Another great editorial: The Injustice of Marijuana Arrests
An extensive editorial about the destruction caused to our society by decades of arresting people for marijuana, including the exponential increase in enforcement and racial disparities.
And, while mentioning individuals who have ended up with horrific prison sentences for low-level crimes of marijuana, they also clearly help people understand just how offensive is that standard pathetic “nobody goes to prison for marijuana” argument that we hear from the Kevin Sabets of this world.”
Outrageously long sentences are only part of the story. The hundreds of thousands of people who are arrested each year but do not go to jail also suffer; their arrests stay on their records for years, crippling their prospects for jobs, loans, housing and benefits. […]
Even so, every arrest ends up on a person’s record, whether or not it leads to prosecution and conviction. Particularly in poorer minority neighborhoods, where young men are more likely to be outside and repeatedly targeted by law enforcement, these arrests accumulate. Before long a person can have an extensive “criminal history†that consists only of marijuana misdemeanors and dismissed cases. That criminal history can then influence the severity of punishment for a future offense, however insignificant. […]
For those on probation or parole for any offense, a failed drug test on its own can lead to prison time — which means, again, that people can be put behind bars for smoking marijuana.
Even if a person never goes to prison, the conviction itself is the tip of the iceberg. In a majority of states, marijuana convictions — including those resulting from guilty pleas — can have lifelong consequences for employment, education, immigration status and family life.
A misdemeanor conviction can lead to, among many other things, the revocation of a professional license; the suspension of a driver’s license; the inability to get insurance, a mortgage or other bank loans; the denial of access to public housing; and the loss of student financial aid.
In some states, a felony conviction can result in a lifetime ban on voting, jury service, or eligibility for public benefits like food stamps. People can be fired from their jobs because of a marijuana arrest. Even if a judge eventually throws the case out, the arrest record is often available online for a year, free for any employer to look up.
Yes, the “nobody goes to prison for marijuana” crap is not only false, but it’s a distraction from the real issue.
Are we talking about the SAME New York Times?
I’m beginning to think the real NYT was stolen and replaced with an exact duplicate.
Just wait. It’s a series. Next up is “History” followed by “Health”. This is gonna be fun!
I think Gondor has turned the tide against the Orcs.
….and the ONDCP responds. Not the giant straw man that makes it’s appearance in the first paragraph…
http://m.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/07/28/response-new-york-times-editorial-marijuana-legalization
How pathetic. I see they played the “Sabet conjecture” card. The whole idea that cannabis will produce a net negative cost to society because alcohol and tobacco do, is flawed. You have to really perform some extreme statistical gymnastics to assume we don’t spend more on cannabis prohibiton than a legalization model. Of course, they cite RAND as a source.
…sorry…”note”. Missed the edit window…demanding two year old…
Yes, classic straw man argument is exactly what I thought when I read about the “silver bullet solution…”
It has Sabet’s disingenuousness all over it.
Already put a rough draft of a response to this up yesterday but we will need a running rebuttal,,allan or you or Kap can get the next one and trade off on each new response the ONDCP puts out,,if they do.
Have to figure out why they call it a blog when only the asshat from the ONDCP can post.
–“nobody goes to prison for marijuana‖
http://youtu.be/aJHuUYwqF3Y
Tell that to Jeff Mizanskey.
or Peter McW… or Tod McCormick… and of course they never gave Donald Scott a chance to even get to jail – tried, convicted and death sentence by SWAT.
Bill O’Reilly interviews Kevin Sabet and Stephen Gullwig, Deputy Assistant Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Bill is all worked up over the NY Times series on marijuana legalization, and labels Andrew Rosenthal at the NY Times an ideologue.
Playing the race card, Bill-O claims black culture (“certain ghetto neighborhoodsâ€) is inherently at fault because it allegedly encourages 9-year-olds to smoke weed, and therefore no one should fault the police for singling out blacks for harassment or arrest on petty drug charges. O’Reilly believes the racial disparity shown to exist in countless studies of drug arrests is a myth.
