Racial profiling on the part of many police departments seems obvious to those who are profiled, as well as to many of us who interact regularly with the victims of profiling. An officer's true motivation is easy to conceal since officers are more likely to say "I pulled him over because his tire touched the fog line" than "I pulled him over because he's black and his tire touched the fog line." Statistical evidence of profiling seems compelling to some, less so to others.

In Palo Alto, however, there's no ambiguity at all, thanks to a police chief who made departmental policy abundantly clear:

Police Chief Lynne Johnson [during on October 30 interview on KGO-TV] ... said she instructed her officers "to make contact with African-Americans in Palo Alto," adding: "When our officers are out there and they see an African-American, in a congenial way, we want them to find out who they are."

[more ...]

Huffington Post reports that Barack Obama has added Mike Lux, a blogger at Open Left and advisor to the Clinton transition team (among other accomplishments) to his transition team.

Veteran Democratic official Mike Lux has been tapped by Barack Obama to serve as an adviser and progressive liaison during the transition period, the Huffington Post has learned.

Lux, who worked on the Clinton administration transition efforts in 1992, confirmed the hiring but, citing a need for clearance, declined to offer further information.

More Lux credentials below:

Here's a breath of fresh air:

President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

Here's an interesting twist:

A third group of detainees — the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information — might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks.

I hope the "new court" has more protections than those set up by the Military Commissions Act.

Very little is more prejudicial in the penalty phase of a death case than a video of the victim's life set to music. Juries are instructed to base their decisions on reason rather than emotion, and then view a video, on a larger than life screen, depicting images of the victim and events in his or her life, as prepared by their family, set to music.

Today, the Supreme Court refused to reject the practice in two cases.

The order Monday comes in two California cases in which jurors were shown video montages of the victims' lives, in one instance set to music by Enya.

Three justices disagreed with the ruling: Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens. Justice Stevens' statement is here (pdf.)

"The videos added nothing relevant to the jury's deliberations and invited a verdict based on sentiment, rather than reasoned judgment," Stevens said.

You can watch one of the videos here.

Lawyers report that 5,000 D.U.I cases in Arizona could be dismissed due to a fight over the source code for the Intoxilyzer 8000, in use since Dec. 2006 and alleged to be error-prone. The Judge (as have others across the country) ordered CMI Inc. of Owensboro, Ky, the company that makes the device, to turn over the source code and it has refused, even though it has already accumulated fines of more than $1 million, just in Florida.

(The device has been approved in 6 other states. Colorado uses the Intoxilyzer 5000EN, so I doubt it will happen here.)

It's not the first time this has happened in Arizona.

A dozen years ago, about 5,000 cases were dismissed within a few months after prosecutors agreed the breath-test device in use then, the RBT IV, manufactured by Intoximeters Inc., was faulty.

The number of Tucson DUI arrests in 2007-08: 5,963, although not all involved the Intoxilyzer 8000.

E.J. Dionne gets at something here:

Fundamentally, ours is a non-ideological nation. Many who would like the government to act more boldly still need to be persuaded of government's capacity to succeed. Here again, Obama's situation closely resembles Reagan's. Like our 40th president, Obama has been authorized to move in a new direction. If Reagan had the voters' permission to move away from strategies associated with liberalism, Obama has sanction to move away from conservative policies. Reagan was judged by the results of his choices, and Obama will be, too.

I happen to believe that progressive policies will be the most efficacious for the country. Obama said in the campaign that he believed that too. But what he needs to do is push for the policies he believes will work. Because his political success depends on the success of his policies. "Center Right" and "Center Left" will mean nothing to the voters. Which is why Dionne is right when he states:

The economy continues to deteriorate:

• Fannie Mae Posts $29 Billion Loss
• Feds Increase AIG Bailout by $40 Mil, total now $150 billion
• Circuit City Files for Bankruptcy
• And the Dems are calling for an auto industry bailout.

At the start of the whole Center Right Meme, Jon Meacham wrote:

But history, as John Adams once said of facts, is a stubborn thing, and it tells us that Democratic presidents from FDR to JFK to LBJ to Carter to Clinton usually wind up moving farther right than they thought they ever would, or they pay for their continued liberalism at the polls. . . . The pattern has deep roots. FDR had a longish run (from 1933 to 1937), but he lost significant ground in the 1938 midterm elections . . .

You see Meacham says FDR's Dem Party "lost" in the 1938 election (of course, FDR did not lose, the Dems maintained huge majorities in the Congress) because of FDR's "liberal overreach." The thesis is that FDR's "court packing" scheme was "liberal overreach I suppose (though of course the 1937 Supreme Court term famously provided FDR with victories for his New Deal.) Or perhaps FDR's attempts to knock out some of the more conservative Dem members of Congress in favor of more progressive ones is what Meacham is talking about (though that does not make sense as FDR largely failed in this effort.) Paul Krugman provides a different thesis - that FDR stumbled in the 1938 election because he turned Center Right:

Via Scotus Blog, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in three criminal cases today:

• Chambers v. United States (06-11206), on whether failure to report to prison is a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminals Act.

• United States v. Hayes (07-608), on whether federal gun laws require a domestic relationship between an attacker and victim to qualify as a misdemeanor crime of “domestic violence.”

• Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts (07-591), on whether the Confrontation Clause gives criminal defendants a right to cross-examine forensic analysts who prepare laboratory reports for use in their prosecution.

The Washington Post reports that three Bush Administration appointees are likely to remain in an Obama Administration, including FBI Director Robert Mueller, whose term expires in 2011.

Mueller has championed new guidelines, set to take effect Dec. 1, that give agents pursuing terrorism leads the power to conduct long-term surveillance of suspects, engage in pretext interviews in which agents conceal their identities and infiltrate groups that the FBI thinks may threaten national security. Obama has not spoken out on the guidelines, which have roiled civil-liberties advocates, but has indicated support for a new domestic intelligence czar who would provide more oversight of the FBI's intelligence operations.

Yesterday, I included rejecting the new FBI snooping guidelines approved in September and October by Bush, Mueller and Attorney General Mukasey among my suggestions for President-Elect Barack Obama. Grits for Breakfast has more.

How likely is that if Mueller is staying on as FBI Director? Center for Investigative Reporting has this analysis of the new guidelines: [More..]

Some fraudsters are peddling phony tickets to President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration. The Washington Post reports the only source for tickets, which are free, is the Congressional Offices. They are setting up a website with information.

The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies has printed about 250,000 tickets to the Jan. 20 swearing-in ceremony at the west front of the U.S. Capitol.

The tickets are free and will be given to members of Congress and to President-elect Barack Obama's presidential inaugural committee, once that is established. Those who want to attend the ceremony should contact their local member of Congress to request tickets.

One drawback for out-of-towners planning to attend: "Tickets will not be given out until one week before the inauguration." Maybe the airlines will offer last minute inauguration fares? I don't think so either, but I thought I'd throw the idea out there.

The Chicago Police are under investigation for multiple complaints of using pepper spray against election night revelers celebrating Barack Obama's victory. One incident sparked a lawsuit.

A family filed a federal lawsuit charging officers in unmarked squad cars pepper-sprayed and shouted racial slurs at their young children as they drove on the West Side.

There are unconfirmed reports of as many as 50 pepper spray incidents in the same Chicago district.