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.

This is a pleasant surprise from Tom Edsall, a column that has some good insights on both Democrats and Republicans. First on the Democrats and something very smart that Rahm Emanuel said:

Representative Rahm Emanuel, the Democratic Caucus chairman, pointed out that 16 of the seats the party won in November were suburban or exurban. He contended that the election marked the emergence of a new “metropolitan” populism, “a revolt of the center against the Rovian model of polarization politics.” In Emanuel’s view, “Prescription drugs, gas prices and economic populism are no longer associated with blue-collar downscale voters. Office park workers can be just as populist as industrial workers — they are struggling under rising college and health care costs too. They resent giveaways to H.M.O.s; they don’t want subsidies to oil companies when oil is 68 bucks a barrel. We are going to deal with the oil royalty issue, and we can cut the interest rates for student loans.”

This is a critical insight - populism now extends beyond the lower working class. To Broder, this would mean independent centrism when in fact it is broadbased populism and rejection of Republicanism. More.

In the news:

• Robert Gates' confirmation hearing as Defense Secretary is underway. He says we are not winning the war in Iraq.

• Former President Bush dissolves into tears of love for son Jeb at a speaking event. Was he drunk?

• Hillary reaches out to Dems in New Hampshire and Iowa. Will she announce before the end of the year?

• Obama praises Hillary in New York. Once again, I see a Hillary-Obama ticket in our future.

What's on your news screen today?

At Balkinization, Brian Tamaha writes a terrific piece on Judge Richard Posner's "pragmatic realism":

His views on these two topics can be summarized as follows: Posner believes that judging on the Supreme Court is almost entirely political, and he believes that judging on the Court of Appeals (his court), and judging generally, is substantially political. This view of the political nature of judging is widely shared among legal academics and political scientists, although many judges disagree. Posner, furthermore, advocates that judges should decide cases in a pragmatic fashion, oriented toward rendering the most reasonable decision in a given case (all things considered).

Posner seems to, unfortunately, correctly describe the current state of affairs. But he is wrong to believe that it should be this way. I'll explain why on the flip.

The Second Circuit affirmed on Thursday the conviction of former law enforcement officers convicted of civil rights violations under 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 & 242 for falsifying information to get search warrants, fictitious informant payments, and stealing property from targets of their search warrants.  They were also convicted of using a firearm during a "crime of violence," that is, the drawing of their weapons during the execution of a search warrant which is inherently violent. United States v. Acosta, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 29607 (2d Cir. November 30, 2006) (unpublished). This is an unpublished opinion, and the facts are abbreviated, but it is interesting still sheerly because of the fact a police officer was convicted for something that many narcs do without a second thought:

Via law prof Michael Froomkin at Discourse. Net, the Bush Administration is rushing plans for new prison construction at Guantanamo.

The Miami Herald reports:

The Pentagon is invoking emergency authority to fast-track funding of a comprehensive war-crimes court compound at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to a letter to Congress obtained by The Miami Herald.

Department of Defense spokesmen would not say when -- if ever -- the Pentagon had last invoked similar authority.

The text of the Pentagon's November 17 letter attempting to justify the plan is here (pdf.) The proposal itself is here (pdf.)

Froomkin says:

Hard to escape the feeling that the rush here is that once the Democrats are in Congress they won't allow this sort of travesty, and Rumsfeld wants to, as Menachem Begin used to put it, "make facts" on the ground.

I'd add that they are probably going to try to house as many detainees there as possible before January when the Dems take reign. It will be a lot harder to get the detainees out of Gitmo once situated there than it will be to prevent new arrivals.

Via Political Wire, it's not out yet but you can pre-order it.

The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward - A New Approach

It's looking even more likely today that Hillary Clinton is going to put her hat in the 2008 presidential ring. She's hired a veteran national political fundraiser.

Phil Singer, a veteran of Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign who most recently was spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, will join the Clinton communications team, her senior adviser Howard Wolfson said.

Wolfson cautioned that Clinton may still decide against a run but that Singer would play a senior role if she becomes a candidate, as expected. "I called him the day after the election," Wolfson acknowledged.

More new hires:

Karen Hicks, a veteran field organizer who served as New Hampshire director for Howard Dean's upstart 2004 campaign...The campaign has also signed a national finance director, veteran Democratic fundraiser Jonathan Mantz.

Update: Arianna thinks Obama is going to upset the Hillary cart.

Last Night in Little Rock wrote here and here about the unnecessary use of aggressive tactics to execute search warrants or make arrests -- tactics that needlessly kill innocent people. In a similar vein, deputies who raided an apartment in Wilmington, N.C., intending to arrest 18 year old Peyton Strickland for allegedly stealing two Playstation 3 video games, instead shot him to death. While the details are unclear, here's one account:

Peyton Strickland's roommate, Mike Rhoton, said Strickland was unarmed, but may have been holding a video game controller when he went to the door as it was bashed in by officers.

The Sheriff has so far declined to answer a simple question: why were police using aggressive tactics over a simple theft of property? The Sheriff says Strickland was accused of using violence to take the Playstations, but apparently isn't claiming that Strickland was armed at the time or that he has a history of violent behavior.

The Sheriff also seems to blame Strickland for not answering the door promptly. For this he deserved to die?