President Obama today issued an order authorizing undocumented residents to obtain work permits and avoid removal (deportation.)

The Obama administration said Thursday it will allow many illegal immigrants facing deportation the chance to stay in this country and apply for a work permit, while focusing on removing from the U.S. convicted criminals and those who might be a national security or public safety threat.

That will mean a case-by-case review of approximately 300,000 illegal immigrants facing possible deportation in federal immigration courts, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in announcing the policy change.

[More...]

Via Digby, here comes the Super Catfood Commission Dem team's embrace of Simpson-Bowles:

Together We Can Beat the Deficit

Over the past few months, in debating the debt ceiling and deficit reduction, that light of common cause has appeared to flicker at times in our nation's capital. As appointees to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction—12 members of Congress charged with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade—we hope to remedy that.

How will they remedy that you ask? Take a guess:

I found the impotence "defense" of President Obama strange before, it seems incomprehensible to me now that we need to make an argument for why he should be reelected. I'm not going to rehash my arguments on the subject. Suffice it to say that in his discussion with Scott LeMieux, I think Glenn Greenwald has the better of the argument.

Speaking for me only.

My fourth and final day of court for the week. I'm way far behind at blogging. Things should ease up by next week.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the Manhattan DA's office decides next week on whether to dismiss or keep going with the Dominique Strauss Kahn case.

More bad news for Phil Spector, who at age 71 is serving a 19 year sentence. The California Supreme Court declined to hear his case yesterday, which means he's got one avenue left: a habeas petition in federal court.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

As a blogger, I have never been as unhappy with the coverage of an upcoming presidential election as I am now. What's different? I finally figured it out.

Talkleft began in 2002. The first presidential election was 2004. There was the same old GW Bush, versus a Democratic challenger, John Kerry. Kerry/Edwards was news to write about. Defeating George Bush was important enough to warrant covering the election.

In 2008, there was Obama vs. McCain. Both were new candidates, and there was extensive coverage of both. Getting a Democrat back in the White House and keeping the supremely unqualified Sarah Palin out warranted blogging about the race.

The 2012 election has no new Democratic candidate. Since the Republican candidate is unknown and there is only a field of contenders, the media is obsessively focused on them.

I don't care about Republicans. I don't want to read about their quest for the nomination and I certainly don't want to write about them. I don't care which one is ahead, I don't want to follow their debates or their campaigning for the nomination. There's no race now. It's all about which Republican gets the nomination. Maybe once one is nominated, and the Democrats are back in the story, I'll write about the election. For now, it's of no interest to me and I'm not going to pretend I care.

Via Atrios, HuffPo on OFA's idea of rallying the progressive troops:

The Obama campaign's point person in New Mexico recently sent an email to supporters defending the president's position on the debt deal and bashing the "Firebagger Lefty blogosphere," including the Nobel Prize winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

That'll work.

Open Thread.

President Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters were the site of a protest today over deportations and Secure Communities:

Latino activists held a protest outside President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign headquarters on Tuesday to ask him to end a criminal deportation program they say is snaring large number of illegal immigrants who have not committed crimes. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, established the Secure Communities program in partnership with local law enforcement agencies as well as the FBI to deport unauthorized immigrants with criminal convictions.

Denver police have agreed to a $200,000. settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by arrested protestors and others at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and the ACLU. A federal judge ruled a few months ago that the mass arrests were unconstitutional:

“This case identified serious flaws in Denver’s training and policies on crowd control and policing demonstrations,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. “The settlement, and the resulting improvements to Denver’s crowd-control manual, underscores an important lesson for Denver police: They must have individualized facts showing that each separate person they arrest was violating the law. Police violate the Constitution when they simply arrest everyone who happens to be in the area.”

The agreement must be approved by the Judge and the Denver City Council.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

While the Super Catfood Commission plots how to dismantle The New Deal, Iraq remains troubled:

A chilling series of fatal attacks across Iraq on Monday sent a disheartening message to the Iraqi and American governments: After hundreds of billions of dollars spent since the United States invasion in 2003, and tens of thousands of lives lost, insurgents remain a potent and perhaps resurging threat to Iraqis and the American troops still in the country.

Unless the US plans to stay in perpetuity, I believe a full blown civil war in Iraq is inevitable. There is nothing more the US can do. We can't afford to do more. Time to declare victory and leave.

Speaking for me only

Open Thread.

BTD's EDITORIAL NOTE - This post is written by my law firm colleague, Philip Furgang, a noted New York patent law practitioner. Philip is the author of the forthcoming book, "Patent Prosecution" (Oxford University Press.) The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of TalkLeft.

The future of America lies in its ability to be creative — to “out think” the rest of the world. Come up with a great idea and you can become rich. You can build a business that will create many jobs. And there is a system in place to protect inventors, the patent system. Think of those who have done it: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, the Wright Brothers, and many, many more. That system, the system which made it all possible for the US to lead the world, a system in place since 1789, the system is about to be changed to discourage creativity, and to hobble the independent inventor. Large corporations have mounted a large lobbying campaign, spending huge sums of money, to get the so-called “America Invents Act” through Congress. They must be stopped. [More . . ]

It was 40 years ago today, August 15, 1971, I moved to Colorado. I don't think it ever occurred to me back then it might be permanent, but I can't think of a better place to call home. How happy are you with where you live?

I'm off to court for the rest of the day, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.