U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins (Los Angeles) issued a 55 page ruling today declaring part of an order by President Bush allowing the seizure of funds by associates of alleged terror groups to be unconsitutional.

U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins found that part of the law, signed by Bush on September 23, 2001 and used to freeze the assets of terrorist organizations, violated the Constitution because it put no apparent limit on the president's powers to place groups on that list.

Ruling in a lawsuit brought against the Treasury Department in 2005 by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Collins also threw out a portion of Bush's order which applied the law to those who associate with the designated organizations.

In a nutshell,

It's official. Alcee Hastings is out of the running for Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Nancy Pelosi doesn't want him.

Reportedly, despite the support of the "Blue Dog Democrats," Jane Harman is out as well.

That leaves, according to McClatchy news reporters:

Reps. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, Sanford Bishop Jr. of Georgia and Norm Dicks of Washington state. Reyes has the edge, Pelosi allies indicated. He was a 26-year agent and supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol before his 1996 election to Congress, and currently is a senior member of the Intelligence panel.

Who are the "Blue Dog Democrats?" A group of 44 centrist Democrats in the House.

Bump and Update: Jeb Bush writes this letter (pdf)to Tancredo complaining about his remarks.

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Tom Tancredo Calls Miami A Third World Country

Is there nothing Tom Tancredo won't do for a soundbite?

He's now called Miami a "third world country."

In South Florida to attend Restoration Weekend, a gathering of conservative activists, the Colorado Republican, whose district includes suburbs of Denver, pointed to Miami as an example of how ''the nature of America can be changed by uncontrolled immigration,'' the story says.

''Look at what has happened to Miami,'' the WorldNetDaily quotes Tancredo as saying in an interview. ``It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country.''

Talk about viewing the world through a cracked lens.

Here is a response to Barack Obama's reachout to "values voters":

As the Chicago Tribune reported recently, Obama is set to attend a huge evangelical gathering in California on Dec. 1, at the invitation of megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, the evangelical superstar who wrote The Purpose-Driven Life. Analysts have interpreted Obama's scheduled appearance as a sign he's working much harder than Dems ordinarily do to win over Evangelicals.

But the appearance is now provoking an intense backlash from leaders of the Christian right. They are calling on Warren to disinvite Obama from the event because of his liberal positions, especially abortion rights — or as one of those leaders put it, Obama's support of "the murder of babies in the womb."

Obama's efforts are running into fierce resistance. For instance, an open letter from a group of Christian-Right figures — including Phylis Schlafly, Tim Wildmon and others — criticizes the invitiation by citing Obama's pro-choice stance and his support for condom distribution in answer to the AIDS epidemic, "not chaste behavior as directed by the Bible." The letter ends, "No, Mr. Warren, Mr. Obama, we will never work with those can support the murder of babies in the womb."

I told you so:

[T]there is only one thing that will satisfy "values" voters enough to put them in play for Democrats -- he knows it, Amy Sullivan knows it, you know it. Abandon a woman's right to choose.

So what say you now Senator Obama? What does Jim Wallis, who is anti-choice, think of this? Reality bites. More.

7 former prison guards and a nurse have been charged with manslaughter in the beating death of juvenile offender Martin Lee Anderson, age 14.

The surveillance tape showed guards kneeing and punching the boy repeatedly during a 30-minute encounter. Guards said he was uncooperative and had refused to participate in exercises.

The death sparked protests at the state Capitol and led to the elimination of the state's military-style boot camp system and the resignation of Florida's top law enforcement officer. If convicted, the former guards and the nurse - who authorities say watched the melee - could get up to 30 years in prison.

Lee later collapsed and died in the excercise yard. Lee was incarcerated for violating probation on a theft case. Here's much more on the case. Here's the video of the beating.

Newt Gingrich was in New Hampshire this week. He gave a talk in which he said that free speech will be forced to curtailed in the name of the war on terror.

Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.

"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.

The event he was speaking at?

Gingrich spoke to about 400 state and local power brokers last night at the annual Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment award dinner, which fetes people and organizations that stand up for freedom of speech.