Is it me or does Sabet actually look panicked (blinking, stuttering) when Billo starts talking about the 9 year old “weed smoking ghetto kids?”
Perhaps even Kevin can see the crazy uncle coming out now.
.
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You’ve got to remember that BillO lives in an alternate reality, so how can we say his perceptions aren’t correct? Alternate universes have alternate physical laws, no? At least Archie Bunker had no shame or reservations about being a racist. If you’re going to be an asshole, why not be proud of it?
I wonder, do we all share the understanding that it’s not the arrests for cannabis that are per se racist but are the result of racism? People on the other side of the table often say they don’t care about the people who break the law…how do we get them to understand that even presuming that a cannabis law violation is legitimate, that in order to make those arrests the authorities had to molest a significantly larger number of people who’s only infraction was being in the wrong place in the wrong color skin? Heck, I’m even willing to skip the part in New York City where the police are breaking the fucking law by arresting people for having cannabis on their person but bringing it into view at the instigation of the officer…classic entrapment by estoppel. But prohibitionists at best don’t care if the cops break the law. They cheer that kind of lawbreaking. I find little profit in arguing with people who have cement for brains.
Bill ORielly is running a poll and at last check the entire country was red,,YES with a 74% yes vote,,I am sure he will spin that as a fluke.
http://tinyurl.com/m8h8pdd
How many more responses from ONDCP can we expect when the entire series of articles has run anything they say will be a field day for us..
I’d love to see the demographic of the 11% who see legalization as a “Dangerous idea with many unintended consequences.”
I have a hunch it’s the same over 80 y.o. demographic who watch his show.
Goodnight Bill
Sorry Bill, your support is now down to 7%. They must be dying as we speak.
Actually, they really are. And the FAUX Nooz idjits, for all their brave noises, know it. And they know something else: they’ve alienated the very audience that they need to stay relevant…and thus economically viable.
They couldn’t have done a better job of self-decapitation besides actually sticking their heads in the arc of a spinning propeller blade. Those they need…don’t need – or want – them.
They’ve defecated in their own beds; now they can lay in them.
6% “Dangerous idea” now…
=D
O would bet that most of that percentage of “dangerous policy” are federal employees,,smelling the budget cuts if marijuana is legalized and law enforcement.
The DC area is crawling with such. They probably made career plans thinking that the gravy train would continue, thanks to propagandizing kids, and now that those kids are adults, have jobs, pay taxes and VOTE, they’re finding out to their horror just who fooled whom.
and can we say “cannabigot?” O’Roily is a very smart man which makes his bigotry all the more remarkable. But he’s never liked us hippie types. And of course black folk are responsible… if they had had the sense to slaughter the Europeens they would’ve never had to export slaves. And lord knows if, when slaves in the Americas (the majority of Africans shipped across the Atlantic weren’t sent to N America) were finally freed, they wouldn’t have been hung, castrated and burnt as often if they had just kept sayin’ “yassuh mastuh” instead of gettin’ all uppity and wanting regular lives. After all, “equality” is just a concept, eh Bill?
New O’Reilly Poll: = (July 29, 2014)
“Do you favor the legalization of marijuana?”
(Gotta wonder How he’s gonna spin this one, I can’t stand to watch his bigoted “Holier Than Thou” garbage,
Just wait – it’s gonna be him whining about how the whole country is going to hell in a hand basket – and all because the president is black.
Of course, “Biil-O” won’t say it like that But his gonna be spewing “ghetto/hip-hop/rap” culture war b*llsh*t =
About how, “Oh Lord Help Us, THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS A BUNCH OF GODLESS HEATHENS!” = Yep Bill, we’re all going to hell… And we’re dragging you with us – you sick racist fuck! (IDK Who worse him or Pat Robertson
So then, I guess He didn’t like the previous day’s results?
HA-HA-HA-HA=HAH!
[Legal weed] = (July 28, 2014)
“There is momentum behind the move to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Where do you stand?”
It should be legal, like alcohol = 91%
Dangerous idea with many unintended consequences = 9%
[61128 total votes] (As of about 7:15am Central)
You gotta love his “Out” at the bottom of the page – So, he can freely undermine the results of his own poll if/when he hates the results. = “These polls are not scientific. Only one vote per visitor per poll is counted by the system.”
I wouldn’t doubt that IF he mentions the “Legal Weed” poll from the 28th, (beyond the “Lord Help Us” bit). I’d say it even money that he’s going to claim that “The Far Left is gaming the poll on his site.” Because they/we despise him = which might not be all that wrong except if he actually uses “The Far Left” moniker.
Maybe he’ll get Pat Buchanan on to talk about how He predicted all this in his 2012 book, “Suicide of a Superpower” (which) contains chapters titled “The End of White America” and “The Death of Christian America” = The book that got him fired from MSNBC – Well, technically – it was more to do with him going on white supremacist radio shows to sell the book…
I hated that bastard – he made/makes all Christians look bad. Since he got canned, I’ve significantly curtailed my Political Tourette’s = screaming obscenities at my TV, I see that as a “Win-Win”…
Oh, back ‘On Target’ – (if even further ‘Off-Topic’, sorry) = ‘Patty-Kook’ is at it again – in USA Today: He’s seriously “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” now!
I think he hits every cliche SAM talking point in one article, he really ‘blew the whole wad’ this time to me that says just one thing = THEY’RE FRAKIN SCARED! – ‘Patrick Kennedy: Legalizing pot endangers children’
= (Oh Noes, Think Of The Chitlins!)
Jon Walker at FDL covers it pretty well – ‘By Patrick Kennedy’s Logic Beer Today Is “Virtually a Different Drug†Compared to 40 Years Ago’ – I didn’t see that quoted sentence (at first), But in fairness – it was a truly “target-rich environment”…
That’s SO full of typos: Would you please delete it Pete and let me try again?
Mark Kleiman has a post on the Times editorial. He links to another post by Ann Althouse. Both are laughable, Mr. Kleiman because he just can’t wrap his puritan’s brain around the idea of people smoking pot, enjoying themselves, and not having a problem because of it, and Ms. Althouse because… well, read her post.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2014/07/cannabis_legalization_not_whet051394.php
Glory be…Kleiman has come up with a Third Way, between the Two Extremes (the NYT and Frum, no less). But Mark does admit to the dangers of being “political roadkill” as he promotes “smart legalization.”
” So far, my attempts to put political and organizational muscle behind the idea of smart legalization have merely illustrated the wisdom of Ralph Yarborough’s maxim, “They ain’t nuthin’ in the middle of the road but yaller lines and dead armadillas.†I don’t find life as political roadkill especially uncomfortable, but it does get frustrating.”
The best thing that could happen to marijuana reform is if Mark Klieman wore a duct tape muzzle,,he knows nothing about marijuana marketing or legalization however he does know about continuing to muddy the water.
I disagree. With the majority of the electorate in our camp, his offerings serve as a means of identifying the various facets of prohib propaganda. Very useful to serve as a primer.
Some day, I hope to visit an actual, American Museum of Drug Prohibition, where animated statues of prominent prohibitionists spouting recordings of their words of wit on the subject will be displayed prominently.
A bin of rotten fruit and disposable plastic gloves will be placed at every display, and for a small donation the visitors may purchase some and hurl it at their effigies. Being placed over drains, they could be hosed down after every use. And perhaps in the museum’s bathrooms, small pictures of their faces will be found in the bottoms of urinals and commodes, as are plastic flies in Dutch men’s rooms to improve one’s ballistic accuracy.
With as many people over the decades these idiots have harmed with their avid support of a doomed-to-fail policy, I imagine the museum might even turn a tidy profit…
Like the man said… The Times, they are a changin. That’s N.Y.Times.
Holy Shite, the WaPo is getiing in on the feeding frenzy: Medical marijuana opponents’ most powerful argument is at odds with a mountain of research.
From the article:
Vote No On 2 features another hoodie-clad youngster on its home page, no doubt contemplating the depravity of his existence after medical marijuana. Florida voters don’t seem to be buying any of this, though: Medical marijuana currently enjoys nearly 90 percent support in the state.
More to the point, the notion that medical marijuana leads to increased use among teenagers is flat-out wrong. A new study by economists Daniel Rees, Benjamin Hansen and D. Mark Anderson is the latest in a growing body of research showing no connection — none, zero, zilch — between the enactment of medical marijuana laws and underage use of the drug.
I said that when the prohibs got wounded and began splashing about in the water, the media sharks would come from miles around to enjoy a snack.
(Addressing all media types) Dig in, boys, dig in. Lotsa juicy, blood-dripping, raw red meat for the taking. Kevvie and Co. are about to find out what it’s like to be made into sushi.
I expect nearly every newspaper’s edictorial board will join in on endorsing legalization just to keep readers buying their newspapers.
I’ve been waiting for this for as long as I’ve been an activist. (Big face-splitting grin) We’re WAY past the ‘tipping point’, now. We’ve left Gandhi’s Third Stage (…then they fight you…), and #4 (…then you win.) is coming up soon.
And every one of the pols who’ve been poking us with that big, long, sharp and sh*t-covered prohibition stick is about to find out what happens when we take it from their hands. They better learn the lyrics of the Cannabist Anthem (Peter Tosh’s “Le-gal-ize It!”) or learn how to fill out unemployment forms.
And that gives me an idea: send the prohib pols lots of blank unemployment forms from their various States UI Offices…and pens to fill them out with. And tell them that if they keep voting against their constituent’s manifest political will on this issue, and keep insulting our intelligence with their ONDCP/DEA supplied BS as to their anti-cannabis positions, they will soon have plenty of opportunity to fill them out.
Man… poor prohibitches (not)! When the nation’s biggest newspapers start launching this sort of work I doubt there is any refuge left.
And I’m shocked but not surprised that Calvina would use the Ghost of Trayvon as an image in their campaign. Sorry, Calvina, I am Trayvon and there’s a lot more of me.
Anybody besides me feeling a little vindicated this week?
And thanks Kap for posting that…
That article links to anther Sunday NYT oped that makes this important point:
Americans are not, on the whole, more liberal politically than they used to be — Gallup polling on ideological self-identification has been quite consistent for 20 years. They simply appear to have come around to the view that the war on marijuana is more harmful than marijuana itself.
That’s us folks, that’s the biggest part of what we’ve done, turning the juggernaut ship of state is one thing but we hit where it mattered, in the hearts and minds of the American public. And that generation born into the wwweb age – the millenials – have been eating up all the info we’ve been providing all these years and now support legalization by over 2 – 1. That is no small accomplishment.
Allen, truly we are legion, not in the Biblical sense, but the Roman one.
Millions upon millions have been waiting for these days. And they have finally come. As the ‘Arty’ (artillery) boys used to say, it’s time to “Fire for effect!”.
No let up, barrage after withering barrage in the Comments sections of media outlets. Blast the prohibs every time they dare stick their heads out of the ivory-tower windows. Let them have a taste of what they’ve given us for so long.
“Battery 3 rounds!
Fire for effect!”
Watching the soil boil around the target and flashes from direct hits. Good job!
My doggone arm is black and blue because I keep pinching myself trying to wake up.
Why NYT’s Call For MJ Legalization Is a Huge Deal
The New York Times editorial board made history Sunday, as the first major national paper to call for an end to marijuana prohibition. And how they did it is half the story — with rare flash and panache, as well as the intellectual and moral substance to back it up.
The Times’ editorial has the feel of legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite coming out against the Vietnam War. They dropped a bomb on our country’s disastrous war on marijuana with unprecedented force.
MMJ Opponents’ Argument at Odds with Research
http://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/07/mj.jpg
Keep right on singing, grey lady. Your song sounds fine from my cushion on the infinite couch.
