And a "world class" gift God has presented.

DOJ's tricks are working. After the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington sent a letter to the legislature warning that passage of a medical marijuana licensing bill would subject state workers to federal prosecution, today Governor Christine Gregoire vetoed the bill, saying she was "swayed" by the letter. (Background on the almost identical letters sent by a number of U.S. attorneys in recent weeks in states where medical marijuana is legal is here.)

More U.S. Attorneys are jumping on the bandwagon. Today, it was the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, sending almost a verbatim letter, even though he hadn't been asked for his position.

And in Montana today, Governor Brian Schweitzer let the bill that passed the legislature this week restricting medical marijuana become law by doing nothing. His lame explanation: [More...]

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted a working lunch with Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa today in Washington, the third such meeting of the Merida High-Level Consultative Group on Bilateral Cooperation Against Transnational Organized Crime. (More on Meridia here and here.) Also in attendance:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Director of National Drug Policy of the United States Gil Kerlikowske, USAID Deputy Administrator Donald Steinberg, Acting Under Secretary of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence of the Treasury David Cohen, and Ambassador of the United States to Mexico Carlos Pascual.

The two governments issued this press release on the meeting and outlined the joint activities for the coming year. Congress has authorized $1.5 billion for Meridia since 2008, most of it for training the Mexican military and law enforcement. (As of December, 2010, $400 million had been provided. Today, the U.S. promised another $500 would be provided in 2011.) [More...]

Open Thread.

Atrios:

As I've said many times, if the economy fails to turn around sufficiently in time for the election it will in large part due to the failure of HAMP. It was bad in that it screwed a lot of individuals and failed to help enough, but it was also bad because it failed to help the macroeconomy.

From the rortybomb link:

Gagnon earlier in his talk said that “one of the biggest goals [. . .] was to push down the mortgage rate to spark a refinancing boom to encourage households and enable households to reduce their expenditures and repair their balance sheets and be able to spend again. That worked not quite as well as we hoped because the administration’s program for getting underwater borrowers to borrow didn’t work and I think that’s a true disaster that has no excuse. I have nothing but [. . .] blame [for] the administration on not doing this[ . . .] This could have been a huge success. [. . .]" I haven’t heard this critique before and I thought it was really interesting.

(Emphasis supplied.) I know rortybomb does not read TalkLeft but Atrios has only written about this about a gajillion times. Weird that he says he has not heard this critique before.

Speaking for me only

Smoking Gun:

Despite Donald Trump’s claim this week that he avoided serving in the Vietnam War solely due to a high draft number, Selective Service records show that the purported presidential aspirant actually received a series of student deferments while in college and then topped those off with a medical deferment after graduation that helped spare him from fighting for his country, The Smoking Gun has learned.

[. . . On] October 15 [1969], [Trump's] classification was switched to 1-Y, which was given to men deemed qualified for military service “only in time of national emergency.” The 1-Y classification came a month after Trump underwent an “Armed Forces Physical Examination,” according to Selective Service records, which note the results of the exam as “DISQ.”

Update: Raves everywhere for the dress, designed by Sarah Burton.

It looks like Kate Middleton's wedding dress designer may be Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen. In a few hours, the world will know for sure. Here are some photos showing her sense of style. She looks great in everything.

Queen Elizabeth announced this morning the couple will become the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

For those staying up tonight (or rising early Friday) to watch it live, here's an open thread. If you think a particular network is doing a good job, please let us know.

If you aren't interested in the wedding, we get it, but there's no need to tell us in this thread. There are plenty of other threads to comment on. Let's keep this one for people who are enjoying the event.

Raymond Santana was 14 years old in 1989 when he and four others were wrongfully accused of raping the Central Park jogger. Days after the crime, Donald Trump spent $85,000. on ads in four New York newspapers calling for the death penalty for the five. The ads ran in New York Times, the New York Post, the New York Daily News and New York Newsday, while the jogger was still in the hospital in a coma.

In the ads, which have the banner headline "Bring Back the Death Penalty," Trump wrote, "They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence."

The youths were convicted at trial and sent to prison, but 13 years later, DNA evidence confirmed they were not the attackers. The person whose DNA did match later confessed. Santana is outraged that Trump, to this day, refuses to apologize. [More...]

Here's the official wedding program for William and Kate, courtesy of the Royal Family website. Kate doesn't arrive to walk down the aisle until 11:00 am, GMT. It's now 2 am in London, and 7 pm in Denver.

In Denver, PBS will be airing the BBC coverage from 1:00 am tonight until 6 am tomorrow morning. Since I have zero interest in the American media spectacle or care to listen to its chatterboxes, I'll either watch the BBC/PBS coverage or watch with the sound off. I can understand the massive coverage by British media -- it's their country and their royalty -- but I totally don't get the U.S. media's obsessive coverage and expenditure of millions of dollars to fly their anchors and teams of vacuous "know it alls" to London. Even worse are the crude attempts by U.S. businesses to cash in on the event: From Kohl's "we'll dress dress you like Kate", to Restaurant X will be serving British food, it's such a turn-off. The crass commercialization of the event has ensured that I will not watch any American network coverage.

I actually think William and Kate make a nice couple and seem to be handling the massive attention well. I'd probably watch if there was a network that had the good sense to just air the event and let us take it in for ourselves, skipping the breathless chatter of their anchors and talking heads. I'm hoping the BBC will do that, although it's probably too much to ask.

Rant over. Your turn. All topics welcome.

The DEA raided four medical marijuana dispensaries in Spokane, WA today. A map of those raided is here, courtesy of Radical Russ of NORML.

Here is the position of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, contained in an April 14 letter to the Washington legislature concerning on a proposed bill to establish a licensing scheme for marijuana growers and dispensaries: [More...]

The "experts":

Ironically, the labor market, which until recently had lagged the economic recovery that got under way in the second half of 2009, is seen underpinning growth in the coming quarters.

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits surprisingly rose last week to their highest level since January in a sign an anticipated recovery in labor markets may take time, a government report showed on Thursday.. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits jumped 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000, up from a slightly upwardly revised 404,000[.]

Happy Days Are Here Again!! Geithner could cost Obama his reelection.

Speaking for me only

Bump and Update: The jury convicted two defendants, including Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, and acquitted two defendants. Giants owner John Mara was one of the jurors.

All defendants except Yaroshenko acknowledged participation in cocaine transactions involving South America and Africa. They denied they were part of a conspiracy to have some of the drugs sent to the U.S. No cocaine was actually shipped anywhere, and the only connection to the U.S. was that the DEA informant in the sting operation told the others he planned to have his portion of the cocaine flown from Ghana to New York. I assume the two who were acquitted were Nathanial French and Mawuko Kudufia, whose alleged roles were to assist in the planned offload of the cocaine in Liberia after it arrived from South America. (Update: Those were the two who were acquitted, the U.S. Attorney's press release on the verdict is here.)

All four were flown from Africa to New York to stand trial in June, 2010, and have been detained since then. At least two will get to go home now. [More...]