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The National Journal reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee will move the nomination on Michele Leonhart for DEA administrator next week after a seven-month delay. Leonhart, a drug warrior to the core, has served as the temporary head of DEA since she was promoted to that position by George W. Bush in 2007.
In her time at the DEA, Leonhart has organized the campaign against medical marijuana, and ignored the clear directive from Attorney General Eric Holder to stop raiding dispensaries. Despite this flagrant insubordination, President Obama saw fit to nominate Leonhart to serve as the official DEA head earlier this year.
Groups advocating for medicinal marijuana have waged a spirited campaign to derail Leonhart’s confirmation. In a July letter to President Obama, several pro-marijuana groups and liberal organizations, such as FireDogLake and the 10th Amendment Center, accused Leonhart, a Bush administration holdover who is serving as DEA’s acting administrator, of ignoring an October 2009 Justice Department directive urging federal authorities not to waste government time and resources “on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws.”
President Obama offered a similar view while campaigning in 2008.
Though the number of DEA raids on medicinal marijuana growers has dropped, the agency has carried out dozens since the directive was issued. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and other groups accuse Leonhart of continuing a policy she helped oversee while a top DEA deputy under Bush.
And now, it looks like Leonhart will move through the Senate next week, with few signs that anyone in the Senate will actually fight her nomination, let alone stop it.
What the groups have not been able to do, however, is get the attention of the White House or the Senate.
“The federal government ignoring the concerns of people in the marijuana-reform community is nothing new,” said Mike Meno, a spokesman for the Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project.
Public-opinion polls show growing support for marijuana legalization, and a small medicinal-marijuana industry is taking leaf in California. But Leonhart’s likely confirmation, and the defeat of a California’s Proposition 19, a ballot measure that would have weakened anti-marijuana California’s laws, show that the political clout of legalization advocates remains well short of their numbers, particularly when it comes to the Senate.
California’s liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., for example, opposed Proposition 19 during her successful reelection bid.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., this fall said he did not yet have a position on Leonhart; other committee members, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said the same. Committee aides said that criticism of her over marijuana policy had not registered much with staffers, let alone members.
Let’s be clear here: the public overwhelmingly supports medical marijuana, and the President and Attorney General of the United States have said the federal government should not waste resources targeting medical marijuana dispensaries. Leonhart doesn’t give a shit, and continues to harass medical marijuana dispensaries anyway, and neither Obama nor Holder see the clear hypocrisy of giving Leonhart a promotion under these circumstances.
Now the same Senate that unanimously voted to increase penalties for pot brownies will likely let Leonhart coast through the chamber in a lame-duck session next week. Chairman Patrick Leahy said he doesn’t have an opinion on Leonhart, and we all know what Dianne “Reefer Madness” Feinstein must think. There really isn’t a play to stop her nomination, unless anyone has some embarassing photographs that should turn up in the next week.
Leonhart’s nomination by Obama – and her inevitable approval by the Senate – is yet another sign that the public is far ahead of politicians on marijuana and the need to end the War on Drugs. Letting voters choose to legalize marijuana is the only way to end the war on marijuana.
38 Comments
Well, I guess we can kiss any reclassification of industrial hemp as NOT being a drug. Ever.
So much for the power of the AG and law enforcement following the direction of the civilian leaders.
Can’t say that I’m all that surprised though. After all, they’d lose a lot of forfeiture ‘funding’ otherwise.
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Frankly, even if there were, whoever had them should just hold onto them for now. Obama would just find someone who didn’t have such a problem to replace her, and do the same things she’s doing now.
Again, it’s what Obama does that counts, not what he says. What he says is just for the rubes.
So Obama will allow this insubordinate Bush appointee to be confirmed? Just more mush from the wimp.
I keep thinking I could not possibly be more disappointed, and …I keep getting more disappointed.
What is his problem with medical marijuana? Does he WANT people to be in pain? WTF is wrong with him?
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Just another example of Obama being the “Manchurian Candidate”.
There is way more money to be made when pot is illegal as opposed to legal. That’s why the law will never change.
Not surprising from Jeb’s place holder.
If Gary Johnson does indeed run for President, I’m switching parties to get him through the primaries and beyond to the Presidency.
Webb could stop it with one of those secret Senatorial holds. He is out in favor of ending the drug war, he will be joined by Rand Paul in January. Maybe two US Senators is enough to protect us.
God have mercy!
Any talk of impeachment proceedings emanating from the left?????
For what crime?
Fuck Barack Obama…Fuck him.
On every issue he is against my interests.
FUCK
HIM.
I am looking forward too…and it ain’t pretty.(We are looking forward not backwards)
If this Republican president in Democrat Clothing tries to negotiate the foreclosure like he did South Korea we is in for the lost decade.
Impersonating a statesman
wtf? This and ALL the other crap make me want to join the Republicans, not the tea party but the “establishment” …. it is what we are getting anyway
I posted about Marc Emery. Those DEA Gestapo thugs lied about his prosecution. The lying liars are hiding 6000 pages documenting their thuggery. He was prosecuted for promoting legalization. Should we mention again that everything the DEA says about marijuana is a lie. The DEA protects the drug cartels, and the DEA has been persecuting political activists since forever.
Then there is also David Headley who was a DEA snitch. Somehow the DEA did not know their spy was a terrorist who was a leader of the 26/11 Mumbai attack.
The steering wheel doesn’t just go to the right-hit the left turn signal. It’s open road.
No doubt “liberal” Diane Feinstein will vote for Leonhart. What is the point of voting for a Democrat again?
Let’s look before we leap, okay?
I mean, yes: marriage equality and full pot legalization.
