Of course, the concept of Jury Nullification (choosing to find a defendant not-guilty because of your disagreement with the law) is a time-honored Constitutional power of the jury. After all, the jury of peers is the highest judge of the law in our system, and cannot be held to account as to their reason for making a finding.
However, the judiciary has been openly antagonistic toward the concept, even to the point of excluding jurors who believed in the concept, instructing juries that they’re not allowed to think that way, and even attempting to jail activities who are merely trying to inform the population of their rights as jurors.
So this is significant:
Justice Sotomayor Says ‘There Is a Place, I Think, for Jury Nullification’
This week Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor had some kind words for jury nullification, which empowers jurors to judge the law as well as the facts of a case and may involve disregarding the law when the law is unjust. During a discussion about juries at NYU Law School on Monday, Sotomayor, who used to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, was asked about a 1997 decision in which that court “categorically reject[ed]” nullification. “As we govern in the system, and watching it, I’m not so sure that’s right,” she said, according to Law360. “There is a place, I think, for jury nullification—finding the balance in that and the role judges should play.”
A small, but important step.
And, of course, jury nullification has been used to free some people brought to trial on drug charges. It has the potential, as more of the public becomes disenchanted with the drug war, to become even more heavily utilized, even to the point of making it difficult for prosecutors to bring certain kinds of charges forward.
funny how the big shots say we will decide what the law is and you don’t have a say in it. all you need to do is obey, or else. authoritarians are a dime a dozen, in america: http://tinyurl.com/jrafytg
Checks and balances are a sign of a healthy legal system. Jury nullification is one example. Nullification has a long tradition within English law, which is probably why the US still has jury nullification, despite attempts by some courts to disempower its citizens by prohibiting it.
In Merry Olde England, jury nullification ended the witch hunts by the end of the 17th century, as more and more people realized the crime was bogus. In the meantime, England’s King James I (r. 1567-1603) had engineered the deaths of an estimated 35,000 innocent women with his idiotic witch study entitled Daemonologie. In some cases, James personally presided over the torture of witch suspects.
James I also violently opposed the use of tobacco, the plant having recently been introduced from the New World. Not because he knew of its potentially ill health effects. He didn’t. No one did. He called tobacco a habit of “those filthy Indiansâ€, referring to Native Americans. Note the Bad King’s emphasis on a plant, tobacco, and its correlation to a culture and people he dismissed as worthless, and obviously detested. Some things never change.
If you had to live under a half-witted, crazed tyrant like James I, wouldn’t you want the option of jury nullification? I know I would, and I don’t even use tobacco products.
Jury Nullification is the reason for adding mandatory minimums and gag orders to Cannabis jury trials. A deterrent that seems to be working since over 90% of those busted choose a plea bargain. With mandatory rehab, urine tests and probation. For a non crime. The Cannabis cases where JN has worked seemed to also nullify double jeopardy by appealing to a higher police agency. If the state doesn’t get you the feds will as with Eddy Lepp. Sister Somaya had to go through several bust’ to be finally nullified. Ed Rosenthal was given a one day sentence after the jury wrote the judge about the gag order and not having proper evidence given to them.
I believe most still fear stories of the old Jim Crow days and lynch mob days in the South. When juries of the lunch mob were peers getting their friends off. The important difference is the victims. Cannabis users are persecuted by the government whereas the lynch mobs did the persecuting. Murdering people and getting off on JN does tend to sour the process. More authoritah “means” to the end of perpetuating the war and the profits on the war. Plus a bonus of racism, classism and generally demonizing large masses of the public. While keeping many multinational corporations protected from Ganja and Hemp competition if it was truly Free Market capitalism.
Nullification is a weapon of good in the drug war until we find a politician with a true anatomy containing a backbone and set of gahoonies.
Speaking of gahoonies, enjoyed the tasty aroma of the troll-chowder you cooked up the other day in a response comment.
My California state Senator, Mike McGuire just introduced SB987 a 15% tax on medical cannabis to be stacked on top of existing retail taxes. I wrote him a friendly letter telling him my Mexican Cartel buds will be looking forward to the increased bidnezz.
