Sorry Everybody -- great photos, just scroll.

Thanks to all the TalkLeft readers who contributed to our "pledge drive" the past two days. There were about 30 of you, who contributed in amounts from $1.00 to $50.00. Just as great were all the notes of encouragement and appreciation that accompanied the donations.

There's so much work ahead of us the next four years. I really do believe that bloggers can make a difference. We get the word out, shore up support and provide a place to vent. As frustration over this Administration's policies and choices mount, it's nice to have a place to call home, and the left-leaning blogosphere is now home to hundreds of thousands of readers. We'll carry on. Thank you for your support.

Congrats to Noah Shachtman whose excellent blog Defense Tech was just bought by Military.com. If you're not familiar with Defense Tech, it's a blog about how technology is changing "how wars are fought, crooks are caught, borders are protected, and individual rights are defined."

Good luck, Noah, and thanks for including me in your list of site thank yous. I'll be reading you over there regularly.

In the truth is stranger than fiction department, read this letter in today's Daily Pennsylvanian:

Why was the alleged Republican kicker working as an election official?

On Tuesday morning, like many of us, I went to vote. My polling place, the one for ward 27, district 11, was 3609 Chestnut St., a cozy-looking rehabilitation care center next to the Divine Tracy Hotel. When I got to the voter registration desk, I became a witness to a confrontation between an election official and a Democratic poll watcher whose name unfortunately escapes me. The election official was behaving very aggressively, and telling the poll watcher that, among other things, she must not speak to any of the voters, or to him, and if she did, he would call the police.

What were they thinking?

LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered. Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street. The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location. Uploaded here is video from the event.

[Hat tip Daily Kos diary, the video is here.]

Cat Stevens is the new recipient of a prestigious peace prize:

Yusuf Islam was awarded the "Man for Peace" prize in Rome at the opening of a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates. He last made headlines in September, when he turned up on Washington's no-fly list for having suspected ties to terrorists - a claim he has strongly denied. The "Peace Train" singer, who largely gave up music after converting to Islam in the late 1970s, mused about the strangeness of being barred from one country while being honored in another.

by TChris

Some residents of Los Angeles sent a message to the Los Angeles Police Department by voting against a proposed sales tax increase that would have funded the hiring of additional officers. The message: if you want our money, treat us with respect.

[Edward] Lindsey said he would have voted for the measure if police "were doing what they should do instead of messing with everybody." A few weeks ago, the former GM plant worker said, he was pulled over by police who told him he looked like a suspected gang member. "How the hell can I look like a gangbanger?" Lindsey said. "I'm 74 years old. I'm retired!"

Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas supported the measure, but understands that "a string of police abuse cases dating from before the 1991 Rodney King beating through this year's flashlight beating of Stanley Miller in Compton did not help the cause."

"An agenda that argues exclusively for more cops is not likely to get the response of something that calls for more prevention and more reform," he added. "I think the electorate would respond more favorably to a more holistic look at crime."

I just received this from a former very high-ranking official of the Justice Department (under Clinton) (and TalkLeft reader), whose opinion I hold in especially high regard:

The apparent nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General is a mixed blessing for progressives. It is fair to say that Gonzales is not nearly as bad as we might have expected. He is by no means a hard core ideologue, and he would not be likely to aggressively pursue a far right agenda. on his own By temperament he is a moderate, even if his views are far more conservative than we would wish. His record as a judge, while conservative, was not outrageous; indeed, it's commonly believed that he may not have been acceptable to the far right as a Supreme Court nominee. And what little leaks out of this Administration suggests that Gonzales was not a moving force behind most of the Administration's most outrageous legal positions.

by TChris

TalkLeft has frequently argued (examples here and here) that felons, like every other citizen, have a stake in society and should have the right to vote -- particularly after they've paid for their crime by serving their time. Some who comment here scoff at the notion of rehabilitation and smugly assert that liberals want ex-offenders to have voting rights because ex-offenders are likely to vote for Democrats. Tell that to John Barcyk, who voted by absentee ballot for President Bush. Barcyk is serving 35 years for a double murder.

Barcyk is incarcerated in Maine, one of two states that allow prisoners to vote. Is it fair that he can vote from prison when felons in states like Iowa don't have voting rights restored automatically after they've been released from prison? This commentator in the Des Moines Register argues that a parent who works, pays taxes, and sends her kid to school should have a say in how her taxes are spent and who serves on the school board.

Stephanie Fawkes-Lee, president of the Metro Des Moines League of Women Voters, says it's a danger to democracy not to restore voting rights. Yet she says public opposition to doing so comes from both Democrats and Republicans. She calls it a "lack of forgiveness."

[Marty] Ryan is blunter. "Some people think that we need to hate them forever," he says.

Here are some interesting pieces of information about Alberto Gonzales who apparently will be our new Attorney General, from TalkLeft archives:

• He disagreed with President Bush's nomination of Priscilla Owen for a 5th Circuit judgeship:

The [New York] Times points out that at one time even President Bush's own White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales, charged Owen (in a dissenting opinion) with engaging in "unconscionable . . . judicial activism."

The Houston Chronicle stated in a July, 2002 editorial, "It doesn't take a raving pinko to catch on to Owen's act. Actually, it was pointed out very astutely by Alberto R. Gonzales, now Bush's White House counsel, when he was on the state's top civil court with her."

• He was considered to be one of Bush's top choices for the Supreme Court.

• He authored 57 death row clemency opinions for President Bush. The Atlantic Monthly wrote:

As the legal counsel to Texas Governor George W. Bush, Alberto R. Gonzales — now the White House counsel, and widely regarded as a likely future Supreme Court nominee—prepared 57 confidential death-penalty memoranda for Bush's review. Never before discussed publicly, the memoranda suggest that Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise Bush of some of the most salient issues in the cases at hand.

The memos can be read by Atlantic Monthly subscribers here.

Verdict Update here.

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The lawyer-doctor jury foreman was dismissed by the Judge today in the Scott Peterson trial. Sounds like he did some reseach on his own and imparted it to other members of the jury who ratted him out, but no one's talking yet and the juror is gagged.

This is the juror who went into deliberations with 19 notepads he filled up during the trial. He seemed particularly interested in DNA evidence during jury selection.

The new alternate has a connection to Scott and Laci Peterson:

His son-in-law now owns a restaurant that Scott and Laci Peterson themselves once owned.

The new foreman is juror no. 6, a firefighter and paramedic.

Juror No. 6, a man who works as a firefighter and paramedic, was elected as the new foreman. During the trial, he at times seemed uninterested in the proceedings. He was seen rolling his eyes on occasion, specifically during the playing of tape-recorded conversations between Peterson and his girlfriend, Amber Frey.

Update: It's a done deal. Bush has named him.

White House officials say Alberto Gonazales most likely will be the next Attorney General.

Update: Looks like the choice is Alberto Gonzales. Now there will be a vacancy in the White House Counsel's office. One of the two lawyers considered as a likely replacement is Harriet Miers, Bush's personal lawyer.

I've served with Harriet on a legal board (non-criminal law related) and like her. Everyone on the board liked her and was sorry when she resigned. I hope she gets the job, if she wants it.