And yet these proven fools hold all the agencies of the federal government, local and state L.E., the coast guard etc., and are still busy fucking up lives on our taxes.
Until we make it clear that we, the cannabist VOTING TAXPAYERS, are no longer supporting it and don’t want our hard-earned money to …or any pol who is too thick-headed to see which direction the wind is blowing from now.
Support for prohibition is largely generational. Just about every poll taken makes that clear. And the soon-to-be-dominant generations want no part of it.
How the ONDCP spends our tax dollars and why the federal bureaucracies and law enforcement are still supporting prohibition
—————————————–2012—2013—2014
Department of Justice
Assets Forfeiture Fund ————-230.3 —232.8—- 244.5
Bureau of Prisons ——————-3,396.9 —3,377.7 —3,517.7
Criminal Division ——————–39.6— 41.0— 40.2
Drug Enforcement Administration 2,357.0— 2,400.4— 2,428.9
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Program 527.5— 530.7— 523.0
Office of Justice Programs ———243.4— 237.5— 380.9
National Drug Intelligence Center -20.0— 20.1— 0.0
U.S. Attorneys ———————78.8 —75.0 —76.4
U.S. Marshals Service————- 248.8— 250.5— 251.5
U.S. Marshals Service â€Â Federal Prisoner Detention- 580.1— 580.1— 656.3
Total Justice ———————-7,722.5—7,746.0— 8,119.3
Department of Labor
Employment and Training Administration– 6.6— 6.6— 6.6
Office of National Drug Control Policy
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas -238.5— 240.0— 193.4
Other Federal Drug Control Programs –105.6— 106.2— 95.4
Salaries and Expenses— ———-24.5— 24.7 —22.6
Total ONDCP —368.6— 370.8—- 311.4
Department of State
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs -494.6— 494.6– 510.5
United States Agency for International Development –173.7— 173.7— 134.6
Total State——– 668.3— 668.3— 645.1
Department of Transportation
Federal Aviation Administration —28.7— 27.6 —28.1
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration –2.7— 2.7— 2.2
Total Transportation —–31.4— 30.3 —30.3
Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service ——60.3 —60.3— 60.9
Department of Veterans Affairs
Veterans Health Administration—-7 637.8— 663.0 —687.4
Oh, man, the NYT is hitting ALL the buttons:The Required White House Response on Marijuana
from the article;
“When the White House issued a statement last night saying that marijuana should remain illegal — responding to our pro-legalization editorial series — officials there weren’t just expressing an opinion. They were following the law. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is required by statute to oppose all efforts to legalize any banned drug.
It’s one of the most anti-scientific, know-nothing provisions in any federal law, but it remains an active imposition on every White House. The “drug czar,†as the director of the drug control policy office is informally known, must “take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance†that’s listed on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act and has no “approved†medical use.” (Emphasis mine – k.)
Someone has definitely done their homework. I suspect some of their lurkers have been visiting The Couch. (Snapping fingers as light bulb goes on) No wonder I couldn’t find my Doritos…
But they don’t go far enough: they mention the 1988 law that brought the Frankenstein’s Mon-, uh, er, ONDCP, into being, but they fail to mention it was none other than the present VP Joe Biden that acted as its midwife.
If this were chess, checkmate in maybe 5-6 moves.
.
.
I beg to differ. Checkmate achieved, the prohibitionists parasites are busy explaining why it doesn’t matter that their King has been captured. “Hey! We’ve still got 3 pawns and a Pope!”
Pete, when the history book is written, your ‘the drug czar is required by law to lie’ webpage will be noted as one of the main helpers to end prohibition.
Just wish it didn’t take the better part of a decade for the NYT and others to clue in.
As far as I know the NYT still requires mandatory fluid assays as a condition of employment.
With insurance companies requiring drug free work zones for substantially lower rates (mostly workman’s comp) it is not necessarily in support of prohibition.
PS: if the corpoarations that own the NYT have decided to abandon prrohibition the greed factor has kicked in,,the money has drawn them out.