In 2003 I was invited to help trim Eddy Lepp’s giant cannabis crop but then the feds busted him and cut his crop down. I also attended the first day of Ed Rosenthal’s trial which was also in 2003. I almost spit out my cannabis lollypop when Judge Breyer did his anti-Jury Nullification lecture prior to starting proceedings.
It sounded much like a threat to me.
Go Jury Nullification!
The Irish Police delivered hand-written messages yesterday to several press rooms in Dublin, warning about possible threats to specific journalists who have been reporting on recent gangland activity. Here’s part of an editorial published in today’s Irish Independent:
Every attempt to tame the media or subvert the truth is an affront to our country and its people. It is a challenge to law and order and therefore cannot be allowed to go unmet.
The importance of the freedom of a journalist to do their work is uniquely recognised by the courts.
Their freedom is in lockstep with all those who believe in civil liberties. All democracies protect and cherish free speech as a fundamental right.
As the statement from our Editor-in-Chief points out: “Our media group will not be deterred from serving the public interest and highlighting the threat to society at large posed by such criminals.”
Those with something to hide are the only ones intimidated by, or frightened by, the truth.
There is no length to which they will not go to shield themselves from the consequences of its exposure. Such bullying is ultimately devoid of purpose as, no matter how menacing the threats, there is no known hiding place from the truth.
And not even an AK47 can arm the most ruthless against the facts.
Irish Independent Feb 12th
http://tinyurl.com/IrelandFollowsMexico
“If you support prohibition then you support bank-rolling criminals, corrupt politicians and terrorists. There’s simply no other logical way of looking at it.”
Malcolmkyle’s comment in that Ireland article should be quoted by debate moderators this year and handed to Hillary Clinton. Chuck? Rachel? Rush? Anybody???
And drug warriors/prohibs support having sex with little children. Think of the strategic advantage the Taliban and ISIS etc gain by having sex with little children. Drug money increases the odds of children being molested.
This is why I registered myself as a Dem for this year (Independents are not allowed to vote in some areas), because far too many republicans want to have sex with children . . . I think when you make it easier for a monster to molest a child, then you are in support of the actions and physically making it easier for the monster . . . an accessory to molestation/rape. Who would want to bet that hired henchmen for the Mexican Cartels don’t use rape on youngsters as a means of control/punishment/warnings? Central America? Burma? Russian Mafia even (who was also in my Baghdad Prison)?
“Organized Crime is why you all are in Iraq (2008)”. Those words haunt me every day. It’s easy to quit fighting when those you fight have no and few weapons or finances.
Johann Hari has an article in Huffpo:
“For years, doctors kept approaching [Anslinger] with evidence he was wrong, and he began to snap, telling them they were “treading on dangerous ground” and should watch their mouths.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-influence/real-reasons-marijuana-is-banned_b_9210248.html
OT, sorry, but related to the judicial process:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-09/hsbc-sued-for-drug-cartel-murders-after-money-laundering-probe
i need to get jacked up on marijuana and watch this: http://tinyurl.com/hlv6pmr it’s your taxes at work, kinda
If I had to guess, I suspect that they would’ve been one of the first corporation interests whose employees were handling government secrets – (I’m thinking… maybe the Skunkworks Projects? )
And that this could have easily been a training video along the lines of “Don’t go out drinking in public & blab secrets to the cute girl you picked up at the bar, as she could be working for the Soviets!”
Think = Warren Zevon – ‘Lawyers, Guns & Money’ – except they tell them that there will be such help for them if “she’s with the Russians too…” Although they could expect to be shoved in an Oubliette, or maybe Leavenworth? = If secrets reached another country via this sort of leak.
Or maybe there’s some other reason that they would’ve made such a film, IDK what all Lockheed Martin was into in the defense industry outside of aerospace tech – maybe something that they picked up from the Martin buyout?
I guess spraying an aerosolized form of LSD would’ve been one way to incapacitate the personnel in an enemy area/LZ prior to going in?
But that could be a real crapshoot if even a few people were more focused on manning Anti-aircraft turrets or what-have-you, rather than being “jacked-up” in a negative way…
Or they are just trying to make a buck like American Car dealerships do on bases in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan . . . and like McDonalds, Subway, TGI Fridays, DQ, Taco Bell, Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut, Cinnabon, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC etc.
