Most coverage announces that Cole’s statements ‘represent a big departure from Obama’s silence on the matter. Well, yes, given that he even had a television ad in which some stoners representing teevee’s Harold and Kumar, and expressing his Hope that they’re on board, cuz ‘we have to get this right”, tra la la…. His DoJ has cracked down hard on MMJ dispensaries in some states, but in CO, they have mainly pressed the federal ‘1000 feet from schools’ laws for drug activity that increases a regular bust to a greater crime; about ten years’ worth if I remember correctly (don’t count on it).

Lynn Szymoniak is the lawyer and forensics expert who during her own foreclosure case recognized the massive fraud in documentation being perpetrated by banks. Lynn devoted the next several years to rooting out this fraud and telling anyone who will listen about what the banks were doing with mortgage assignments. And now, the 60 Minutes piece that gave her national notoriety won a Loeb Award, the most prestigious award in business journalism.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I give thanks for Hugh Thompson, Jr., Glenn Andreotta, and Lawrence Colburn, who courageously and properly said “no” in the face of misguided fellow soldiers and superiors.

When I hear someone say “thank you for your service” to a member of the military, I think of these three, who embodied the best of what “service to your country” is, in the face of others who embodied that service at its worst.

Former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Counterterrorism Center and its former Deputy Director of Operations Jose Rodriguez appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to flaunt his new book Hard Measures, which details how he came to be in charge of CIA torture against terror suspects at “black site” prisons, why he believes torture was effective and why it should not be vilified.

I found last night’s 60 Minutes story on insider trading in Congress to be uneven, partially underwhelming and at times outright misleading. That Congress has access to insider information and can trade on that information is true, but some of the examples CBS cited were weak or unconvincing.

In a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, Obama’s chosen go-to guy on job creation, General Electric’s chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt, our Jobs Czar, had this to say about the misconceptions of those protesting Wall Street in over 800 cities across the nation by the tens of thousands:

“I want you to root for me. Look, every one in Germany roots for Siemens, everyone in Japan roots for Toshiba, everyone in China roots for China South Rail, I want you to say, win GE. I think this notion that it’s the population of the US against big companies is just wrong.”

I am definitely looking forward to tonight’s 60 Minutes special on foreclosure fraud. In it, the head of the FDIC, Sheila Bair, will call for a cleanup Superfund to cleanse the country of toxic mortgages.

When it comes to balancing the federal budget, our country isn’t mythically “center right,” it is, in reality, ultra-left wing.

It doesn’t matter what prominent Democrats were telling the base when they were trying to sell the vote. Just because a basically Republican health care law was passed by Democrats doesn’t make it some great progressive policy victory.

OBAMA: And so, you then have to start making some tough decisions about how do we pay for those things that we think are important? And you know, we’re not gonna be able to balance the budget just by slashing the National Parks budget, even if you didn’t think that was a proper function of government. We’re not gonna be able to balance the budget by, you know, eliminating the National Weather Service.

I mean, we’re gonna have to, you know, tackle some big issues like entitlements that, you know, when you listen to the Tea Party or you listen to Republican candidates they promise we’re not gonna touch.