Radley Balko has a new feature article at Huffington Post on law enforcment's misplaced priorities in the War on Drugs.

"The availability of huge federal anti-drug grants incentivizes departments to pay for SWAT team armor and weapons, and leads our police officers to abandon real crime victims in our communities in favor of ratcheting up their drug arrest stats," said former Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Stephen Downing. Downing is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an advocacy group of cops and prosecutors who are calling for an end to the drug war.

"When our cops are focused on executing large-scale, constitutionally questionable raids at the slightest hint that a small-time pot dealer is at work, real police work preventing and investigating crimes like robberies and rapes falls by the wayside," Downing said.

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A judge in Bali has sentenced the 14 year old Bali Boy caught purchasing $25 of marijuana to two months in prison. With the 7 weeks he has already served since October, he can return to Australia on Dec. 4. (Background here.)

He will not go to notorious Kerobokan prison, but stay in the "immigration facility" he's been held at since his transfer there from the police jail.

...the judge gave the boy's legal team a week to decide whether or not to appeal. That cut-off comes, conveniently, next Friday. The lawyers will wait until the last moment and then inform the court they will not appeal.

The youth will then have two days left to serve in prison but, because it will be the weekend, he won't be moved from the immigration centre where he has stayed with his parents for more than a month. It is understood prosecutors will not appeal the verdict and the boy will fly home next Sunday.

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You better shop around.

Tell us all the great deals you got today. And anything else that's on your mind. This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

More than 2 million inmates are spending Thanksgiving in our nations' jails and prisons. This week there are 216,762 federal inmates. Here's Sheriff Joe Arapaio last year bragging he got the cost of the prisoner's thanksgiving meal down to 8 cents. (Yes, it's his real Twitter account.)

Contrast with the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution where the Warden recruits volunteers from the community to help make the day as pleasant as possible: [More...]

Big Tent Democrat and I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

Don't forget to check in with your local radio station to find out what time they will play Alice's Restaurant. It was November 28, 1965 that Arlo was convicted of littering in Stockbridge, MA. You can read the backstory here.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone. This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

There was another Republican debate tonight. The hopeful candidates called for more terror laws and extension of the Patriot Act. I didn't watch, did Newt ask for a law sentencing terrorists to life plus cancer?

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber has imposed a moratorium on the death penalty for the remainder of his term. He says he is morally opposed to it. He regrets that two executions took place during his term. Gary Haugen was scheduled to be killed in two weeks.

In addition to Frontline's A Perfect Terrorist (see here), it's performance night on The X-Factor. Simon Cowell says no one has invited him to their home for Thanksgiving yet.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Bump and Update: On Frontline tonight, don't miss A Perfect Terrorist, about former DEA informant David Coleman Headley, aka Daood Giliani, who pleaded guilty in Chicago in exchange for a life sentence for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

FRONTLINE and ProPublica investigate the mysterious circumstances behind David Headley’s rise from heroin dealer and U.S. government informant to master plotter of the 2008 attack on Mumbai.

By most accounts except its own, the DEA turned Headley from a drug informant into a terror informant. And failed to notice he had joined the terrorists for real. [More..]

At the airport.

BTW Bronco fans, how about Tebow Time?

Open Thread.

Booman responds to my post in which I write:

If I am understanding this argument correctly, Booman is saying that the South was not lost to Dems by the Civil Rights movement, it was lost by the Vietnam War. That is a pretty stunning claim it seems to me. Ridiculous even. What happened since the 60s, at least in terms of politics, is that the South became solidly Republican and the rest of the country became more Democratic.

Booman ignores my point, and instead continues discussing "countercultural" progressives:

[T]he post-Vietnam War progressive movement grew out of the counterculture, and you can't make a very good case for running the country if your disposition is counter to the culture and power structures of the country.

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Update: Tony Rezko was sentenced today to 10 1/2 years in prison. Since he's served 45 months, with good time of 54 days a year after the first year, he should be out in about 5 years.

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Antoin (Tony) Rezko finally faces sentencing today in Chicago. Prosecutors are asking for 11 to 15 years. Rezko is asking for time served (53 months.)

Last week I read through the initial 100 pages of sentencing pleadings filed, and summarized the arguments.

On Friday, Rezko filed another response, alleging among other things:[More...]

President Obama has decided to pardon more than a White House turkey this Thanksgiving. Yesterday, he issued 5 pardons and commuted one sentence.

The pardons are unimpressive. Three of the pardons were issued to people who had received probation more than a decade ago. The other two pardons were issued to people who finished serving their sentences 20 years ago.

On the other hand, the commutation deserves praise: Obama commuted the sentence of a woman named Eugenia Jennings, who was sentenced in 2001 to 22 years (262 months) for distributing crack cocaine in the Southern District of Illinois. It was her third felony crack conviction. Under Obama's order, she'll be released next week, after serving 10 years. She'll still have to serve 8 years of supervised release.

I just finished reading her 2001 sentencing transcript and her rejected 2008 motion to reduce her sentence under the Sentencing Commission's two level reduction in crack cocaine guidelines that year. Both are available on PACER. It's a very interesting story, one the sentencing judge, G. Patrick Murphy, called a tragedy.

Here's the tragedy of Eugenia Jennings:[More...]

Is anyone surprised that the feds bowed out of yesterday's New York terror arrest due to concerns about the role of the informant and entrapment? The New York Times has the details. As I wrote last night,

Who wants to read about an informant-induced, non-operational terror plot in NYC that never was going to get off the ground when you can watch Homeland? It's much more compelling and about as real as the chances of a "lone wolf" pulling off a terror attack under the watchful, ever-present eye of the NYPD.

The Times reveals there were 400 hours of recordings between the suspect Jose Pimentel and the informant. They smoked marijuana together, and some of Pimentel's incriminating statements were made while high. Pimental had no money -- it sounds like the informant paid for the bomb parts and provided the pot. [More...]