Imagine if you B. Snow was a Civilian Contract Worker (non-military/DoD/Pentagon) and Pete was my Major and DdC was my 1st Sergeant, while I was just a private. Who do you really expect gives me, the private the verbal orders on how to do my job and what I should do? If you guessed that the Civilian Contract Worker was the one who usually gave Privates their orders, then you know more about our Military than most people do. Even with the above higher ranking soldiers in the same room with me, as well as you, the Civilian Contract Worker, you’d still be giving me the orders. At least that’s how it was for me. With no-man’s land just a quarter mile away, I wasn’t allowed to keep my weapon in the area I worked at (keeping Contract Workers from India and other parts of Asia safe) because it could promote a ‘hostile working environment’. Or if I encountered an Indian contract worker turned terrorist, I would have to tell him to stop using his knife or other weapon and then get KBR (Civilian) to first document the assault before letting the military do something, but that is also why we have Ugandan Security Guards (yes, real Ugandans from Uganda Africa, wearing their contract uniforms–dressed like safari guides), parked outside most of our facilities. That’s how it was in 2008. America: my country tis of thee no more. My heroes are those who step on the U.S. flag and use it to clean up shit–then you’ll need to buy another one at Wal-Mart, which is good for business.
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Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. 1 (1794)
In this case, the first Chief Justice, John Jay, wrote: “It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision… you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy”.
In 1895 in Sparf v. United States, the Court said that courts need not inform jurors of their de facto right of juror nullification although jurors’ inherent right to judge the law remains unchallenged.
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Everyone needs to keep in mind that a prohibitionist wouldn’t acknowledge the truth if it jumped up and bit him on the ass. Rarely does a week pass when a prohibitionist doesn’t cause me to reminisce about an acquaintance who was the most comprehensive pathological liar I’ve ever met. If that guy hadn’t lied to you then you couldn’t have known him for more than 10 minutes. The headline on the article linked below is inaccurate. I’ve adjusted it to make it more accurate.
It just this minute struck me that I haven’t kept up with current events in the life of the liar mentioned above. I can’t say for certain that he hasn’t been put in charge of disseminating public “information” for the sycophants of prohibition. It’s certainly a plausible explanation and he did have a substantial affection for cannabis for enjoyment. Not that he’d ever have admitted that verbally.
Michelle Alexander on why Clinton should not consider the black vote as hers automatically:
‘Some might argue that it’s unfair to judge Hillary Clinton for the policies her husband championed years ago. But Hillary wasn’t picking out china while she was first lady. She bravely broke the mold and redefined that job in ways no woman ever had before. She not only campaigned for Bill; she also wielded power and significant influence once he was elected, lobbying for legislation and other measures. That record, and her statements from that era, should be scrutinized. In her support for the 1994 crime bill, for example, she used racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals. “They are not just gangs of kids anymore,†she said. “They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.‒
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-hillary-clinton-doesnt-deserve-black-vote
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Oh-oh. Life has suddenly taken an unexpected turn for the worse for the fans of cannabis. Did this guy really need to file the serial number off his WMD? Now we’ll never know if it came from Iran or North Korea!
I’ll bet that the neighbors quit filing complaints!
Do the “journalists” who write this sort of nonsense at WNCN ever read the comments on there own site? They are being thoroughly ridiculed for the vague WMD reference.
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Rats, I thought that I was thoroughly ridiculing them too. Quite frankly I doubt that they’re reading the comments. I know that I certainly wouldn’t if I’d had a piece of utter idiocy like that published. Heck, I wouldn’t even go out in public without wearing a disguise if I were that stoo-pid.
The consensus seems to be that the “WMD” is a sawed off shotgun. How the heck does someone think of calling a shotgun a WMD? I suppose my next door neighbor might come up with that. He keeps a flock of albino pigeons in his back yard and I could probably take out as many as half a dozen with one shot and 3 or 4 pigeons with bad karma. I wonder if you need a high school diploma to be a cop in the Carolinas. Do you want to see a cannabis grow that an idiot South Carolina cop thinks is worth $164,000?
http://cdn.tegna-tv.com/-mm-/ddc6ad9a71d523a5c3213ea53260fb5d46bf99a6/c=53-0-396-258&r=x404&c=534×401/local/-/media/2016/02/10/WLTX/WLTX/635907005766270725-marijuana-3.JPG
http://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/7j3mzp/picture59543241/ALTERNATES/FREE_320/grow
http://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/hfu6qj/picture59543246/ALTERNATES/FREE_320/marijuana
Let’s see, 45 plants producing 1 lb each (454 grams)=20,430 grams.
