• Fundraising jump for NORML after Obama's remarks

• Council on Hemispheric Affairs: Evidence Mounts that the drug war is unwinnable and that a debate over legalization and decriminalization should not be met by presidential giggles

• Failed Drug War Policies in Mexico? Let's Try More of the Same

[Hat tip for song to MSNBC's David Shuster.]

Congrats to Wichita criminal defense attorney Dan Monnat. A Kansas jury today acquitted his client, Dr. George Tiller, on 19 counts of performing late-term abortions. They deliberated for under an hour.

"Dr. Tiller and his family are just happy it's over, with an eminently just result," said his defense attorney, Dan Monnat. "This whole trial was political." He called the jury "these six brave souls" for not being swayed by the political consideration of the abortion debate in Kansas, where it has occasionally devolved into violence.

The charges: [More...]

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

Ezra Klein posits that the Obama Administration is proposing the plans it is proposing on the financial crisis and the economic crisis because it is constrained by Congress:

One of [Obama economic advisor] Laura Tyson's interesting remarks last night came in reply to a questioner who faulted the White House for insufficient ambition. Her response had nothing to do with policy or economics. It was ab[o]ut Congress. "They accomplish what they can accomplish within the realities of the Congress," she shot back. "And the Democratic coalition is breaking already." Critics, she said, need to stop focusing on the White House and begin focusing on Congress. Tyson is pretty plugged in. It's a safe bet that if congressional obstruction has colonized her thinking . . . then it's probably what's obsessing the administration, too.

More . . .

NFL running back Ryan Moats just wanted to get his wife to the hospital before her mother died. You can't blame him for rolling through a red light. You can blame the officer who pulled him over outside the ER, ignored his pleas (and those of hospital staff), threatened to screw him over, and took his time writing a ticket.

His mother in law passed away while the offer forced Moats to remain in his car as he checked for outstanding warrants.

Dallas police officials apologized after confirming that the scene was captured on the squad car's video camera. Too little, too late for Moats and his wife.

Via TPM:

The Wall Street Journal reports (sub. req.) that [NY State AG Andrew] Cuomo plans to subpoena AIG for documents about the credit default swaps that brought the company to its knees.

See also NYTimes ("Members of Congress and the New York State attorney general demanded detailed information Thursday on how tens of billions of taxpayer dollars flowed through the American International Group during its crisis last fall and ended up in the coffers of several dozen big banks, shielding them from losses.") CNBC's Jim Cramer is expected to blast Cuomo for this, via NYTimes:

Speaking for me only

Here's something you don't see every day:

Saying they were negligent and incompetent when they struck seven blacks from the jury pool in a recent murder trial, Harris County [Texas] District Attorney Pat Lykos castigated two of her prosecutors Thursday, docking their pay and removing them from trial work.

Lykos said the prosecutors were negligent when they removed every black member of the jury panel in the murder prosecution of a black defendant. The prosecutors claim they were "shocked" when they looked at the dozen jurors who made the final cut and saw no black faces. Lykos said the prosecutors were merely incompetent, not racist, in their decision to strike all the black panel members. "If I thought for a moment that there were racial motives, they would have been fired,” she said.

But what are "racial motives"? [more ...]

The Washington Post reports the current cost of the war in Afghanistan is $2 billion a month.

Under the plan Obama will announce today, the cost will increase 60% this year. More details:

Along with the 17,000 additional combat troops authorized last month, he said, Obama will send 4,000 more this fall to serve as trainers and advisers to an Afghan army expected to double in size over the next two years.

My latest post on Obama's intent to ratchet up the drug war in Afghanistan is here.

I hope this is change the American people will make clear they don't believe in.

The Maryland House today passed a bill severely curtailing the use of the death penalty:

The measure will limit capital cases to those with biological or DNA evidence, a videotaped confession or a videotape linking the defendant to a homicide. Those are among the steepest hurdles faced by prosecutors in the 35 states that have a death penalty.

The Maryland Senate has approved it and Gov. Martin O'Malley has indicated he will sign it.

Amid a national debate over executions, Maryland's evidentiary limitations will become the most stringent of any of the 35 states that have capital punishment on the books.

It's still snowing here and will be until morning.

BTD was busy at work today so we've had no posts on the economy. Is there any news?

I'll be watching American Idol and Grey's Anatomy, here's an open thread for you, all topics welcome.

Great Britain will investigate the torture claims of former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohammed, who alleges he was tortured while held by the U.S. in secret prisons abroad.

Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed says he was tortured while in US custody in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, with the complicity of MI5.....Mr Mohamed returned to the UK in February 2009 after seven years in custody - four of which were spent in the US camp at Guantanamo Bay.

His allegations are detailed here. Among his claims: His genitals were sliced with a scapel.

The jury is out in the Phil Spector murder trial. Six months of testimony, three days of closing arguments, with the prosecutor, as always, getting the last word (they get the last word because they have the burden of proof.)

This time around, the jury has the option of involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense, which carries up to four years.

The prosecutor apparently borrowed some Martha Moxley-style graphic tricks in his closing today, blowing up the photos of Lana Clarkson and five other women who claimed Spector waved a gun around them when drunk. He saved Clarkson's picture for last and yelled "Pow" when it appeared, simulating a gun going off. [More...]