December likely is the month that bloggers must balance the ledger sheet and reassess their time commitment to blogging because of the financial drain. How many hours were spent blogging, how much money did it cost in lost income from the day job and how much did the blog make from blog ads and donations? When they do, the blogosphere runs the risk of losing them. We may be raving activists, but we live in the same capitalist world that you do.

So, as you're putting a little something in the pocket of your paperperson, housekeeper, doorman, shoe shiner, hairstylist, secretary, whomever.....think about the bloggers whose sites you read day after day either for enjoyment or enrichment, and make a note to add them to your gift list. If ever there was a month to do it, this is it.

To give to TalkLeft, go here or here.

I was reading Marc Cooper's LA Times article on the resurgence of downtown Las Vegas, when I came across this:

[Mayor Oscar] Goodman, meanwhile, is pushing ahead with another of his brainchildren aimed at saving downtown. He's persuaded the city to raise $30 million in bonds funding to convert the historic Post Office and Federal Court House into what's commonly being called the "Mob Museum" — a possible rival to the Liberace Museum and Elvis-a-Rama, both of which prosper closer to the Strip.

Goodman is bickering with critics over how much of the new museum's focus should be, precisely, on mobsters and how much on the broader history. I think I'm with the mayor on this one. Make it about the mob — something you can't get elsewhere — and give people one more reason to come downtown and keep this treasured and threatened corner of Americana alive.

I'm with the Mayor and Marc. Make it about the mob. I love Las Vegas, both the faux luxe of the Strip and the faux seediness of downtown. But Oscar is Oscar, and any city that elects a Mayor that used to be a criminal defense lawyer, and then makes him a hero, should at least share the glitter with some of those who made his reign possible: his clients. There's only one Oscar, only one Las Vegas and both owe a debt, if only in a fantasy world, to the so-called "Mob."

Bring on the Mob Museum. I'll be there with my kid...just like I took him to Alcatraz in San Francisco. Fun is fun, and Las Vegas is, after all, the queen city of fun.

VP Dick Cheney's daughter Mary is pregnant. The co-parent is her long-time partner, Heather Poe.

I'm sure Dick and Lynn will say they are delighted and looking forward to grand-parenting their sixth grandchild.

Good for Mary and Heather. Since they now live in Virginia which has banned both gay marriage and civil unions, I hope they make time to lobby for equal rights. It sounds, however, like they are embracing a more traditional lifestyle where one parent works for the bucks while the other attends to the home.

Cheney, 37, was a key aide to her father during the 2004 reelection campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL. Poe, 45, a former park ranger, is renovating their Great Falls home.

Remember the Macomb County, Michigan woman who got 30 days in jail because her parties were too loud? The sentence is a joke, but you don't want to say that to the judge's face.

A 17-year-old woman was ordered to jail for 30 days for contempt of court for telling the judge, "You're a joke."

Same judge. Thirty days for a loud party, 30 for an insult. Another young man got 13 days for jaywalking.

Local residents are starting to notice District Court Judge Norene Redmond's excessive reliance on incarceration to punish minor offenses.

Cintra Wilson in Salon has a four page article that should be read by anyone either contemplating supporting Rudy Giuliani or not familiar with his pre-9/11 personality. The tag line sums it up:

9/11 gave America amnesia about the real Rudy Giuliani. He's an authoritarian narcissist -- and we don't need another one of those in the White House.

I couldn't agree more. Here's a sample:

On 9/11, all Americans were frightened children, and in a moment of mythic personal heroism, Mayor Giuliani filled the gaping leadership void. The president looked like a petrified chimp; Cheney was spirited to an underground bunker. Only Giuliani could pull himself together sufficiently to get on TV in the midst of the wreckage and show America that a grown-up was still breathing. On that terrible day our reptile brains looked at Rudy Giuliani and said, "We're OK now. Daddy's home."

And we forgot, some for a moment, some permanently, that Daddy was psycho.

One more, and then just go read the whole thing:

At least five Marines are going to be charged with crimes ranging from negligent homicide to murder in the November, 2005 killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha.

The 5 marines are said to have been the ones who killed the 24 Iraqis, including 5 men in a taxi that approached the marines’ convoy after the explosion that killed a 20-year-old lance corporal, and 19 other civilians in several houses nearby. About 10 of the dead were women and children who appeared to have been killed by rifle fire at close range, military officials said.

Reyes feels free to do this:

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”

Sure Reyes, that'll do it. What a dope.

Harman had seen the light. We had gotten her to see the light. She would never have done this.

