing lie in the blood-red states where Dean has been on his lonely crusade to find blue voters. . . . "If we win a House seat in Nebraska, Howard Dean will get more credit than Rahm Emanuel," says Barry Rubin, executive director of the Nebraska Democratic Party.

I disagree with Atrios when he says:

[W]hether you gave the thumbs up or thumbs down to any particular conflict, no matter how right or wrong it seems after the fact, doesn't necessarily say all that much about you. However, I would say an exception to that is the current conflict in Iraq, which was sold to the country in an especially divisive and dishonest manner. Supporting this war wasn't just about supporting the war, but "supporting the supporters" who, by the time the bombs dropped at least, had clearly demonstrated that they were very bad people who were not acting in good faith. Though, I suppose, they weren't quite as smelly and annoying as Some Guy With A Sign somewhere.

I disagree because I believe that the policies you support, be they war, tax cuts or what have you do of course say a lot about your judgment. War being the most important decision, it especially says something about you how you decided and what you decided on that question. He is also wrong to say that supporting the Iraq Debacle made you, by necessity, a Bush supporter. Why would it do that? Because atrios thought they were "very bad people"? That is not convincing. More on the flip.

On ABCNews.com last night and this morning is this story: Electronic Voting Machines Could Skew Elections. A former Maryland state legislator received an anonymous envelope with three CD-Roms inside containing the source codes for the Diebold election systems.  With these codes, an election could be stolen.  Life imitates art ("Man of the Year"), or art imitates life? The source codes? What are kind of company are they running there?

When I watched "Man of the Year," all I could think of was President Bush stealing the 2004 election in Ohio.  

TChris wrote about Diebold security concerns here five months ago.

Another Radical Centrist speaks:

Why, then, should the Democrats hold back? Because, we’re told, the country needs less divisiveness. And I, too, would like to see a return to kinder, gentler politics. But that’s not something Democrats can achieve with a group hug and a chorus of “Kumbaya.”

The reason we have so much bitter partisanship these days is that that’s the way the radicals who have taken over the Republican Party want it. . . .

As long as polarization is integral to the G.O.P.’s strategy, Democrats can’t do much.

You'll recall the Bush administration's admission that the Education Department secretly paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to promote No Child Left Behind, and the GAO's conclusion that the Department violated a law that prohibits the government from using covert propoganda to further a political agenda.

As a propogandist, Williams apparently didn't deliver to the administration's satisfaction. Williams agreed to settle the government's claim that he was overpaid.

In the settlement, the Justice Department examined whether Mr. Williams had performed the work promised in his $240,000 contract, signed in 2003 and cited in his reports to the Education Department.

Williams agreed to repay $34,000. The administration is evidently satisified that Williams delivered $206,000 worth of illegal propoganda.