I wrote this piece for the Guardian America's online Comment if Free on the Rightroots. A highlight:

While the liberal blogosphere, or netroots, has had a very rocky transition due to Democrats gaining the majority in Congress, its conservative counterpart, the rightroots, has had a similarly difficult time transitioning from supporting a Republican party in control of Congress to trying to discover a new agenda. Truth be told, the rightroots has been flailing, trying to discover the new kerning scandal while doing the usual cheerleading for President Bush's Iraq debacle. It reached a nadir when senator Mitch McConnell's office sent them on the noxious attack against 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family on the S-Chip issue.

How about another open thread today as I have court all morning and yesterday's is filling up.

To get you started (but feel free to pick other topics):

• Hollywood writers say they will strike. TalkLeft has some readers who are Hollywood writers. We fully support you. Let us know how we can help. The Writers' Guild Site is here.

• Iran: Hillary and 29 Senators write a letter, Obama goes his own way and introduces legislation. Thoughts on the difference between the two approaches? Will either restrain our unitary executive?

• "American Gangster" is a hit.

• Resurrect the DREAM Act (but don't count on the Democrats to do it.)

• Chris Dodd writes about the questions the candidates should have been asked during the debate.

• Arianna on Rudy's Testosterone Binge

[Cross-posted earlier today at Firedoglake.com]

Finally, a little relief is at hand for the vastly disparate and draconian crack cocaine sentences meted out by federal courts. New federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenses went into effect today.

Starting today, many offenders sentenced in federal court for crack will receive a sentence about 16 months less than they would have yesterday.

By way of background, through mandatory minimum sentencing laws, the Feds have punished crack crimes far more severely than those involving powder cocaine. The U.S. Sentencing Commission followed suit by enacting guidelines that matched the mandatory minimums.

A crime involving five grams of crack cocaine carries a mandatory sentence of five years in prison, and 50 grams carries a 10-year penalty. However, it takes 500 and 1,000 grams of powdered cocaine to trigger the same five and 10 year sentences.

More....

Some days, no matter how much time I spend blogging, there are topics I don't get to. Happily, others do. This is an open thread, and if you're looking for some good stuff to read, here's a start:

• The Higazy case: Cover-up: FBI Threatens Suspect's Family with Torture, with a well-deserved hat-tip to How Appealing's Howard Bashman. I would just add that I wish Hizazy's original lawyer, Robert Dunn, was alive to see the result. R.I.P Robert.

• Omar Kadhr update on the Guantanamo prosecutor who recently quit. My last post on Omar is here, one with more case background is here and one on the quitting of Gitmo prosecutor Morris Davis is here.

• Marcy of Next Hurrah typed her fingers off live-blogging the FISA hearings on Firedoglake and then updated on the WSJ op-ed supporting telecom immunity, noting Big Tent's post on that here.

More...

I think I've stumbled on to Sully's problem with Hillary:

I think I've stumbled onto something that might explain why [Hillary] doesn't have more support from [some] Democrats, and it is actually somewhat disturbing. I work with a mid 20something [man] who is definitely on the way left of most issues, and he is not [Hillary] supporter . . . . Much of h[is] lack of support for [Hillary] seems to boil down to one major point: [H]e doesn't believe this country is ready to elect a [woman.]

This exercise is merely to demonstrate how easy it is to ignore the criticisms made against Obama OR Hillary and accuse critics of racism or sexism.

Coming from Mr. Bell Curve himself, the irony drips. He is incapable of addressing the arguments made, attacks on those who disagree with him is all he knows. I do not mind the attacks so much, I can dish it myself, but it would be nice if an answer to the actual criticisms made were also offered. But it would be foolish to expect that from Mr. Fifth Column (I got a million of em for Sully.)

Matt Yglesias smugly writes:

This is a presidential primary after all. Chris Dodd's already won my vote for Senate Majority Leader should the position come open. It seems to me that Obama needs to convince people that he would have a different, better Iran policy were he too become president and not that he has a better view of how he hypothetically would have handled Senate votes were he to have actually been in DC on the day of the vote.

I find that comment smugly . . . well, stupid. Obama, a sitting Senator, "needs to convince people that he would have a different, better Iran policy" and his performance as SENATOR is deemed irrelevant to that persuasion by Yglesias. I mean, honestly. Is Yglesias really such a believer in position papers that actual POSITIONS taken in ACTUAL VOTES are deemed irrelevant by him? I'm sorry, that is just irritatingly ignorant it seems to me.

