After 8 hours of questioning 91 potential jurors, jury selection was completed in the money laundering trial of former House Speaker Tom DeLay. There are six women and six men.

Nobody wanted to be seen as a Republican. The prosecutor said:

Mr. DeLay is a Republican. I'm a Democrat. This case has nothing to do with that. All that matters is, 'Can you put political feelings you may have (aside) and give both sides a fair trial?'"

DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, said:

"It's not about whether you like Tom DeLay. I'm a Democrat and I like him," DeGuerin told potential jurors. "That's all we want: a fair jury and a fair trial."

[More...]

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today struck down Arizona's Prop 200, requiring voters to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote and proof of identification when casting ballots. The opinion is here:

Proposition 200 requires prospective voters in Arizona to present documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, ... and requires registered voters to present proof of identification in order to cast a ballot at the polls.... This appeal raises the questions whether Proposition 200 violates the Voting Rights Act § 2, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth or Twenty-fourth Amendments of the Constitution, or is void as inconsistent with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)....

We hold that the NVRA supersedes Proposition 200’s voter registration procedures, and that Arizona’s documentary proof of citizenship requirement for registration is therefore invalid.

The Court upheld the portion requiring voters to show identification when casting ballots. The likely effect: [More..]

The Supreme Court tonight vacated the stay of execution an Arizona federal judge issued yesterday in the case of Jeffrey Landrigan. Landrigan was scheduled to be executed this morning using sodium thiopental that was manufactured by a company outside the U.S. which was not an FDA approved manufacturer of the drug.

Arizona appealed to the 9th Circuit, did not prevail, and the matter was referred to the full court later today. Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Bryer would have denied the state's request and kept the stay in place.

Arizona authorities are preparing the execution chamber now, so they can kill him within the 34 hour period set by the death warrant.

Here's what the order says (received by email, no link): [More...]

Your turn.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Did Charlie Sheen violate his probation last night when taken from his hotel room to the hospital? TMZ has more. The New York Post says he was on a cocaine-fueled rampage.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said no complaints were made and there was no arrest. Sheen was not expected to face any criminal charges.

Sheen got 90 days of unsupervised probation. The judgement is here. Probation ends on November 2, 2010, if there are no violations. It also states he may not use alcohol in excess or drugs except for prescription medication. He also could not violate criminal laws or ordinances except traffic infractions.

Charlie's rep says:

"What we are able to determine is that Charlie had an adverse allergic reaction to some medication and was taken to the hospital, where is expected to be released tomorrow."

Even if the DA filed a petition to revoke his probation, and he was found to have violated the terms, the judge might or might not revoke his probation. He could also continue it or extend it.

The DA's office isn't planning on commenting on the case.

It only took five years to bring Tom DeLay to trial in Texas on state charges of money laundering and conspiracy. Jury selection begins today in Austin. In August, DeLay lost his bid to have the trial moved from the predominantly Democratic city.

From the Austin-American Statesman:

DeLay and two associates — Jim Ellis and John Colyandro — are accused by prosecutors of taking $190,000 in corporate money collected by a state political action committee DeLay started and illegally funneling it through the Republican National Committee in Washington to help elect GOP state legislative candidates in 2002. Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns.

DeLay has one of the best attorneys in the country, Dick DeGuerin of Houston, who also is a good friend of mine. Dick says there's no crime and the charges are the result of a political witchhunt by former Travis County DA Ronnie Earle. [More..]

14 year old Dakota Eliason shot and killed his grandfather. He said he went back and forth for hours debating whether to kill him or commit suicide, and decided to on the former.

The DA charged him in adult court. Monday, a Michigan judge imposed a sentence of life without parole, finding it violated neither the Constitution nor international treaties. He rejected a sentence of life with parole saying the law didn't authorize it. His opinion is here. His lawyer disagrees:

“Anyone that's spent any time around that kid will tell you he's a loving kid, certainly at his point, people that don't know him are defining him by the one terrible thing he did but he does have remorse he does wish he could take it back,” said defense attorney Lanny Fisher.

[More...]

Child soldier Omar Khadr pleaded guilty today in his military commission trial at Guantanamo.