But privatization of Social Security? Cutting the federal budget by 43% in one year?
Just sayin’ — I’ll check him out, but no more saviors for me, thanks.
It is obvious to everyone by now that President Obama is as much a moderate centrist as Joe Lieberman, Obama’s mentor after he became a U.S. senator, is a moderate centrist.
Hell, there was even a rumor around the time that John McCain was considering his vice-presidential running mate in 2008 that Joe Lieberman’s name was on McCain’s list.
So, President Obama doesn’t defend his liberal progressive nominees, like Dawn Johnsen or Elizabeth Warren, refusing to recess appoint them to head the OLC and the new Consumer Protection agency, which might entail their going vigorously, and without constraints, after all the criminal Republicans from the previous administration, while keeping a whole lot of holdover Bush era Republican appointees, at the DEA and throughout the U.S. attorneys office.
And President Obama thinks he has a chance in hell of winning the Democratic Party nomination for a second four-year term, let alone winning in November 2012?
President Obama’s administration looks more and more like just a continuation of the Bush/Cheney administration, with just a few minor tweaks, but still the same hardcore right-wing BS. President Obama tackles health care reform, then sells-out to the health insurance, hospital and pharmaceutical companies, refusing to even consider starting “negotiations” from his end with either universal single payer or a public option. He “tackles” DADT, but instead of stopping it via executive order, he punts to conservatives in Congress, where repealing it will die, while also having Republican-holdover DOJ attorneys petition the courts to keep DADT in place. He touts austerity and bringing the federal budget under control, while keeping the U.S. in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also setting up a Deficit Reduction Commission headed by a RepubliCON and a Blue Dog who rolled-out their suggestions which boil down to giving wealthy Wall Street criminal banksters even more money while sticking it to the middle-class and poor. He brings up the budget-busting deficit-exploding Bush era tax cuts (instead of just letting them expire at the end of this year), talking about letting the tax cuts for the wealthiest expire on time while extending the tax cuts for the non-wealthiest, but now he’s talking about “compromising” and extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest “temporarily,” which we all know is just an attempt to make them permanent, which will cost our government trillions of dollars in revenue over the next ten years (especially if all tax cuts are extended), driving up federal deficits by the same amount, as if President Obama is just continuing Bush/Republican voodoo economic policies.
Too bad Joe Lieberman, Obama’s mentor, is so far right. He might actually be able to talk some sense into Obama instead of apparently cheering him on…that is, on to being a one-term president.
- Ordering an American citizen killed without trial
- Cluster bombing a “terrorist camp” in Yemen, a country with which we are not at war
- Bombing numerous places in Pakistan, another country with which we aren’t at war, knowing that there would almost certainly be civilian casualties
For starters …
The first is a rather clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, and the latter two certainly are against the Geneva Convention, which we signed once upon a time.
He has also acted to cover up many crimes committed during the Bush Administration, which by this point makes him an accessory, I’d have to think.
That was no rumor about McCain and RGJoe in 2008; it’s been confirmed by none other that McCain’s daughter Meghan, who has overcome great adversity as a millionaire beer heiress to become a Daily Beast contributor and ‘book author.’
Not a savior – but what is happening to SocSec right now, what is happening with the Catfood Commission is all on the Democrats, and Obama in particular, and was never anywhere near their campaign positions.
With Johnson I know exactly what to fight him on. This is not the case with the rest of the putative 2012 field.
Morning Joe: Richard Stengel medical marijuana
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/#40129296
Medical Marijuana And PTSD: VA Doctors Can’t Prescribe Pot Despite New Mexico’s Promising Example
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/31/medical-marijuana-and-pts_n_519909.html
I’m seriously thinking about it. I want to know who the replacement would be.
For failing to prosecute the Bush administration for it’s war crimes, treasons and torture.
Rand Paul does not oppose the drug war. His father claims to, but he has said he will continue it.
The phony drug war is quite similar to the phony wars on terror and leftists. The DEA psychos can invade our homes, loot our bank accounts and terrorize anyone. But the imprisonment of marijuana users and activists such as Marc Emery is just the same as the imprisonment of Russian dissidents by the KGB. The DEA runs an American gulag.
Thanks for correcting me, I didn’t know he had changed his position. Bummer. I never did think he had the integrity of his dad.
I don’t think we can expect much from Webb all by himself. Even the toughest fighter needs back up.
Rand Paul & Medical Marijuana [Updated]
http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2010/aug/19/rand_paul_medical_marijuana_upda
We should give some attention to Roger Christie.
He is a minister who is in prison and denied bail because the state doesn’t like his religion. He is in prison in Hawaii and I haven’t seen any news about it for a long while. His incarceration is fully unconstitutional. I think we should be talking about it.
What a horrible woman. What a horrible president. Obama is the worst president ever for the distances he’s put between himself and Democrats. A first rate bastard.
“One-Term Obama” – has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
Maybe we can get Russ Feingold to filibuster this awful nomination for a few weeks – what does he have to lose?
Bingo! We have a winner!
Fucking bastard, we’ve had decades of these retard drug warriors who help the drug cartels more than stifle them. “Change you can believe in” “It gets better,” neither are true, and will never be true.
More billions of dollars down the drain, more innocent and nonviolent people thrown in jail, more hundreds of millions of dollars for the drug cartels. Hah, who needs terrorists, republicans or drug kingpins when you have right wing “liberals” like Obama.
Time to get a primary challenger and throw this creep out of the White House. 2012 won’t come too soon.
RESCHEDULING it is the only solution. That solves the problem across the board. No more politics, no more new laws…just reschedule it. It’s the only solution that makes sense. Remember this! Work towards it! Accept nothing less!