On top of it all, Yglesias seems ignorant of the fact the Clinton campaign was pointing out - that Obama (and yes, my man Dodd too) favored designating the Iran Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization in the Fall of 2006, making their criticism of Clinton's vote on Kyl-Lieberman a bit nonsensical. But of course, if your view is that what someone does as Senator is irrelevant to their Presidential campaign, then it makes its own twisted sense. But then, you have to ignore Clinton's (and Dodd's) vote in favor of war with Iraq in 2002. But then, Yglesias favored the Iraq War at the time. So his position maybe does make sense for him.

I'm going to be spending the remainder of this beautiful fall day at the jail. If you're online and have something to say, please go right ahead.

We also have a few new diaries up:

♦ It's the Messenger - and the Method
♦ Introducing the SquareState Small Donor Committee
♦ Omnipotence and the War In Iraq

My latest defense of anonymous blogging:

A few days ago, on [Comment is Free], Daphna Baram wrote in favour of stripping the anonymity from website commentators, arguing:

We are being made to believe that the defamation is a price we have to pay, especially those of us who write on contentious topics, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or anything to do with feminism. [. . .] There's nothing democratic about a state of affairs where people put themselves and their opinions on a public platform only to be confronted by a hooded, faceless crowd, often armed with rotten eggs and over-ripe tomatoes.

Is her objection to the facelessness or the rotten eggs? Like Garance Franke-Ruta before her, Baram arrives at a solution to speech she deems offensive - eliminate anonymity. She does not accept that anonymity provides a safeguard to free speech on the web. Her evidence for her assertion? Well, none. Instead, Baram ignores the history of pseudononymous writing, from the ancients to the modern American examples of Poor Richard, Publius, Mark Twain and Atrios.

. . . In the end, Baram's proposal would shut out the thousands of voices out there that comment anonymously for the same reason I tried to. I think a few harsh words directed at us by some idiots is a small price to pay for allowing these voices to be heard.

Go throw a few tomatoes and rotten eggs at me if you are so inclined.

Monday, I came down with whatever bug is going around these parts. I finally went to the doctor yesterday who said it's a respiratory inflammation of some sort, so now I've started a course of cipro (antibiotics) and prednisone (steroids) and feeling a little out of it.

TChris and Big Tent will be posting this weekend, as I'll mostly just be reading. I'd also like to get started on my thank you e-mails to the generous readers who sent in donations this week.

So, here's an open thread for you. Let us know what's caught your attention or talk about whatever you feel like.

If there are diaries this weekend, I'll put up a diary rescue tonight.

More...

Update: Thanks, everyone. So many of you contributed and included kind words about the site. It's much appreciated, and I'll be sending individual thank you emails to all this weekend.

********

It's only 10:00 a.m. here so I mean this tongue in cheek, but I could use a drink.

Now that my taxes are done and filed, I see that I spent $6,000.00 on TalkLeft last year in design, troubleshooting, hosting and subscription fees.

No reader has contributed to the site since July. Not one of the groups, tv networks or news magazines which send me mass emails every day advocating their causes and shows has ever sent a dime.

So, how about buying me that drink? My favorites are Conundrum white wine, Grand Marnier, Patron tequilla and Ketel One vodka. In a decent establishment, that's about $10.

Here's how, it's very easy. If you don't like paypal (which takes credit cards if you don't have a paypal account) feel free to pull a five or ten out of your pocket and send it snail mail.

If you'd like to buy me a double or a bottle, I accept. If you'd like to do it anonymously, here's the Amazon link.

And if you don't want to contribute to my drinking, let me know and I'll put your money towards TalkLeft or another worthwhile expense.

Cheers!

I've got some jail visiting to do today and will be offline. Big Tent Democrat or TChris may be around this afternoon, but in the meantime, here's an open thread for you.

Also check out the new diaries:

♦Reality on Film in Brazil

♦An Utter Failure of Imagination

♦How low law enforcement has fallen

Round the Blogosphere today:

• Avedon Carol at Sideshow on why she's lukewarm to a draft Gore bid for 2008. Me too. I also don't think there's a chance it would happen. If Hillary isn't unstoppable, it goes to Obama (even though I wish it would go to Edwards in that event.)

• Call Your Senators On FISA. I support The "FISA Modernization Bill of 2007 (H.R. 3782)", introduced by Rush Holt, not the Democrats' RESTORE Act. FISA should not ignore the Constitution and in particular, the Fourth Amendment.

The ACLU, while it prefers the FISA Modernization Bill, says it has turned its attention to fixing the RESTORE Act since the Modernization bill has not been scheduled for a hearing.

Please, call your representative right now. Tell him or her to only pass a FISA modernization bill that has individualized warrants for people in the United States and NOT to provide telecom companies with immunity for breaking the law.

• Libby at The NewsHoggers on why the Dutch ban on mushrooms is a bad idea.

More....