From the award winning Canadian magazine Walrus: An audio photo essay about the coca farmers in Bolivia and their fight, assisted by the country's President Evo Morales, to keep cultivating the leaf for legal purposes.

Besides being a symbol of Bolivia's indigenous culture, the coca leaf is considered a cure for many ailments and an important source of work for farmers in this poor South American country.

Coca is not cocaine. However, the leaf is the main ingredient for the drug, and the United States and the United Nations would like to see the plant completely eradicated.

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So I take it we can agree now that 2025 is not the magic number?

Everything we're hearing is that a deal over Florida and Michigan could be cut in the next few days. . . . The hurdle isn't Clinton and Obama anymore, though; it is folks in the DNC who believe those two recalcitrant states still need to be punished in some form . . . [I]t's clear to us that DNC types want some flesh on this issue. Many hate the idea of Florida and Michigan getting full delegations . . .

Does anyone in the DNC want to win in November? Donna Brazile is a travesty.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Reason has a new documentary, Mississippi Drug War Blues, about Cory Maye.

"Mississippi Drug War Blues" is a story about the intersection of race (Maye is black and Jones was white); the war on drugs; the disturbing increase in the militarization of police tactics; and systemic flaws in the criminal justice and expert-testimony systems.

It is a tragedy in which one man is dead and another may spend his life in prison.

As a result of the efforts of Reason Senior Editor Radley Balko, Cory Maye received new legal representation and his death sentence was changed to life in prison without parole. The legal fight for relief for Cory goes on. A clip from the documentary and status update is below the fold.

I support this idea:

On Tuesday a bunch of Hillaryites launched "Voteboth.com" to push the idea of a "Dream Ticket" of both Clinton and Obama … again. "We figure why have a nominee who has won 51.1 percent of the vote when you can have a ticket of both of them who have won 100 percent of the Democratic vote?" Voteboth.com spokesman Sam Arora said.

Until recently, Arora was Clinton's press spokesman, but now he's okay with Obama in the No. 1 spot."If Sen. Obama becomes the nominee we're going to make the case that hope and experience can co-exist and make the ticket much stronger," Arora said. Pundits say that a "Dream Ticket" could deal with one problem – the possibility that Hillary supporters could vote for Republican John McCain come November.

Here is the VoteBoth web site. As is often the case, I am speaking for me only.

This may come as a surprise to some people, but there will be an election in November. To read some blogs, you would think that Barack Obama's almost certain victory over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination means Obama advances straight to the White House. In case they did not know, it does not work that way.

One blogger says that it is silly to discuss Obama's failure to connect with white working class voters because:

Demographic and socio-economic differences between the two states,* plus the effects of Clinton’s ugly “kitchen sink” campaign, are not considered. [*For example, 31.7 percent of Virginians have college degrees, while 23.4 percent of North Carolinians have college degrees. Obama tends to do better among college-educated voters.]

I am curious if the blogger expects those voters without college degrees to suddenly get them by November and thus solve Obama's problem here. But I especially wonder if the blogger expects that Republicans will not campaign against Barack Obama. Or if they do, whether their campaign will be so much nicer than the Clinton campaign.

The reality based community? Not so much. Not anymore.

This bad:

[I]in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there[,] [a]s aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. . . . Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?"

One good thing about this campaign is the utter demise of the idea that Mark Penn is a competent political operative.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only.

Politico is reporting that Barack Obama will declare victory on May 20:

Not long after the polls close in the May 20 Kentucky and Oregon primaries, Barack Obama plans to declare victory in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. . . .The Obama campaign agrees with the Democratic National Committee, which pegs a winning majority at 2,025 pledged delegates and superdelegates—a figure that excludes the penalized Florida and Michigan delegations.

So let me get this straight -- the first act of the self declared Democratic nominee Barack Obama will be to state that Michigan and Florida will not count? This is insane. Two key states in November will be dissed in the first act of the newly crowned Democratic nominee. At the least, Obama should wait until he has 2209 delegates counting the existing Florida and Michigan delegations. One assumes that will likely happen by the end of the primaries barring some unforeseen event. I can not understand the logic of this approach.

More . . .

Capturing brutal police misconduct on tape isn't always enough to convince a jury to convict the officers of a crime. It isn't surprising that juries often give cops a pass when they abuse arrestees, despite seemingly obvious visual evidence of their guilt. Sometimes the district attorney doesn't prosecute with vigor; sometimes the jury returns a verdict of "he had it coming." Juries bring democracy into the courtroom by reflecting the sense of the community, even when that sense is offensive to those who don't share the community's biases. That's how democracy works -- or doesn't, depending on your point of view.

In Philadelphia:

Fifteen Philadelphia police officers will be taken off the street as authorities investigate a video showing three suspects being kicked and beaten by city police.

Philadelphia officers have been "on edge" since one of their own was killed two days ago, according to Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. A bit of the video is shown in this newscast. More information here.

I absolutely have to get back to work. I have jails to visit and briefs to write. Here's what I would be writing about if I had the time:

• Never leave a reporter and two lawyers on a jury. Here's a report of the Uma Thurman jury deliberations from a reporter who served on the jury. On the other hand, perhaps he just helped the defendant in a bid for a new trial.

  Tuesday morning, when we reconvened, a couple of my fellow jurors said they woke up sick to their stomachs. Another burst into the room saying he'd seen the drawings sketched by the court artists, and that they'd done a good job depicting us.

  Aren't the jurors admonished to avoid media reports of the trial? Where would s/he have seen the sketch artist's depictions but in a newspaper?

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Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice by Ethan Brown

Sunday, May 19, I'll be hosting the Firedoglake Book Salon where author Ethan Brown will be discussing his new book. (5:00 PM ET)

Pick up a copy or order one from Amazon at the link above, and come join us.

My view: Snitch (cooperators') testimony is purchased testimony and inherently unreliable. It is testimony the Government purchases with promises of leniency, and freedom is a commodity far more precious than money. The incentive to lie is enormous and the practice has made our criminal justice system morally bankrupt.

About the book [More...]

Law Professor and blogger Ann Althouse and I have another Bloggingheads TV diavlog on Tuesday's primaries. The topics (you can click on any one or watch it all, but warning, it's 54 minutes total):

• Did the mayor of Gary, IN try to sabotage Hillary’s victory? (08:34)
• Jeralyn makes the case for Clinton to stay in (09:39)
• Ann fears Obama is too liberal, Jeralyn that he’s not liberal enough (05:59)
• Will voters think Obama is angry because he’s black? (08:35)
• What’s the real difference between Obama and Hillary? (04:46)
• Looking ahead to a McCain Supreme Court (05:19)

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The testimony in the trial on Tony Rezko has ended. The defense did not call any witnesses. The prosecution's case lasted 9 weeks. Closing arguments are next week.

"We do not believe the government has met [its] burden proving the charges against Mr. Rezko, plain and simple," Rezko's attorney, Joseph Duffy, said in explaining his tactical decision not to mount a defense case.

Probably a smart move. It's also a typical one, so it shouldn't be viewed as them not having a defense. It's a statement there was no need to put on a defense since the prosecution didn't prove its case.

The Judge has taken under advisement several motions for judgment of acquittal. The charges are multiple counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, attempted extortion, aiding and abetting bribery and money laundering.