Mr. Khadr agreed to plead guilty “in exchange for the Canadian government agreeing to repatriate him back to Canada after one year,” said his Canadian lawyer Dennis Edney...

The Harper government, despite its strident denials and years of refusing to intervene, endorsed the deal and made an exchange of diplomatic notes with Washington that should pave the way for Mr. Khadr to serve the remainder of his sentence in Canada, beginning next fall.

A jury will now recommend a sentence length for Khadr, but it only matters if it is less than the 8 years he agreed to in the plea agreement.

The details are sealed for now, but should be disclosed after the jury renders its verdict. Human rights groups quickly assailed the deal as unfair to Khadr: [More...]

The ACLU wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder today about California's Prop 19 that would legalize adult possession of marijuana in the state.

The letter asks Holder and Kerlikowske to stop threatening costly litigation and the deployment of federal drug police to arrest individuals who might use marijuana if the state enacts the proposition, which would allow adults 21 and older to possess and grow small amounts of marijuana for their personal use and allow cities and counties to regulate and tax commercial sales. The letter calls such rhetoric "unnecessarily alarmist" and says it does little to foster a balanced discussion of a legitimate policy issue.

"Proposition 19 would remove state criminal penalties for certain adult marijuana use," says the ACLU's letter. "The new law would not require anyone to do anything in violation of federal law. There would be no positive conflict."

[More...]

Last week we wrote about the impending Arizona execution of Jeffrey Landrigan. Landrigan alleged that the sodium thiopental Arizona planned to inject into Landrigan was not made by Hospira, Inc., the one U.S. company authorized to manufacture it. In other words, it came from a foreign source. He sought a stay and an order compelling the state to disclose the origin of the drug. The Arizona Supreme Court denied both requests.

With only 18 hours left before the execution, a federal judge today granted Landrigan a stay and ordered Arizona to immediately disclose the source of the drug. The court's 19 page ruling is here.

According to the Arizona Republic, the drug came comes from Great Britain. [More...]

The Brown Willie Horton ad:

* Reference here.

Speaking for me only

This is funny:

Open Thread.

Via ZeroHedge, TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky issued a scathing 388 page report (PDF). Geithner's Treasury Department catches the brunt:

While SIGTARP offers no opinion on the appropriateness or accuracy of the valuation contained in the Retrospective, we believe that the Retrospective fails to meet basic transparency standards by failing to disclose: (1) that the new lower estimate followed a change in the methodology that Treasury previously used to calculate expected losses on its AIG investment; and (2) that Treasury would be required by its auditors to use the older, and presumably less favorable, methodology in the official audited financials statements. [. . .] This conduct has left the Treasury vulnerable to charges it has manipulated its methodology for calculating losses to present two different numbers depending on its audience [. . .] Here again, Treasury's unfortunate insensitivity to the values of transparency has led it to engage in conduct that risks further damaging public trust in the Government.

(Emphasis supplied.) There's more and worse. A stunning rebuke.

Speaking for me only

Why was the 2009 stimulus too small? Two primary reasons -- one, Lawrence Summers misread the economic catastrophe at hand:

The memo argued that the stimulus should not be used to fill the entire output gap; rather, it was “an insurance package against catastrophic failure.” At the meeting, according to one participant, “there was no serious discussion to going above a trillion dollars.” [. . .] Summers [. . .] believed that filling the output gap through deficit spending was important, but that a package that was too large could potentially shift fears from the current crisis to the long-term budget deficit, which would have an unwelcome effect on the bond market.

Two, Rahm Emanuel misunderstood the Congressional process:

Krugman:

The real story of this election, then, is that of an economic policy that failed to deliver. Why? Because it was greatly inadequate to the task.

Could the stimulus have been made more effective? David Corn:

The "original sin of the Obama administration," says former labor secretary Robert Reich, "was to make the stimulus too small while giving out too much of it as tax breaks to businesses." [. . .] White House aides—and my colleague Kevin Drum—will say that Obama obtained the biggest stimulus he could, given GOP opposition. But the president need not have accommodated his foes so readily. "He could've demanded more, and settled for less," says a senior Senate Democratic strategist. That would have at least established a useful story line: For more recovery, we need to do more. Instead, Obama was left hailing a stimulus that didn't do enough.

And Obama got what he asked for: