Sen. Patrick Leahy and Chris Dodd introduced a bill this week to restore habeas. Help them out.

They need 60 votes tomorrow. Latest word is 55 Senators are on board so far, with key targets as Lugar, Hagel, Collins, Ben Nelson, and Joe Lieberman.

If these are your Senators, pick up the phone and call. If you've got a blog, post and ask your readers to call.

As Christy of Firedoglake says in her informative post, the Constitution needs your help today.

Another inappropriate use of the taser in Florida yesterday, on a student asking a question at a John Kerry forum. Here's what happened.

As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., can be heard saying, "That's alright, let me answer his question." Audience members applaud, and Meyer struggles for several seconds as up to four officers try to remove him from the room. Meyer screams for help and tries to break away from officers, then is forced to the ground and officers order him to stop resisting.

As Kerry tells the audience he will answer the student's "very important question," Meyer yells at the officers to release him, crying out, "Don't Tase me, bro," just before he is shocked by the Taser. He is then led from the room, screaming, "What did I do?"

I received an invite yesterday from Zach Edwards of the Nevada Barack Obama campaign to contribute a post on the campaign blog. They never asked if I was a Obama supporter, the topic never came up. Since I had a few minutes and thought the topic they assigned me is an important one, I sent in my answer.

It's now online at Obama's Nevada blog. Here is how I responded:

Question One: Should bloggers be considered journalists?

Answer: See Below.

Good news in the academic freedom department. Liberal Law Prof Erwin Chemerinsky has been rehired to be the dean of the University of California's (Irvine)law school.

Via the AP:

The new Donald Bren School of Law will be the first new public law school in California in 40 years and is expected to welcome its first class in 2009.

Chemerinsky taught for 21 years at the University of Southern California law school before moving to Duke University in 2004. In April 2005, Legal Affairs magazine named him one of the top 20 legal thinkers in America.

At midnight tomorrow night, the New York Times will end its hugely unpopular Times Select program, which required readers to pay to read their columnists.

It's been two years since I've read Maureen Dowd. I've only seen Frank Rich's column when another blogger has posted it. Sometimes, there would investigative pieces put behind the wall that I would have liked to have read and blogged about. Sometimes I read them on Lexis the next day. Mostly, I forgot by then.

The Times Select program had to be one of the worst decisions ever -- both business-wise for the Times and for news consumers.

Now that it's over, I'll be spending more time at the site.

Update: Here are my photos of President Clinton taken this afternoon in Boulder.

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I may have a touch of the Norman Hsu political groupie syndrome. While I didn't bundle any money to attend, I'm off to see Bill Clinton at a Hillary fundraiser in Boulder -- even though it means I have to drive 60 miles afterwards to see a client in jail.

Here's an open thread.

I'll leave you with a quote from Judge Mukasey contained from an article, New York's Federal Judges Protest Sentencing Procedures (The New York Times December 8, 2003, available on Lexis.com) about the Feeney Amendment that raised criminal sentences, limited the ability of Judges to impose downward departures and imposed a reporting requirement on judges who granted downward departures. The report was to be submitted by the Chief Judge and made available to members of Congress.

More...

The ACLU has filed a "friend of court" brief with the Minnesota Court considering Sen. Larry Craig's motion to withdraw his guilty plea over his bathroom sting arrest. You can read the brief here. The ACLU says (press release will be available here later today):

“The real motive behind secret sting operations like the one that resulted in Senator Craig’s arrest is not to stop people from inappropriate activity. It is to make as many arrests as possible – arrests that sometimes unconstitutionally trap innocent people,” said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “If the police really want to stop people from having sex in public bathrooms, they should put up a sign banning sex in the restroom and send in a uniformed officer to patrol periodically. That works.”

After noting that Sen. Craig has not always been a friend to civil liberties, the ACLU says that doesn't matter and explains its legal reasoning:

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White House sources said Sunday night Michael Mukasey has accepted President Bush's offer to be our next Attorney General.

What's up with Sen. Charles Schumer? First he touts Mukasey to Bush for both the Supreme Court and the Attorney General's position, and now he's promising a tough confirmation hearing and saying Judge Mukasey only has "potential" to be a consensus nominee?

Schumer said Mukasey will face questions about "important and sensitive issues," such as the controversy over the Bush administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program and the appointments of U.S. attorneys. But he said the former judge "has the potential to become a consensus nominee."

Maybe he should have ascertained the Judge's positions on these issues before he recommended him for the job.

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Hillary Clinton's proposed health care plan is being released today.

Like John Edwards and unlike Obama, her plan will call for mandatory insurance for all Americans.

It will be much more streamlined and less complicated than the plan she introduced while Bill Clinton was President.

For those who are already insured and happy with their plans, there won't be any required changes.

Insurers will be required to provide insurance to everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions.

The plan will provide tax subsidies to individuals and small businesses to help pay for health insurance. Part of the cost will be covered by rolling back some of Bush's tax cuts to those earning more than $250,000 a year.

Yes! The Sopranos gets its due and wins the Emmy for Best Drama Series.

But what was up with the censors? They were way too fast on the trigger. Sally Field did not deserve to get censored. Here's the video [Via Think Progress.]

After giving a tribute to the mothers of soldiers in harm's way, she said "If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any god -" [cut]. The sentence uncensored: "If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be god-damned wars in the first place."

Congrats also to Jon Stewart and the Daily Show for winning the award for Best Variety, Music or Comedy Series and Al Gore, whose Current TV won an award for Creative Achievement in Interactive TV.

Overall, though tonight's Emmy Awards were terrible.

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Bump and Update: OJ is being held without bond until tomorrow. His lawyer, Yale Galanter of Florida, responds:

"Obviously we intend to fight these charges vigorously. We believe it is an extremely defensible case based on conflicting witness statements, flip-flopping by witnesses and witnesses making deals with the government to flip," he said.

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Original Post: OJ Simpson Arrested

From AP:

O.J. Simpson was arrested Sunday on charges related to an armed robbery involving sport memorabilia, police said. Simpson was arrested shortly after 11 a.m. and is being brought to a police office, Capt. James Dillon said. Police are still determining charges against Simpson.

More....

Via Kos:

“We are going to bring an end to this war and I will fight hard in the United States Senate to make sure we don’t pass any funding bill that does not have a deadline,” Obama told the crowd.

Big props to Senator Obama. Hurrah!