[Note: Scroll down for updates as I've added several]

The City Attorney in Los Angeles is challenging the Sheriff's decision to send Paris Hilton home on house arrest. The Judge has scheduled a hearing tomorrow. You can read the motion here. (pdf)

The City Attorney is also demanding that the Sheriff pick her up at her house tomorrow and transport her to court for the hearing.

There's more. He is asking the Judge to hold the Sheriff in contempt of court for putting Paris on home detention which the Judge precluded in his sentencing order. The court spokesman today said the Sheriff asked the judge to modify the sentence to home detention yesterday and the judge declined. But, the Judge was told of the sentence change before

My earlier post on Paris' release is here.

Update: I think it's up to the Sheriff where to place her. Even the court spokesman initially said today,

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I guess Ezra is trying to pay a compliment but I just found this condescending:

To step aside from the concerns about the content of the sites Klein dislikes (I'm a fan of Atrios, DailyKos, et al, but that argument has been had already), they also serve a secondary purpose in subsidizing "the smart stuff" Klein likes. In much the way that cover stories on back pain and, in this case, "the Science of Appetite," sustain the readership and subscription numbers necessary for Klein's wonkier work and the magazine's political and international reporting, the red meat provided by the sites Klein decries create the audience and infrastructure that sustains and, more to the point, publicizes, my health care writing, or Juan Cole's Iraq reporting.

Via Digby, this is just, well, read it:

Eli Lake adds a comment.

. . . What if the netleft, that has created the impression that there is a rising plurality that would like to abandon Iraqis to Qaeda, Quds and the Ba'ath, are just a few thousand committed Marxists in their pajamas? What if the Dems have strategically miscalculated? What if their over-compensation is to appease a vocal 1 percent of the electorate that actually draws contempt from the rest of the country?

Bush's former speechwriter quotes this approvingly. I was looking for a tongue in cheek but could not find it. These folks are insane. Black helicopters on the "tubes" anyone?

The NNIRR (National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights (NNIR) today asks people to urge their senators to defeat the Senate's proposed immigration bill, S.1348, the THE BORDER SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT OF 2007. I received this from the group by e-mail:

Tell the Senators that we want fair and just immigration reform that provides real legalization, expands opportunities for legal residency and family reunification; ensures labor rights for all; and respects civil liberties and due process. We oppose a new guest worker program, border militarization and the undermining of civil liberties.

You can call 1-202-224-3121 and ask for your senators or contact them online.

I agree. I don't think this bill can be fixed. Not enough carrot, too much stick.

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Team Libby today filed its Motion for Appeal Bond, listing the grounds upon which they believe the Court erred before and during trial. I've uploaded the motion(pdf) and attached exhibit (pdf).

I think they make some excellent arguments, particularly about the standard. It's not necessary that Judge Walton believe he was wrong, or that reversal is probable, only that the issue presents a close question or one that could have been decided the other way.

The grounds Libby raises:

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(video here)

Bump and Update: TMZ reports she was released for mental not physical problems. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I'll be discussing her release now around 1:45 p.m. ET on BBC News radio.

Post-BBC segment: I was the only one with any sympathy for Paris. [You can listen here, and fast forward to about 40 minutes in.]I think she was sentenced more harshly because she was a celebrity. A non-celebrity would not have received 45 days in solitary confinement. Most of the callers to the show complained about the different standards for the rich and poor. Poor people would not have had a top-notch lawyer or been provided relief due to a medical condition. My answer: Rather than say the rich shouldn't benefit from good counsel and compassionate care while incarcerated, we should find a way to ensure both are available to all inmates and defendants, including the poor ones.

Update: Andrew Cohen at CBS agrees she never would have gotten sentenced to 45 days in the first place had she not been a celebrity. Also getting it right: Blake Fleetwood at Huffington Post.

Update: Paris Hilton's lawyer released this statement with no detail. And once home, Paris phoned in for cupcakes and had them delivered.

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I have an op-ed in the Washington Examiner today on Scooter Libby's sentence and his chances for an appeal bond.

For another first-hand account of the sentencing hearing, check out Scott Shrake at Huffington Post.

Funniest headline of the day considering the columnist - Candidates Lacking A Real World Clue. David Broder claims the mantle of "reality based." And he writes this:

The dynamic on both sides is trending toward extreme positions that would open the door to an independent or third-party challenge in 2008 aimed at the millions of voters in the center.

Heh. As for Broder's discussion of issues like Iraq, etc., well, we know how silly he is on that. But the headline was good for a chuckle.

A sentence to prison is often thought unfair, particularly by the defendant and his or her family. Scooter Libby's extended conservative family is, in the words of David Frum, "weighted down by the sheer, glaring unfairness here." Their argument is that there's no "underlying crime," and their logic goes something like this: the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative wasn't shown to be a criminal act, so Scooter shouldn't be punished for lying about it to the FBI and a grand jury.

It isn't perjury if you lie about events that are not themselves criminal? If you can figure out how that makes sense, give yourself a gold star.

Anyway, the Scooterists are after a pardon. Here's an interesting presidential tidbit:

President Bush has pardoned 113 people during his presidency, including a Tennessee bootlegger and a Mississippi odometer cheat.

Bootleggers and odometer cheats are the president's kind of people. Is Scooter?

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I do have one more comment on Joe Klein's column. He wrote:

[T]he left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

Will Joe Klein try and stem the "extremism" of the Left blogs by writing the truth about Rudy Giuliani's debate performance last night, perhaps the most mendacious in history? Well Joe Klein write that Rudy Giuliani brazenly lied about Iraq, Iran, terrorism and Democrats? I bet he will not and he will then whine about Left blgos like this one calling him on his silence on the issue.

Joe Klein can not handle the truth, the Media, he included, do not report the truth. The silence on the outrageous lies of Rudy Guliani is merely the latest case in point.

In the course of a silly screed against the Left blogs (I think it so silly that it really does not merit further comment), Joe Klein asserts something that requires some explanation from Senators Clinton and Obama:

The spitballs aimed at Harman, Clinton and Obama are another story. Despite their votes, each of those politicians believes the war must be funded. (Obama even said so in his statement explaining his vote.)

So what Klein is saying is that, in essence, Clinton and Obama are being dishonest in their votes in favor of the Reid-Feingold framework. This is a serious charge and I think these two candidates need to respond to this assertion from the Time columnist.

The question for the Senators is this: Do you believe the Iraq Debacle should NOT be funded after a date certain as proposed by the Reid-Feingold framework or not? John Edwards raised the issue of the lack of leadership shown by the two Senators on the issue. Is Edwards understating the problem? Are these two Senators being dishonest in their votes on the issue, as Joe Klein asserts?

Catcher in the Rye, Huckleberry Finn, and the Harry Potter novels regularly appear on lists of banned books, but the Miami-Dade County School District has extended its censorial reach to "Vamos a Cuba" ("A Visit to Cuba"), "a children's book that critics contend glorifies life in Fidel Castro's Cuba."

The board - supported by members of the Miami-area's influential Cuban-American community -believes the English and Spanish book is inaccurate and fails to address Castro's communist government.

Instead of pulling the book from school libraries, why not add books that describe Castro's Cuba from a competing perspective? Aren't schools the ideal place to test the marketplace of ideas?

The Eleventh Circuit will decide whether the school board was entitled to remove the book.