Other Gingrich positions included this on the separation of church and state:

It's time for an open thread. I don't know if it's the four day weekend or what, but I'm having a hard time catching up with all that's going on. Please, fill us in.

NBC News has officially labeled Iraq a civil war. Dan Froomkin writes in the Washington Post:

Here's what Matt Lauer announced on NBC's Today Show this morning: "As you know, for months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war. And for the most part, news organizations, like NBC, have hesitated to characterize it as such. But, after careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted -- that the situation in Iraq, with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterized as civil war."

Think Progess has some video of MSNBC's Contessa Brewer announcing the decision was made to call it a civil war this weekend.

The good news is that Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine announced he will conduct an investigation into how the Justice Department used the information it received from Bush's warrantless, NSA electronic surveillance program. He has also mangaged to get security clearances for his investigators. The bad news is it "won't address whether the controversial program is an unconstitutional expansion of presidential power, as its critics and a federal judge in Detroit have charged."

The ACLU reports:

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Glenn Fine, the Justice Department’s Inspector General, said that his office has "decided to open a program review that will examine the Department’s controls and use of information related to the program and the Department’s compliance with legal requirements governing the program."

Again, it's not enough. It won't address the legality of the program. As the ACLU points out:

Kevin Drum adopts a straw man:

CENTRISM....Yes, centrism can be a tic. Yes, it's often favored by DC pundits who automatically assume that bipartisanship is an inherent good regardless of its outcome. Yes, it can sometimes be a substitute for real thought. That said, I hope the liberal blogosphere doesn't get into the habit of automatically trashing centrist positions simply out of pique against some of centrism's more annoying practitioners. After all, trying to govern solely via populist intuition won't work any better than relying on a bunch of blue ribbon commissions.

Centrism is not a tic - it is a myth. A myth with political benefits. I am a centrist I proclaim and have for years.

I tell you who is not a centrist - John McCain, Joe Lieberman, David Broder, Joe Klien, et al. These are Republicans and Republican apologists.

I wish Kevin would not buy into these things. He is a sharp guy with a centrist reputation and can help us on this. I bet I agree with Kevin on issues as much as I agree with any other blogger. I really believe that. The differences between us are stylistic not substantive. And also I am much more critical of self-styled Centrists than he is.

I have no use for Jim Wallis and I begin to wonder if he really has the interests of Democrats and progressives at heart:

"When the Democrats became just the party of rights, they lost something, a moral appeal," Wallis contends. The Democratic patchwork frayed as some of its largest constituencies, particularly working-class whites, began to feel culturally estranged from the party. The breaking point was in 1972, when Republican Richard M. Nixon argued that a vote for Democrat George McGovern was a vote for "acid, amnesty and abortion." To many voters, McGovern embodied an emerging perception that liberals were outside the American mainstream.

Anyone who does not see the moral value in civil rights and liberties is not moral in my book. If Wallis does not share our Democratic values, if he prefers the imposition of his personal religious values on the country, instead of finding common ground with those who do not share his views, then he should be looking for a new party. We will not change our deeply held and cherished values, our love of the Constitution, for Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or Jim Wallis. It's great that he is for a progressive economic agenda but that does not mean Dems will accept his recalcitrant views on social issues.

Moreover, he is advocating stupid politics. Dems finally put the extremist label on the GOP because it is beholden to the Radical Religious Right. Wallis would throw that away. Do not listen to him Democrats. Ever. He does not believe in what we believe in. He does not even know what we believe in. He is a fool.

I'm a soft-touch for college kids who start serious blogs. I've been reading Matthew Yglesias since he was at Harvard and Ezra Klein since he was at USC. Both have developed into excellent professional writers.

So when I got an e-mail today to check out the new Foreign Policy Watch Blog, described as "Diplomatic strategy, international news, and thoughtful political analysis" written by a 19 year old freshman at Brown University, Jeb Koogler, I took a look. From the blogroll, he leans left. And like Matt and Ezra, Jeb writes intelligently about serious stuff. I hope you'll check him out.