I just finished watching this week's "24" about a terrorist attack on the White House. It was way better than the Bachelor Finale. Jason is now the butt of jokes everywhere from Jay Leno to Jimmy Fallon. He knows he's gone from Most Eligible of the Year to Most Hated of the Year... but it's only March. So he's embarked on a media apology tour, groveling for forgiveness on Ellen and Extra... just pitiful.

What's going on in your neck of the woods? This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

I was checking White Collar Crime Blog to get Professor Ellen Podgor's take on the Don Siegelman decision, but learned she's at the ABA White Collar Crime conference in San Francisco. One panel she attended was about the white collar trials of 2007. Ted Wells, Scooter Libby's lawyer, was one of the panelists. She writes:

The eight male speakers covered the cases of Michael Reyes (Brocade), Joseph Nacchio (Qwest), Scooter Libby and the KPMG defendants. One recurring theme was what I call the "the context of the case."

For example, in discussing the Scooter Libby case, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. noted how the Scooter Libby case could be seen as a proxy for how people felt about President Bush and the war. It was a "he said-she said" case on a 20 second phone call - but the timing of the trial was important.

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The Supreme Court of Minnesota denied Al Franken's petition (PDF) that the Governor and Secretary of State be ordered to issue a certificate of election. The key to the decision is this passage, imo: [More...]

Bad news for former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld his conviction on all but two counts in a 68 page opinion, available here (pdf).

The three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was unanimous in ruling that there was enough evidence to convict Mr. Siegelman of bribery for having appointed a campaign contributor to a state hospital licensing board, rejecting his arguments that the testimony of a key aide who turned against him was not enough.

The judges threw out two lesser charges against Mr. Siegelman having to do principally with the actions of the businessman he appointed to the hospital board, Richard Scrushy, whose separate conviction was upheld. The judges thus rejected the prosecution’s contention that Mr. Siegelman had participated in a “broader self-dealing scheme.”

Siegelman will be resentenced. More thoughts and reaction below:

It seems apparent that one of the reasons President Obama chose Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State in his Administration was her star power. If this was one of his calculations, it seems to be working:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton electrified a group of young European government workers and activists Friday in an hour-long town-hall-style meeting in which she promised more cooperation with Europe and voiced regret at Bush administration positions on climate change and other issues.

. . . Her appearance before an enthusiastic crowd that spilled out of the auditorium and gave her two standing ovations resembled an event from her presidential campaign, only she was there as a representative of the Obama administration. And she delivered one of its early diplomatic themes: Things between the U.S. and Europe are going to be different.

Of course the President himself is the biggest political star in the world, but his Secretary of State clearly has some wattage of her own.

Speaking for me only

The Government filed a pleading (pdf)in Bernie Madoff's case today stating he would waive Indictment and it would file an Information. Translation: Plea deal has been reached. More here.

Researchers warned the media this week that the field tests used by cops to determine whether drugs are present in substances are unreliable and produce too many false positives.

More....

Human Rights Watch released a new report this week,
Decades of Disparity, Drug Arrests and Race in the United States (pdf.) The report analyzes the arrest statistics released by the FBI.

Adult African Americans were arrested on drug charges at rates that were 2.8 to 5.5 times as high as those of white adults in every year from 1980 through 2007, the last year for which complete data were available. About one in three of the more than 25.4 million adult drug arrestees during that period was African American.

Via Drug War Chronicle: [More...]

At the NYTimes.com, David Leonhardt crunches the employment numbers:

The job market is getting ever closer to the depths that it reached in 1982. Since the start of 2008, the economy has lost jobs at a steeper rate than at any other point in 50 years . . . the decline is worse than it was at any point during the deep recessions of the mid-1970s and of the early 1980s. . . . The job market still is not in as bad shape as it was in 1982, because unemployment entering this downturn was somewhat lower than it was in 1981. But it’s getting close.

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I wish President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner would take these words from FDR to heart:

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach. We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer.

This is an Open Thread.

It was just announced that the US economy lost 651,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate hit 8.1%, the highest rate in 25 years. But the Media and the Beltway Gasbags still have time for the silliness of Limbaugh and $1.7 million to study pig odors. The disconnect is stunning.

Speaking for me only

As I have written previously the Obama Administration is not dealing with the financial crisis. Today, Krugman writes:

[Obama] officials still aren’t willing to face the facts. They don’t want to face up to the dire state of major financial institutions because it’s very hard to rescue an essentially insolvent bank without, at least temporarily, taking it over. And temporary nationalization is still, apparently, considered unthinkable.

But this refusal to face the facts means, in practice, an absence of action. And I share the president’s fears: inaction could result in an economy that sputters along, not for months or years, but for a decade or more.

Speaking for me only