Not likely that the grower is competent enough but let’s pretend he’ll get one gram per watt which means he needs 21 1000 watt lamps. Screw safety, let’s go with 15 amps per lamp just to run the lamps. That’s 315 amps. 420 amps if you figure the proper margin of safety needed. I guess he could do it with a 200 amp panel in 2 grow rooms and a flip flop light schedule. Does this guy look smart enough to figure it out?
http://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/bish1a/picture59671956/ALTERNATES/FREE_960/Justin%20Andrew%20Helps-online
He wasn’t even smart enough to mitigate the hardwood floors sucking up his light. Such utter disregard for that beautiful hardwood floor is just plain shameful.
Well, at least the police estimates are within the realm of the possible. $8.03 per gram for the finished product in South Carolina? That’s $225 an ounce. It must be a typo.
â™» Senators want to abolish financial aid penalties
for college students with drug convictions
â™» A Lie College Students Might Want To Tell
â™» Civilized Life
Cannabis Culture Elevated
â™» Review:
Cannabinoids Reasonable Option For Chronic Pain Treatment
â™» Study:
Marijuana Linked To Better Outcomes In Brain Injury Patients
Indeed it is a small step–depending on where you live at. Since small towns dominate my area, they only pick jurors who are still engaged at picking and eating the lice/bugs found in each other’s hair (only our state’s local rap and rock/metal scene is the most progressive). Earlier this month, I wrote to my incest born Congressman of a politician (not even 40yrs old yet) about Industrial Hemp supplementing our lowering oil economy via hemp fuels, clothing, paper–you all know what it makes and he wrote back about not believing in Marijuana legalization because the FDA finds it harmful to the body and mind. He’s a Cruz aficionado.
Where I work at, my boss had the perfect opportunity to create and sell products that would be beneficial to the legal and medical marijuana industries, which would have helped us during the oil money drought in my area (I hate any gallon of gas that isn’t at least $2 a gallon–I want to vomit at anything that doesn’t cost $20 and higher to fill up a car). For 3/4ths of a year, we had to work 4 days a week and we could have used Oregon, Colorado, Washington and California’s business, now the same product we make and sell has been taken over by another company and it’s a product that would need replacing from time to time due to all the moisture, dust/dirt, fungus and bugs that generally come from small and mega grows.
The only sane and calming thing around me is the loud trains that come every 15/30 min–all day long–like the one coming right now with it’s 2min loud horn.
P.S. I met a local rap artist who’s an Iraq war vet and he’s allergic to plant matter based pot, but he can and loves the dabs. He’s the second person I’ve ever met who claims to be allergic to cannabis (both in the military). He says it causes his throat to close up, but is eager to see Legal Medical Pot in the nation so the VA will be forced to give him THC/CBD extracts. So, no pot, no edibles and no hash for him . . . what about Sodas?
Can you all please write to Mark Wayne Mullin–my inept oil and Cruz loving Congressman. Every time he writes back, it has nothing to do with what I said . . . at least Senator Dr. Tom Coburn replied on my topics (yes I miss him because of who we have now).
Take care couch.
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Poe’s Law kills your parody…unless it wasn’t parody. In the off chance you weren’t kidding about FDA “disapproval” of cannabis:
The only reason that the FDA has not approved or rejected any phytocannabinoid medicines is because no one has ask them to approve it. IMO this is one of the most brilliant tactical strategies employed by the prohibitionist parasites. It requires them to do absolutely nothing to maintain the status quo. It’s a time tested success of a strategy. The oldest use of the “we just don’t know” tactic which I’ve been able to document was in an article titled “The A.M.A.: Marijuana Warning” which was published in the June 28, 1968 (nineteen sixty eight) issue of Time Magazine.
Now don’t go jumping to the conclusion that I want someone to make such an application. While it’s only speculation on my part, I sincerely doubt that the FDA will approve any phytocannabinoid medicine unless left with no wiggle room* for plausible deniability.
