Bump:

Ok, it's fundraising time again. Atrios collected over $75k for Kerry in March. Kerry got $116k from New England bloggers. We collected a little less, okay, a lot less. But there's a new round beginning....the top bloggers collecting for Kerry will get passes to the Democratic convention in Boston. So be generous, give now and give often.

The Judge in the Terry Nichols trial has denied his motion to dismiss. The motion, based upon prosecutorial withholding of evidence, was groundless according to the Judge. Secret Service testified there was no videotape showing two persons exiting from the Ryder truck, and her ruled that the other evidence the defense claimed was withheld was not new.

The trial resumed today with the continued testimony of Michael Fortier.

by TChris

Digital video cameras, a technology that has spawned a number of "real time" pornographic websites, may soon be coming to a police car near you. Police cars in Tyler, Texas are being equipped with "a digital video system designed to beam TV images of any police action in real-time from the police department's 60 cruisers over a wireless network back to headquarters."

The technology from International Business Machines Corp. will grab and store video on a hard drive in the police car, going back to retrieve data starting four minutes prior to the officer's hitting "record" or flipping on the overhead pursuit lights. This will help capture the probable cause for the police action, they said.

Just as importantly, the cameras will capture the absence of probable cause, as the "weaving" car is shown to be slowly drifting within its lane, or the "unsteady" driver is shown to be walking in a straight line without a problem.

by TChris

Another grim day in Iraq, as five bombings near police facilities in and around Basra took the lives of at least 68 Iraqis, including 18 children.

Ten boys and girls being driven to kindergarten in a minivan and eight girls in another minivan headed to a high school were killed in one of the blasts, according to police official Col. Ali Abdullah.

by TChris

Former Louisiana Judge C. Hunter King lost his job after he threatened courthouse employees with the loss of their jobs if they didn't sell tickets to a campaign fund-raiser. When his court reporter complained to the Judiciary Commission, King denied the charges under oath, characterizing the court reporter as a disgruntled ex-employee. The lie fell apart when he was confronted with "recorded tapes of staff meetings during which he spoke frankly of campaign fund raising on court time." King, suddenly remorseful, asked the State Supreme Court to give him a second chance, but the court unanimously decided to remove him from his judgeship.

Now King is being prosecuted for perjury as a result of his false testimony before the Judicial Commission, but the details of that prosecution have become difficult to unearth. Judge Julian Parker, presiding in former Judge King's case, issued a gag order and took the unusual step of sealing the court file. Parker gave no explanation for the order, and the computerized court docket doesn't reflect a request by any party for an order sealing the file. Gag orders sometimes promote a fair trial, but court files are public records, and public scrutiny of the judicial system serves as a check against judicial abuses. Sealing court files is a rare practice in Orleans Parish, a practice that hasn't been followed in other high profile cases. Why is Judge Parker treating the case of former Judge King differently?

by TChris

Bob Woodward's book says that President Bush started spending money to prepare for the war in Iraq in July 2002. But Bush didn't go to Congress at that point to ask for money to invade Iraq. Instead, the administration diverted money that Congress had appropriated to fight terrorism.

Congressman David Obey wants the administration to explain where the money came from for pre-war preparation. He thinks "the administration owes Congress a full, detailed and immediate accounting."

"If this is all true, it is ironic that the president was surreptitiously authorizing expenditures to begin a plan for war at the very same time he was resisting bipartisan congressional efforts to provide desperately needed funds for homeland security," Obey said.

The Washington Post takes Ashcroft to task in an editorial for his smear of 9/11/ Commission member Jamie Gorelick in accusing her of being responsible for creating "the wall."

Round 2 was Gorelick's response to Ashcroft. Round 1 was Ashcroft's partisan attack of Gorelick to the 9/11 Commission.

Suggested music and video to accompany reading the three rounds: We Can Be Together from Volunteers by the Jefferson Airplane ("Up against the wall motherf**er, tear down the walls," and The Wall by Pink Floyd.

The Iraqi Governing Council has named a bunch of Iraqi judges and prosecutors to a tribunal to try Saddam Hussein. They chose an opponent of Saddam's to play a major role--which may turn out to be a controversial move:

A senior member of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress was appointed to head the all-Iraqi tribunal - a potentially controversial choice. Chalabi, a longtime exile who returned to Iraq and was named to the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, is mistrusted as an outsider by many Iraqis who want to see Saddam prosecuted by Iraqis who were present under his brutal rule. ....In the tribunal appointments, Salem Chalabi, a U.S.-educated lawyer and nephew of Ahmad Chalabi, was named by the Governing Council as director-general of the court, said INC spokesman Entefadh Qanbar. Salem Chalabi named seven judges and four prosecutors, and further judges will be appointed, Qanbar said.

Though INC head Ahmad Chalabi played a leading role in the opposition abroad to Saddam, many Iraqis consider him and other Governing Council members as American implants. Chalabi has been trying to gain grassroots support for his faction after decades in exile. On the council, Chalabi, a favorite of the Pentagon architects of the Iraq invasion, has been a fierce proponent of expunging traces of Saddam's regime. He heads an official De-Baathification Commission that has been aggressive in purging Iraqis with links to Saddam's dissolved party from government positions - so aggressive that even some U.S. officials have complained that it was getting rid of needed expertise.

For more on Chalabi and his tightness with the U.S., see TChris's posts here, here and here.

The trial would not begin before the June 30 handover of power.

If Chalabi's status is diminished in that handover, "there is a very good chance ... this court may see a change in its membership," said Adeed Dawisha, professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio.

Who's amassing the evidence? The Justice Department:

A team of Justice Department prosecutors and investigators has been gathering evidence for a war crimes case against Saddam, while other international groups have been sifting through the mass graves where U.S. officials say 300,000 victims of Saddam's regime were buried.

And who will foot the bill? Don't be surprised if we end up paying for it.

What else is wrong with trying Saddam by Iraqi tribunal instead of by international tribunal? We tell you here.

John Kerry has agreed to release all of his military records, including evaluations by superiors and medical records. They will be available on his website, beginning tonight.

Kerry won three purple hearts and a silver star during his service in the Vietnam war:

A senior adviser to Mr. Kerry, Michael Meehan, said the campaign was releasing all the documents because Mr. Kerry was "running on his military record, not from his military record."

Remember Jack Kelley, the reporter for USA Today who was fired after a scandal in which it was disclosed that he had fabricated many stories for the paper ? Last night, Karen Jurgenson, the top editor at USA Today and an employee of the paper since its inception in 1982, abruptly resigned over the Kelley matter.

Tom Squitieri, a reporter who covers defense and foreign affairs, expressed regret only that Ms. Jurgensen had chosen to step aside before those editors who had more directly supervised Mr. Kelley. ``The editor least responsible for what happened is the one who has been forced to go,'' said Mr. Squitieri, who has worked at the newspaper since 1989. ``I and several of my colleagues are waiting to see if others will follow her lead.'' He He declined to identify who he thought those editors should be.

Who's Tom talking about? He doesn't say but other reporters at the paper are citing USA Today's Managing Editor Hal Ritter as being far closer to Kelly's work in terms of supervision. Meanwhile, Jack Kelly's wife is still employed by the paper as an advertising executive.

First Spain, then Honduras and now the Dominican Republic is set to withdraw their troops from Iraq.

Talk about reinstating the military draft is making the rounds on Capitol Hill. Leading the charge is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska who says the U.S. may need compulsory service to boost forces in Iraq:

There's not an American ... that doesn't understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future," Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq. "Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."

Send this guy back to Nebraska to peddle his piddling idea there.