I agree with you that President Obama's stated position before he was elected was less than ideal for us. In fact, it was pretty poor. He was consistent in saying that he didn't think that people should be able to grow their own. But, he also consistently said that the Justice Department wouldn't "waste their resources" with medical marijuana prosecutions.
More added context? Or did you subtract context? Judging from your rehash with little (""), you're no better than Somin.
Obviously you believe ("") more than direct quotation.Of course this is pretty weak assurance, basically saying "Well, I'd be busting you, but I've got better things to do.", I still believed him.
You'll have to work on verbatim context before you'll ever have a chance at analysis.It seemed like he thought the issue was a bothersome inconvenience, and that he would direct the Justice Department to let the states deal with it.
What do you call that, in-depth analysis? You have to take everything in the context presented, including the verbatim statements you had to re-word to pad your made up rebuttal.The first Holder memo that everyone thought was so great seemed to reinforce this "I've got better things to do" attitude. At that time, Professor Somin pointed out the shortcomings of this memo in this post. If you read the memo, it does seem to be long on "The Department of Justice is committed to the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act in all States." and short on "As a general matter, pursuit of these priorities should not focus federal resources in your States on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana." I still thought it was a signal that he would basically defer to the states. The new memo showed that this was not the case:
Amazing you're defending a whacked rewrite instead of direct quote and context. Oh yeah, you're doing it yourself.I guess if your point was that President Obama's position on Medical Marijuana always sucked, and that it sucks now, you are right. What stupid, whiny fucks Somin and I are for thinking otherwise.
I think you need to focus on the next statement, not the one you quoted. When your parents gave you an inch, did you typically expect a mile?YouTube Video, Barack Obama, 2008: "not wanting to let people grow their own, or start setting up mom and pop shops" but
"what I'm not going to be doing is using Department of Justice resources to circumvent state laws on this issue"
YouTube video, Barack Obama, 2007:
At least you're morphing into direct quotes between your little (""). Try listening to the whole thing."I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana, its not a good use of our resources"
Question from an Oregon newspaper, and Mr. Obama's answer:
We're all well-versed in cherry picking your info.Q:Would you stop the DEA's raids on Oregon medical marijuana growers?
A:I would because I think our federal agents have better things to do, like catching criminals and preventing terrorism.
Attorney General Eric Holder, March 2009:
I don't have any trouble adding all this together but you apparently had a reason for the quote. So what's the point, you don't likey? That's well established."The policy is to go after those people who violate both federal and state law, ...Given the limited resources that we have, our focus will be on people, organizations that are growing, cultivating substantial amounts of marijuana and doing so in a way that's inconsistent with federal and state law," -
The Washington Times, 2009:
Even the Washington Times (lol) has trouble with verbatim context.Drug Enforcement Administration agents this week raided four medical marijuana shops in California, contrary to President Obama’s campaign promises to stop the raids.
Like I said, a third grader could decipher the context (so long as they're reading verbatim and not rehash.)The White House said it expects those kinds of raids to end once Mr. Obama nominates someone to take charge of DEA, which is still run by Bush administration holdovers.
“The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind,” White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.
Like I said, make bank, break state law or break federal law, and all the re-translation in the world won't bolster your argument.
I love it when were 10 pages into an argument and somebody's still re-wording campaign comments.