Update: A huge, huge thanks to whomever purchased the laptop for me. I am so appreciative. YOu have made my life much easier and me very happy today.

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original post:

What is it about laptops that they seem to die after two years of heavy usage? In September, 2003, I posted this on TalkLeft:

Jane at Firedoglake finds this conversation about Patrick Fitzgerald between defense attorney Lynne Stewart, her client Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and their translator, Mohammed Yousry, in the New Yorker. Bottom line: Fitzgerald is a crusader - a true believer.

Then Jane moves to Wonkette's coverage of a luncheon to begin the hype for Time Magazine's Person of the Year before she notes it's probably not too early to start buzzing about Fitzgerald being crowned.

Here's more on the later career ascent of the prosecutors involved in the 1993 World Trade Center case.

Because this vicious attack on a Senate Staffer may be work related, the FBI has joined the investigation:

The FBI and Capitol Police are investigating the vicious attack of a top Senate staffer at her home last week amid concerns that the assault might be related to her work on the Finance Committee.

Emilia DiSanto, chief investigator for committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), arrived at her suburban Virginia home after work Wednesday about 6:30 p.m. As she was unloading belongings from her car, a 6-foot-1-inch white man dressed in black struck her repeatedly with an unidentified object believed to be a baseball bat.

Baseball player Pete Rose's 35 year old son, Pete Rose Jr., was arrested this morning on a charge of distributing GBL, a steroid related drug. He also pleaded guilty this morning, purusant to a plea deal. The prosecutor says Rose will be sentenced to between 21 and 24 months in jail.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said Rose's arrest was part of a larger investigation into a major GBL trafficking organization. Rose surrendered to authorities shortly before entering his plea.

The indictment said Rose admitted he received GBL from a person in Tennessee while a member of the Chattanooga Lookouts, the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds.

Conservatives would have you believe that the riots in Paris are the work of an organized Islamic group. Not so, says a leading French journalist, as reported by Doug Ireland:

"That's not true -- this isn't being organized by the Islamist fundamentalists, as Sarkozy is implying to scare people. Sure, kids in neighborhoods are using their cellphones and text messages to warn each other where the cops are coming so they can move and pick other targets for their arson. But the rebellion is spreading across the country because the youth have a sense of solidarity with each other that comes from watching television -- they imitate what they're seeing, they have experienced themselves the same racist police abuse that helped spark the riots, and they sense themselves targeted by Sarkozy's inflammatory rhetoric.

Arianna connects the pardon dots on Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Libby has hired a legal team that includes Theodore Wells and William Jeffress, two prominent criminal lawyers with a reputation for playing hardball in the defense of their high-profile clients. Word is they are going to start asking for access to a lot of sensitive documents. Will this increase the pressure on the White House to consider a preemptive pardon?

On the other hand, during Libby’s arraignment Jeffress told the judge that there may be “protracted litigation” about access to classified information -- leaving the impression that they could try to string the case along until, say, near the end of Bush term when a pardon would have less of a political impact. In any case, Libby’s judge has set a Feb. 3 conference with Libby’s lawyers to discuss the possibility that some of the proceedings might have to occur outside of public view. That’s three months from now. In other words, file the Libby case under Slow Grinding Wheels of Justice and get ready for a long, hard legal slog.

What a strange story. James Keown, a Missouri AM radio talkshow host who covers the capitol building in Jefferson City, has been charged with murder in Massachussetts for poisoning his wife with the chemical in antifreeze over a period of time. Allegedly, he spiked her Gatorade.

Just last month, Mr. Keown started a blog which he last updated on Saturday, writing about an event he attended the night before. He certainly gives no clue an arrest was imminent.

The National Law Journal today (free link) examines Judge Alito from a criminal defense perspective. There are several quotes from Law Prof Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy.

Bottom line: Don't expect Alito to be another Earl Warren.

Jane Mayer has an excellent article in the New Yorker, A Deadly Interrogation: Can the C.I.A. legally kill a prisoner?

Meet Mark Swanner:

Mark Swanner, a forty-six-year-old C.I.A. officer who has performed interrogations and polygraph tests for the agency, which has employed him at least since the nineteen-nineties. (He is not a covert operative.) Two years ago, at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad, an Iraqi prisoner in Swanner’s custody, Manadel al-Jamadi, died during an interrogation. His head had been covered with a plastic bag, and he was shackled in a crucifixion-like pose that inhibited his ability to breathe; according to forensic pathologists who have examined the case, he asphyxiated. In a subsequent internal investigation, United States government authorities classified Jamadi’s death as a “homicide,” meaning that it resulted from unnatural causes. Swanner has not been charged with a crime and continues to work for the agency.

The LA Times reports that the IRS has sent a warning letter to a church with a vocal anti-war rector, threatening to rescind its tax exempt status. Crooks and Liars , Seeing the Forest and Cookie Jill at Skippy have more.

Slate's Mickey Kaus today has an interesting theory on what Lewis Libby told Tim Russert.

kf hears, through trustworthy and knowledgeable sources, that in his conversation with Russert Libby gave vent to the archetypal (and wrongheaded) charge that Matthews was animated by anti-Semitism--presumably because Matthews talked a lot about "neoconservative" Bush aides and war supporters and interviewed guests (such as Pat Caddell) who did too.

Kaus proffers that NBC wants to keep this quiet, thus it has not confirmed that Libby's call to Russert was prompted by this Hardball Show and comments by Chris Matthews.

Raw Story reports that Patrick Fitzgerald is considering whether to bring a false statements charge againt Karl Rove for lying to investigators in pre-grand jury interviews and a perjury charge for lying to the grand jury.

Rove did not tell FBI investigators in 2003 that he had spoken with Novak prior to his column being published and had been one of the two “senior administration officials” cited in Novak’s column as having confirmed Plame’s identity and CIA employment.

....Meanwhile, Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, is laboring to convince Fitzgerald that any information related to Plame’s outing that Rove may have not been forthcoming about was the result of an innocent bout of forgetfulness on the part of his client. Luskin has spoken to Fitzgerald at least once over the phone about Rove’s legal position since Libby’s indictment, the attorneys said.