John Cole writes:

[T]he reason Democrats are going to lose seats is the simple fact that the economy sucks and really, even if we were to have another stimulus, it looks like it is going to suck for a long time. If unemployment were at 5% and the DOW was humming along and we could still fool ourselves into thinking we had it good because we were using our houses as ATM’s, we wouldn’t be talking about messaging and the Obama economic team. As it is, there is really nothing that government can do to bring that back, and we’re dealing with a day of reckoning that was a long time coming.

(Emphasis supplied.) So "nothing could be done" seems to be the latest defense of Democratic governance the past 2 years. I suppose that's possible, but it is not a winning message. If "everyone" knew "nothing could be done," the Dems should have spent the past 2 years making the GOP block everything, so they could blame this all on the GOP. Things were pretty "post-partisany" for 2009 at least. Some one messed up, either on policy, or politics, or both.

Speaking for me only

[Palin's] disingenuous piety has been topped only by Bernie Kerik, who smuggled a Twitter message out of prison to register his rage at the ground zero desecration. As my colleague Clyde Haberman reminded us, such was Kerik’s previous reverence for the burial ground of 9/11 that he appropriated an apartment overlooking the site (and designated for recovery workers) for an extramarital affair.

More from Haberman:

It was interesting to discover that Mr. Kerik considers it an outrage to have a Muslim center near ground zero. [. . .] It’s a good thing we were paying attention back in grade school. Otherwise, we might feel it is O.K. to take Mr. Kerik to task for having had illicit sex at ground zero.

(Emphasis supplied.)

No fun here tonight, I'm doing billing and reading discovery, trying to decide between ordering in pizza or Thai food or grilling a hot dog.

Here's an open thread for you, all topics welcome.

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has embarked on a new round of media interviews. He's everywhere from the morning news shows and radio to Fox News Sunday (tomorrow morning) proclaiming his innocence and protesting his persecution at the hands of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Here's the transcript of yesterday's Today Show appearance.

John Dean has a trial post-mortem at Findlaw. He makes the same points I did during the trial and jury deliberations, but much more succinctly and in one place. It's a good read. Shorter version: The Government overcharged Blago, presented a needlessly complex case and hopelessly confused the jurors.

But enough about Rod, let's talk about Robert Blagojevich. as I wrote a few days ago in Blagojevich: The Retrial and More From the Jurors, the jurors reportedly voted 9 to 3 to acquit Robert. [More...]

Carl Paladino is vying for the Republican nomination for Governor of New York, competing against Rick Lazio. Tea partiers love the wealthy real estate developer and former lawyer, who hails from Buffalo. Paladino's latest: treat welfare recipients like prisoners:

Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino said he would transform some New York prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients, where they would work in state-sponsored jobs, get employment training and take lessons in "personal hygiene."

Under his plan, prison guards would work as counselors to the welfare recipients. He says the dorms would be optional, and claims:

"These are beautiful properties with basketball courts, bathroom facilities, toilet facilities. Many young people would love to get the hell out of cities," Paladino he said. [More...]

Update: Rape warrant canceled.

An arrest warrant has been issued in Sweden for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He is being sought for questioning on allegations of rape and molestation in two cases.

Assange says the allegations are the beginning of a "dirty tricks" cammpaign intended as retribution for his publishing the Pentagon Afghan war files on the Wikileaks website.

Assange is Australian and doesn't have a permanent address. He was in Sweden last week on Wikileaks business.

Assange, an Australian citizen, was in Sweden last week to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistleblowers. He also gave a talk about his work and defended the decision by Wikileaks to publish the Afghan war logs.

Assange's current whereabouts are unknown, but some say he is still in Sweden. On the allegations [More....]:

Denver recently got a new spiffy courthouse and jail. The jail opened in April and is called the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Facility. Our old county jail was deplorable. But I don't recall any inmates there being tased to death by guards.

In July, Marvin Booker, 56, a homeless ordained minister who helped the poor and who had a history of petty offenses that occurred a long time ago, was arrested on drug paraphernalia charges and brought to the new jail. He never made it out alive. The coroner's report released today labels the death a homicide.

Booker was asleep on a chair in the holding tank when a guard told him to go to processing desk and sit down. He was wearing his socks and wanted to get his shoes which were nearby. The guard told him not to and directed him to go to an isolation cell. He began walking back to the holding tank, and the guard went to physically restrain him. He tried to shake her off and she and three other guards jumped him. Here's what witnesses say happened after that. According to the autopsy report released today (available here) the coroner finds: [More...]

