The Government has indicted Jose Padilla. He's charged with conspiracy to kill and maim people overseas. The indictment does not allege Padilla was planning attacks in the U.S.

• President's Memo - November 20, 2005
• Notice of Release and Transfer - November 22, 2005
• Indictment - November 17, 2005

On December 5, Dick Cheney is scheduled to speak at a big-time fundraiser for Tom DeLay's 2006 re-election campaign.

Some of the highest-ranking Republicans in Texas, including Gov. Rick Perry and Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, are serving as chairs of the fundraising event.

For $4,200, a donor gets an invitation to a VIP reception, a photograph with Cheney, and recognition at the event. For $2,100, attendees can rub elbows at a "congressional reception" and have their photo taken with DeLay. Regular tickets to the event cost $500.

DeLay returns to court in Houston Tuesday, for a hearing on his motions to dismiss the state indictment against him. Here are the issues he has raised:

Good for Pajamas Media. They have decided to give up the bland, already claimed moniker "open source media" and return to being Pajamas Media. Pajamas Media has personality and a history, or at least a story behind it. OSM seemed like a corporation rather than a creative syndicate.

The other thing Pajamas could use is a hand-rolled newsfeed. It looks like they paid big bucks to some corporate outfit to create their newsfeed, and it seems to me to be an automated, overly-inclusive, non-specific feed that doesn't inform on any topics bloggers would be interested in.

For a lot less money they could have hired one person to create a unique feed using uncomplicated software that would automatically update throughout the day.

Former DeLay aide and Abramoff associate Michael Scanlon pleaded guilty today to a five year count of conspiracy that included bribery of public officials and devising a scheme to defraud his firm's lobbying clients. The plea agreement called for $19 million in restitution. The agreement isn't up on the court's website yet, but with that amount of restitution, his sentencing guidelines would be at the maximum range of 5 years. [Update: Findlaw has it here (pdf).

The court agreed to defer his sentencing until his cooperation is over, which means if he tells the truth from the Government's point of view, the Government will file a motion before sentencing seeking a reduction below his guideline range. That is not likely to occur for some time, as the Court is going to hold status conferences every three months, and set the first one for March 1, 2006.

Bob Woodward was Larry King's guest for the entire hour tonight, talking about his revelation that his secret source told him in June, 2003 that Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction. Atrios has the transcript here.

Very little was illuminating, except for this exchange in which Woodward makes it clear it came up in the first place because he specifically asked the source about Joe Wilson and that the conversation took place after reading Walter Pincus' June 12 article.

Stanley Tookie Williams' life is hanging in the balance. The Crips founder has been on death row for 24 years. While in jail, he became an anti-gang activist, wrote children's books and was nominated by a member of the Swiss Parliament for the Nobel Prize. Snoop Dogg is rounding up support for Tookie who is scheduled to be killed on December 13.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is considering a clemency petition to spare his life. If granted, he would remain in prison for the rest of his life, where he could continue his good works. He just wouldn't be killed.

Here is a fact sheet on Tookie's case (pdf). There is still time for you to sign a petition to Gov. Arnold. Or, check here for a sample letter to fax.

Tell the Governor to choose life.

The Washington Post reports on President Bush's trip to Asia, the recreational highlight of which was a bike ride:

For the president, it was a rare moment of fun on an otherwise dreary overseas trip. In five years in the presidency, Bush has proved a decidedly unadventurous traveler, an impression undispelled by the weeklong journey through Asia that wraps up Monday. As he barnstormed through Japan, South Korea and China, with a final stop in Mongolia still to come, Bush visited no museums, tried no restaurants, bought no souvenirs and made no effort to meet ordinary local people.

"I live in a bubble," Bush once said, explaining his anti-tourist tendencies by citing the enormous security and logistical considerations involved in arranging any sightseeing. "That's just life."

Atrios has some choice comments on our adventurous President.

Here's a novel idea. A think tank in Afghanistan has a proposed solution to the opium problem in Afghanistan.

The West should buy up Afghanistan's opium crop and license its use for pain-relief medicines rather than trying to destroy the crop.

The Senlis Council, an international drug policy think-tank with operations in Afghanistan, says the planned deployment of 3,000 British troops to smash the narcotics trade there is doomed to fail. Senlis will present a feasibility study of its plan today at Chatham House in London. The idea is to establish a licensing system under which the Afghan government would control poppy cultivation for the production of opium-based pain killers, such as morphine and codeine, rather than trying to suppress it.

25 years ago, on December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment building on the upper West Side of New York. Newsweek takes a long look back, particularly at the effect of his death on Yoko and his former wife Cynthia, and their respective sons with John, Sean and Julian. It's a sad article. This comment by Yoko struck me most:

"You know, this is like a Shakespearean drama almost," says Ono. "Each person has something to be totally miserable about because of the way they were put into this play.

John Lennon's death has a special meaning for me, one I was able, through fortuitious circumstances, to turn into something positive. I wrote about it here on the anniversary of his death in 2003.

Rolling Stone brings us John Rendon, the man Bush used to sell the War in Iraq. The story begins in December, 2001:

The road to war in Iraq led through many unlikely places. One of them was a chic hotel nestled among the strip bars and brothels that cater to foreigners in the town of Pattaya, on the Gulf of Thailand.

On December 17th, 2001, in a small room within the sound of the crashing tide, a CIA officer attached metal electrodes to the ring and index fingers of a man sitting pensively in a padded chair. The officer then stretched a black rubber tube, pleated like an accordion, around the man's chest and another across his abdomen. Finally, he slipped a thick cuff over the man's brachial artery, on the inside of his upper arm.

The subject was Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, whom as we now know, told a very false tale.

It's Wal-Mart day at Huffington Post. My entry is Wal-Mart: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor.....

I hope you will read them all....and see the movie.

More than 2,000 delegates of the Union of Reform Judaism met this weekend in Houston and passed a resolution opposing the nomination of Judge Sam Alito for the Supreme Court. The resolution is based on Judge Alito's record with respect to abortion, women's and civil rights, federal power and the separation of church and state. The group represents 900 synagogues with 1.5 million members. It is the only branch of Judaism that recognizes civil unions between same-sex couples and ordination of gays. From the text of the resolution :

• Judge Alito’s elevation to the Supreme Court “would threaten protection of the most fundamental rights which our Movement supports including, but not limited to, reproductive freedom, the separation between church and state, protection of civil rights and civil liberties, and protection of the environment;”

• On choice, women’s rights, civil rights, and the scope of federal power particularly as it relates to civil rights and environmental protection, Judge Alito’s nomination “has engendered a national debate on one or more issues of core concern to the Reform Movement so that the outcome of the nomination is likely to be perceived as a referendum on that issue and will have significant implications beyond the individual nomination;”