Alaska senator charged over gifts

: Mr . Stevens was already facing a tough re-election battle in November

BBC: Alaska Senator Ted Stevens has been charged with making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure form.

The Republican lawmaker has been under investigation for his involvement with Veco, an oil company whose executives have confessed to bribing officials.

In Mr Stevens's indictment, officials alleged that he failed to disclose $250,000 worth of work done on his house free of charge by Veco employees.

Mr Stevens, 84, is the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate.

He has not immediately responded to the indictment.

What Bush and Batman Have in Common (not)

What a way to ruin interest in a movie!
Fox must not be the production studio...

WSJ: A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past. [More...]

A Church Commission in 2009?

SALON.COM:The last several years have brought a parade of dark revelations about the George W. Bush administration, from the manipulation of intelligence to torture to extrajudicial spying inside the United States. But there are growing indications that these known abuses of power may only be the tip of the iceberg. Now, in the twilight of the Bush presidency, a movement is stirring in Washington for a sweeping new inquiry into White House malfeasance that would be modeled after the famous Church Committee congressional investigation of the 1970s.

While reporting on domestic surveillance under Bush, Salon obtained a detailed memo proposing such an inquiry, and spoke with several sources involved in recent discussions around it on Capitol Hill. The memo was written by a former senior member of the original Church Committee; the discussions have included aides to top House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, and until now have not been disclosed publicly. [More...]