Chris Brown, who "finished 2008 as the fourth-best-selling artist in the digital realm," and his girlfriend Rihanna, whose song "Disturbia" was the "sixth best-selling digital track of the year," canceled their performances at yesterday's Grammy awards. Brown's absence can be explained by his rather more pressing appointment with LAPD where, accompanied by his attorney, Mark Geragos, he surrendered for booking before posting $50,000 bail.

Brown is suspected of threatening and battering Rhianna. According to this story, Rhianna suffered visible injuries.

That is the damning reply delivered by an Obama Justice Department official today in the oral argument in the Jeppesen extraordinary renditions flights case. The NYTimes reports this exchange:

“Is there anything material that has happened” that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views, asked Judge Mary M. Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.

“No, your honor,” Mr. Letter replied. “The change in administration has no bearing?” she asked.

“No, your honor,” he said once more.

The Obama Administration, trying to deflect the stain of this exchange, stated that:

Ann Althouse on the Obama press conference:

8:00: He ends exactly on the button. We hear a stomp as he steps off the podium, and his walk back into the White House is noticeably different from Bush's. How can I describe the different feeling I get from that walk? You can object to this if you want. It's just my feeling. I think Bush would walk away in a ritual fashion that said: I am the President and I have accomplished what the President must do. Obama's walk said: I'm a man who has this job and now I've done it and I'm out of here.

I read this over a few times and my interpretation is that Althouse thinks Bush was more "Presidential" than Obama. [UPDATE - It turns out Teresa was right and I was wrong on what Althouse meant. My apologies to Ms. Althouse.] A pretty remarkable reaction in my opinion. I thought, whatever else we might disagree on, we could all agree that President Bush was as awful a President as we have ever seen perform at press conferences. I guess not all of us then.

Speaking for me only

Three federal judges, after hearing evidence of California's ongoing failure to provide adequate health care (including mental health care) to state inmates, told the State it had lost the lawsuit and had better settle quickly if it didn't want to face an order requiring it to release as many as 58,000 prisoners over the next two to three years.

Everyone (except maybe the correctional officers' union) agrees that overcrowding is the problem.

Because prisons are jammed beyond capacity, they lack medical facilities, doctors and nurses, can't make sure inmates are taking medications or receiving treatment, and are triple-bunking inmates in gyms and other locations, the panel said. Such overcrowding increases the risk of spreading diseases among prisoners and staff, the judges said.

[more ...]

Here's how forfeiture works in Texas: The cops take your money and property. They make you sign a form that if you relinquish the property, they won't file criminal charges against you.

As one lawmaker says:

“The idea that people lose their property but are never charged and never get it back, that’s theft as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

One mayor, in an attempt to justify the policy, says the cities need the money -- they may get an extra police car out of it.

The Obama press conference is on. You'd have to be on Mars not to be seeing it online or on tv, so I'm not going to live blog.

Speech part is over. (Text here.) Shorter version: This is the worst economy since the Depression. If we don't act now, we'll be in dire straits.

In answer to first question, he backtracked of an earlier statement today implying we'll never get out of it if we don't act now. He says he meant it will be difficult to get back on track. Shorter version: He avoids Doomsday scenario.

He seems very presidential and in control. Good for him and us.

Here's a thread for reactions.

Via Grits for Breakfast:

You're a lot more likely to wind up in a federal prison if you're arrested on a drug charge, according to the US Sentencing Commission, than you are for engaging in larceny, fraud, or white collar crime. According to a new report by the USSC titled "Alternative Sentencing in the Federal Criminal Justice System" (pdf), a whopping 92% of drug convictions resulted in a prison sentence, compared to 39% of convictions for larceny, 60% of convictions for fraud, and just 57% of convictions for white collar crime.

There should be more alternative sentences for everyone, whether convicted of theft or drugs, since by themselves, both are non-violent crimes. (If violence is involved, jail is always available as an option.) The point is, as Law Prof Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy notes, there's hope in the Sentencing Commission's final paragraph:

Yankees star Alex Rodriguez admitted to ESPN today he used steroids from 2001 to 2003 while playing for the Texas Rangers.

The news tonight reports this is very sad and will adversely impact his career forever. It's not deterring the University of Miami from naming a baseball complex after him: [More...]

Via Think Progress, the Independent reports on the details of Binyam Mohamed's torture and the lines left out of the report:

The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, "is very far down the list of things they did," the official said.

Another source familiar with the case said: "British intelligence officers knew about the torture and didn't do anything about it. They supplied information to the Americans and the Moroccans. They supplied questions, they supplied photographs. There is evidence of all of that."

Tell us again, Ex-President Bush, the United States Does Not Torture. Memo to President Obama: Release these documents. As the ACLU said today, don't hide behind Bush's state secrets claim. [More...]

President Barack Obama has invited (and been accepted) Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist to join him at a Florida stimulus event tomorrow:

Statements from the President and Gov. Crist about tomorrow's event are included below.

"I look forward to traveling to Ft. Meyers tomorrow to talk to Floridians about how we get our nation's economy back on track. Gov. Crist and I have seen firsthand the toll that this economic crisis has taken on the American people, and we agree that we can't allow politics to get in the way of urgent relief for the millions of families and small businesses that need it," said President Barack Obama.

[MORE . . .

I made fun of Forbes' list of "the 25 most influential liberals in the Media," mostly because Fred Hiatt was on the list. But they got the #1 on the list right - Paul Krugman. Krugman has taken his Times Op Ed perch, added a Nobel prize in economics and forced the progressive view into the Media conversation. He certainly did so on the stimulus bill. Via Jane Hamsher, Speaker Pelosi uses Krugman's words to fight for the House stimulus bill:

Kudos to Speaker Pelosi. And kudos to Paul Krugman for changing the debate.

Speaking for me only

Will New York's legislature finally do away with the obnoxious Rockefeller drug laws?

The Rockefeller laws tied the hands of judges by requiring lengthy prison terms even for first-time offenders. Essentially, the law allowed prosecutors to decide who went to jail and for how long. The system, which has been imitated throughout the country, filled the jails to bursting, while doing nothing to curb the drug trade. The law has been especially disastrous for black and Latino offenders, who represent the overwhelming majority of those held in state prison for drug offenses.

This editorial quotes with approval Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, who criticized a state commission that studied reform. The commission was loaded with prosecutors who, unsurprisingly, wanted to keep power in their own hands rather than returning sentencing discretion to judges.