"Aboard Air Force One, former President Bush shows photos of his paintings to... First Lady Michelle Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton..."

"... Valerie Jarrett, National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice, Attorney General Eric Holder and former First Lady Laura Bush, Dec. 9, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)"

Oh, but the corporations! Those terrible corporations!

"Health care manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries will pay more than $2.2 billion to resolve criminal and civil investigations over allegations that they marketed three drugs for uses that were never approved, and that kickbacks were paid to physicians and to a long-term care pharmacy provider, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said today in Washington."

A "Breaking News" email from CNN, received just now.

ADDED: Meanwhile, in the current pop culture, selling unapproved AIDS drugs, based on a true story: "Dallas Buyers Club."

What Eric Holder said about drugs.

I held up on blogging the advance publicity on the speech because I wanted to see the text, which is now available here.

We will start [to recalibrate America’s federal criminal justice system] by fundamentally rethinking the notion of mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes....

This is why I have today mandated a modification of the Justice Department’s charging policies so that certain low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs, or cartels will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences...

Secondly, the Department has now updated its framework for considering compassionate release for inmates facing extraordinary or compelling circumstances – and who pose no threat to the public...

Finally, my colleagues and I are taking steps to identify and share best practices for enhancing the use of diversion programs – such as drug treatment and community service initiatives – that can serve as effective alternatives to incarceration.

NYT editorial: "Mr. Holder’s dithering helps no one."

The issue? Telling Colorado and Washington how the feds will respond to their vote to legalize marijuana.

The status quo is chaotic and untenable. If you live in Denver or Seattle and you are thinking of applying for a license to sell marijuana, you have a right to know whether federal prosecutors will move to seize your property and jail you.

Holder's had more than 7 months to come up with an answer. And he did say he would answer. So it's not as though the answer is (deliberately) no answer — that is, the feds intend to say to these states: Go ahead and bumble along in the shadow of the federal law, knowing that, anytime we want, we might spring.

The NYT also repeats the argument that enforcing the anti-marijuana laws is "racially biased, with African-Americans far more likely than Caucasians to be arrested for possession despite similar rates of use across ethnic groups."

"I'm a little concerned that things have gotten a little out of whack."

For the annals of great quotes from the Obama administration.

"American voters say 76 - 17 percent, including 63 - 30 percent among Democrats, that a special prosecutor should be appointed..."

"... to investigate charges the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today."

President Barack Obama gets a negative 45 - 49 percent job approval rating, compared to 48 - 45 percent positive in a May 1 survey... conducted before the IRS allegations surfaced....

Americans are divided 49 - 47 percent on whether Obama is honest and trustworthy, down from 58 - 37 percent, the last time Quinnipiac University asked the question September 1, 2011.

Support for an independent prosecutor to probe the IRS issue is 88 - 6 percent among Republicans and 78 - 17 percent among independent voters, 78 - 17 percent among men and 74 - 18 percent among women.

"There is overwhelming bipartisan support for a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Voters apparently don't like the idea of Attorney General Eric Holder investigating the matter himself, perhaps because they don't exactly think highly of him. Holder gets a negative 23 - 39 percent job approval rating."

"As Anger at Eric Holder Grows, So Does His Value as Obama’s Lightning Rod."

"Holder is the latest in a long line of attorneys general who do the boss’s dirty work and absorb anger that would otherwise reach the president, writes Nick Gillespie."

Via Instapundit (where there are additional links on this topic).

"Gut-check time for the press: If they’re truly offended by the DOJ’s secret snooping on James Rosen and the AP..."

"... they won’t agree to attend Holder’s gladhanding session unless/until he agrees to make it on the record, right?" 

How many off-the-record, on-the-QT, and very-hush-hush meetings have Obama or his lieutenants scheduled with favored members of the media lately? There was the one with the White House press corps on May 10 to talk about the IRS scandal that began as off-the-record but ended up as “deep background” after people started murmuring about it on Twitter. There was the instantly-infamous one on May 21 in which online Obama-water-carrying glitterati were called in for a consultation on Scandalmania. There was another one last Thursday with foreign-policy reporters after O’s big speech in which he tried to B.S. them about his drone policy having changed when, evidently, it really hadn’t. And now here’s Holder, willing to talk to the press about how sorry-ish he is for rifling through their phone records and e-mails in pursuit of leakers but not willing to do it in a forum where anyone outside the room will know what he said....

"The Giving Tree" — "Remember that book - written in the early 60's by Satanist, Anton LaVey?"

"The story follows the lives of a female apple tree and a male human who are able to communicate with each other; the racist kingdomist tree addresses the human as 'Boy' his entire life. In his childhood, the boy enjoys playing with the tree, climbing her trunk, swinging from her branches, and eating her apples. However, as time passes the tree becomes mean, jealous, and stingy...."



ADDED: Reading that Meadepost, I made the association — for the first time — between the Xs on the eyes that signify death in the language of comics and the XX signifying the female in the world of chromosomes.

Eric Holder "seems to be proud of how little he knows."

Says Dana Milbank.

“I don’t have a factual basis to answer the questions that you have asked, because I was recused,” the attorney general said.

On and on Holder went: “I don’t know. I don’t know. . . . I would not want to reveal what I know. . . . I don’t know why that didn’t happen. . . . I know nothing, so I’m not in a position really to answer.”...

But when the Justice Department undermines the Constitution, recusal is no excuse.

"Justice Department Opens Inquiry Into I.R.S. Audits."

"The attorney general said there were 'a variety of statutes within the I.R.S. code' that could be the basis of a criminal violation. He said officials conducting the investigation would also look at 'other things in Title 18' of the United States Code. Title 18 is the overall criminal code for the federal government."

Mr. Holder also fielded questions about the seizure of telephone records from reporters and editors at The Associated Press.... Mr. Holder said he was confident that his subordinates had sought the subpoenas in accord with Justice Department regulations...

Justice Breyer makes the clearest argument for why there is standing in the DOMA case.

And Chief Justice Roberts takes a different tack. This part is about the bizarre situation in which President Obama and Eric Holder have decided that DOMA is unconstitutional, and they won't defend it in the Supreme Court, but they intend to continue applying it. As Roberts puts it: why doesn't the President "have the courage of his convictions" and stop enforcing DOMA — "rather than saying, oh, we'll wait till the Supreme Court tells us we have no choice"?

Today in the Supreme Court: the Defense of Marriage Act.

Adam Liptak explains the statute and the arguments against it.

This law was passed in 1996 — almost 20 years ago. Why has it taken so long to get to an answer about its constitutionality? I did a final exam in my Constitutional Law class based on DOMA in, approximately, 1996.

One thing about the current case: It has a crisply defined embodiment of the asserted constitutional right — an 83-year old woman (Edith Windsor) whose spouse died and left her property that would be tax free if the IRS recognized her marriage and who is stuck instead with a $360,000 tax bill.

Her opponent is "United States," a formidable party, usually, but in this case, bizarrely vague:

[I]n February [2011], Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he and President Obama had concluded that [DOMA] was unconstitutional and unworthy of defense in court. Mr. Holder added that the administration would continue to enforce the law.

That's unpleasant. They're lying back waiting for the Court to do the difficult work.

[The administration] agrees with Ms. Windsor that the law is unconstitutional, but will not pay her the tax refund she seeks. House Republicans, represented by Paul D. Clement, a former United States solicitor general, intervened in the case to defend the law, losing in the lower courts.

Even though the administration’s legal position prevailed in the lower courts, it filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, saying the matter should be decided by the nation’s highest tribunal.

The Supreme Court appointed Vicki C. Jackson, a law professor at Harvard, to argue a position not fully supported by any party: that the case’s odd procedural posture means the court lacks jurisdiction to decide it. The court scheduled a separate 50-minute argument on that question.

Does anyone want that argument to succeed? But I await Professor Jackson's arguments. It might be that the Court shouldn't rescue the administration from its politically uncomfortable position. But I feel sorry for the Edith Windsors whose cases are not governed by the 2d Circuit opinion.

"What, exactly, does the Obama administration mean by 'engaged in combat'?"

That's the unanswered question underlying the question that Holder answered, which was "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?"

The extraordinary secrecy of this White House makes the answer difficult to know....

If you put together the pieces of publicly available information, it seems that the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has acted with an overly broad definition of what it means to be engaged in combat. Back in 2004, the Pentagon released a list of the types of people it was holding at Guantánamo Bay as “enemy combatants” — a list that included people who were “involved in terrorist financing.”...

In a 2010 Fox News interview... Hillary Rodham Clinton, said that “we have gotten closer because we have been able to kill a number of their trainers, their operational people, their financiers."...

[S]weeping financiers into the group of people who can be killed in armed conflict... is not the only stretch the Obama administration seems to have made. The administration still hasn’t disavowed its stance... that military-age males killed in a strike zone are counted as combatants absent explicit posthumous evidence proving otherwise.

ADDED: In what order do they make these decisions? Consider these 4 permutations.

A:

1. They want to kill X.
2. They arrive at the decision that X is an enemy combatant.
3. They kill X.

B:

1. They want to kill X.
2. They kill X.
3. They arrive at the decision that X is an enemy combatant.

C:

1. They arrive at the decision that X is a enemy combatant.
2. They want to kill X.
3. They kill X.

D:

1. They kill X.
2. They want to have wanted to kill X.
3. They arrive at the decision that X is a enemy combatant.

What do you think is happening?
	Mostly C, but D and A to cover mistakes and collateral damage.
	Mostly B, but D to cover mistakes and collateral damage.
	Mostly A, but D to cover mistakes and collateral damage.
	A clusterfuck of A, B, C, and D.
pollcode.com free polls

Was that poll missing an option?
	No.
	Yes. I wanted a "Strictly C" or "Almost only C" option.
	Yes. But not "Strictly C" or "Almost only C." Explain in the comments.
pollcode.com free polls

Inappropriate Holder.

I Googled "inappropriate holder" because I wanted to look deeply into Eric Holder's use of the word "inappropriate" instead of "unconstitutional" when he was questioned about drone strikes.

The top result was from Trip Advisor: "Hotel Am Muhlenteich Photo: Complimentary toiletries, inappropriate holder meant they fell off the holder all the time." LOL. Inappropriate Holder. Don't you hate the way new toothbrushes have these bulbous handles and won't fit in the slots of your old cemented-to-the-wall toothbrush rack?

If only our rights were so secure! Anyway, I'm not really trying to be funny here. I think "inappropriate" is a fascinating word. I see that back in 2011 "Holder Scolds Congress for ‘Inappropriate Rhetoric’ in Fast and Furious Investigation."

The Oxford English Dictionary (unlinkable, sorry) makes short work of "inappropriate," which has one line of definition — "Not appropriate; unsuitable to the particular case; unfitting, improper" — and only 3 historical examples:

1804   Ann. Rev. 2 19/2   A rambling inappropriate retrospect of Indian history.
1846   Dickens Dombey & Son (1848) ii. 9   [He] invaded the grave silence..with the singularly inappropriate air of ‘A Cobbler there was’.
1883   H. Drummond Nat. Law in Spiritual World (ed. 2) Pref. 13   Inappropriate Hybridism is checked by the Law of Sterility.

I resort to my second-favorite reference resource, my husband Meade. I ask: "What associations do you have with the word 'inappropriate'?"

Meade: "Miss Manners."

***

"What is the Physical Politic of Mr. Walter Bagehot but the tension of the Natural Law to the Political World? What is the Biological Sociology of Mr. Herbert Spencer, but the application of Natural Law to the Social World? Will it be charged that the splendid achievements of such thinkers are hybrids between things which Nature has meant to remain apart? Nature usually solves such problems for herself. Inappropriate Hybridism is checked by the Law of Sterility."

"The federal government may not use drones to kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil if they do not represent an imminent threat."

