First Saturday in September means college football. The Florida Gators are 73 point favorites over Charleston Southern. It is embarrassing that Florida is playing this game, but at least Charleston Southern is getting a good paycheck. Alabama-Virginia Tech looks to be the best game of the weekend.

Other sporting events to follow this weekend include the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga (where super filly Rachel Alexandra runs against older colts), and the US Open in Flushing Meadow. The Yankees lead the Red Sox by 7.5 games. A topsy turvy race for the NL wild card slot looks to be the most compelling ongoing storyline in baseball. The US national soccer team plays El Salvador tonight in Utah. Jozy Altidore may become a household nmae in the US if the national team does well in South Africa at the 2010 World Cup. But first, the US has to qualify. They have to win tonight to feel comfortable about their position. Finally, the Vuelta de Espana cycling race continues with Stage 7 today being a time trial in Valencia.

This is an Open Thread.

The DNC is going to run the above ad on cable stations and in Washington, DC, pointing out that it's Republicans who are opposed to Medicare -- and always have been.

This is really a big deal. A three judge panel in the 9th Circuit has ruled Abdullah al-Kidd, an American who converted to Islam during college, was illegally detained by the Bush Administration under the material witness statute, and can seek damages personally from former Attorney General John Ashcroft. The opinion is here (pdf).

“We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history,” said the opinion, written by Judge Milan D. Smith Jr.

al-Kidd was represented by the ACLU, which has released this statement: [More...]

The eagle flies on a Friday.

Happy Labor Day Weekend everyone.

The rare capitulation Ezra Klein won't support has been discovered:

I'm firmly on the record as being willing to support all manner of compromises [BTD: no sh*t] on health-care reform. Policy dogmatism has not, over the long history of this issue, proven a successful strategy. But there's an increasingly evident path by which health-care reform begins to hurt the very people it's meant to aid. As Jordan Rau reports, making health-care reform affordable for the centrists in the Congress could make it unaffordable for the people.

The funny thing is Ezra sees no correlation between his urging of capitulation on health care reform and the inevitable capitulation on the parts of the bill he cares about. If it was not so sad, it would be hilarious.

Speaking for me only

Via Sentencing Law and Policy, here's a welcome decision (pdf) by a federal judge in New Hampshire criticizing the DOJ's threatened use of the recidivist hammer in a drug case to get an overly harsh mandatory minimum sentence. The case is US v. Taliaferro, No. 08-cr-7-1-SM (D.N.H. Sept 1, 2009). As Prof. Berman writes, the beginning and the end of the opinion tell the story:

In this case, the government has effectively removed the court from the sentencing process, and dictated the sentence to be imposed. Exercising its considerable charging discretion in the context of applicable statutory mandatory minimum sentences, the government extended an offer that the defendant could hardly refuse: be subjected to a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison, or accept a binding plea agreement providing for a sentence of 15 years (based upon a drug charge carrying a mandatory minimum of 10 years, with the government declining to file a notice of prior conviction under 21 U.S.C. § 851, which would trigger the mandatory sentence of at least 20 years)....

[More...]

When appointing judges, so many Governors appoint prosecutors. Very few appoint criminal defense lawyers.

So, props today to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for appointing Jim Collins, a well-known, well-respected, career criminal defense lawyer (and a Democrat) to the San Francisco Superior Court. He's an excellent choice.

It is pretty funny that the "Left of the Left" public option is more popular than everyone of its critics. In fact, it is easily the most popular feature of the entire health care reform discussion. Jed Lewison explains:

The most recent Daily Kos poll released today shows the public option is supported by a 58-34 margin, including 57-33 among independents and 81-12 among Democrats. Here's the key thing about about that 58-34 margin, though: with President Obama's favorability rating at 52-43, the public option is now more popular than the president.

It's more popular than President Snowe? No way.

Speaking for me only

Never send Matt Yglesias to negotiate for you, though he is a pretty good apologist. Watch him quaver at Ben Nelson's tactical extremism:

I know a lot of the readers of this blog think that Barack Obama could cause any bill to pass the Senate that he wants if only he were sufficiently spiney, and that any effort to point out the existence of objective impediments to passing legislation is just “shilling” for the White House, but it’s still the case that objective impediments exist. To pass a bill through a non-reconciliation process, you not only need the support of guys like Max Baucus and Kent Conrad, you also need the support of even-less-progressive Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln. And then there’s Ben Nelson, the most conservative Democrat of all. [. . .] Maybe you can get a public option put in place via reconciliation, in which case you don’t need Nelson, but absent reconciliation you do need Nelson and he’s intransigent.

In terms of bargaining, the response to Ben Nelson FROM Obama should be obvious - "Look Ben, I'd love to do it your way, but the House ain't going to budge. So unless you can work with a public option, I just do not think we can do business. We'll have to do it by reconciliation. Sorry." It doesn't take a genius to know this.

Speaking for me only

The Rolling Stones and Guns 'N Roses singing "Salt of the Earth."

Here's one of my favorite statue/sculptures, in downtown Omaha, at the Lewis & Clark landing, along Omaha's Missouri River Walkway. If you're ever there, it's well worth a visit. It's the second-largest labor monument in the U.S. Two-hundred-fifty tons of cement and 39,000 pounds of steel were used in its construction. It's by Matthew Placzek.

Larger version here. I'm not starting my weekend until after a visit to the gym and then the jail. What are your plans?

Teamsters head James Hoffa capitulates on the public option:

Teamsters President James Hoffa said dropping the so-called public option wouldn’t be a “deal killer” for health-care legislation, signaling a split among leaders of unions that are a core constituency of President Barack Obama. “We’ve got to find out what’s doable,” Hoffa, head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” which airs today. “I think it’s important to get something done this time and declare a victory.”

(Emphasis supplied.) The funny thing is that Hoffa declares card check (EFCA), which is absolutely dead, a deal breaker. The AFL-CIO, through its future head Richard Trumka, has declared a robust public option a must, and its absence a deal breaker with the AFL-CIO and Democrats. The Teamsters are part of the union coalition Change To Win. Hoffa's statement puts pressure on the other unions in the coalition, especially SEIU's Andy Stern (who claims to be a leader in the health care reform fight, see EmptyWheel on Stern's muddled message so far), to make their position on the public option clear.

Speaking for me only

To get this out of the way, I do not know how Hillary Clinton would have handled health care reform if she had become President. I DO know Barack Obama had much more of a mandate than Bill Clinton (or George W. Bush, Ezra) ever had. There was a reason I was talking him up as a potential FDR for our time (something I do not believe Hillary could have been, the Media hated her too much.)

So now, back to the actual reality we are living, Obama has done a poor job of playing a strong political hand so far. Let's all of us (ObamaBots, PUMAs and the rest of us) hope that changes.

This is an Open Thread.