Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price is opening next week with free screenings across the country. Here are the details:

Next week, Robert Greenwald's latest documentary film WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price will premiere at an astonishing 6,000+ homes, churches, family businesses, schools, living rooms, community centers, and parking lots across the country -- a true people's premiere.

You are invited to join tens of thousands of people for this unprecedented event. The movie exposes the truth about Wal-Mart and questions the corporation's impact on the American economy. The people's premiere will reveal the growing public concern over Wal-Mart, and the growing inequality in America.

In related Wal-Mart news, a federal search warrant unsealed in a case against Wal-Mart alleges that two senior Wal-Mart execs knew the company's contractors were hiring undocumented workers.

A second lawyer for a co-defendant of Saddam Hussein has been shot and killed. I realize that lawyers are not the most popular people in our society, but still, this should be attracting more attention.

Adil Muhammed al-Zubaidi was killed when three gunmen in a red Opel shot at the car he was driving in Baghdad. His passenger, another of the lawyers involved in the trial, was hurt.He had represented ex-Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, one of Saddam's longtime aides, in the Dujail case -- the first trial of alleged crimes against humanity by the former regime. It was not immediately clear whom the injured attorney, Thamer Hamoud Hadi al-Khuzai, was representing in the case.

Why aren't these lawyers being provided with security guards? Apparently, Sadoon Janabi, the lawyer who was gunned down on October 20, had refused protection. It should be mandatory.

Tom DeLay has a new Democratic judge, Senior Judge Pat Priest. His lawyers have filed a motion to change venue out of Travis County, which they contend is too Democratic to be fair to DeLay, to Fort Bend county, where DeLay resides. The next court date will be November 22.

The brief filed by DeLay's lawyers said the role he played in dividing the county into three congressional districts during the 2003 congressional redistricting battle had made him "unpopular" in Travis County. He called Austin "one of the last enclaves of the Democratic Party in Texas."

The brief also said Austin media coverage of the investigation conducted by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle had been "unrelenting and highly unfavorable."

Kevin Drum reports there have been 47 constitutional amendments proposed in the last year. He lists them all.

The Constitution is not a rough draft. We don't need any of them.

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.