by Last Night in Little Rock

The intrepid folks at the FBI made a not so surprising admission: They have intercepted wrong numbers in PATRIOT Act wiretaps, so reports MSNBC tonight.

Say Hello to Allan Lichtman - political historian and the Democrat's expert witness in the Texas re-districting case - and many such cases before that. He's running for the Senate in Maryland, for the seat being vacated by Sarbanes.

He's also written this article on the DeLay Indictment, based on his experiences in the Texas re-districting case. He didn't send a link to the arcticle, so I'm assuming he wanted me to reprint it:

A few weeks ago I wrote that my 9 month old Dell desktop's hard drive crashed out of the blue. It had my last 9 months of work on it.

Dell replaced it and then I had to decide whether to try a data recovery service to try and restore the files on the old one. They ran the drive and it had 130,000 errors on it but they could find 20 MG of data, which included some valuable stuff for--like old TalkLeft files that are no longer on the server, my Quicken files, my newer client files and my pictures. So, I told them to go ahead.

It cost $1,250.00 for the restore and another $100 for an 80 GB USB hard drive which I'm about to hook up and see how usable the files are. Bottom line: Back up your stuff. $1,350.00 could have bought me a new laptop or a vacation. Now I'll get neither. It sucks that I had to spend it for this. But, it's my own fault for not taking the time to back up onto a cd-rom or dvd.

It's back to work for me, here's a space for you.

This is why lawyers don't want their clients to give TV interviews.

The Houston Chronicle reports Tom Delay said in media interviews that he hadn't been asked to speak to the grand jury. His lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, tells it a bit differently:

In a Wednesday night appearance on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, he said Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle never talked to him or asked him to testify. "Never asking me to testify, never doing anything for two years," DeLay said in the interview. "And then, on the last day of his fourth or sixth grand jury, he indicts me. Why? Because his goal was to make me step down as majority leader."

On Thursday, DeLay said in another broadcast interview that he was under the impression that he wasn't going to be indicted because he hadn't been called to testify before the grand jury. "I have not testified before the grand jury to present my side of the case, and they indicted me," said DeLay, according to the Associated Press.

Dick DeGuerin says:

DeLay actually was invited to appear before the grand jury, where he would have been under oath. The Houston attorney was not yet on the legal team when DeLay was asked to appear, but he said other attorneys advised him not to testify — a decision DeGuerin supports.

Judith Miller appeared before the grand jury today - for four hours . I'm been offline (just stopped in here for a minute) but I see Digby's on fire again. [link fixed.] Read all the posts and Tom Maguire at Just One Minute and Anonymous Liberal too.

Arianna writes that the plot thickens and wants to know what Miller is hiding.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The Nation's website late yesterday posted an interesting article: DeLay Indictment: Beyond Damage Control? The bottom line: He has nothing to lose, and the target for the media should be the jury pool. An interesting read from a different perspective.

Even better, however, is ThinkProgress.com's Tom DeLay Exercises His Right To Incriminate Himself with a video link.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The Oregon Supreme Court held yesterday that its State Constitution protects live adult entertainment shows and dancing, also voiding a 4' limitation. City of Nyssa v. Dulforth.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The ABA Journal eReport issued today says that a random survey of 1016 Americans (not including Lousiana, Mississippi, or Alabama because of Katrina) finds that half of the respondents believe there is a "judicial activism crisis."

From the Texas Monthly, February, 2005, (available on Lexis.com: an article profiling Texas DA Ronnie Earle: Much of the article is flattering to Earle, but it also talks about Earle's failed attempt in 1993 to have then-Governor Ann Richards appoint him to be U.S. Senator when Lloyd Bentson left to join Clinton's cabinet. Instead, she appointed a conservative Democrat who went on to lose to Kay Bailey Hutchison in the election. The article describes Earles' humiliating retreat and surrender in the Hutchison case (she was ordered acquitted by the Court on the first day of the scheduled jury trial after he announced he wanted to drop the charges.) There was an issue as to admissibility of evidence which the judge refused to rule on before trial, and on the first day of trial, not knowing what the ruling would be, Earle told the judge he wanted to drop the charges.

That same year, after hearing evidence from Ronnie and the Public Integrity Unit, a grand jury indicted Hutchison on allegations of using state employees for personal and campaign tasks and then destroying state files that documented the abuse. Hutchison was outraged by the indictments, as were two political advisers named Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. In seeking the Senate appointment from Richards, Ronnie had left himself open for an effective counterspin: The guy didn't get to be the senator, so he went after Hutchison in a fit of jealousy and spite.

Here's what happened:

The Ameicican Constitution Society blog has names and profiles of potential Surpeme Court replacement nominees for Retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Cornnor.

I'm still going with: Harriet Miers, Conselo Callahan or Larry Thompson.

My hope is Ed Prado.

by Last Night in Little Rock

According to today's NY Times, as soon as Roy Blunt became Majority Whip, he was pounced on for his own ethical lapses. Out numbered and outgunned, the Democrats have been hiding. With the Republican leadership wounded, they are coming out.