The Supreme Court will decide if the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. The Government yesterday filed its opening brief, available here.

Under the Affordable Care act, almost every American will have to obtain health insurance by 2014 or pay a financial penalty. The question the court will decide is whether the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of Congress’s powers under article I of the Constitution.

Analysis is provided by Scotus Blog and legal analyst Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic.

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Via Mashable, check out these one minute videos of three guys traveling through 18 countries in 44 days. Move, Eat, Learn. All are pretty great, but I liked Learn the best. Terrific music too, by Kelsey James.

“Move” shows actor Andrew Lees strolling toward us in perfect sync, surrounded by a mind-boggling group of scenarios, all whizzing by so quickly you have to watch this quick clip a few times just to absorb it all.

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The New York Times has excerpts from the the book, "The Obamas." The book, which will be published Tuesday, devotes many pages to the role of Michelle Obama. Shorter version: She gets frustrated with her husband's staff at times and she is Obama's biggest supporter. So what else is new?

Glenn Greenwald's takeaway:

Reading this Jodi Kantor excerpt makes one think things may have been better if Michelle Obama had been Chief of Staff:

As required by Peru, Lori Berenson has returned to finish her parole. Her visit to the U.S. to see her family for the holidays will likely be her last until the end of her parole in 2015.

Angry about the court approval of her travel, the Peru legislature this week passed a bill preventing anyone convicted of terrorism from leaving the country while on parole.

The Supreme Court has a chance to keep the Fourth Amendment from going to the dogs. Today it agreed to hear the case of Florida v. Jardines, in which it will decide whether police can use a drug-sniffing dog at the front door to a residence when they suspect the occupants of a drug offense but don't have a warrant.

The constitutional issue at stake is whether police must have probable cause — a belief that evidence of a crime will be found — before they may use a dog sniff at the front door of a suspected “grow house,” or a site where marijuana is being grown. The case grows out of a Miami police officer’s use of a drug-detecting dog, “Franky,” in December 2006 to follow up on a “crime stoppers” tip that the house was being used to grow marijuana plants.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled that police needed to have a probable cause belief in wrongdoing before they could use the dog at the home, on the premise that the drug sniff was a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.

The Florida opinion is here, the state's Petition for Cert is here, and the opposing brief is here. [More...]

The Pew Research Center has released a new poll on the death penalty.

62% favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder while 31% are opposed. That is generally in line with polling on the death penalty over the past several years.

Of those who responded they oppose the death penalty, 27% said it's wrong or immoral and 27% said they were concerned about wrongful convictions. In the poll 20 years ago, 41% of those opposed based their objections on moral grounds and 11% of them objected due to the potential injustice of a wrongful conviction.

The reasons for those supporting the death penalty haven't changed in 20 years: [More...]

Last night's open thread is about to hit 200 comments, which triggers our automatic thread closure. Here's another one so you can keep the conversation going. All topics welcome.

A federal judge in Virginia has refused to stay a federal subpoena issued to Twitter for three user accounts associated with Wikileaks. The opinion is here.

Birgitta Jonsdottir, Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp had asked the Court to stay the subpoena pending an appeals court challenge. A federal magistrate judge upheld the subpoenas in November.

The [Magistrate]Judge rejected the users' claims under the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment as well as their other arguments. She says there is no right of privacy in your IP address if you turn it over to a third party like Twitter. Wikileaks has said in the past it believes similar subpoenas went out to Google and Facebook.

The Government sought the subpoenas in connection with its grand jury investigation into Wikileaks. You can read the subpoena here. The judge that issued Wednesday's opinion said the three had little chance of prevailing in the appellate court. [More...]

Joran Van der Sloot didn't plead guilty today. He had intended to plead guilty, making a "sincere confession" which would allow the judge, if he accepted it, to sentence him to 1/3 below the minimum penalty for "qualified murder". He's also charged with simple theft/robbery, which carries 3 years. From my earlier post on the Peruvian statutes available here (using Google translator):

Article 161. Effect of sincere confession confession .- If, additionally, is sincere and spontaneous....the court, specifying reasons make it necessary, may reduce the penalty to prudently in a third below the legal minimum.

But after the prosecutor laid out the facts, there were some Joran disagreed with, so he asked for more time to consider his plea. The judge postponed proceedings until Wednesday, Jan. 12. [More....]

Looks like we need another open thread. Here it is, all topics welcome.

Afghan President Karzai has ordered that the prison at Bagram AFB be turned over to Afghan control within a month.

A presidential statement said that keeping Afghan citizens imprisoned without trial violates the country's constitution, as well as international human rights conventions.

President Obama outlined the new Pentagon budget today.

I am so done with the massive advertising on mainstream media sites. Over New Years, I installed a security program called Kaspersky Pure on my computers and I haven't seen an ad or pop-up or under-pop since. It even blocks affiliate ads on blogs (unless you tell it not to.) [More...]

Former Mexican Cartel leader Benjamin Arellano Felix pleaded guilty Wednesday in San Diego. Imprisoned in Mexico since 2002, he was indicted in 2003 and extradited to San Diego in 2011. He's now 58 years old.

The agreed upon charges and plea agreement are here. There is no reference to cooperation, other a requirement he assist the Government with the forfeiture of his assets.

Arellano pleaded guilty to racketeering (RICO) which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years and one count of money laundering conspiracy which carries a maximum of 5 years. He agreed to a forfeiture of $100 million. The Government will ask the terms be imposed consecutively, for a 25 year total. His guidelines call for a life sentence, but the judge cannot by law impose more than the statutory maximum of 25 years. Under the agreement, Arellano cannot ask for a guideline variance or departure, so in essence, he's agreed to the 20 or 25 year sentence. (The agreement does not prevent him from asking that the sentences run concurrent, for a total of 20 years.)

His conditions of confinement at MCC San Diego are abysmal. He was appealing the denial of a motion to modify them, but agreed to dismiss the appeal as part of his plea deal. [More...]