The Short Fingered Vulgarian seems to be overplaying his buffoonish hand. The latest - Jerry Seinfeld does not want to be seen standing next to him:

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld canceled an appearance at one of Donald Trump’s charity events, saying that he is disturbed by Trump’s rhetoric about President Obama. Seinfeld will however still make a monetary contribution to the charity, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

Trump, in typical fashion, crudely lashes back:

We don't care that you broke your commitment," [Trump] wrote, [. . .] "What I do feel badly about is that I agreed to do, and did, your failed show, 'The Marriage Ref,' even though I thought it was absolutely terrible . . .

Trump seems on the verge of a Torpedo of Truth tour.

Speaking for me only

Nate Silver writes a nice article on the online poker issue. As a sports investor, two parts were particularly interesting to me:

Some of the potential replacements for Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars, such as Bodog.com, flout the law much more flagrantly by offering sports betting.

Many states have taken the ludicrous position that poker is not a game of chance, but sports betting is only a game of chancre. Ridiculous. The other part that is interesting to me is this:

The Oklahoma Senate yesterday passed a bill increasing the maximum penalty for converting marijuana to hashish to life in prison. A spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs said "the goal of the bill is to "send a message" that illegal drugs won't be tolerated in Oklahoma." The bill previously passed the OK House, then went to the Senate where a non-pertinent amendment was made. It now goes back to the House for enrollment.

Conviction of a first offense of cooking hashish would result in a prison sentence from two years to life in prison. Sentences would be doubled under a second offense, and those convicted would not be eligible for a suspended sentence or probation.

The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 44 to 2. The earlier version, substantially identical, passed the House by a vote of 75 to 18.

NYTimes editorial:

[NJ Governor] Chris Christie canceled [a Hudson River tunnel project] last year, costing his state $3 billion in federal funds. After making that terrible mistake, Mr. Christie now says he wants $570 million in funds to replace another choke point for the Acela — the 100-year-old Portal Bridge across the Hackensack River. He is even willing to put up $150 million of state money, since the bridge is also used by New Jersey commuter trains. In his letter asking for federal funds, he lamented that the bridge, which swings open for river traffic, is “beyond its useful life” and delays trains. That’s rich coming from the man who canceled a project that was vital to ending train delays in the future.

There are many requests, even one from Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who earlier rejected $810 million of these funds. Now he wants $150 million for a modest rail project between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Is the Tea Party ok with this?

This is pretty disconcerting: Since June, 2010, your iPhone has been keeping track of everywhere you've been and storing it on your phone. Why? No one knows.

The data isn't transmitted, but stored in a program. So theoretically, without a court order, only Apple and someone in possession of your phone can access it.

This makes it even more important for courts to rule that police cannot access your cell phone data without a warrant. If you're arrested and police take your phone when you're booked, they have no business looking at your recent calls and texts, let alone accessing the stored file to find every place you've been and when.

While courts disagree on whether you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your vehicle, surely they would agree, as did the Colorado Supreme Court, that a phone is different. Or would they? Who knows anymore -- which is why Apple needs to discontinue this. [More...]

The wrongfully convicted youths, now men, from the Central Park Jogger case are suing New York for $50 million. NYC says it won't settle.

Jury questioning begins tomorrow in the retrial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The Chicago Sun Times has re-started its Blago Blog.

Two of the three shut-down online poker companies have agreed with the Government on a refund plan for players.

Big TV night: New episodes of Survivor, American Idol, America's Next Top Model and Justified. And reruns of Breaking Bad from the first three seasons. Most unwatchable show to hit the airwaves in a long time: Mob Wives on VH-1.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Matt Yglesias:

[Y]ou have conservative politicians refusing to make a serious effort to reach an agreement out of some blend of taxophobia and fear of giving the President a win. The result, again, whether the right realizes it or not, is a gift to the wing of the Democratic Party that disagrees with Obama about the desirability of enacting spending cuts.

I doubt this very much. But here's hoping! The problem is tax policy. Will Obama let the Bush tax cuts expire? I hope so.

Now that possession of marijuana for personal use is no longer a crime in Massachusetts, the Supreme Court has ruled police cannot order occupants of a vehicle to exit the car just because they smelled marijuana. From today's ruling:

"Without at least some other additional fact to bolster a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, the odor of burnt marijuana alone cannot reasonably provide suspicion of criminal activity to justify an exit order...."Ferreting out decriminalized conduct with the same fervor associated with the pursuit of serious criminal conduct is neither desired by the public nor in accord with the plain language of the statute,

The ACLU, which participated in the case, says:

“Today’s ruling is a strong statement that police cannot treat decriminalized conduct as if it were a serious crime. Heavy-handed police enforcement in the face of minor drug infractions not only wastes public resources but disproportionately affects communities of color.”

What happened, according to the opinion (link is only temporary, the case is Commonwwealth vs. Benjamin CRUZ. SJC-10738. April 19, 2011):

The Defense Department announced today that Pvt. Bradley Manning will be moved from Quantico to the Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Leavenworth.

The Kansas prison opened in 2010 as part of the Military Correctional Complex.

From their Flickr page, here's a photo of a cell.

Some recent cases challenging military pre-trial detention conditions are here.

In 1979, Jeffrey R. MacDonald, a captain in the Medical Corps, was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and their two young daughters in the family’s Fort Bragg home. He was sentenced to three life terms and has steadfastly maintained his innocence. He lost his direct appeal and many post-conviction motions for relief. His case was the subject of the book and movie, Fatal Vision.

A year ago, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in his latest request for relief. Today, the Court ordered the trial court to consider DNA evidence casting doubt on his guilt in conjunction with the other submitted innocence evidence. The court said the innocence evidence must be considered together as a whole, rather than piecemeal. The opinion is here.

Via e-mail from the Innocence Project, which filed an amicus brief along with the New England Innocence Project and the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence in the case: [more...]

The Colorado Board of Health is up to its old tricks, now trying to change the definition of caregiver in a way that will restrict patient choice and require patients to pay for unnecessary services. From Sensible Colorado:

Once again, the Colorado Health Department (CDPHE) has launched an attack on medical marijuana caregivers. Hiding behind the Attorney General’s questionable legal interpretation, the CDPHE has rejected the proposed definition of "caregiver" as put forward by the CDPHE Medical Marijuana Advisory Board. After studying the issue, the Advisory Board concluded that providing education about medical marijuana was sufficient to meet the definition of "caregiver".

[More...]

U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske today unveiled the White House's new action plan to control prescription drug abuse. The press release is here. Background here.

The plan is here. There are four components: education, tracking and monitoring, proper disposal, and enforcement. [More...]