There goes another one. Lester Crawford, who was Bush's FDA director in 2005, has been charged with lying about stock ownership in companies regulated by the FDA. He will plead guilty tomorrow in federal court to the Information filed today.

The court papers also say that Crawford chaired FDA's Obesity Working Group at a time when he and his wife owned stock in soft drink and snack food manufacturer Pepsico Inc., based in Purchase, N.Y., and food product manufacturer Sysco Corp., based in Houston.

The panel Crawford was chairing was making decisions affecting food and soft drink manufacturers. Crawford, a veterinarian, abruptly resigned from the FDA job in September 2005 but gave no reason for his decision to step down. He had held the top position for just two months but had been acting head of the regulatory agency for more than a year.

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Update: Lynne Stewart got 28 months, not 30 years. Huge defeat for the Government. Congrats to Lynne. Now she won't die in prison.

************
Original Post:

New York criminal defense lawyer Lynne Stewart faces sentencing today on her conviction for providing material support for terrorists by passing along messages from her imprisoned client, the blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. The Government is asking for 30 years for the 67 year old lawyer who suffers from breast cancer and other ailments.

A psychiatric report submitted to the federal judge in Manhattan who will decide the sentence, John Koeltl, claims that several emotional events in Stewart's life suggest her actions were motivated by "human factors of her client and his situation" and not by politics, according to portions of the psychiatric report.

The psychiatrist, Steven Teich, points to 11 emotional events that he claims prompted her to want to take action on Abdel Rahman's behalf, Stewart's attorneys say. Among the events that make Dr.Teich's list are her experiences seeing Abdel Rahman incarcerated and the 1995 suicide of a drug defendant named Dominick Maldonado, whom Stewart had once represented.

The psych report is sealed, but here are some more details:

The judge has reached a verdict in Saddam Hussein's trial. Both the verdict and sentence will be announced on November 5.

A death sentence for Saddam two days before election day?

[Hat tip Patriot Daily.]

(By Big Tent Democrat)

Today at 1 p.m. EST is the first of three Connecticut Senate Debstes with Ned Lamont, the Democrat candidate, Joe Lieberman, the de facto Republican candidate and Alan Schlesinger, the forlorn and abandoned Republican candidate.

If you are as interested in this race as I am, you'll want to tune in here and you can via the Internet if you are not in Connecticut.

TalkLeft has moved to Scoop. The problems with comments are resolved. Just register once, and you will be set.

I hope you like the new ease of commenting. Once you register, you can post comments. If you want to be able to post diaries, e-mail me and I will consider re-setting your permissions to be able to do so.

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It's taken 40 days and 40 nights and more than a few thousand dollars. Be kind.

If you have problems, e-mail me.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Yet another Republican House member is under investigation--for influence peddling.

AP reports today that Rep. Curt Weldon, R-PA 7, is under federal investigation for seeking lobbying and consulting contracts worth over $1M for his daughter Karen. Weldon's staff denied knowledge of an investigation with an interesting choice of words:

After yet another 20 hours of working on the site migration to Scoop yesterday and today, it looks like it will be early morning before we go live. To tide you over, here's Tom Petty and Eddie Vedder in Denver performing The Waiting (is The Hardest Part.)

From Big Tent Democrat

Arianna writes what a lot of people have been thinking, including me:

It is bitterly ironic that instead of building on that momentum by continuing to make his case against Lieberman, Lamont has let himself become enmeshed in the same consultant-driven culture of caution and blandness that has produced a steady stream of modern candidates more worried about stepping on the land mines laid out by their opponents' campaign teams than stepping forward to lead.

On 60 Minutes, Ed Bradley is interviewing the Duke Lacrosse players charged in the Duke lacrosse alleged rape case, and the second dancer.

There's lots of discussion in the TalkLeft forums, but you can comment here as well.

Is the D.A.'s case hopeless? I'll be back with my thoughts after it airs here.

Who says legalization and decriminalization don't work? In Europe, marijuana use has dropped sharply, while cocaine use has risen.

British figures .... show that the popularity of cannabis in the UK has plummeted, with 600,000 fewer people smoking or eating marijuana than three years ago. The Home Office statistics, released last week, also show that consumption of cocaine in Britain has risen.

The figures will help the British government and other European nations with more liberal drug laws such as Holland and Switzerland rebut claims that their approach to cannabis leads to increased use of the drug. The growing cocaine use will, however, worry European anti-narcotics police and many politicians.

(From Big Tent Democrat)

Steve Gilliard writes an interesting post that, in my view, is right in some things and wrong in others. One thing definitely wrong is this:

Ok, let's say that the Dems were ambushed in 2000 and got seriously sh*tty advice on how to fight the ballot issues. The Dems were listening to bullsh*t about continuity of government and trust in elections. So they shrunk from the fight. Stolen? Yeah, in the time honored tradition of intimidation and rules lawyering. If you look at who showed up in Florida, like John Bolton and other future White House staffers, the GOP brought their A game and Gore thought they were playing by the rules of the past. Ooops.

In a word, nonsense. Gore brought the best lawyer (in my opinion) in America, David Boies, to this gunfight, and but for a lawless U.S. Supreme Court, Gore wins.

Other things right and wrong in Gilliard's piece on the other side.