"The Commander in Chief does, of course, have the power to protect Americans from imminent attack, and nothing in this legislation interferes with that power."

Cruz and Paul introduce a bill.

Meanwhile, Holder answers Paul's question:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney quoted from the letter that Holder sent to Paul today. “Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on an American soil?” Holder wrote, per Carney. “The answer is no.”

So then, all agree.

Or... I don't know. McCain and Graham seem to have suffered a narcissistic injury:

"So we've done a, I think, a disservice to a lot Americans by making them believe that somehow they're in danger from their government," McCain said. "They're not. But we are in danger. We are in danger from a dedicated, longstanding, easily replaceable leadership enemy that is hellbent on our destruction. And this leads us to having to do things that perhaps we haven't had to do in other more conventional wars."...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) [said] "Noncombatants under the law of war are protected, not subject to being killed randomly. So to suggest that the president won't answer that question somehow legitimizes that the drone program is going to result in being used against anybody in a room having a cup of coffee, to me, cheapens the debate."

It's so hard to see these young twerps getting attention. The elders should run the show.

Hey, remember when the NYT presented Obama as cool — with his "kill list"?

Paul flipped it.

"So far, few traditional farmers lining up to grow marijuana in Washington state, Colorado."

WaPo reports:

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law....

The Justice Department has not said whether it will try to block the two states from implementing their new laws, passed late last year.....

In addition, marijuana is a crop that can’t be insured, and federal drug law bars banks from knowingly serving the industry....

Both states are in the process of developing rules for a legal marijuana industry....

How can state rules possibly make the industry legal? They can only make chaos that might conceivably move Congress to change the federal law. I don't see that coming any time soon. The Justice Department might say something encouraging, but will the next President's Justice Department stick with whatever position Eric Holder embraces?

Even if you felt sure you wouldn't be prosecuted, would you want to sign up on an official list as someone who is conspicuously committing an ongoing felony? Would you switch from a legal crop and expose yourself like that? And even if some farmers would go ahead and violate the criminal law — presumably because the upside profits are high — does the inability to buy crop insurance and use banks wreck the whole idea?

Dozens of marijuana experts, who have been growing plants for medical use or in secret for illegal use, are educating state officials about the potential for the crop. Probably 95 percent of those people choose to grow their plants indoors, despite higher costs, to control light and temperature, improve quality and increase yields....

Indoor crops generally allow for up to three harvests per season, compared to just one harvest for an outdoor crop, and allow for easier security measures. 

So "traditional farmers" have an entirely separate reason for not responding to the new program. You can't be growing marijuana amber-waves-of-grain-on-the-fruited-plain style. This stuff will be grown in big warehouses, pulling in loads of electricity for intense lighting and heavily guarded with guns! guns! guns!

Oh, but here's a little old lady, "Gail Besemer, who grows flowers and vegetables near Deming, Wash., [who] has expressed interest in a producers’ license."

Besemer already has three hoop houses, which are essentially temporary greenhouses, but could see expanding her business slightly to grow marijuana for a local clientele in northwest Washington.

Slightly! Flowers! Grandma!

However, “I’m concerned about druggies invading my property — ne’er-do-wells invading my property to steal, to get free dope,” she said. “Security would be an issue.”

Where do you get off with that contempt for the consumers of the product you want to grow? Seems to me, these are your people. Don't insult them.

“My family is not particularly excited about me being interested in this. But if someone has an integrated farm, growing a number of different crops, I would think it would be a high profit plant,” she said. “Taxation and security might get in the way of profits, and it might end not being so profitable.”

Yeah, you'd better think about it, lady. There's a reason it's a high profit plant. If it weren't for all these problems, any idiot could grow his own in his house. Take away the obstacles, and it's not a business at all. Which removes half of the attraction for the government, since there won't be anything to tax if there isn't a big rules-heavy structure burdening business. This isn't a game for the little old lady with her flowers and hoop houses. But that's the screwy, sentimental anecdote The Washington Post ties to plant in our brain.