Fighting Dock Walls and some Wednesday shorts

Bill Dock Walls challenges the Mayor's nominating petitions. From today's Trib. Nice to see a politician who doesn't roll over to the opposition.

Supporters of mayoral challenger William "Dock" Walls filed objections Tuesday to the nominating petitions of Mayor Richard Daley, the first time since Daley became mayor that his petitions have been called into question.

Daley's campaign said it is confident in the validity of its petitions. But Walls said his supporters found a number of problems with the mayor's petitions, including the names of people not registered to vote and evidence of forgery.

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Aiham Alsammarae shows up in Jordan on a US Plane. From today's Sun Times,

His whereabouts had been unknown until today, when Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit told reporters that Alsammarae "arrived in Amman as an American and on an American plane," an apparent reference to a U.S. military plane, the Associated Press reported.

"Jordan did not receive any demand from the Iraqi authorities" for al-Samaraie's extradition, al-Bakhit said.

But Lou Fintor, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, flatly denied the United States was involved in transporting Alsammarae anywhere or played any role in his escape.

"Wherever Mr. Alsammarae went, he did not get there with the assistance of the U.S. government," Fintor said this morning. "There's absolutely no truth whatsoever to these reports."

Can Fitzgerald fly someone over to Amman to interview him before someone packs off to Baghdad again?

Alsammarae has a Chicago story to tell and I'm afraid it's going to get buried.

Also followed by RYP over at Iragslogger; the only National group following this story besides some righty bloggers who suspect Dick Cheney is springing Alsammarae in return for contributions to the Bush campaign.