(*no relationship to the wiggle dude)
There are a number of drugs available such as opium tincture USP and cocaine hydrochloride that are not FDA approved but still available if a doctor wants to prescribe them:
http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?setid=405b7997-1e47-4904-96d0-72c241ed8195
http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?setid=24faa247-fe12-4574-881d-445b078b3e87
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If you mean drugs like aspirin and penicillin which were grandfathered in they are FDA approved. They just did not have to go through the current process to get there. The FDA calls them GRAS medicinal substances – Generally Recognized As Safe. The part that I see dripping with irony is that absent the Anslinger/Hearst witch hunt medicinal cannabis would have received a GRAS designation and have been FDA approved.
Try this hypothetical on for size. The first presumption in this hypothetical is that a law which is struck down as unconstitutional is null…it never really was a law. The second presumption is that medicinal cannabis wasn’t on the GRAS list because of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Since that law was struck down as unconstitutional in Leary v. United States 395 U.S. 6 (1969) it never existed. Since it never existed why the heck couldn’t we make the FDA approve cannabis based on the fact that it would have received a GRAS designation absent the law which subsequently was absent because of this legal fiction? While 48 of 48 States had criminalized cannabis for enjoyment by the time FDR signed the bill into law in 1937 it was commonplace for the pre-1937 criminalization laws to include an exception for medicinal use. If all or all but a few States included that exception wouldn’t that be compelling evidence in favor of cannabis getting that designation?
Regardless of any of the above isn’t the GRAS designation for medicinal substances only in play for medicines in use prior to 1955?
It’s not a parody of any kind and even Nathan Poe would find MWM ridiculous. Congressman Mark Wayne Mullin (paid by us) did write back telling me that the FDA did not approve of marijuana for those reasons, in response to industrial hemp coming here to make jobs in the non-Marijuana industry i.e. clothing, hempcrete, hemp fuels, materials used for housing, biodegradable plastics etc. Why didn’t MWM email me back using an emoticon letting me know he was parodying his reasons to not implement industrial hemp? He’s too busy trying to outlaw Obama Care because of abortion, while not wanting to juggle anything else that has nothing to do with oil. I ‘Jonathan Swift’ him an email about euthanizing Central American refugees by poisoning their food with an extreme dose of heroin (cheaper than keeping them here or even sending them back) and all he could respond with is that we need to eliminate ISIS (Only because I ‘briefly’ mentioned helping our European friends do it to their Muslim refugees fleeing war and terrorism). We’re so right wing conservative here, I don’t know how to email anything serious . . . I’ve exhausted myself trying to do that.
We could win awards for being backwards and not progressive in my state. Because oil makes money, that is proof it is clean for the environment, not a plant, which is an unnatural product, since it grows and cannot be drilled. That is the reasoning here–funded by big oil and coal.
Your State just might be a Redneck if your Governor’s Daughter has been living in a trailer on the Capital Mansion grounds–funded by the taxpayers. Kicking her off those grounds is the epitome of Progressiveness here. Thank you Mary Fallin. For your next act, insist that ‘Carmen’ use banjos the next time they perform that opera.
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A couple of interesting statistics were released withing the last few days. In 2015 reported sales of cannabis in Colorado came up $4 million short of $1 billion. That means the State collected $130-something million in gross tax revenue. Total gross tax revenue reported increased by just under 42.5%.
For 2015 the Colorado State Patrol reports that rather than increasing by just under 42.5 percent, the total number of drivers arrested by the CSP for being cannabis addled fell by 1.3 percent from 674 to 665. Drivers arrested solely for being cannabis addled also did not increase by just under 42.5 percent, but declined just under 2% from 354 to 347.
I don’t think that anyone other than myself has noticed that the total number of DUI arrests made by the CSP was just under 22% higher in 2014 than in 2015. Total arrests declined by exactly 1000 from 5,546 in 2014 to 4,546 in 2015.
OK, who besides me thinks that legal cannabis could actually be beneficial to highway safety? Where did those 1000 drunk drivers go?
I often wonder why attorneys who are representing clients on cannabis charges do not use the Constitutional argument. There was no authorization in the Constitution for government to prohibit any ingestible substance prior to the 18th Amendment (which did authorize it, for a time). That authorization was removed with the 21st Amendment, and it has not been restored by any subsequent amendment being passed and ratified. Ergo, prohibition of any ingestible substance is unconstitutional, as is prohibition of growing any kind of plant. Ergo, cannabis is NOT an illegal plant nor is it an illegal ingestible substance. Clear, concise, an irrefutable argument.
