Rudy exposed by a surpising source:

[In 1996, Rudy] stepped on the podium at the Kennedy School of Government to deliver a speech on immigration. “I’m pleased to be with you this evening to talk about the anti-immigrant movement in America . . . I believe the anti-immigrant movement in America is one of our most serious public problems. . . . It can be seen in the negative attitudes being expressed by many of the politicians.” . . . At the moment [in 2007], Giuliani and fellow moderate Mitt Romney are attacking each other for being insufficiently Tancredo-esque. . . .

Even the conservative David Brooks recognizes that Rudy Giuliani is as phony as a three dollar bill.

Speaking for me only

My title is facetious. No one is trying to get my support. But the race starts in earnest today and I will support someone in the Dem primary race. Right now, my weak support goes to Barack Obama, with Chris Dodd as my second choice.

What am I looking for in a candidate? First of all, support and leadership on the issues that mean the most to me.

Iraq is the most important issue to me. Barack Obama opposed the Iraq Debacle while all the other leading candidates supported it. (I know, I know, they didn't vote for the war they say. Sorry, they did.) This is a big thing. The problem is what about now? Throughout his Senatorial tenure, Barack Obama has been quite weak in his opposition to the Debacle and has not strongly supported actions by the Congress to end it until recently. He said the Congress should not play chicken with the President on Iraq. It was a terrible moment for him. By contrast, Chris Dodd has been leading on Iraq, calling for Congressional action to not fund the Debacle without a date certain for ending our involvement in the Iraq Debacle. Clinton has largely tracked Obama's path on this -the weak path, also until recently. John Edwards has offered strong rhetoric. Bill Richardson has distracted with a phony argument about "residual troops." On this point, a very important one, advantage Dodd. Among the Big 3, Edwards has been the best of late. But Obama got it right in the beginning. Clinton lags.

More.

An early version. What's your favorite verse? I've got two:

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

and

'Relax,' said the night man,
'We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave!'

And I do have one serious post up today, over at Huffington Post, This Thanksgiving, Most of All. A snippet:

What I'm most thankful for is that I'm not in jail eating processed turkey on a plastic plate.

I'm thinking about the children of the incarcerated. There are more than 2.4 million kids with parents languishing in our jails and prisons due to legislators who insist on being tough rather than smart on crime.

America, Prison Nation, has been a costly and harmful failure.

William Saletan of Slate has received warranted and almost universal ridicule for his pathetically bad series on race, intelligence and IQ. But I got a chuckle from this from him:

Why write about this topic? Why hurt people's feelings? Why gratify bigots? Because truth matters. . . .

Heh. Saletan imagines himself able to hurt feelings. Sorry, we do not think enough of you to be hurt by you sir. You simply made a fool of yourself. As for being the holder of the truth, please stop embarrassing yourself.

A front page post at Daily Kos declares:

we should honor our vision of a people not acting as selfish individuals, but pursuing individual goals in a broader society bound with a sense of solidarity, a sense of shared benefits and shared sacrifice, the sense that "we’re all in this together" that Michael Tomasky evoked last year when he succinctly declared "The Democrats need to become the party of the common good."

It is true that Tomasky wrote that. But it was at Daily Kos, in my interview with Rep. Jim McDermott, that I first heard the phrase "Common Good." Of course, McDermott has used this phrase prior to that, for example, in this 2004 speech.

Credit for Tomasky for running with McDermott's phrase, but it bothers me no end that he continues to be credited for an articulation that was originated by Jim McDermott. Daily Kos especially should not be furthering that injustice. Give Jim McDermott his due please.

TalkLeft wishes all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving.

If you're around at noon (Mountain Time) KBCO FM Boulder plays the long version of Alice's Restaurant. They replay it at 6 pm. You can listen live online here.

Or, you can enjoy it anytime here, story included.

It's a movement, "The Alice's Restaurant Let's Give Thanks and Remember Why We Started Doing This and Why We Keep On Keepin' On Movement." Religious Studies Professor Ira Chernus at the University of Colorado at Boulder explains why.

It's never too late to rehabilitate yourself, to start creating enough of a nuisance and sing loud enough to end war and stuff. If you've been doing it for 25 years, or more, I bet you are prepared to do it for another 25 years or more. I bet you're not proud, or tired.