NYTimes Will Continue Drug Testing Despite Pot Legalization Stance
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/884
the day before…
New York Nine Year Old Girl With Dravet Syndrome Dies Without Medical Marijuana
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/881
Lowering it to a lesser evil schedule…
Is The DEA Legalizing THC?
So, in other words, if a pharmaceutical product contains THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would be a legal commodity. But if you or I possessed THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would remain an illegal commodity.
Wait, it gets even more absurd.
Since the cannabis plant itself will remain illegal under federal law, then from whom precisely could Big Pharma legally obtain their soon-to-be legal THC extracts? There’s only one answer: The federal government’s lone legally licensed marijuana cultivator, The University of Mississippi at Oxford, which already has the licensing agreements with the pharmaceutical industry in hand.
US Government Patents Medical Pot
U.S.Fort Schwag Mississippi
all in the family…
The Federal Marijuana Ban Is Rooted in Myth and Xenophobia http://nyti.ms/1o0vgeW
The NYT ‘missed a few spots’; they claim there were no scientifically qualified specialists to offer rebuttal to the Anlsinger testimony.
But, as anyone who’s done the research knows, there was at least one. One who remains a hero of mine to this day, Dr. William Woodward.
Dr. Woodward was no stranger to Anslinger’s cavalier attitude toward the facts. In fact, I discovered a few years back that Woodward had been at drawn swords with Anslinger at least as far back as 1930, long before the time of his critical 1937 testimony.
I am currently trying to find the old link that contained what might have been either a portion of Woodward’s diary or a correspondence with a friend wherein Woodward explained how they met, and that Woodward found Anslinger to be a very dodgy character.
In any event, Woodward spoke Truth to Power, and was castigated for it, in no small part because he was a Republican and those who Anslinger packed at his hearing were almost all Democrats, at a time which nearly mirrors ours, with great acrimony between the two Parties.
Woodward stood his ground, and thus deserves better than the selective amnesia the NYT seems to be suffering from regarding the origins of the madness….and who tried to save us from it.
Oh, and to get a feel for what kind of an arrogant little MFer Anslinger was, take a look at his correspondence with a certain Judge Ploscove.
Maybe all Johnny Pee was doing was ‘channeling’ Anlsinger’s malevolent spirit from Hell.
Neocons
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
Whoopi Goldberg Goes On A Righteous Rant About Weed
Whoopi Goldberg: ‘I Know the Good Parts of Marijuana’
A Marijuana Lubricant That Gives You a 15-Minute Climax
Women, their partners, and in general, marijuana lovers of are in luck. Foria was born to satisfy their cannabic sensual desires, thanks to the imagination of Mathew Gerson and the ‘Aphrodite Group’ collective. It is a lubricant designed to delight females of all kinds.
HUFFPOST LIVE: Whoopi Goldberg
a mj lubricant that gives women a 15 min orgasm. that will really get the puritan/ prohibs in a sweat
I suppose the man has to stay awake to watch it happen
.
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“I’m pretty sure that the prohibitionists are unaware that women can have orgasms. They just don’t believe that something exists if they haven’t seen it! Like Mrs. Sabet said to Kev-Kev, “Hurry up! Aren’t you done yet? It’s starting to hurt, hurry up!”
And nail it: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/opinion/high-time-federal-marijuana-ban-is-rooted-in-myth.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0
Goddamn, they are well and truly making penance!
WOW. 20 against legalization, 303 for it. In the NYT of all places. That about sums it up. Any pol worth his salt is taking note of that very fact, and realizing that he had better speed up his evolution on drug prohibition or be put ‘out’ in the next election like yesterday’s garbage.
(Okay, here’s the NON-Typo-Riddled Version) I got it all buggered-up trying to fix a quote in a ‘blockquote’, which I did manage to fix = thankfully, I didn’t leave it “open”… to screw up everything that followed it.
New O’Reilly Poll: = (July 29, 2014)
“Do you favor the legalization of marijuana?”
