The New York Times highlights the folly of the drug war policy of busting clerks in stores selling pseudoephedrine.

When they charged 49 convenience store clerks and owners in rural northwest Georgia with selling materials used to make methamphetamine, federal prosecutors declared that they had conclusive evidence. Hidden microphones and cameras, they said, had caught the workers acknowledging that the products would be used to make the drug.

But weeks of court motions have produced many questions. Forty-four of the defendants are Indian immigrants - 32, mostly unrelated, are named Patel - and many spoke little more than the kind of transactional English mocked in sitcoms.

So when a government informant told store clerks that he needed the cold medicine, matches and camping fuel to "finish up a cook," some of them said they figured he must have meant something about barbecue.

If you thought that the new issue of Vanity Fair was going to be all Jennifer and Brangelina, here's a surprise. Raw Story reports:

Vanity Fair’s September edition, now out in New York but yet to hit national newsstands, packs a punch with an article about Sibel Edmonds, the FBI translator who has been gagged by the Bush Administration from revealing information about conversations she translated surrounding a seemingly major corruption scandal involving Turkish nationals and U.S. lawmakers, RAW STORY can reveal. RAW STORY acquired a copy of the article by David Rose this evening.

Here are the money quotes:

More bad news for jailed Australian Schapelle Corby. At the final day of her appeals hearing, the judges refused to allow witnesses to testify by videoconference, including one who would have testified that the 4.5 kilos of pot found in her boogie board bag were destined for him. He refused to go to Bali to testify because he would then be charged and facing a possible life in prison or death sentence.

More news of the doomed hearing is here. [Hat tip to Heretik]

Schapelle cooking rice in her jail cell.

All of TalkLeft's coverage is here.

Who doesn't remember Katherine Harris' outrageous makeup during the 2000 Bush v. Gore election campaign? Now, she's charging the newspapers "colorized" her photos to heighten it.

On Monday, on a conservative radio talk show, Harris, now a congresswoman from Longboat Key running for the U.S. Senate, hit back, blaming newspapers for the criticism and charging that some - without saying which - altered her photographs.

``I'm actually very sensitive about those things, and it's personally painful,'' Harris said when host Sean Hannity asked about her image problems from 2000. ``But they're outrageously false, No. 1, and No. 2, you know, whenever they made fun of my makeup, it was because the newspapers colorized my photograph,'' Harris said.

She didn't explain what she meant by ``colorized.'' Asked Tuesday to point to an altered photograph, Harris and her staff could not. Her response to the question, said spokesman Adam Goodman, was, ``I haven't worn blue eye shadow since the seventh grade when I was in the Girl Scouts.'' She didn't name a newspaper that showed blue eye shadow.

Okay, who can be the first one to find a photo of Ms. Harris wearing blue eyeshadow? Never mind, I just found one.

Say Hello to Scotus Wire - a continuously updated wire with both blog and MSM news on Judge John Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court. [Via Instapundit.]

Bump and Update: It's over. Prosecutors came to their senses and agreed to a deal:

Maribel Cuevas was ordered to meet with her young victim and talk about the fight under the deal - reached on the same day the girl was to stand trial. She did not have to plead guilty, and the charges will be dismissed if she stays in school and keeps out of trouble.

Now, if she can only get over the scars from a week in jail and a month of house arrest.

*********
Bump and Update from July 18: 11-year old Maribel Cuevas will be tried as an adult for throwing a rock in waterfight.

In the last month, three lawyers at TalkLeft (Last Night in Little Rock and Peter G (comments) and me) have warned about congressional hearings into RoveGate and the possibility that a la Oliver North, it might enable Bush administration wrongdoers to escape criminal liablility.

Crooks and Liars reports that today, Sen. Frank Lautenberg expressed a similar warning in this letter to the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees regarding hearings they plan to hold on Valerie Plame's outing.

In other RoveGate matters, read Digby on Novakula's tea leaves.

Mincing no words, Raw Story reports the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), has blasted Bush's acceptance of teaching intelligent design, calling it a psuedo-science.

If the shoe fits.....

Update: Kevin Drum points out this isn't exactly newspeak for Bush.

by TChris

Alberto Gonzales, speaking for the Bush administration, has taken a surprisingly rational position that won't find support among right wing extremists who have labored to make it difficult to vote:

The Voting Rights Act has been one of the most successful pieces of civil rights legislation ever enacted and should be reauthorized, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday.

...

He said particular emphasis has been placed on requirements that election materials be translated for voters who speak English as a second language. The department has filed more cases on the minority-language provisions in the past four years than in the previous 26 years those requirements applied.

"Right here in Texas, in Harris County, turnout among Vietnamese eligible voters doubled following Justice Department efforts," Gonzales said.

Boston is among the cities that, according to the Justice Department, have failed to translate ballots adequately.

And the war marches on, taking more American lives....

• 14 Marines and Interpreter killed in bombing outside Iraq

• Freelance American journalist and art critic Steven Vincent shot dead in Basra.

Australian news is reporting that a third prosecutor scheduled to try the military tribunal proceeding against detainee David Hicks has left the case:

Air Force Captain Carrie Wolf chose to take a reassignment along with other prosecutors. Capt Wolf asked to leave the Office of Military Commissions at the same time as two other colleagues, Major Robert Preston and Captain John Carr.

Earlier this week, the ABC revealed that in March 2004, Maj Preston and Capt Carr requested transfers because they believed the process was "rigged" and pursuing "marginal" cases. Maj Preston was nominated for the Air Force's outstanding judge advocate award last year and Captain Carr has been promoted to major since leaving the military commissions. It is understood Capt Wolf shared her colleagues' concerns and also asked for a redeployment.

An Air Force Judge Advocate General tells ABC it was just a personality conflict. [hat tip to Last Night in Little Rock]

My latest "Scoring Scotus" update is on Eric Alterman's Altercation today.

One more note: Legal Times reports that Judge Robert's nomination has been two decades in the making and is the flower of the Reagan revolution.

The results have been telling: a reined in commerce clause diminishing Congress' ability to regulate, sweeping state immunity from most private lawsuits, an increasing emphasis on state and individual rights, and, ironically, a smaller Supreme Court docket as appellate courts fall in line with current Court sympathies.

While conservatives label these developments as classic examples of restraining the power of the federal government and the judiciary, liberals see something very different -- an activist, right-wing judiciary shaping the courts to conservative standards.

"The conservative seizing of political power is part of a very broad vision to change the culture of the United States," notes New Democratic Network President Simon Rosenberg. "The federal judiciary fits into the context of the broader march."