Now this is way cool. From Crooks and Liars:

Green Day has given me permission to host the video. I'm working on an interview with the band...

Release: This is the latest Green Day video, "Wake Me Up When September Ends." This timely and politically charged filmic vignette documents Green Day's view of the effects on young soldiers and loved ones left behind. The seven minute epic video causes a moment's pause to reflect upon and understand the impact of what you just watched. Directed by Samuel Bayer, it stars Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen) and Jamie Be.

I hope this starts a new trend of bringing rockers and bloggers together. I'd be glad to host their views (I'll leave the video to C&L) or do an interview. Just send me an e-mail.

Speaking at the Aspen Institute, journalist and author Bob Woodward told the audience that he thinks Dick Cheney will run for President in 2008. Cheney will be 67. Woodward says Nixon was 68 when he ran, and Reagan was 69.

I thought Presidents were limited to two terms.

Raw Story has an investigative piece up in which it says that Sen. Pat Roberts fixed the pre-war intelligence to help Republicans.

Former big-time lobbyist Jack Abramoff was indicted by a Fort Lauderdale federal grand jury today on charges he and Adam Kidan, who also was indicted, schemed "to defraud two lenders in a $147.5 million purchase of SunCruz Casinos."

Josh Marshall has been following the case. Washington Post report here.

Scott Sullivan, the architect of the accounting fraud scheme that toppled WorldCom, was sentenced today to five years in prison. He could have gotten 25 years, but he was rewarded for his cooperation in the case against former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers, who got 25 years and will almost certainly die in prison.

Sullivan provided the only direct evidence at Ebber's trial that Ebbers knew of the fraud. But Ebbers testfied at his trial and while he did okay on direct, he didn't do so well on cross-examination. As I said at the time,

Why did Ebbers take the stand? With only one witness, Scott Sullivan, testifying that Ebbers knew about and endorsed the illegal accounting practice, why not just stick with an attack on Sullivan? When a defendant does great on direct exam, being questioned by his own lawyer, and then flubs it on cross, being questioned by the government, the contrast alone makes jurors think he's guilty. Just another reason why most defendants should not take the stand.

Bump and Update: Crooks and Liars has some video from the speech contained in a new ad - "Jeanine Pirro's Positive Vision for New York - without a script, she is speechless."

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Original Post 8/10 3:15 pm

Jeanine Pirro officially announced her candidacy against Hillary Clinton today. John Nichols of the Nation, writing for CBS, says Hillary lucked out. But the most reported news of her speech at the Waldorf Astoria is that she couldn't find page 10 , causing a 32 second pause.

Michael McKeon, who provided the text and said later that she had been writing until the last minute and left that page in another room. Not unexpectedly, New York Democratic Party officials, who sent an aide to monitor Ms. Pirro's speech, seized upon that long pause as an excuse to tweak the Republican as minor league.

"Today's announcement speech of Jeanine Pirro shows she may not be able to take on her primary opponent, let alone Senator Hillary Clinton," Denny Farrell, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said in a statement. "The speech was long on attacks and literally silent on specifics for New Yorkers - 32 seconds of silence that spoke volumes."

I have an all day Daubert hearing at which Government "experts" (agents and cops) will attempt to convince the judge that their interpretation of more than 100,000 wiretapped conversations of suspected crack cocaine sellers is both reliable and helpful to the jury. When the expert hears "I'm out of milk," he will tell the judge, the speaker is saying "I'm out of crack." Courts routinely admit this ridiculous evidence. With 17 of the charged 30 defendants still refusing to take plea bargains, it will take all day.

So if you have a thought on what's "crackalackin' " today (real translation: "What's happening?" -- ask any rapper, it has nothing to do with crack cocaine) here's the place.

Via Daily Kos and Attytood we learn the story of Gennaro Pellegrini, a police officer and boxer who got caught in the Pentagon's Stop Loss program through which his tour of duty in Iraq was extended. Here's the background, from Will Bunch's article in the Philadelphia Daily News. Yesterday, Bunch (aka Attytood) brings us the unhappy ending.

"I just want to get it done, come home, and continue my life." Those were just about the last words that Gennaro Pellegrini, Jr. -- a 31-year-old Philly cop and up-and-coming boxer -- said to us when we spoke last last November. In less than 48 hours, Pellegrini was about to step onto an airplane bound for Iraq, along with the rest of his Pennsylvania National Guard unit from Northeast Philadelphia.

For anyone who's worried about the return of a military draft, Pellegrini was living proof that we already have one in George W. Bush's America. He desperately did not want to serve in the Persian Gulf. He was just two weeks away from finishing up his six-year stint in the Guard when he was told that his tour of duty was being extended and that he would serve in Iraq for at least a year, maybe longer. The news could not have come at a worse time for Pellegrini. He was training for his first pro fight, newly engaged to be married, and settling into his job as a Philadelphia police officer, just like his dad.

Walter Pincus has a new article in the Washington Post trying to connect the inconsistent dots about who selected Joseph Wilson for the Niger mission in 2002 - was it at Valerie Plame's suggestion or at the direction of higher ups at the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD.)

The White House officials speaking with reporters in the days between June 6, 2003, when Wilson's op-ed appeared in the Times, and June 14, 2003, when Bob Novak's column came out, tell the same story: Valerie Plame suggested Wilson for the job. The CIA officials tell it differently.

I've made a separate category for the Hillary Clinton - Jeanine Pirro Senate race. A reader asked me why and suggested it didn't have anything to do with crime. Here's the answer:

by TChris

Is this the kind of democracy that the Bush administration has so proudly brought to Iraq?

Armed men entered Baghdad's municipal building during a blinding dust storm on Monday, deposed the city's mayor and installed a member of Iraq's most powerful Shiite militia.

The deposed mayor says: "This is the new Iraq. They use force to achieve their goal." Gosh, where could they have learned that?

Update: There was a blogger call with Cindy Sheehan today. I missed it, but Crooks and Liars has the details.

Two San Diego area women have gone to Crawford to be with Cindy Sheehan as she waits for a meeting with President Bush. They have never met Sheehan, do not have any kids who are in Iraq or were killed there, but they oppose the war. They are prepared to stay for the length of Bush's vacation.

The Guardian has this summary today, if you are new to the story:

Casey Sheehan did not want to go to Iraq, but he did not want to let down his buddies. So despite his mother's offer to whisk him away to Canada or run his leg over with a car, off he went. Less than two weeks later, the 24-year-old from Zacaville, California, was dead, one of eight soldiers killed in an ambush near Baghdad.

Now, 16 months later, Cindy Sheehan, 48, is camped outside George Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, demanding to see the president. "I want to ask him why did my son die? What was this noble cause you talk about? And if the cause is so noble, when are you going to send your daughters over there and let somebody else's son come home?"

One more: Carol Marin has a good column in today's Chicago Sun Times on Ms. Sheehan.