Just in case you thought no one was listening....

The number of secret court-authorized wiretaps across the country surged by 19 percent last year, records show. As law enforcement authorities scurried to keep apace of improving technology favored by criminals, not a single application was denied.

State and federal judges approved 1,710 applications for wiretaps of wire, oral or electronic communications last year, and four states - New York, California, New Jersey and Florida - accounted for three out of every four surveillance orders, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That agency is required to collect the figures and report them to Congress.

And these numbers don't included FISA applications for national security wiretaps, which also reached a record number of 1,764 last year. One more unsettling statistic:

Most of the wiretap applications, some 1,507 wiretaps, targeted portable devices, such as cell phones and pagers.

Air America Radio Host and comedian Al Franken is moving his show to Minnesota, where he will decide whether to challenge Norm Coleman for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Al Franken wants to be a senator.

"I'd rather be part of [the process] than commenting on it," he insists. But he pauses, shrugs indecisively, a boyish chuckle follows. "I think. I don't know. That might be part of the calculus of whether I go for it or not." Whether Franken will "go for it" in 2008, against freshman Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, remains to be seen. "I can tell you honestly, I don't know if I'm going to run," Franken continues, as we now sit 41 floors below his studio, in the skyscraper's courtyard. "But I'm doing the stuff I need to do, in order to do it."

Does he have a chance? Former Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi thinks so.

Time Reporter Matthew Cooper, appealing the civil contempt of court ruling against him in the Valerie Plame investigation for refusing to comply with a grand jury subpoena asking for information about his sources, has hired a new lawyer - ultra-conservative, former Solicitor General Ted Olson. New York Times reporter Judith Miller is staying with First Amendment guru Floyd Abrams.

Why the switch? The reporters' case is about to be filed in the Supreme Court. Time and Cooper may think the Court is more likely to agree to hear the case if Olson is on board. The reporters lost in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, so the Supreme Court is the only thing standing between them and a jail cell - unless they decide to cough up the information sought by the Government.

Meet 81-year old Betty Hiatt. She smokes pot.

She is, at 81, both a medical train wreck and a miracle, surviving cancer, Crohn's disease and the onset of Parkinson's. Each morning Hiatt takes more than a dozen pills. But first.... Peering through owlish glasses, Hiatt fires up a cannabis cigarette with a wood-stem match. She inhales. The little apartment — a cozy place of knickknacks and needlepoint — takes on the odor of a rock concert.

"It's like any other medicine for me," Hiatt says, blowing out a cumulus of unmistakable fragrance. "But I don't know that I'd be alive without it."

The Supreme Court's decision on state medical marijuana laws is due any day. Raich v. Ashcroft will decide whether federal laws prohibiting all marijuana use can be used to charge those who take the drug for medical reasons in states with laws that allow such use.

A few chatterers are trying to run away with the site again. And several on the left are engaging them and allowing them to do it. Time to stop. Those who have been limited to four comments a day will have their excess comments deleted. One chatterer posted 26 comments today. I'm not going to foot the bill for the bandwidth for them--nor will I provide a place for them to chatter incessantly.

Limits of chatterers will be strictly enforced. Four comments a day. Those who continually respond to them, whether on the right or the left, will also be limited.

TalkLeft's comment policy is here.

Jackson Trial Update
Wednesday, April 27

Debbie Rowe, the mother of Michael Jacksons eldest two children and his ex-wife, was called as a witness today by the prosecution. In opening argument, the prosecution told the jury Rowe would testify that Jackson and his team had scripted her interview in video intended to counter the negative British documentary in which Jackson said he allowed boys to sleep in his room.

Prosecutors expected Rowe to shore up the accuser's mother's testimony that she and her kids were held hostage to get them to agree to participate in the rebuttal video using a prepared script.

But Rowe said just the opposite on the witness stand today.

People for American Way has prepared concise statements as to why Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown should not be given lifetime appointments on the federal bench.

• Priscilla Owen: Remaking the Law for the Radical Right

• Janice Rogers Brown: Far out of the Mainstream

More information is here.

The Supreme Court issued a decision this week limiting the reach of the felon in possession law which prohibits those convicted of a felony from possessing a firearm. The Court ruled that for the law to apply, the prior conviction cannot be one from another country.

The majority arrived at that conclusion by interpreting the statute's reference to a conviction in "any court" to mean "any court in the United States." Justice Stephen G. Breyer's majority opinion said that in the absence of any indication that Congress even considered the issue when it enacted the law in 1968, the court should apply a legal presumption that "Congress ordinarily intends its statutes to have domestic, not extraterritorial, application."

Laura Ingraham had surgery for breast cancer yesterday. While our politics could not be more different, I always enjoyed debating her during the Clinton years. I'm very sorry to learn the news and wish her a speedy and complete recovery.

[comments now closed, thread hijacked.]

Say hello to the Heretik: Born to Burn. Great visuals, excellent content, a mix of satire and news with some music and art and poetry thrown in. It's written by Joe Ivory Mattingly.

Also say hello to Thought Mechanics. They're adding bloggers, so if you're interested, head on over.

People For the American Way Foundation (PFAW), the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Sierra Club, and the Alliance for Justice have released this Statement on Bipartisan Discussions Regarding the Judicial Confirmation Process:

• We oppose strongly the nuclear option and the efforts to eliminate the filibuster, the last check and balance in the legislative branch of the federal government. The Frist-Lott-Rove attempts to change Senate rules by breaking them are unprecedented and irresponsible. We oppose any effort to take away the right of any Senator to filibuster now or in the future.

by TChris

By insisting that Republicans play by a fair set of rules, House Democrats apparently achieved a victory today.

Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said this morning that Republicans were ready to relent on rules changes that have left the ethics committee unable to do any work.

House Republicans endured some just criticism for their attempt to shield Tom DeLay's alleged ethical violations from scrutiny. As a face-saving measure, Hastert claimed that restoration of the original rules for ethics investigations will give DeLay a chance to clear his name.