It is now being widely reported that the corruption investigations begun two years ago have finally resulted in an indictment on conspiracy charges (also available as a PDF) against Tom DeLay himself. If convicted, the penalty will be six months to two years in prison, and up to a $100,000 fine. The current Republican struggle seems to be to make sure that he is treated better than everyone else going through the legal system when he is fingerprinted and photographed.

I have long held that the metric of whether or not a country has an independent government is whether it successfully takes actions that its nearest controlling neighbor doesn't like. To my great astonishment, Iraq is actually showing signs of this, condemning the U.S. for detaining thousands of Iraqis (and perhaps not incidentally, a number of journalists attempting to provide independent news coverage) without charge or even any statement about what they are suspected of, and attempting to change the U.N. resolution giving U.S. troops immunity from Iraqi law.