Because of threats from the President Obama’s Department of Justice, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee (I) has finally decided not to let the state license its three planned medical marijuana dispensaries.

In our response to the government’s petition for Writ of Mandamus, we argue that there are no grounds for relief and that the elements for filing a Mandamus Writ have not been met. The Government could have appealed Judge Facciola’s finding of prima facie proof of vindictive or selective prosecution instead of issuing the Writ; further the Government is not irreparably harmed by Facciola’s finding because the government had multiple opportunities to develop a case that would rebut any selective or vindictive prosecution defense put forth by the Choi legal team.

Thursday’s No Justice No BART protest–which shut down Powell Street Station in San Francisco–turned into an ugly attack on free speech and freedom of the press when BART police arrested between 25 and 30 people, a third of whom are reported to be journalists, including seven student journalists from San Francisco State University and the Chronicle’s Vivian Ho.

At the beginning of Day 3 of the government’s case against Dan Choi, the defense filed a motion to compel production of certain documents. Among them was a Secret Service email sent the day before Choi’s arrest on November 15, 2010 for chaining himself to the fence of the White House with 12 others in order to protest Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Defense attorneys Robert Feldman and Norman Kent asserted that there was a coordinated effort among federal agencies to use the power of the government to single out Choi and persecute him in order to silence him. Judge John Facciola decided in favor of the defense, saying that he believed a prima facie case had been made that the government was engaging in “vindictive prosecution” of Choi.

It was bad enough that the Feds stopped enforcing the law. Now they want the State Attorney Generals, including Eric Schneiderman of New York, to stop enforcing the law. But only as to banksters. Pot smokers are still fair game.

This is a very exciting step forward for married same-sex couples everywhere who seek to be treated the same as other married couples by our federal government.

The United States’ Department of Justice is now investigating the rating agency Standard & Poor’s according to the NYT

A DOJ memo released last week provides reason for alarm among those in favor of decriminalizing marijuana, as it signals the federal government may leave medical marijuana patients and caregivers alone but cultivators or distributors of marijuana could still face prosecution.

As you will recall, Tom Drake was belligerently prosecuted by the DOJ on trumped up espionage charges (See: here, here, here and here) and their case fell out from underneath them because they cravenly wanted to hide the facts. As a result, Drake pled guilty to about the piddliest little misdemeanor imaginable, and will be sentenced, undoubtedly, to no incarceration whatsoever, no fine and one year or less of unsupervised probation on July 15, 2011. But the entire Tom Drake matter emanated out of Drake’s attempt to internally, and properly, cooperate with a whistleblowing to the Department of Defense Inspector General.

Tim DeChristopher placed fake bids in a public land auction to disrupt drilling by energy companies. He has been convicted on two felony charges and now could face a number of years in prison.

In the interview, DeChristopher recounts how he disrupted a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas auction at the end of 2008 that the Bush Administration was holding as a “parting gift to the oil and gas industry.” DeChristopher registered as a bidder and wound up outbidding most of the companies’ bidders that were present.