Dias Kadyrbayev, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's friend who removed his computer and backpack from his dorm room was sentenced to six years in prison today for his guilty pleas to obstructing the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing.

The plea agreement called for a sentence of up to 7 years. All sides agreed the sentencing guidelines' terrorism enhancement, applicable to the obstruction charges, was too harsh. The judge said "This guideline doesn't serve the purposes of sentencing." [More...]

FTR, a 2007 Martin O'Malley and Harold Ford (!) column in defense of "the vital center" (and the DLC):

O'Malley is a dynamic, accomplished guy. But he was all in for HRC in '08, so isn't it a bit awkward to rail against "royal families" now?

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) May 31, 2015

Ya think?

No seriously, that's what they said:

The editor running the coverage, Carolyn Ryan, is more than satisfied with the results so far. “We’ve had extraordinary and world-beating coverage,” Ms. Ryan, the Washington bureau chief, told me by phone this week, mentioning her “dream team of reporters.”

In the news media world, she said, “it’s been broadly recognized that we are dominating.” She mentioned that commenters from Matt Drudge to Dylan Byers of Politico to Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed have praised the coverage or aspects of it. [My emphasis.]

Somewhere, Howell Raines and Jeff Gerth are smiling.

I'm off to NORML's annual Aspen legal conference. My talk this year: "Getting High With Someone Who Dies: Defending Drug Users Charged With Complicity and Enhanced Penalties in Drug Overdose Cases." Here's the entire agenda, it's a privilege to be included with these impressive lawyers.

I'll be back Saturday night, after the annual Owl Farm picnic.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.(I'll put up new open threads if this one fills up.)

My blogging is light because I'm just finishing watching the last 24 episodes of Cartel de los Sapos (First Season.) In between episodes, I read about the real life persons the charaters are portraying, to see how closely the show follows their real lives In this case, it's closer than I would have thought. The first half of season two is arriving tomorrow, so I think I'll be buried in that in the evening. Thursday I leave for Aspen and Owl Farm and the NORML Legal Seminar. My topic this year: "Getting High With Someone Who Dies: Defending federal complicity charges in drug overdose cases." The penalty for is a 20 year mandatory minimum. Another law that needs to be changed.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Swiss police have arrested several FIFA officials and sports marketing executives on a U.S. grand jury indictment alleging corruption and bribery related charges. They will be extradited the the U.S. to face trial. The head honcho, Sepp Blatter, was not charged.

The charges, backed by an F.B.I. investigation, allege widespread corruption in FIFA over the past two decades, involving bids for World Cups as well as marketing and broadcast deals, according to three law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the case.

[More...]

Time for a new open thread. Here it is, all topics welcome.

It's been raining and cold in Denver for days. Perfect activity for being indoors on a holiday weekend: Watching the final 24 episodes of Season 1 of El Cartel, aka Cartel De Los Sapos (Cartel of the Snitches.) Unimas has been re-airing episodes every weeknight since April, but is only up to episode 23. Since I hate to wait, I ordered the second half of season 1 for $5.00 on Ebay (free postage, brand new and shrink-wrapped). The six disk set with 24 episodes and English subtitles arrived yesterday. I've already watched 12 episodes. There are no commercials, no ads at the bottom of the screen and no annoying previews.

I knew El Cartel was the story of the end of the Cali cartel and the rise and take-down of the Norte Valle Cartel in Colombia, but I hadn't realized until watching the show how the NV takedown was done. Here is the true and fascinating story taken from U.S. court records of how agents from DEA Group 43 conducted a rogue operation, and along with their famous informant, photographer Baruch Vega, convinced dozens of cartel bigwigs that if they paid millions of dollars each, promised to stop trafficking and divulge their trafficking routes, they could come to the U.S., get bail, return home, keep all their money, and serve no jail time. Dozens fell for it. [More...]

The Bangladore Police say they will file charges against Mehdi Masroor Biswas, aka @Shami Witness, next week.

We have finally received the MHA’s approval. Now, we will file the chargesheet against him next week. We have built a solid case. We had to prove how he conspired and helped the IS. Consequently, the chargesheet is one of the longest in recent times,” a source in the Bengaluru Police said. The chargesheet is supposed to be in excess of 28,000 pages.

[More...]

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says the Iraqi Forces are to blame for ISIS' recent takeover of Ramadi. He says they lack the will the fight.

They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force and yet they failed to fight and withdrew from the site,” he said. “That says to me and, I think, to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves.”

[More...]

Here's a new open thread, all topics welcome.