Unfortunately, though, the world will keep doing all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things, at least for a while. And we'll all be just having a tough time here, on this road of activism. It may be a good idea to remember the comfort and rejuvenation we can get from an old familiar ritual now and then. So don't forget to sing along when it comes around on the guitar.

Because it is, indeed, a movement: The Alice's Restaurant Let's Give Thanks and Remember Why We Started Doing This and Why We Keep On Keepin' On Movement.

The disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba was big news a couple of years ago. Obsessive media coverage provoked reasonable complaints about distorted priorities and poor judgment in television news departments. Has the public's interest been sated, or will new arrests of old suspects trigger another round of 24 hour Natalee Holloway coverage?

Notwithstanding the determined efforts of New York City law enforcement, stopping to chat with another pedestrian is not a crime.

The New York Court of Appeals decided Tuesday to overturn the conviction of Matthew Jones, who was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest on June 12, 2004. Police said other people "had to walk around" him, he wouldn't move when asked and he flailed his arms.

Standing rooted to a spot while hanging with friends is not the kind of conduct New York's disorderly conduct statute prohibits.

"Otherwise, any person who happens to stop on a sidewalk — whether to greet another, to seek directions or simply to regain one's bearings — would be subject to prosecution under this statute," the opinion said.

People who block the sidewalk are annoying, but if being annoying were a crime, few would be free to guard the jails.

Good news from Georgia.

Georgia's top court overturned a state law Wednesday that banned registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, churches and other areas where children congregate.

"It is apparent that there is no place in Georgia where a registered sex offender can live without being continually at risk of being ejected," read the unanimous opinion, written by presiding Justice Carol Hunstein.

The Southern Center for Human Rights has been instrumental in fighting this law. Background on the law is here.

The text of the opinion is here (pdf.) The sex offender statute is here (pdf.)

If you're online this afternoon and evening, here's some stuff to check out:

• Christy at Firedoglake on Judge Brinkema's order in the al-Timini case threatening to toss the conviction over state secrets and the NSA wiretapping progam.

• TPM on yet more of Rudy's business deals.

• Instapundit Glenn Reynolds' op-ed in the New York Post on the Supreme Court decision to review the D.C. gun control law.

• Taylor Marsh on tomorrow's anniversary of the assassination of JFK, He Couldn't Get Elected Today.

• Sentencing Law and Policy has a big variety today, from the GA. Supreme Court striking down sex offender restrictions to attempt to end the New Jersey death penalty to Judge Nancy Gertner's most recent sentencing break for a crack defendant.

What are you reading?

Call for prison reform are finally drawing attention from policy makers and members of the law enforcement community. Via the Scout Report at the University of Wisconsin:

• U.S. Prison system a costly and harmful failure
  about recent JFA report.
• California a leader in number of youths in prison for life
• Crack cocaine sentence cut is stalled by retroactivity
• NPR: Should Sentencing Reform Be Retroactive? [Real Player]
• Unlocking America [pdf]
• Bureau of Justice Statistics

Within the vast world of pressing policy problems, system-wide prison reform in the United States has been a subject that has vexed even the most dedicated experts and committed activists. Over the past four decades, the prison population has risen eight-fold, and people have laid the blame on everything from mandatory sentencing laws to economic restructuring in America's manufacturing regions.

More....

Booman:

The non-stop shilling for Clinton continues at Talk Left where Armando is at it full-time.

Have whatever opinion of the actual Bill Clinton Presidency, but you have to deal with the fact that Bill Clinton remains extremely popular and his Presidency remembered fondly.

It's funny, but I don't remember Bill Clinton's presidency all that fondly. The first two years could only be described as a total disaster.

Funny, I do not recall writing that BOOMAN remembered the Clinton Presidency fondly. I cited an article which stated:

Bill Clinton enjoys a 66 percent approval rating in a Washington Post/ABC News Poll released last month.

Booman's hatred of Hillary is so blinding that he denies the obvious - Bill Clinton is popular, whether Booman likes Bill or not. He sounds like a Republican now. Denying obvious facts. That is quintessential Hillary Hate. Makes people idiots.