The 2007 Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning.

I haven't seen Babel or several of the films, but I did like Martin Scorcese's The Departed a lot and am glad to see Leonardo DiCaprio get a best actor's nod for it. How strange that he's running against himself -- he's also up for the best actor award for Blood Diamond, another film I am anxiously awaiting.

The Departed's nomination for best picture seems like a stretch though -- and I would have liked am glad to see Jack Nicholson get a nomination for it.

As for the tv nominations, I hope Grey's Anatomy wins them all. I am seriously addicted to the show and every one of its characters.

I have an op-ed today on Tuesday's immigration raids in the Washington Examiner.

I cannot accept a government that rounds people up on buses and takes them to undisclosed locations. Who is a winner here? With the exception of companies like Halliburton with federal contracts to build detention centers, I can’t think of any.

Update: Pachacutec at Firedoglake writes more about what will happen to the children of those arrested.

Update: the oped is currently #38 of 14,864 articles. I hope you all read it so it gets bumped into the top ten. The Examiner is viewed as a conservative paper, so this is a chance to speak to those not in the choir.

The Drug Law Blog has them and some are doozies. Part 2 is here. One of my favorites:

The United States Gets Tough on Methamphetamine By Locking Up All Its Cold Medicine, Forcing Tweakers To Import Speed From Mexico Instead and Messing Up the Formula For Nyquil

Another:

Scalia Writes Hudson v. Michigan, Breaks Fourth Amendment Supression Doctrine Into Little Tiny Crumbs of Dust.

Criminal defense lawyers aren't thrilled when their clients decide to contact the media on their own. But that's what Miami 7 terror suspect Narseal Batiste has done. In a 25 page letter, he asserts his innocence and laments a frame-up.

"I want you to know that I never had any intentions of doing a terrorist act," Batiste now says in his letter. "My group and I never had reason to harm anyone."

Batiste writes the FBI put drugs in food he and co-defendants Patrick Abraham were served by the FBI informant the night a surveillance tape was shot, on which Batiste talks about blowing up the Sears Tower. He wrote that he’s simply telling the informant what he wanted to hear, just so he could get money from him for their church.

"That's why you see me playing with tissue boxes talking about blowing up the Sears Tower. I made it up right then and there," he wrote.

Background here.

[hat tip SD Florida Blog]

Atrios points out how Lieberman lied again:

In July he said:

So I am confident that the situation is improving enough on the ground that by the end of this year, we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops, and by the end of the next year more than half of the troops who are there now will be home.

Lieberman, visiting Iraq today with Republicans McCain, Graham and Collins, reportedly said today:

"We need more, not less, troops," Lieberman said.

There really is no less principled person in politics today than Joe Lieberman.

It so happens I am not a big fan of Michael Crowley's work - his dismissiveness of the Netroots in particular - but Michael Crichton's attack is so below the belt that it is jaw dropping.

What a jerk.

More here.

Why did we fight so hard to gain a Democratic Congress in the last election? Why did we stress the importance of the D next to a candidate's name? This is why:

President Bush should expect tougher oversight of the war on terrorism and a closer look at his administration's policies on torture and other human rights issues, the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday.

. . . Leahy said he would also deal with what he says are the administration's human rights abuses by creating a new subcommittee focused on legislation on such issues as torture and detainee treatment. Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois will chair the new panel, Leahy said.

. . . Leahy also talked tough about President Bush's ``signing statements,'' in which the president has laid out which parts of laws he has just signed that he will follow and which he might not.

. . . Leahy, who was chairman of the committee in 2001-2002, said the return of Democratic control would mean a period of ``restoration, repair and renewal'' after what he termed years of the Bush administration's virtually unchecked power to hunt for terrorists even within U.S. borders. ``This administration has been less and less willing to let us know what they are doing,'' Leahy said. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program and the government's secretive terrorism risk assessments of Americans traveling abroad merit a closer look by his panel, Leahy said.

The separation of powers. Checks and balances. The Founders were very smart.

Last week, Karl Rove gave a speech on foreign policy at the annual Churchill Dinner sponsored by Hillsdale College at the Mayflower Hotel.

Via Lexis.com (subscription only), which has a copy of his speech, in answer to a question about redistricting, which he criticized, he said:

....I say this as a former political consultant who liked competitive races when I was in the business. I won't be returning to the business.

The Evans and Novak Report says this means Rove is retiring from politics when Bush's term ends.

Absolutely disgusting.

Angel Nieves Diaz, 55, was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m., despite his protests of innocence and requests for clemency made by the governor of his native Puerto Rico. He appeared to move for 24 minutes after the first injection. His eyes were open, his mouth opened and closed and his chest rose and fell. He was pronounced dead 10 minutes after his last movement.

Reaction from Florida Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger:

"It was not unanticipated. The metabolism of the drugs to the liver is slowed," Plessinger said.

Not only was the execution botched, it was barbaric. As are they all.

Federal Judge James Robertson has ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that Salim Ahmed Hamdan cannot challenge his confinement at Guantanamo because of the Military Commissions Act passed in September, which prevents the detainees from bringing habeas challenges.

It was Judge Robertson who granted Mr. Hamdan’s habeas petition in November 2004, abruptly halting his war crimes trial in the middle of proceedings at Guantánamo by ruling that the process was fatally flawed.

But in his decision Wednesday, the judge said circumstances had changed fundamentally with enactment of the new law. And not only is Mr. Hamdan barred from a challenge under the habeas statute, the judge said, he cannot follow the usual second avenue to bring a habeas challenge — invoking the Constitution — because it is unclear that noncitizens at Guantánamo have that right.

The opinion is here (pdf). TalkLeft reader Scribe addresses the decision in this diary.

"What Should Dems Do About Iraq?" is a question that the Media LOVES to ask. I like Charlie Rangel's retort:

“I never understand that question,” answered Charlie Rangel, the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “You have a President that’s in deep shit. He got us into the war, and all the reasons he gave have been proven invalid, and the whole electorate was so pissed off that they got rid of anyone they could have, and then they ask, ‘What is the Democrats’ solution?’”

but what about the question? And more importantly, what CAN a Democratic Congress do? Marty Lederman says:

How about Congress "getting him the message," Senator Reid, by actually requiring him to act? I fully realize that deciding which course of action we should take in Iraq, and when, are extremely difficult questions. It may be that coming to a consensus on particular statutory langauge would be very difficult under the circumstances. And there may not be a consensus, even among congressional Democrats, about many particulars of the ISG Report. But to the extent the Democrats can agree amongst themselves on at least some of the ISG recommendations, and/or on other proposals, they ought to put those directives in a bill, and have both Houses of Congress pass it.

But would that, assuming it could become law over a Presidential veto, be a de facto UNdeclaration of war? Could Congress tell the President that he must withdraw from Iraq? What this leads to is really the most basic argument - the power of the purse, argued here by Dennis Kucinich:

From Gregg Gladden at the Texas ACLU:

An Overdue Visit

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the nation
Friends of Freedom knew it was a special occasion.
Lady Liberty stood taller just off the shore
Her torch shining brighter than a few weeks before

But it wasn't the flame turning her cheeks all rosy
It was thoughts of Snowe, Feingold and Nancy Pelosi
And leaders from every side of the aisle
Who would soon bring the Bill of Rights back into style.

The Amendments had all hurried out of their beds -
Which was no easy task, they were nearly in shreds
And they rushed to the window on papery feet
As a jolly old man flew right over their street.