At the end of the day

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Looking to 2008 and beyond, "The presidential election is about more than the candidates...Who do you want to make the next Supreme Court appointment?" More from Bluegal at C&L.

Lobbyists on board -- Obama's national co-chair Jim Hodges "is registered to lobby for Hillenbrand Partners, a Chicago-based company that does business with the Federal Home Loan Bank in Atlanta." Others at AP. However, no one rivals super lobby magnet, K Street McCain.

FISA and telecom immunity -- Hillary and Obama have "pledged to support a Dodd-led filibuster." Will they? Repubs think they can "bully and scare the Democrats into passing a law that has everything" Bush wants. Who's the ringleader? Sen. Kitt Bond (R-MO), "vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is at the center." Calling for help, Jane Hamsher asked John Edwards to take the lead.

James Wolcott wrote about the economic meltdown and the "festive run-up to Armageddon" via Kunstler. Wolcott concluded, "Who can we thank in Washington for the mess we're in?" Many. But don't forget Dickhead.

The probe into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys deepened via "a sprawling inquiry launched by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).... Investigators from these offices have been questioning whether senior officials lied to Congress, violated the criminal provisions in the Hatch Act, tampered with witnesses preparing to testify to Congress, obstructed justice, took improper political considerations into account during the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys and created widespread problems in the department’s Civil Rights Division, according to several people familiar with the investigation." (h/t Laura Rozen)

Probation officers recommended that Brent Wilkes get 60 years in prison for his part in the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal. Crime doesn't pay unless your name is Bush or Cheney.

Padilla got 17-year sentence that "[marked] a major setback in a terrorism prosecution for the Justice Department." Judge Marcia G. Cooke "criticized the government's treatment of Padilla during the time it held him without charges" and cited "'harsh' conditions that Padilla suffered for 3 1/2 years after he was arrested in 2002."

Letter to President Pervez Musharraf from 100 retired senior officers of the Pakistan Ex-Servicemen's Society -- Resign! McClatchy

Arab Jabour, Iraq -- The "first fatality inflicted by a roadside bomb on an MRAP, the new Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected armored vehicle.... ...more than 1,500 [MRAPs] in Iraq now, and the military plans to purchase more than 15,000 of them at a cost of $22.4 billion." NYT

Center for Public Integrity launched a website and a searchable database of 385,000 words on prewar Iraq misinformation hyped by Bush and top officials -- Cheney, Rice, Fleischer, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Powell, and McClellan.

CNN headline -- "Black women voters face tough choices." It's Obama vs. Hillary. Ahem! Don't policies matter? (h/t Kieran)

[That's all...no more after the jump.]