A group of former Drug Enforcement Administration officials is urging Attorney General Eric Holder to publicly oppose three state ballot measures that propose legalization of marijuana. In a letter obtained by Reuters, nine former heads of the DEA said Holder’s silence “conveys to the American public and the global community a tacit acceptance” of initiatives in Colorado, Washington state and Oregon that they call “dangerous.”

Washington state’s ballot initiative is supported by former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington John McKay and Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes. McKay, who said he regrets his prosecution of pot activist Marc Emery, called marijuana prohibition a “complete failure” and a “threat to public safety“:

The black market fuels the cartels, and that’s what allows them to buy the guns they use to kill people. A lot of Americans smoke pot, and they’re willing to pay for it. I think prohibition is a dumb policy, and there are a lot of line federal prosecutors who share the view that the policy is suspect.

In Colorado, a recent Rasmussen poll showed that 61 percent of likely state voters favor of regulating marijuana the way alcohol and cigarettes are regulated. And Mason Tvert, who is leading Colorado’s Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, urged Holder not to subvert the growing public support for legalization:

For Eric Holder to act as the mouthpiece for these old school warriors of the irrational war on marijuana that is rapidly losing public support would be sending a message to tens of thousands of passionate supporters of Amendment 64 that their opinions do not matter. He will be telling them that Colorado must continue to live under a system of marijuana prohibition not because it makes sense, but because the federal government demands it.

The NAACP’s regional chapter has also endorsed Colorado’s Amendment 64, citing the disproportionate impact the drug war has had on the African American community.

The NAACP-Colorado-Montana-Wyoming State Conference reported that African Americans made up more than 31.5 percent of arrests for marijuana possession in Denver, even though they comprise only 11 percent of the population. The disparities are similarly stark statewide. In 2010, the California branch of the NAACP also supported that state’s ballot measure.

Thus far, Holder has said little about the ballot measures. But in 2010, Holder opposed a similar California measure to legalize marijuana, which failed with 53.5 percent voting against the initiative. Since then, the Department of Justice has taken a tougher approach to prosecuting dispensaries of medical marijuana – now legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia — cracking down on even those dispensaries that are in in full compliance with state law.

Robert Mercer, the millionaire hedge-fund manager has been a consistent funder of right wing causes. In recent years, the co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies has bankrolled an Islamaphobic effort to stop a Muslim Community Center in New York City, given $1 million each to the pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future super PAC and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, and spent $200,000 on ads against Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), an advocate for more regulation of hedge funds. Now, public disclosure forms reveal he is the main benefactor for a new super PAC helping to elect New York Republican House candidate Randy Altschuler.

Prosperity First Inc. registered in April as a super PAC and reported on its July quarterly report that it had raised $635,500 in its first three months in operation. Of that, a whopping $500,000 came from Mercer. Until this weekend, it was unclear what Prosperity First would do with the money. Friday, the group reported its first $273,472 independent expenditure — an ad supporting Altschuler. This expenditure — the vast majority of which was funded by Mercer — is in addition to a pair of $2,500 contributions directly from the hedge-fund millionaire to Altschuler’s official campaign. In the post-Citizens United world, wealthy donors like Mercer can legally circumvent the legal limits and attempt to buy elections for their favorite candidates.

Why would Mercer spend so much to elect this candidate? After narrowly losing in 2010, Altschuler is again challenging Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY). One key difference between the two candidates is their view on Wall Street regulation: Bishop voted for the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (commonly known as Dodd-Frank), while Altschuler blasted the law as a “flawed piece of legislation” that would “kill jobs and shrink tax revenues for New York State.” Renaissance Technologies did not much like the bill’s regulations for hedge funds — the company has spent over $1 million since the start of 2010 on federal lobbying including a significant focus on Dodd-Frank’s hedge-fund provisions.

Altschuler promises that if elected, he would “roll out the red carpet” for businesses like Renaissance Technologies, instead of “red tape.” He says he will make the elimination of what he calls “job-killing government regulations” a priority. Altschuler’s let-business-do-whatever-it-wants approach would probably be good for the bottom line for hedge-fund millionaires like Mercer — though they would likely not be so good for consumers anxious to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial sector meltdown. For a person who earns $125 million in one year, the Supreme Court’s effective elimination of campaign finance limits may have made buying a House seat — or several — a legal and doable proposition.

Gay conservative law Professor Dale Carpenter conducted a survey of nearly 500 of his fellow constitutional law professors asking their views on marriage equality and the Constitution. He discovered that, at least among this set of constitutional experts, federal marriage discrimination is overwhelmingly viewed as unconstitutional and a solid majority believe state discrimination is unconstitutional as well:

QUESTION 3: “Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) forbids the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages legalized in the states. As a matter of federal constitutional law, do you believe the federal government may refuse to recognize same-sex marriages legalized in the states?”

Yes (DOMA Section 3 is constitutional) — 16%
No (DOMA Section 3 is unconstitutional) — 69%
Not sure — 11%
No Answer/Other — 3%

QUESTION 4: “As a matter of federal constitutional law, do you believe that states *must* allow same-sex couples to marry?”

Yes — 54%
No — 28%
Not Sure — 13%
No Answer/Other — 5%

The discrepancy between those professors who recognize the unconstitutionality of DOMA and those who understand that states may not deny equal marriage rights to gay couples as well likely reflects presence of conservatives who believe the Constitution has little to say about anti-gay discrimination, but who also think that it imposes novel new limits on federal power. According to Carpenter’s data, 54 percent of constitutional law professors appear to recognize that the Constitutional promise of “equal protection of the laws” applies to gay people. Additionally, at least 15 percent appear to believe that DOMA violates some fabricated new doctrine protecting states’ rights.

This is, of course, a hopeful sign that DOMA will soon be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Justice Kennedy, who is the likely swing voter in the DOMA case, has a fairly solid record on gay rights and he recently displayed a particular fondness for outlandish states’ rights arguments. It is reasonably likely that one or both of the leading arguments against DOMA will convince Justice Kennedy.

One caveat is in order, however. Prior to oral arguments in the Affordable Care Act case, 85 percent predicted the justices would uphold the law on the merits. That prediction came true, but the justices came disturbingly close to accepting the completely meritless case against health reform.

GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan does not have a history of supporting medical marijuana, or even of tolerating state laws which embrace permitting access to medical cannabis. Ryan voted in 1999 to block medical marijuana in DC (which is now legal). And, in 2006, he voted against a bill that would prevent the Justice Department and DEA from going after medical marijuana users who complied with state laws.

Yet when the GOP candidate traveled to Colorado on Friday, an important swing state where medical cannabis is already legal and a ballot initiative legalizing marijuana outright appears likely to pass, he suddenly embraced an entirely new position. In an interview with Colorado Springs television station KRDO, Ryan claimed that medical marijuana should be wholly legal in states that permit it:

I asked Congressman Ryan: “In Colorado we have medical marijuana. Under a Romney Ryan ticket, what happens?”

Ryan: “It’s up to Coloradans to decide.”

I said: “So even if federal law says marijuana is illegal, you’re saying?”

Ryan: “My personal positions on this issue have been let the states decide what to do with these things. This is something that is not a high priority of ours as to whether or not we go down the road on this issue. What I’ve always believed is the states should decide. I personally don’t agree with it, but this is something Coloradans have to decide for themselves.”

Nearly three quarters of Americans agree with this position, but none of them are Ryan’s running mate. Mitt Romney promised to fight marijuana legalization “tooth and nail,” and he lost his cool with a Colorado reporter who asked him about the medical cannabis issue last May. So Ryan was forced to backtrack on Saturday, when a Ryan spokesperson claimed that Ryan “agrees with Mitt Romney that marijuana should never be legalized.”

In other words, Ryan woke up on Friday as a congressman with a firmly anti-marijuana voting record. He abandoned that view during a trip to a swing state where the marijuana issue is hot, and then backtracked the very next day. And he did this all in the very same weekend when he proclaimed that he did not vote for the defense cuts he recently voted for.

Apparently, Ryan’s factually challenged convention speech wasn’t an anomaly, it’s an entire campaign strategy.

Scotts Miracle-Gro, the company best known for its eponymous fertilizer, has been ordered to pay $12.5 million in civil and criminal fines for violating the Environmental Protection Agency’s pesticide laws, a judge ruled on Friday. The company plead guilty to “illegally applying insecticides to its wild bird food products that are toxic to birds, falsifying pesticide registration documents, distributing pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels and distributing unregistered pesticides.”

This is Scotts’s second time making news in the past month. In early August, Scotts came out as one of a few disclosed corporate funders of the Restore America PAC, the Super PAC running an expensive independent campaign for Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Scotts donated $200,000 in June to Restore America.

Scotts’ disregard of EPA standards may explain its financial backing of Romney. The candidate opposes many regulations by the EPA, including those on mercury and air pollution from coal.