First, President Obama’s Kenyan half brother gets arrested — in Kenya — for holding, like, one joint. Then over the course of the last week the DEA busts a series of medical marijuana clinics across California. Then cops in Fontana — formerly a hub of the pig farming industry and now a dismal commuter suburb of LA — discover 1,800 pounds of weed being smuggled inside … wait for it … concrete lawn donkeys. “Drug mules,” geddit? (At least those pickup truck rampin’ Mexican cartels have a sense of humor, right?) The next thing you know, Obama’s bro is out on the streets again, all charges dropped. Coincidence, or…? Connect the dots, friend.

You know who doesn’t have a sense of humor? All the marijuana activists that were blowing up yesterday across the internet over the DEA raids on medical marijuana clinics that took place from South Lake Tahoe in Northern CA to Venice and Marina Del Rey down here in Los Angeles County. Do you know the reason why they are so itchy about these acts of Federal aggression? Because back in March and May of 2008 Obama said some evasive but still encouraging shit to two Oregon newspapers: Southern Oregon’s Mail Tribune and the The Willamette Weekly — an alt-weekly — about basing policy on science when it comes to medical marijuana. And we block-quote the Weekly:

Would you stop the DEA’s raids on Oregon medical marijuana growers?

I would because I think our federal agents have better things to do, like catching criminals and preventing terrorism. The way I want to approach the issue of medical marijuana is to base it on science, and if there is sound science that supports the use of medical marijuana and if it is controlled and prescribed in a way that other medicine is prescribed, then it’s something that I think we should consider.

Then, as if to confirm any suspicions that the casual reader might have about the Lollapalooza-types one might find staffing an Oregon alt-weekly, the interviewer asks Obama if he would get a tattoo were he placed “under duress.” That is certainly an imaginative question. But we digress …

As of January 28, Hopey’s man Eric “Lando” Holder is running the Justice Department, thus everyone from the libertarian burners at Reason to the up-against-the-wall muckrackers at Counterpunch to LA Times haberdashery columnist Patt Morrison (we kid we kid Morrison is oft very clever and funny) is like, “Lay off already!”

Get your summary of the day’s chatter after the jump.

Continue reading →