Bump and Update: I have been advised by the AUSA on the Bartkowicz case that Washington is not involved and did not direct, dictate or write the Government's motion or brief. She wrote the brief, and the case is proceeding with the approval of our new U.S. Attorney who took office this week. So if you are in a federal district other than Colorado, you don't have to worry the motion described below is the product of a coordinated effort by DOJ in Washington to prevent defendants from raising compliance with state law or the Holder/Ogden memos as a defense to federal prosecution. It appears that it's being decided by the individual districts and on a case by case basis.

***

Original Post

Some of you may remember the case of Chris Bartkowicz, a Colorado marijuana grower who allowed the media to film and air a news segment on the marijuana grow in his house. When the DEA saw it on TV, they promptly arrested and charged him. The Government said he had 224 plants, and based on the three charges in the Indictment, if convicted, due to his prior convictions, he now faces mandatory minimum sentences of ten years, twenty years, and sixty years. The Government maintains he could receive a life sentence. (The Government's initial complaint is here.)

The Government filed a 50 page motion this week seeking to prevent Bartkowicz from arguing the Holder or Ogden memorandum or Colorado's medical marijuana law as a defense to the charges. The money quote from the motion, which is available on PACER:[More...]

2 weeks till the Friday before college football starts its season.

Go Gators!

Open thread.

Kevin Drum:

The plain, boring fact is that Obama, like all presidents, is constrained by circumstances and by Congress, and he just hasn't had the Congress to do much more than he's done. FDR and LBJ won landslide victories and enjoyed enormous congressional majorities. By contrast, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Obama won solid victories and had sizeable congressional majorities (though only in the Senate for Reagan). That's who he should be compared to, and on that score he shapes up pretty well: clearly better than Carter and Clinton and quite possibly the equal of Reagan.

I take this to mean that Drum thinks Obama's "achievements" in the first two years (funny how they are the "President's achievements" when you want to give him credit, and it is the "Congress' fault" when you want to let the President off the hook) are as "transformative" as Reagan's and more transformative than Clinton and Carter's. A matter of opinion I suppose, but I am curious why Reagan's "achievements" are rated higher than Clinton's by Drum? Reagan's big achievement was cutting taxes for the rich and corporations. Clinton's big achievement was raising taxes on the rich and corporations and cutting them for the working poor. How is one "achievement" more transformative than the other?

Speaking for me only

Think Progress:

When Roll Call asked Tom Ganley, a Republican running for a House seat from Ohio, for his thoughts on the matter, Ganley proclaimed that he doesn’t “have a position on whether he’s a Muslim.” Ganley quickly tried to walk back his comments, but only barely:

“During an interview earlier today, I was asked a question about President Obama’s religion that I felt irrelevant to the story being written about my campaign for Congress,” he said. “I do not believe President Obama’s religion has any impact on the need for jobs in Ohio’s 13th district. According to the White House, our President is a Christian and I have no reason to believe otherwise.”

(Emphasis supplied.) Again, we all see the game the GOP is playing here, but isn't it true that President Obama's denomination SHOULD BE irrelevant? Why isn't it? I refer you to my previous post on the subject.

Speaking for me only

Joe Sestak is not the ideal candidate for the Dems in the Pennsylvania Senate race (I still believe Specter had the better shot), and Sestak is trailing, but his political team is doing a heck of a job I think. Chris Bowers trots out the new Sestak line on his GOP opponent Pat Toomey:

Think Progress makes a useful catch about Social Security, and all Democrats running for federal office should take notice. Even Pat Toomey, who ran the Club for Growth, is too afraid to say in public that he wants to turn over Social Security to Wall Street[.]

There is blood in the water on Social Security privatizing for Republicans. It would be wise for Pat Toomey’s opponent, Admiral Joe Sestak, to sniff it out. It would be just as smart for every Democrat in the country running for federal office to do the same. Publicly oppose all cuts, and start attacking Republicans for wanting to hand over Social Security to Wall Street. Doing so could really help Democratic candidates in an otherwise difficult electoral environment, not to mention possibly save Social Security itself.

(Emphasis supplied.) I especially like the Admiral Sestak touch. The only thing Chris missed was the Sestak's campaign usage for Toomey - they call him Congressman Toomey (Toomey is a former congressman.) Again, Sestak is probably going to lose, but not because his political shop is not doing its job.

Speaking for me only