That was quick. While a slew of news articles are still writing about a Colorado woman, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, held in Ireland over the plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who mocked the prophet Mohammed, it turns out she's already been released.

I guess there's still Jihad Jane for some people to worry about.

Sunday's New York Times Magazine has an 8 page profile of Rahm Emanuel.

If Emanuel’s philosophy is to put points on the board, to take what you can get and then cut a deal, to make everything negotiable except success, then the White House is testing the limits of Rahmism.

....Emanuel occupies a unique niche in Obama’s White House. He makes up the rules of the game that others are supposed to follow, and he gets away with what others cannot. Emanuel seems to serve as a virtual prime minister, the most powerful chief of staff since James Baker managed the White House during Ronald Reagan’s first term.

The Times portrays him as a rattlesnake wired into every important decision:

It's a beautiful day here, too nice to spend indoors. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Monica Conyers, wife of Rep. John Conyers, was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison this week for her part in a corruption case in Detroit. Her sentencing hearing did not go smoothly, and she unsuccessfully attempted to withdraw her gulity plea (begins on page 3.)

Here's the transcript of her sentencing hearing. Here's the Government's sentencing memo and the Plea Agreement. Some background here.[More...]

Phil Spector's lawyers have filed their opening brief in the appeal of his murder conviction.

[T]hey focused on a judge's decision to allow testimony from five women who claimed Spector menaced them with firearms in the decades leading up to Lana Clarkson's shooting.

Those accounts, which portrayed Spector as a violent misogynist, became "the heart of the state's case, the sine qua non of its efforts to gain a conviction" and amounted to impermissible character testimony, the lawyers wrote.

For one thing, while the judge instructed the jury the testimony could not be taken as propensity to commit a crime, [More...]

Still very busy. Maybe next week will be better.

Open Thread.

In the John Edwards saga, will Andrew Young go to jail today? What happened to the Enquirer's prediction of an imminent indictment of John Edwards? It's been a week since its announcement. Has the grand jury not met, was the tabloid wrong, or will there be news today? (Doesn't the grand jury meet on Thursdays once or twice a month?)

I'm off to work, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

In Grand Junction, Colorado, a strange odor in the Government census office resulted in a search warrant being executed next door and the discovery and seizure of 1,000 marijuana plants. Sid Squirrel, who owns the building and is a realtor, says the plants are his, and he's growing them in compliance with state law. Also found: 300 file folders containing cards of medical marijuana patients.

Colorado law allows patients to possess up to two ounces of marijuana or six plants. Patients can also designate a caregiver. So for each patient who designated Mr. Squirrel as his or her caregiver, Squirrel can grow 6 plants. If 300 patients designated him as a caregiver, he could grow 1,800 plants and be in compliance with state law.

Squirrel was not arrested yesterday. [More...]

The ACLU in Idaho, along with the national ACLU has filed a federal class action lawsuit against a private prison in Idaho run by CCA (Corrections Corp of America) as a result "epidemic violence" to which prison officials have "turned a blind eye."

"In my 39 years of suing prisons and jails, I have never confronted a more disgraceful, revolting and inexcusable case of mass abuse and federal rights violations than this one,” said Stephen Pevar, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU. “The level of unnecessary human suffering is appalling. Prison officials have utterly failed to uphold their constitutional obligation to protect prisoners from being violently harmed and we must seek court intervention."

The complaint is here. [More...]

Who's going home tonight on American Idol? I sure hope it's not Crystal Bowersox or Lilli Scott. Tonight's results will leave the top 12 contestants, the real start of the season.

Who's going home on Survivor? I finally caught up with "24", Damages and The Good Wife. All were excellent this week. I even watched Molly and Jason's wedding last night. It was less schmaltzy than I thought it would be. Maybe it's just that compared to Jake and Vienna, Jason and Molly are a relief to watch. I hope Jakes gets eliminated in week one during DWTS. I'd rather watch Tom DeLay.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Don't Republicans have anything better to do? Now they are attacking Attorney General Eric Holder because he didn't disclose during his Senate confirmation hearings that he signed onto three Amicus briefs for Jose Padilla, the accused enemy combatant held for 3 1/2 years in a military brig, without access to counsel, before charges were filed.

“The briefs should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process,” said Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman. “In preparing thousands of pages for submission, it was unfortunately and inadvertently missed. In any event, the attorney general has publicly discussed his positions on detention policy on many occasions, including at his confirmation hearing.”

The briefs challenged then-President Bush's authority to indefinitely detain enemy combatents. They were filed in the Jose Padilla case. Links to them below: [More...]

If you're going to be a police crime lab technician whose drug-testing work can put people in jail, it's probably not a good idea to be stealing and sampling the merchandise, i.e., the seized drugs.

Deborah Madden, age 60, a San Francisco crime lab tech for 29 years, has not been charged with a crime. But suspicions she stole and used cocaine from drug evidence have caused
San Francisco to dismiss 25 drug cases.

Madden abruptly retired Dec. 8 after 29 years on the job and has been in treatment recently for drug and alcohol use, officials said. She left the crime lab shortly after an audit discovered that drug evidence was missing, officials said.

[More...]