The President’s justification for his crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries has to be heard to be believed

open quoteHere’s part of the President’s answer:

I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana – and the reason is, because it’s against federal law. I can’t nullify congressional law. I can’t ask the Justice Department to say, “Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books” . . . .

The only tension that’s come up – and this gets hyped up a lot – is a murky area where you have large-scale, commercial operations that may supply medical marijuana users, but in some cases may also be supplying recreational users. In that situation, we put the Justice Department in a very difficult place if we’re telling them, “This is supposed to be against the law, but we want you to turn the other way.” That’s not something we’re going to do.

Aside from the fact that Obama’s claim about the law is outright false — as Jon Walker conclusively documents, the law vests the Executive Branch with precisely the discretion he falsely claims he does not have to decide how drugs are classified — it’s just extraordinary that Obama is affirming the “principle” that he can’t have the DOJ “turn the othe way” in the face of lawbreaking. As an emailer just put it to me: “Interesting how this principle holds for prosecuting [medical] marijuana producers in the war on drugs, but not for prosecuting US officials in the war on terror. Or telecommunications companies for illegal spying. Or Wall Street banks for mortgage fraud.”

That’s about as vivid an expression of the President’s agenda, and his sense of justice, and the state of the Rule of Law in America, as one can imagine. The same person who directed the DOJ to shield torturers and illegal government eavesdroppers from criminal investigation, and who voted to retroactively immunize the nation’s largest telecom giants when they got caught enabling criminal spying on Americans, and whose DOJ has failed to indict a single Wall Street executive in connection with the 2008 financial crisis or mortgage fraud scandal, suddenly discovers the imperatives of The Rule of Law when it comes to those, in accordance with state law, providing medical marijuana to sick people with a prescription.close quote (Read more)

Obama Administration uses post-9/11 “Bank Secrecy Act” to target Small Farm family

open quoteOver the past few years, agencies under the Obama administration have been commencing full scale raids on individual farmers, as well as on family farms, under the auspices of non-legislative regulation created by the ATF, EPA, and FDA. These raids focussed on several agricultural areas that included the sale of raw milk, grazing on federal lands, water collection and usage, and the raising of certain categories of swine.

On April 23rd however, the stakes got much higher for the individual farmer as the FDA is now using the terrorist based “Bank Secrecy Act” as justification to invade, investigate, and even confiscate the bank accounts of Americans in the agricultural business.

Now, Obama has the Dept. of Justice going after small farmers under the post-911 “Bank Secrecy Act” which makes it a crime to deposit less than $10,000 when you earned more than that.

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Israel to revive razing of homes as form of punishment

open quoteEhud Barak, Israel’s increasingly hawkish defence minister, approved an intelligence recommendation to demolish the houses of Hakim and Ajmad Awad, two cousins from the Palestinian village of Awarta.

The decision, the first of its kind in nearly seven years, will render the wives and children of both men homeless.

The two Palestinians are serving life sentences for the murders of Ehud and Ruth Fogel, as well as three of their six children, in the West Bank settlement of Itamar in March, 2011.

The dead included a three-month-old infant and a four-year-old boy stabbed to death in a frenzied attack that horrified Israel.

The Israeli authorities abandoned the once common practice of punitive demolitions in 2005 after facing heavy international criticism.close quote (Read more)

Man, 95, says $300 taken during humiliating airport search

open quoteA 95-year-old Michigan man says he was subjected to humiliating searches by security guards at San Diego International Airport and that his $300 went missing during the process.

Omer Petti, 95, said he believes an airport employee stole the cash that he was told to remove from his pocket and place in a bin on his way through security on March 29. He and his girlfriend, Madge Woodward, 85, were headed home after a family vacation in Palm Springs.

“I got set up, and they took my money,” said Petti, who has written letters to the Transportation Security Administration, elected officials and President Barack Obama demanding investigations.close quote (Read more)

TSA agents forced crying 4-year-old to undergo TSA pat-down at Kan. airport after hug

open quoteFrom The Washington Post:

WICHITA, Kan. — The grandmother of a 4-year-old girl who became hysterical during a security screening at a Kansas airport said Wednesday that the child was forced to undergo a pat-down after hugging her, with security agents yelling and calling the crying girl an uncooperative suspect.

The incident has been garnering increasing media and online attention since the child’s mother, Michelle Brademeyer of Montana, detailed the ordeal in a public Facebook post last week. The Transportation Security Administration is defending its agents, despite new procedures aimed at reducing pat-downs of children.

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TSA Reveals Passenger Complaints … Four Years Later

open quoteFrom intrusive pat-downs to body scans to perceived profiling, the Transportation Security Administration always seems to be the target of complaints.

Here’s another one: It took the TSA almost four years to tell me what people complained about — in 2008.

In my first week at ProPublica in June 2008, I filed a public records request for the agency’s complaint files. Such records can provide good fodder for investigations.

For example, amid the brouhaha over the agency’s introduction of intensive full-body pat-downs in 2004, I requested complaints and discovered an untold story of the pain and humiliation suffered by rape victims and breast cancer survivors. In one incident that I found from that request — while I was a reporter at the Dallas Morning News — a woman complained that a screener asked her to remove her prosthetic breast to be swabbed for explosives.

When I made a similar FOIA request in 2008, I assumed the TSA would respond in a few months. Government agencies have about a month to respond to public record requests, though they often take longer.close quote (Read more)

Beating of Alabama Man Not Being Investigated As Hate Crime

open quoteA racially charged beating of a white Alabama man by a throng of African-Americans is not being investigated as a hate crime, despite one witness’ claim that she heard an assailant exclaim: “Now that’s justice for Trayvon.”

Matthew Owens, of Mobile, Ala., was assaulted with baseball bats, paint cans and other weapons at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday after telling a group of children to stop playing basketball in the middle of Delmar Drive, according to Ashley Rains, public information officer for the Mobile Police Department.close quote (Read more)