if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803
Keeping Amurka Safe
by Lee
The new federal prosecutors are hard at work defending Amurka from hard-core criminal scum like this guy.
Federal prosecutors said today they would retry marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal on cultivation charges, even after a federal judge urged them to drop the case and chastised the government for lodging charges solely to punish the self-proclaimed “guru of ganja.”
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer demanded to know who in the Department of Justice made the decision to continue pursuing Rosenthal, who had his original conviction overturned last year.
Rosenthal can’t be sentenced to prison even if he is convicted because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the one-day prison sentence ordered by Breyer in 2003.
Newly appointed U.S. Attorney Scott Schools made the decision, said Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan, but he was not sure if Department of Justice officials in Washington were involved.
The previous eight attorneys general were fired, at least in part, because they wouldn’t waste time prosecuting cases like this. But Amurka will be safer when dangerous criminal masterminds like Rosenthal are behind bars.
Perhaps the Bush administration could use torture “coercive interrogation techniques” to find out what he knows about other marijuana distributors. I mean, there could be a ticking time joint somewhere? We just don’t know! The future of Amurka depends on it! If we don’t torture him, and a bunch of kids end up getting high, will YOU be able to live with that on your conscience? Well, how about it, you America-hating hippie?
Comments
Well, Bush told us when Raich was decided that he would go ahead and respect the laws of the states anyway. Raise your hand if you’re surprised that turned out to be a lie.
Maybe he’s going to go Nixon on us—use the drug war and cracking down on pot- and meth-heads to try to bolster his support.
Lee: Note the “newly appointed” part… he’s one of those Rove-sanctioned batch of appointees resulting from the political firings. Another quality White House production.
Anyone else been watching the TV shows on the history of drug use & laws in the US? Fascinating stuff.
Infuriating is more like it. I think a lot of people are starting to wake up on this issue.
It’s all based on control of the culture. Drug laws are really just tools the government uses to control you. I’m just wondering how long it will be before they find a common denominator in people who are against the Iraq war and make that illegal. Maybe that will be freedom of movement or something.
Here we go again. Your hero the fired USA here in New Mexico prosecuted a 20-year on girl on terrorism charges for sticking a piece of bubble gum in an envelope with her traffic citation while he didn’t bother to prosecute politicians who stole MILLIONS from the public trough.
I agree with you in principle but your assertion that they were fired in part for not bringing cases like this is pure bullshit.
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Anyone else been watching the TV shows on the history of drug use & laws in the US? Fascinating stuff.
Also quite interesting that the federal government is still going ahead trying to enforce drug laws in states where they have decided to generally abandon them - are they trying to foment armed rebellion?