by Ari Rutenberg Editor's Note: Ben Cohen is on vacation for a few days, so I'll been posting in his stead.  If there are any topics of particular interest to readers that have not been covered, please let me know and I'll do my best to get something going.  Also I love ...read more

Ouch. Albert Gonzales, 28, of Miami, Fla., was indicted today for conspiring to hack into computer networks supporting major American retail and financial organizations, and stealing data relating to more than 130 million credit and debit cards, announced Assistant Attorney ...read more

As I said time and again, good riddance to bad garbage. A federal jury convicted a former Louisiana congressman Wednesday of taking bribes on 11 of 16 counts in a case in which agents found $90,000 in his freezer. Former Rep. William Jefferson, a Democrat who had represented ...read more

Link A criminal complaint says 48-year-old John Zaubler called 911 Saturday and said he was going to kill Sotomayor by "blowing her up" because he did not want his girlfriend to go to federal prison. The complaint also says he wanted to kill Obama by "blowing him up." Sketchy ...read more

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the assassin of Dr. Tiller was a member of Operation Rescue. Operation Rescue and their leader, Randall Terry was most recently in the news as part of the actions against the President's speech at Notre Dame. It was on Fox News a lot. Dr. ...read more

The Big Lead: Nabbed for DUI, Hall of Famer Bruce Smith Appears Ageless, Like Richard Alpert ...read more

As John notes, whether Nancy Pelosi knew or didn't know about the Bush administration's authorization and execution of torture doesn't matter. Either Pelosi didn't know or she abdicated her responsibility as a political leader and American by not speaking up and opposing it. ...read more

Link Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to drop espionage charges against two officials of the American ...read more

And then it happens Pittsburgh police say a man wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call, killing three of them. Police chief Nate Harper says the motive for Saturday's shooting isn't clear. Friends say the gunman recently had been ...read more

As I've said in the past: Until the church is subject to a full RICO-style investigation of its serial crime, justice will not be served. As early as the mid-1950s, decades before the clergy sexual-abuse crisis broke publicly across the U.S. Catholic landscape, the founder of a ...read more

So says Sec. Clinton. “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” she said, using unusually blunt language. “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers ...read more

It's usually the students who get in trouble for cutting class. An Ohio fourth-grade teacher had a side job as a prostitute, and even skipped class after using a school computer to arrange an afternoon tryst at a motel, authorities say. Logan County sheriff's officials said ...read more

Seriously. Jail. Not a fine or a slap on the wrist. This guy (and others in his company) are the reason behind several homicides. A peanut company blamed for a salmonella outbreak discovered the dangerous bacteria at its Georgia plant as far back as 2006. Darlene Cowart of JLA ...read more

Link Police arrested the former manager of Sen. John McCain’s Pueblo presidential campaign office Wednesday on charges he sexually assaulted a 5-year-old boy left in his care so the boy’s mother could attend a rally for McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, The Denver ...read more

It's not as bad as that crazy party Captain Picard had, but its getting there. Colorado police say a man with too much 'Star Trek' on his mind used a sword modeled after the weapon carried by Klingon warriors to demand money from two convenience stores. Investigators say the ...read more

Way back when I was writing about Cardinal Law and the coverup by the archdiocese in Boston, I was in favor of using RICO to go after the church for their systematic hiding of pedophiles. Connecticut's Catholic Church is charged with racketeering in a suit that claims church ...read more

From the indictment of Illinois Gov Rod Blagojevich (backstory): "ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that the consultants (Advisor B and another consultant are believed to be on the call at that time) are telling him that he has to “suck it up” for two years and do nothing and give this ...read more

Since the voters of Louisiana won't do the right thing. A federal appeals court upheld bribery and other charges against Louisiana Democratic U.S. Rep. William Jefferson on Wednesday, clearing the way for a trial. Jefferson, who cruised to victory in a primary last week and is ...read more

Link The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree. In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an ...read more

Shame. Shame. Shame. Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter 'B' in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker. Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed ...read more

If this is true, it's pretty insane. Police are investigating after a local woman working at a campaign call center says she was attacked by a suspect who became enraged after seeing a McCain bumper sticker on her car. According to police, the 20-year-old woman said she was ...read more

Some guy is so lucky he didn't get Oliver "They're All Guilty" Willis deciding his fate. ...read more

I confess I haven't followed this case, and it is highly likely the jury (correction: it was a judge trial) had every reason for deciding as they did. But I hope people understand that just from a gut level it is very hard for black people to reconcile that there was nothing ...read more

What John Stagliano is doing is perfectly legal and falls under the first amendment. A grand jury has socked Stagliano with eight obscenity violations for selling adult videos online and via unmarked packing envelopes shipped by the U.S. Postal Service. None of the films contain ...read more

Good news. A federal appellate court today ordered former Gov. Don Siegelman released from prison while he appeals his 2006 conviction, saying there are "substantial questions" about his case. A federal jury in 2006 convicted Siegelman and HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy of ...read more

This guy is really ridiculous. Totally. Georgia's attorney general confirms that he's trying to keep behind bars a man who was sentenced to ten years in prison for consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. A judge today ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson, ...read more

The reason I support the death penalty is not because I think it's a deterrent, but because I believe that some crimes can only be punished by death, still if it's also a deterrent that's a positive in my eyes. What gets little notice, however, is a series of academic studies ...read more

Clearly winning a championship trumps stopping a sex criminal. A former high school principal was indicted Wednesday on charges that he failed to report on-campus sex crimes to protect a star running back who eventually led his team to a state title. Dwight Bernard, the former ...read more