Is it my imagination or is Valentines Day a bigger deal this year than in recent years? I think it's a bigger deal. There seems more attention to it, between the ads everywhere for gifts and flowers and magazines around the country promoting their "most eligible singles" issue. My theory as to why: Barack and Michelle Obama.

We haven't had a couple in the White House that represent romance in a long time. The inauguration showcased their warm and close relationship for all to see, and it's impossible not to be moved by it.

So, is romance back? I hope so because I'll have a post up in a few hours on tonight's Bachelor show on ABC with an interview I recently did of last season's Bachelorette winner, Colorado snowboarder Jesse Csinscak, and I'm looking for any way to make it not completely off-topic for TalkLeft. I'm probably the only interviewer who asked him who he voted for in November. (Yes, he answered.)

The interview probably won't generate many comments here, so I'm putting up an open thread now for all other topics.

The New York Times today reported on the huge shift that will take place in the Justice Department under President Obama. He will be breaking with the policies of the Bush Administration.

I sat down to read it anxious to get to the part about our unfair crack-powder cocaine sentencing laws, over-reliance on long prison sentences and need for alternative sentences in the federal system, and ending raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in states that had legalized it.

There were none. Law Prof Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy has the same disappointed reaction as me. Of course, I never expected any as I wrote throughout the course of the primaries. But now that change is here, my hopes went up just like everyone else's. And I'm still hopeful there will be some relief.

I had to pick a topic yesterday for my talk at the NORML Aspen Legal Conference in June. (Link not available yet, here's the one for 2008.) I chose, "High Hopes and Modest Expectations: Drug Law Reform under President Obama and a Democratic Congress." Looks like that was a good choice.

Last week I wrote that the Center for Constitutional Rights questioned President Barack Obama's January 22 orders on interrogation and closing Guantanamo, cautioning that while they in no uncertain terms stated the CIA must close its secret black hole prisons, they may have left a loophole for the CIA to resume them. A secret or extraordinary rendition refers to the practice of the CIA whereby it kidnaps suspects and flies them to a country where they are held in secret prisons and interrogated by non U.S. personnel, where the Red Cross has no access to them and no lists are made available as to who or how many people are victims of the practice. Some of the countries these suspects are shipped to practice torture.

The ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights and other human rights groups have been campaigning for several years to stop secret renditions. I have always agreed with them that secret renditions must stop. Now there's a question over whether Obama fully ordered it stopped or not. The Timesonline today: [More...]

I asked this question yesterday (I even sent an e-mail to my friend David Sirota with no response) but I am still at a loss about the hubbub over the Buy American provisions in the stimulus package. Is there something that makes this provision necessary considering the fact that the 1933 (yes the one passed 76 years ago) Buy American Act is still in effect and still covering all federal government purchases? Paul Krugman and Matt Yglesias discuss the pros and cons of the policy but no one yet, to my knowledge, has explained why we need a Buy American provision in the stimulus package when we already have a Buy American law that covers all federal government spending? Anyone? Bueller? This is an honest question. What is all this fuss about?

Speaking for me only

Change we can believe in?:

Individually, each charge -- with the exception, perhaps of the until-recently-unpaid taxes on the InterMedia car and driver -- might be seen as not much more than business as usual for a former Congressional leader who has slipped through Washington's revolving door to offer his contacts and expertise to private interests. But cumulatively, they paint a picture of a Washington insider who, at best, has grown negligent about tracking the various forms of compensation he's receiving.

(Emphasis supplied.) So the new Obama slogan will be "Business as usual we can believe in?" Again, I never much cared about all this, but I did detest the sanctimonious BS that got flung around regarding all the "change" we would see.

Speaking for me only

New Orleans is in dire need of government transparency and accountability so Cerasoli's loss is being mourned across the city.

Though the IG's office will continue without Cerasoli, his departure has got me thinking about public corruption, particularly the kinds of public corruption cases brought by the beloved U.S. Attorney down here, Jim Letten. [More...]

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

A daily kos diarist, citing Politico, says Baucus To Blame For Slow Daschle Confirmation.

From where I sit, this is one of the few things I can laud Max Baucus (D-MT) for doing. Good work Baucus. Keep it up.

Speaking for me only

In his first hundred days in office, President Barack Obama will do nothing more important to his political future and the future of the Democratic Party than enact stimulus measures to revive an economy spiraling into depression (I think that he has already done the most important thing he could substantively, end torture as sanctioned US policy.) And of course, it is extremely important on substance. How should we judge Obama's performance on the economic stimulus plan? I think politically and substantively, the criteria is the same - will it work? E.J. Dionne writes a good piece reviewing the strange obsession with bipartisanship, the possible reasons, and even benefits, for it, and the extreme pitfalls it presents:

He's amazing. Best I've ever seen him. He starts with Tenth Avenue Freezeout. Tune in, don't miss this.

Update: I'm speechless. He's always good, but this just rocked. It also was the happiest halftime show I've ever seen. The adlibs were great. I'm about to watch it again. [More...]

A study of wrongful convictions in New York cites human error as a leading cause of mistaken guilty verdicts.

It determined that the root causes of the convictions included errors by a prosecutor, judge or member of law enforcement, as well as the misidentification of the accused by victims or witnesses. The mishandling of forensic evidence and a reliance on false confessions from the accused or false testimony from jailhouse informants were also to blame.

Some of the examples cited in the linked article go well beyond "human error." When the police or prosecutors withhold evidence that casts doubt on a defendant's guilt, their willful misconduct isn't a simple mistake. False confessions usually result from deliberately coercive interrogations. A refusal to be fair in the investigation and prosecution of crime isn't just error -- it's malicious, or reckless at best.

I love all sports. But college football is my first love. Then college basketball. Then the NBA. But I enjoy NFL football and am a NY Giants fan.

I'll be watching the game, set to kick off in an hour and 25 minutes. But it will be as a casual fan. No particular rooting interest (though Anquan Boldin is from the small Florida town I grew up in and went to the same high school I did.) I understand watching the commercials is a big deal, And Bruce Springsteen will be hawking his new album at halftime.

Perhaps some of these things will be of interest to you and here is a thread for discussing all things Super Bowl related.

Speaking for me only