And while – I gotta wonder – how he’s gonna spin this one, I can’t stand to watch his bigoted “Holier Than Thou” garbage,
Just wait – it’s gonna be him whining about how the whole country is going to hell in a hand basket – and all because the president is black.
Of course, “Biil-O” won’t say it like that, But he’s gonna be spewing “ghetto/hip-hop/rap” culture war b*llsh*t = like he did the other day.
About how, “Oh Lord Help Us, THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS A BUNCH OF GODLESS HEATHENS!” = Yep Bill-O, we’re all going to hell… And we’re dragging you with us – you sick racist fuck! (IDK, whose worse him or Pat Buchanan?)
And FFS, he had Kev-Kev there too!
So then, I guess the didn’t like the previous day’s results?
HA-HA-HA-HA=HAH!
[Legal weed] = (July 28, 2014)
“There is momentum behind the move to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Where do you stand?”
It should be legal, like alcohol = 91%
Dangerous idea with many unintended consequences = 9%
[61128 total votes] (As of about 7:15am Central)
You gotta love his “Out” at the bottom of the page – So, he can freely undermine the results of his own poll if/when he hates the results. = “These polls are not scientific. Only one vote per visitor per poll is counted by the system.”
I wouldn’t doubt that IF he mentions the “Legal Weed” poll from the 28th, (beyond the “Lord Help Us” bit). I’d say it even money that he’s going to claim that “The Far Left is gaming the poll on his site.” Because they/we despise him = which might not be all that wrong except if he actually uses “The Far Left” moniker.
Maybe he’ll get Pat Buchanan on to talk about how He predicted all this in his 2012 book, “Suicide of a Superpower” (which) contains chapters titled “The End of White America” and “The Death of Christian America” = The book that got him fired from MSNBC – Well, technically – it was more to do with him going on white supremacist radio shows to sell the book…
I hated that bastard – he made/makes all Christians look bad. Since he got canned, I’ve significantly curtailed my Political Tourette’s = screaming obscenities at my TV, I see that as a “Win-Win”…
Oh, back ‘On Target’ – (if even further ‘Off-Topic’, sorry) = ‘Patty-Kook’ is at it again – in USA Today: He’s seriously “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” now!
I think he hits every cliche SAM talking point in one article, he really ‘blew the whole wad’ this time to me that says just one thing = THEY’RE FRAKIN SCARED! – ‘Patrick Kennedy: Legalizing pot endangers children’
= (Oh Noes, Think Of The Chitlins!)
Jon Walker at FDL covers it pretty well – ‘By Patrick Kennedy’s Logic Beer Today Is “Virtually a Different Drug†Compared to 40 Years Ago’ – I didn’t see that quoted sentence (at first), But in fairness – it was a truly “target-rich environment”…
Shades of Nixon’s henchmen Erlichman and Haldeman:
“Look, we understood we couldn’t make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue…that we couldn’t resist it.” – John Ehrlichman, White House counsel to President Nixon on the rationale of the War on Drugs.
” He [Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.” – Robert Haldeman, Nixon’s Chief of Staff.
Yeah, Halderman seems to one of those guys that provokes their friends/associates/etc to be bigger assholes than they would normally be – were they not around.
Seriously – after reading a bunch of the transcripts & listening to a fair bit of the tapes, Nixon said nearly all of the most vile stuff that probably ever crossed his lips when he was talking to Halderman…
IDK, if he did that to impress Halderman (maybe IF it was more a subconscious thing?) Which makes me wonder if it was some sorta contest between them or if Halderman was just a “echo-chamber” that tended to only reflect back all of the hate, bigotry, and paranoia?
Sometime it sounded like Bob was pulling Dick’s puppet-strings, letting him say all the horrible crap & agreeing and (essentially asking for more) “Yeah, yeah, uh-huh…” = coaxing more of it out of him – maybe knowing it was taped?
And, that he wanted the worst words to come from Dick (= aka the horse’s mouth), instead of it coming from his own – knowing full well that somebody would someday hear the tapes and look to lay the blame on someone other than Dick if possible??