Vermont Governor Pete Shumlin (D) signed into law yesterday a bill authorizing up to four dispensaries to sell medical marijuana to patients.

While medical marijuana is now legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia, only 8 also authorize dispensaries to provide marijuana to patients. The other 7 states are Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Rhode Island.

Marijuana Policy Project has been instrumental in getting 5 of these state laws passed during the past two years.

MPP is having its major fundraising event of the year July 7. It's the Liberty Belle Ball at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. Ticket prices go up June 16, so get yours now. They aren't cheap, but either is the good work the organization does year after year. If you can't attend in person, I'm sure they'd appreciate donations.

The media is abuzz with news that John Edwards' Washington attorney, Craig, flew to Raleigh last night. No one knows whether an Indictment was returned this week, whether the visit is for a final negotiating session with prosecutors, or whether Edwards has agreed to a plea deal and an Information will be filed tomorrow.

Nor does anyone seem to know what Edwards might be charged with, other than violating federal election laws pertaining to campaign contributions.

It seems to me the media is over-simplifying the case. It began as an investigation into whether John Edwards knew about the money Fred Baron gave Rielle Hunter and Andrew Young. The evidence has always been conflicting as to what John Edwards knew, if anything. Fred Baron, who funded Rielle and Andrew's excellent adventure and is now deceased, insisted John did not know. His widow and law partner, Lisa Blue, told the grand jury the same thing. And it's doubtful the Justice Department would bring such a high-profile federal prosecution based on the words of people with as much baggage as Andrew Young and his wife, or Rielle Hunter. [More..]

Open Thread.

After five days of telling his story on direct examination, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is now undergoing cross-examination by prosecutors.

They began by asking him, "You are a convicted liar." He said "Yes."

More on his testimony here.

The cross-examination didn't begin until late this afternoon. Trial is now recessed until Monday. So Blagojevich gets the weekend to regroup. He better study hard.

Samraz Rana, the wife of Tahawwur Rana, on trial in Chicago for conspiring with David Headley and others in the Mumbai bombings and a planned attack on a Danish news agency, has given an exlcusive interview to Times of India.

In addition to discussing how David Coleman Headley duped her husband, she explains that Rana actually knew Major Iqbal from their early army officer days.

In a stunning revelation, Samraz Rana, speaking in a mix of English and Urdu, explained that Balajee was known to her husband in his early days in uniform as a medical corps doctor as a colleague in the Pakistani army, perhaps even before he became a Lashkar or an ISI operative.

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Via Atrios, Mike Konczal writes a good piece on the failures of the Obama Administration's economic team. The link to this February 2011 Pro Publica piece reminds us how Geithner failed on the homeowner crisis:

Congressional Democrats [. . .] thought cramdowns would serve as a stick, pushing banks to make modifications on their own. [. . .] Privately, administration officials were ambivalent about the idea. At a Democratic caucus meeting weeks before the House voted on a bill that included cramdown, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner “was really dismissive as to the utility of it,” said Rep. Lofgren. Larry Summers, then the president’s chief economic adviser, also expressed doubts in private meetings, she said. “He was not supportive of this.”

Fast forward to today's mess. Konczal writes:

First female Executive Editor of the New Yorkl Times. But she might be a pagan:

Ms. Abramson said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like "ascending to Valhalla." "In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion,” she said. “If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth."

Valhalla? Substitute for religion? What's that all about? Snark. A great day for Ms. Abramson and a historic day for women at the Newspaper of Record. Congratulations to her and to the New York Times.

Speaking for me only

Atrios writes:

This won't happen.

“There is one bet right now: Bernanke will bail out the world,” said Brian Kelly of Brian Kelly Capital. “If that does not happen, then no investment will be safe.”

Bernanke won't bail out the world. He might bail out certain extra large financial institutions, including foreign ones, and the people they employ at absurdly inflated salaries. He might bail out the investors in certain classes of financial assets. The rest of us, not so much.

Can Bernanke (read the Fed) actually "save the rest of us?" I think this misunderstands (not Atrios) the limits of monetary policy in a zero lower bound environment. More . . .

The jobs crisis:

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 422,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday, less than economists' expectations for a fall to 415,000.

Someone should do something. Quick, Austerity Now!

The bar is very high for an extension of the [QE] program and there is little or no political will for fiscal stimulus amid a ballooning budget deficit and high headline inflation.

Not to worry says an economist at the New York Fed, who says we'd never repeat the mistakes of 1937:

The Global Commission on Drug Policy has just released a report finding the War on Drugs is a failure. The report is available here.

The report says some drugs should be legalized and calls for the decriminalization of drug use. Who's on the commission? Among others: Former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, the former President of Colombia Cesar Gaviria, the current Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.

The BBC reports:

Their report argues that anti-drug policy has failed by fuelling organised crime, costing taxpayers millions of dollars and causing thousands of deaths...."Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won," the report said.

[More...]

The White House released this statement yesterday about its position on the House bill for Homeland Security funding. (H.R. 2017.)It strongly objects to the provision limiting funds for the transfer of detainees, calling the restrictions "a dangerous and extraordinary challenge to critical Executive branch authority."

The Administration also has a number of serious constitutional concerns. The Administration strongly objects to the provisions of section 537 that limit the use of funds to transfer detainees and otherwise restrict detainee transfers.

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Today is the day the U.S. Sentencing Commission is holding its hearing on whether the recent reduction of penalties for crack cocaine as compared to powder cocaine, from 100:1 to 18:1, should apply to those convicted of crack offenses before August, 2010, when the change went into effect. The meeting agenda with links to written testimony is here.

Attorney General Eric Holder says the Obama Administration supports retroactivity for some, but not all, crack defendants. [More...]