A judge is Spain has dismissed the lawsuit against Bush administration officials for torture of detainees.

Judge Eloy Velasco said in a four-page ruling issued Wednesday that the United States has told Spain the U.S. government is holding investigations of its own. Velasco said for this reason, Spain cannot apply its doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which holds that, under some circumstances, crimes allegedly committed in other countries can be prosecuted in Spain's National Court.

Here is the letter the Justice Department submitted to Spain outlining its ongoing investigation into the Bush Administration actions. The Center for Constitutional Rights responds here. CCR's webpage on the lawsuit is here.

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has lost his bid to delay his retrial on corruption charges. Jury selection will be begin next Wednesday.

The Judge today also denied Blagojevich's motion seeking notes from the FBI interview of President Barack Obama when he was President-elect, saying the notes contained no information that could be used to impeach witnesses.

Also at issue: How much evidence the government can introduce about Blago's spending -- particularly on suits.

The House of Representatives is voting on the Budget legislation, H.R. 1473. You can watch live at C-Span here.

Update: The budget deal passed. 260 to 167. Two resolutions will now be voted on. One will be on repealing the Health Care bill, the other is on blocking funds to Planned Parenthood.

Arizona's brand of crazy:

Arizona's "birther bill" has passed the state Senate. The bill requires a sworn statement confirming the candidates residents and... drum roll... (sorry for the caps):

A CERTIFIED COPY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE'S LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE THAT INCLUDES AT LEAST THE DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH, THE NAMES OF THE CANDIDATE'S MOTHER AND FATHER, INCLUDING INFORMATION SUFFICIENT TO DETERMINE THE CITIZENSHIP OF BOTH PARENTS, THE NAMES OF THE HOSPITAL AND THE ATTENDING PHYSICIAN, IF APPLICABLE, AND SIGNATURES OF ANY WITNESSES IN ATTENDANCE.

Let's look at the Constitution:

Open thread.

Catherine Zeta-Jones has Bi-Polar Disorder II. What does the II mean?

Bipolar II is less severe than bipolar I. The key difference is that patients with bipolar II do not have full-blown manic episodes. Rather, they cycle between milder, hypomanic episodes and episodes of major depression. Women are slightly more likely to have bipolar II than men.

...many bipolar adults — particularly those with bipolar II — are misdiagnosed with clinical depression. "People tend to seek treatment for depression, but not for mania because it feels good,"

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Baseball legend Barry Bonds was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice today. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on three counts alleging Bonds made false statements to the grand jury.

What an odd verdict. To convict on the obstruction count, the jury had to consider 7 separate statements, and determine which, if any constituted obstruction. They had to be unanimous on the particular statement.

Of the 7 statements, the jury found Bonds obstructed justice as to one of them, referred to as "Statement C." (The first three statements were the same as those alleged in the three false statement counts. The jury didn't find he obstructed justice with any of those statements. The other four statements were passages from his grand jury testimony, with the underlined portion being the statement the Government alleged amounted to obstruction.)

Here is the instruction the jury was given on obstruction of justice: [More...]

Open Thread.

Open Thread.

There will be one this afternoon. They say that these are things to look for.

I'll be looking at legal documents myself. I count on you to tell me what's what.

Matt Yglesias:

[A]t the end of the day if the White House simply refuses to get sucked into a negotiation, the debt ceiling will be raised.

I agree.

Speaking for me only

New York Labor activist and Huffington Post volunteer blogger Jonathan Tasini has filed a huge, class action lawsuit against Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post, AOL and Kenneth Lehrer.

You can read the complaint here.

The theory is unjust enrichment, which is neither a statutory nor contract claim but an equitable doctrine based in common law. Since HuffPo bloggers agreed to submit their writing to HuffPo without being paid, the suit is based on the theory, under ommon law, that HuffPo (and now AOL) are being unjustly enriched by the bloggers' contributions.

In other words, the fact that the vast majority of Huffington Post’s 9,000 bloggers signed on without any expectation of direct monetary gain is irrelevant to this claim. “Rather, it’s the value contributed to the Huffington Post, which is very much amenable to class treatment...”

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