The GSA political scandal produces high hilarity.

Anyone who has taken a deposition has seen this approach before by a witness, but I never understood how anyone would try it in a public hearing. I love her put upon attitude, as if there could be nothing wrong with it. A strange performance. Some more fun here.

Via Atrios, via Yglesias, Karen Tumulty has a question:

What is a "concern troll"?

Atrios and commenters provide the answer. What other questions should be answered on blogging lingo? I imagine you know what a "purity troll" is by now. And you are all aware of the the "pimping" and "whoring" rampant in the blogs. A veritable Sodom, not to mention Gomorrah.

I claim authorship of one term, but I think both the term and the practice really has not caught on - "linky thread." This is an Open Thread that contains links to other posts from other blogs that you feel merit attention. Now a staple at daily kos and other sites.

My favorite insidery blog phrase was "Holden gets a pony." I think everyone knows that story, but if you do not, Google and Wikipedia have it. Just kidding, one of the leading atriots, NTodd, quoting athenae, explained:

I'm off to Connecticut today to hang out with Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake. I'll be staying with her through Monday, as she continues her battle with breast cancer.

We planned the visit while in D.C. at the Scooter Libby trial. I'm really looking forward to it. Jane is an inspiration, a warrior and a total trooper. She's going to win this battle.

Except for Wednesday and Monday which are travel days, I'll be blogging here as usual. Big Tent Democrat, TChris and Last Night in Little Rock will be here in my absence, as their schedules allow.

Let's start the day off with an open thread, where you can all weigh in with what's on your mind. I'll be following along as internet access allows.

I'll be live-blogging the Joseph Nacchio insider trading trial for 5280 this afternoon. There's a lot of posts up here already today, but in case you want more, here's an open thread.

There will also be an open thread tomorrow since it's a travel day for me.

I'm heading over to court and 5280.com to blog the Joseph Nacchio trial proceedings. Big Tent is out of pocket today. TChris or Last Night may stop in, but in case not, here's a place for you to bring everyone up to speed on the news and your thoughts.

Bump and Update: The LA Times is on the three fired U.S. Attorneys who opposed the death penalty.

Original Post:

Fired Margaret Chiara and the Death Penalty

On February 24, I wrote about the possibility Michigan U.S. Attorney Margaret Chiara was fired because of her anti-death penalty beliefs.

Quoting the Washington Post,

Chiara -- who had once studied to be a nun -- is personally opposed to capital punishment....Another of the fired U.S. attorneys, Paul K. Charlton of Phoenix, also clashed with Washington over the death penalty.

The Washington Post today has more on Chiara's firing and it isn't pretty for the White House. She was well-respected by the judges, federal prosecutors and defense lawyers in her district.

More...

As always the invective in this post is solely attributable to me

George Will uses unacceptable invective:

There are the tantrums -- sometimes both theatrical and perfunctory -- of talking heads on television or commentators writing in vitriol (Paul Krugman's incessant contempt, Ann Coulter's equally constant loathing).

Did George Will just compare Paul Krugman to Ann Coulter? To write that, Will must have been very angry, temporarily insane or just plain mendacious.

A new low for George Will. He thinks he is being clever in his vitriol towards Krugman. Foolishly angry George Will.

TalkLeft has been loading really slowly for me today. Colin at Scoophost says,

"There appear to be issues with a router owned by Time Warner, one of the upstream network providers through which you may access this site. The connectivity is fully redundant so only a small percentage of visitors will experience problems with some percentage of their requests. We are actively pursuing a resolution to this issue."

Update from Time Warner below:

As I always I speak only for me

Atrios is as smart as a whip and much more progressive than me, a dirty corporation defending lawyer. He, along with the other 800 pound Left Blog gorilla, Markos, has not an ounce of corruption in them. Indeed, I have been an arse in defending them from scurrilous charges in the past. But he is missing the point in this piece:

[W]e're having another round of "my opinions are pure yours are somehow corrupted" in the blogosphere. I don't claim to be right about everything, but the fact that I disagree with you doesn't necessarily involve some grand conspiracy.

This is about the Iraq supplemental. I strongly disagreed with the position taken by Atrios, MYDD, Sirota and others because I believe they are wrong. But also because, for the most part, their arguments (excepting Sirota's) were largely based on hometeamism, support the Dem leadership rationales. This is a form of cooptation. Not corruption.

The usually very good NYTimes Editorial page is very bad today on the Iraq supplemental funding bill. The basic problem is it is wrong on all the facts. The Times said:

The benchmarks spelled out in this legislation . . . require that the Iraqi government stop shielding and encouraging the Shiite militias that are helping drive the killing. . .

No it does not. The President "decides" if the Iraqis are making progress. Any doubt on what he will think?

I've been absent a lot the past few days because I've been working on my cases in the morning so I could attend and live-blog the jury selection and opening arguments of the Joseph Nacchio insider trading trial that began this week in Denver. A big thanks to Big Tent Democrat and TChris for posting in my absence.

A few things I learned from the Nacchio trial: I'm clueless about stock trading. I don't know a recurring revenue from a one-timer, a publicly stated financial target from a growth target, a sale of stock from a sale of a stock option. Nor do I want to.

I'll take kilos of pot, the legalities of wiretapping, how to cook powder coke into crack or whether lies amount to obstruction of justice any day of the week over this stuff. It's a good thing I'm not on the Nacchio jury. The learning curve would be way too steep.

Anyway, I'm done live-blogging Nacchio until the cooperating witnesses testify. That's the juicy part to me. Did they agree to tell the Government's truth in exchange for promises of leniency for their own misdeeds?

The highlight of the day for me was getting to talk to our relatively new U.S. Attorney Troy Eid in the elevator.

More...

As always I speak for me only and kudos to Bob Fertik for speaking the truth

Chris Bowers continues the MYDD approach of arguing by assertion the DC Dem Establishment position, while, to his credit, NOW acknowledging that he is not arguing the PROGRESSIVE position:

At this point, there are very few Republicans who will vote in favor. From what I hear, there are also currently more Progressives opposed to the bill than there are Blue Dogs. Given this, the politics of the supplemental fight, which will continue for some time even after the House votes on this bill, now make it clear that it is extremely important progressives do not join with Republicans in order to defeat this legislation at this time. The simple fact is that if this bill is defeated in the House, then there will be another--weaker--funding bill. . . .

It is ironic that while reporting that THIS bill is in grave danger of not passing, Chris assures us that a WEAKER bill WILL pass. What is he saying here? It is this - the DEMOCRATIC Leadership will accomodate REPUBLICANS before it will accomodate Progressives. What an indictment of the Dem leadership in the House. I could not have said anything more damning than Chris has just done.