by TChris

Is cursing at an errant parker really a sign of mental illness, or just of bad manners?

The state Supreme Court ordered a psychiatric exam Thursday for a judge accused of violating the state judicial code by cursing at Detroit Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams when he parked in a spot reserved for judges.

Perhaps the exam was ordered because this wasn't Judge David Bradfield's first angry encounter in a parking lot.

The retired judge [who investigated Bradfield] also concluded that Bradfield committed misconduct in October 2002 when he became hostile with a parking attendant.

by TChris

Which is more important to the Senate: protecting the troops from harm, or enhancing the profits of defense contractors? Here's a clue:

A Senate measure to fund the war in Iraq would chop money for troops' night vision equipment and new battle vehicles but add $230 million for a tilt-rotor aircraft that has already cost $18 billion and is still facing safety questions.

President Bush's request for the emergency appropriations to cover costs of the continuing war and Hurricane Katrina recovery operations included no money for the troubled V-22 Osprey, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a plane.

I see lots of news out there, but I'll be offline most of the day. Here's a place to talk about it.

Update: In the coincidence department: Has anyone noticed that the name of the father of one of the accused in the Duke Lacrosse case is Kevin Finnerty, the same name as the guy who switched identites with Tony Soprano in the dream sequences in episodes 1 and 2 of the Sopranos? You gotta feel for the guy.

Second, does anyone want to take bets on when Gloria Allred will step in to represent the accuser in the Duke case purportedly pro bono (but of course for the book rights)?

On a completely unrelated topic, Crooks and Liars reports on a new Fox News poll showing Bush's approval ratings have slipped to 33%.

Jason Leopold reports Fitzgerald met with the PlameGate grand jury yesterday and told them he is preparing mulitple charges against Karl Rove.

Jason also interviewed Rove lawyer Robert Luskin yesterday.

"Mr. Rove is still a subject of the investigation," Luskin said. In a previous interview, Luskin asserted that Rove would not be indicted by Fitzgerald, but he was unwilling to make that prediction again Wednesday.

"Mr. Fitzgerald hasn't made any decision on the charges and I can't speculate what the outcome will be," Luskin said. "Mr. Rove has cooperated completely with the investigation."

Does Luskin's refusal to continue to maintain Rove won't be indicted mean he isn't sure or that he's resigned to an Indictment? I don't know, but Jason seems certain an Indictment is looming.

Update: The cab driver's story about his second trip to pick up players at the party becomes even more suspect. CNN reports:

Less than an hour after he says he picked up Seligmann and a friend, Mostafa says he got another call -- at around 1:07 a.m. March 14 -- to pick up people at the same North Buchanan address. He said he saw about 20 people on the lawn of the home, "yelling, talking back" to each other, including one African-American woman who he said didn't appear to be injured.

Four men got into the taxi, Mostafa said, and they appeared to be drunk. One of them said, "She's just a stripper," Mostafa quoted.

When the police arrived at the house at 12:55 am, two minutes after the second dancer's first 911 call, the house appeared deserted. The women were already gone. They left at 12:41.

*****
Original Post:

In the Duke lacrosse players case, the search warrants of the indicted players' rooms were filed today. You can view the warrant here.

by TChris

For whatever reason, Zacarias Moussaoui testified that he had planned to fly a plane into the White House on Sept. 11 with Richard Reid. That testimony made no sense, as the government agreed today. Moussaoui's lawyers and the prosecution stipulated that this evidence would be placed before the jury in the death penalty phase of Mousaoui's trial:

"There is no information to indicate that Richard Reid had preknowledge of the 9/11 attacks or was instructed by al-Qaeda leadership to conduct an operation in coordination with Moussaoui." The document pointed out that Reid had left his possessions to Moussaoui in his will before Reid mounted a separate attack in December 2001 in which he tried to blow up a transatlantic flight with a bomb in his shoe.

"In the opinion of the FBI," the document said "if Reid was to be part of the same martyrdom operation as Moussaoui, it is unlikely he would have bequeathed his possessions to Moussaoui."

Update: (TL): The New York Times reports on the Government's concession that Reid was not involved here.

by TChris

President Bush has been miserly in the exercise of his pardon power.

Bush has issued 82 pardons and sentence commutations during 63 months in office, mainly to allow people who committed relatively minor offenses and served their sentences long ago to clear their names.

Only two of the 82 were sentence commutations, and they involved token reductions of time. The numbers include 11 pardons he granted yesterday. This one and this one and this one were for people who committed tax crimes in the 1980's. Tax crimes probably don't bother the president much. A more humane and productive use of the pardon power is illustrated in this post.

Margaret Colgate Love, who served as US Pardon Attorney under two administrations, has some advice for President Bush, courtesy of Sentencing Law and Policy:

by TChris

When did this become true?

"ICE has no tolerance for corporate officers who harbor illegal aliens for their work force," [said ICE chief Julie Myers].

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been quite tolerant of the business community's desire to employ aliens who haven't been authorized to work. If ICE made a serious effort to hold corporate executives accountable, the GOP's corporate base would howl in protest.

Still, the poll numbers are down, immigration is the hot new issue, and the administration needs to look like it's doing something. It's time to look tough. Raids at several businesses across the country today netted the corporate community's sacrifice to ICE's new zero tolerance enforcement policy.

I'm hearing rumors that Fitz met with the Valerie Plame grand jury this morning. and Rove was the topic of discussion. Perhaps as Jason Leopold reported a few weeks ago, the paperwork for charges is being prepared. More on that here.

I'll be out at Markos' book signing and Drinking Liberally with the TL kid, so if there's any news in the meantime, please update in the comments.

Sidney Blumenthal also reports the investigation is turning towards Karl Rove.

Think Progress wonders whether Karl Rove has lost his security clearance which could account for his shift in positions.

In November, Newsweek wrote, "Having his security clearance yanked would not require Rove to resign as deputy chief of staff to President Bush. But it would prevent him from taking part in policymaking that relates to national-security issues, which would mean a much-reduced role in the Bush White House."

Rove has now resigned his policy-making post and is focusing primarily on politics. Given Rove's public intentions to make national security the focus of the 2006 elections, the White House should reveal whether Rove will be doing his political job while holding a security clearance.

If you're near Denver, the place to be tonight is Lodo's Tattered Cover where Markos will be discussing his book and signing copies, followed by Drinking Liberally where he will be available for discussion.

5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
The Tattered Cover Bookstore
1628 16th Street
Denver, CO

7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Double Daughters (Drinking Liberally)
1632 Market Street
Denver, CO

The TL kid and I took Markos to lunch yesterday at Avenue Grill where we got to catch up on the past year and hear about his plans for the future.

At least it's out in the open. The Washington Times Reports:

The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to gauge the reliability of the content, said OSC Director Douglas J. Naquin.

"A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we're getting a lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to ... people putting information on there that doesn't exist anywhere else," Mr. Naquin told The Washington Times.

]Hat tip Patriot Daily.]