With so many of his fellow Republicans behind bars, maybe Sen. Sam Brownback just wanted to see what it feels like to be in jail. The linked article suggests that Brownback wants to broaden his appeal to "values voters." Instead of obsessing about gay marriage and stem cells, Brownback is calling attention to the wasted potential of the people we lock away. Good for him.

The Kansas Republican plans to spend Friday night at Louisiana's notorious state penitentiary in Angola to highlight the problem of recidivism and programs that can help prisoners become law-abiding members of the community. ...

"There is a real need in our country to rebuild the family and renew our culture and there is a need for genuine conservatism and real compassion in the national discussion," Brownback said in a statement.

Rehabilitation is an odd issue for a Republican presidential candidate to embrace, given the party's "tough-on-crime" posturing during the last quarter century. Whether or not Brownback is serious in his belief that rehabilitation of offenders should be a goal embraced by the "culture of life," he deserves credit for advancing a humane position that his party usually ridicules.

There's still time to order one for Christmas. It ships in 3 business days.

TalkLeft's 4th Amendment Subway Tote. (Larger version here.)

Let the 4th Amendment speak for you as you hand your bag over for a search by a subway or airline security guard. It's a silent protest and reminder to authorities that you consider searches without reasonable suspicion or probable cause to be an infringement of your privacy rights.

They make great gifts, especially for college kids.

Chris Bowers has an important post up about the need for Democrats to understand the power of words, especially their own:

Left-wing strawmen . . . developed and perpetuated by the conservative movement over the last thirty years as a means of tarnishing the entire left with those stereotypes. The stereotypes were used not to depict fringe left-wing positions, but rather to try and identify anyone who identified as a liberal, a progressive, or even as a Democrat with those positions. Bill Clinton is a good example of this. He governed absolutely as a centrist, but was still identified by the right with every single one of those stereotypes. The right-wing does not use these stereotypes to help the vast majority of Democrats seem reasonable compared to a fringe left, but to make the entire left the equivalent of the fringe left, no matter how much any individual Democrat, liberal or progressive sought to distance himself or herself from those stereotypes. Bill Clinton will be hit just as badly, if not worse, than use crazy, military-hating, religion-hating, extremist, vulgar, anti-American, overly partisan bloggers. When wielded by someone outside the left, these stereotypes serve no other purpose than to tarnish the entire left, and to give the right power over the left. Whenever anyone on the right or in the established media brings up those stereotypes, then that is the exact purpose that person is serving. Whenever anyone who is implicated in those stereotypes--Democrats, progressives and liberals--wields them in public and is not joking, I fail to see how that person is not doing exactly the same thing. . . . It . . . helps make those brutally unfair stereotypes and strawmen real, because conservatives can point to yet another Democrat, liberal to progressive who has validated whatever ridiculous invective that was being used.

Democratic stars like Barack Obama especially must avoid doing this in my view. For two reasons. One, it harms the Democratic Party and its objectives. Two, it does not work to the benefit of the Democrat trying to curry favor. More on the flip.

An airplane passenger lit a match on an airplane to mask her flatulence. The plane made an emergency landing in Nashville. The woman wasn't charged with an offense.

An off-beat, semi-amusing story so far, until you read the comments section to the news article. The article does not mention the woman's nationality, but here's an example of the responses.

While the body odor of foreigners is a problem, we have to remember that many foreign countries lack indoor plumbing. France is a good example.

****

I've been on many flights sitting near foreigners and wished we would have made emergency landings due to "body odor"

I wish we could banish people who say things like this to foreign countries. Their state of mind is far more offensive than body odor.

Via Scotus Blog, the Supreme Court ruled for a drug defendant today, blocking his deportation. The case is Lopez v. Gonzales, opinion (html) here.

Shorter version: If the crime of conviction is a felony under state law but only a misdemeanor under federal law, it's not an aggravated drug felony and therefore doesn't trigger automatic removal.

The decision came in the case of Jose Antonio Lopez, a native of Mexico. He entereed the U.S. illegally in 1985 or 1986, but became a lawful permanent resident in 1990. In 1997, he was charged in state court in South Dakota with one count of possessing cocaine and one count of a conspiracy to distribute the drug. He ultimately pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting possession by another person.

Under state law, his crime was a felony, leading to a potential prison sentence of up to five years. He was sentenced to the maximum, but actually served only 15 months. Federal officials moved to deport him to Mexico, based upon the conviction for what they considered to be an "aggravated felony." Under federal law, however, the crime could only be punished as a misdemeanor.

Put another way, removal is still possible for drug crimes that are misdeanors under federal law, but not mandatory. This is important because with automatic removal, one cannot request asylum or cancellation of removal.