by TChris

After Jose Padilla was arrested in May 2002, John Ashcroft “interrupted a trip to Moscow to announce on television that the authorities had foiled an effort by Mr. Padilla and other Qaeda operatives to detonate a radioactive or ‘dirty’ bomb on American streets.” Three-and-a-half years later, Padilla has finally been charged -- but not with attempting to detonate a bomb on American soil.

In June 2004, the Justice Department claimed Padilla had “plotted to blow up apartment buildings and hotels, perhaps in New York.” But he hasn’t been charged with conspiring to destroy property in the United States.

How does Attorney General Gonzalez explain the administration’s change of heart? He claims the administration’s decision to hold Padilla for more than three years, first as a material witness and then as an uncharged “enemy combatant,” as well as the administration’s previous accusations of wrongdoing, are “legally irrelevant to the charges we’re bringing today.”

Padilla’s lawyers disagree.

The Wall Street Journal (free link) reports on a Harris poll finding that a majority of U.S. adults believe the Bush administration generally misleads the public on current issues, while only 32% believe the information provided by the administration is generally accurate.

When asked about former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who has been indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements, more than half of U.S. adults say the situation indicates "a larger problem in the Bush administration," while 35% say it was an "isolated incident." About 82% of Democrats say it indicates a larger problem, while 70% of Republicans feel the Libby case is an isolated incident.

David Fiderer has a play by play of NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell's various comments about the Valerie Plame leak and when she first learned from a White House official that Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Tom Maguire of Just One Minute responds to Fiderer.

Jane at Firedog Lake continues to dig into Dick Cheney's role. Crooks and Liars shares his views on Woodward and LKL here.

Congressman Murtha blogs today over at Huffington Post. 78% of the responses he's received to his call for bringing the troops home have been positive. He's now calling for a White House meeting.

A Guantanamo detainee is suing to be allowed to have a copy of the bible. The prison only allows inmates to have the Koran.

Saifullah Paracha has been held at Guanatanamo the past three years. He is a 58 year old Pakistani businessman. At his request, his lawyer sent him a bible, which is an accepted holy text in Islamic teachings, and two Shakespeare plays, Hamlet and Julius Casear. The prison blocked delivery of the books.

After review, prison officials relented on Shakespeare but not the bible.

Government lawyers said Paracha had not shown that the practice of his religion had been "substantially burdened" because he did not have a copy of the Bible.

Murray Waas' latest article concerns a presidential briefing paper written 10 days after September 11, 2001 that says,"U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda."

The highly classified CIA assessment was distributed to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the president's national security adviser and deputy national security adviser, the secretaries and undersecretaries of State and Defense, and various other senior Bush administration policy makers, according to government records.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the White House for the CIA assessment, the PDB of September 21, 2001, and dozens of other PDBs as part of the committee's ongoing investigation into whether the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information in the run-up to war with Iraq. The Bush administration has refused to turn over these documents.

Crooks and Liars raises some good questions about Tim Russert's refusal to say whether Chris Matthews was the MSNBC host Libby called him to rant about back in July, 2003. Matthews had no such compunction about acknowledging it, according to Michael Smerconish, who interviewed Matthews about it. It seems Russert may not have called Matthews right away to tell him, but he sure heard about it from him later. I pointed out the most likely show Libby was complaining about the day of Libby's indictment.

Matthews' comments to Smerconish:

People for the American Way have launched their new anti-Alito ad, Fool Me Once. You can watch it online. From the text:

President Bush is trying to fool Americans into thinking that Sam Alito is a mainstream judicial nominee, which is why PFAW is committed to exposing the truth about Alito’s record and his judicial philosophy. This ad recounts troubling Alito rulings and legal positions, including his voting to uphold a strip search of a 10-year old girl without a valid warrant, his unsuccessful effort as an appeals court judge to declare a law regulating machine guns unconstitutional, and his declaration while in the Justice Department that the Constitution does not protect a woman’s right to choose an abortion.

Here are the reasons PFAW opposes Alito. And here's a handy guide where you can read about Judge Alito's decisions, with free links to the opinions themselves.

Fox News is refusing to air the ad.

Bump and update: Don't miss part two and three of the Houston Chronicle series on Ruben Cantu. Also, Instapundit weighs in with some criticism for the prosecutor in the case and the system in general. Law Prof Dan Markel has more thoughts.

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Original Post:

Did Texas execute an innocent man - one who was 17 at the time of his alleged crime and had no prior convictions? The Houston Chronicle today features the case of Ruben Cantu. The paper conducted its own investigation and concludes most likely he was innocent.

Newsday reports:

In the 23 years since New Jersey reinstated the death penalty, the law has cost taxpayers about $253 million and executed no one, according to a new study.

"Money For Nothing? The Financial Cost of New Jersey's Death Penalty" was released Monday by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a research group.....From a strictly financial perspective, it is hard to reach a conclusion other than this: New Jersey taxpayers over the past 23 years have paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars on a capital punishment system that has executed no one.

The study is available here. [Via Sentencing Law and Policy.]

This is pretty amazing. A memo has been uncovered that shows Bush planned to bomb an al Jazeera tv network and Tony Blair talked him out of it.

A source told the Mirror: "The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush. "He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. Blair replied that would cause a big problem.

"There's no doubt what Bush wanted to do -- and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." Another source said: "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men." A spokesman for Blair's Downing Street office said: "We have got nothing to say about this story. We don't comment on leaked documents."

Bush calls the claim "outlandish."

Court TV Extra will be live streaming the trial of Saddam Hussein that begins Monday. They charge $5.95 a month for the service.