I imagine it’s because the attorneys know that it would be pointless. I agree with you that the Constitution can and should be interpreted as not giving the federal government power to prohibit cannabis. However, since the Supreme Court has, over the years, interpreted the Constitution to give the federal government those powers, lower courts turn to established precedent as the determining factor regarding the meaning of the Constitution (regardless of how wrong or bizarre). It would take some kind of really compelling case to work its way up the system to even begin to chip away at so many years of jurisprudence. And that’s highly unlikely in most cannabis cases. I believe it would also be fruitless if the defendant was charged under state law (as is most often the case), since your argument regarding the unconstitutionality of a federal prohibition wouldn’t prevent a state prohibition.
One would just need to ask the court “Is the Constitution the Supreme Law of the Land?” Once the answer is “Yes.” (It could be nothing else.) then one uses the above argument. If further proof is required just use the SCOTUS own words:
Quite simply, they sidestep the entire constitutionality issue with the Commerce Clause, most recent affirmed by the Raiche decision. Since it falls under that wide and questionable interpretation, it’s defacto within their powers. Until the current overly broad interpretation is overturned (highly unlikely) the point is moot.
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Well speaking of the SCOTUS (Cue the Munchkins) Antonin Scalia is in the process of assuming room temperature. Am I a bad person because I’m so happy that he’s dead that I’m almost happy that he was alive?
Holy cow, will this delay their dismissal of Oklahoma and Nebraska v. Colorado? What the heck does it take for them to write the respective AGs of those States a note that says “pound sand”?
That is a wake I would attend and be remembered as one of the happiest attendees there.
The GOP had Reagan appoint Kennedy as Supreme Court Justice in his last year in office,1988,is calling for Obama not to do his job and appoint a replacement,,already calling for blocking any candidate Obama sends to Congress.
This could be the fight that costs the GOP not only the WH but the Congress also. Get er done.
It’s like the death of Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco. No one sympathizes with a dead fascist dictator. It would be considered abnormal to do so.
Scalia sought to impose a concordant upon the country through his often unique interpretations of constitutional law, in violation thereof, recognizing Catholic canon law. It’s classic fascism. His decisions were predictable for that reason. That canon law and its progenitors helped instigate the French, Russian, Spanish, and Mexican revolutions, as well as wars such as WWI and WWII, was a mere footnote as far as Antonin Scalia was concerned, if he cared at all.
Well Tony, is it warm enough for you down there?
The Republican strategy of delaying the appointment of his successor until a new president is in office could backfire…. that would mean that their 25 year majority in the SCOTUS would be eliminated for the next year and maybe it will be Bernie who gets to select the new judge. Seems to me they should watch what they pray for….they are more likely to get a neutered right wing compromise candidate from Obama than Sanders…
This comment on a Huffpo thread amused me:
“Obama could nominate Jesus Christ and the Republicans would find a way to obstruct his nomination.”
May 01, 2009 BREAKING:
Obama to nominate Jesus Christ to Supreme Court —
Republicans Announce Filibuster
In a breaking story still emerging, President Barack Obama has announced the nomination of Jesus Christ of Nazareth to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court to replace the retiring justice David Souter.
Republicans hastily called a press conference to announce outrage at the selection, and an immediate filibuster.
How to save the world from the Supreme Court
In 1937, fresh off a landslide re-election victory, and frustrated at his New Deal policies being repeatedly overturned by the Supreme Court, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed to reform the court.
He proposed legislation allowing the president to appoint another justice to the highest court for every current member over 70 ½ years old, up to a maximum of six — effectively allowing him to load up the bench with hand-picked cronies. It’s one of the most notorious moves of FDR’s presidency, taught in schools as an ignominious abuse of power and one of his most shameful acts.
But it’s none of those things. Changing the number of justices is a perfectly constitutional idea, and one of the few ways it’s possible to get some democratic influence on the court outside of waiting for one of the justices to retire or die. It’s time to bring it back.
I have a feeling Obama will try a prohibitionist nominee like A.G. Loretta Lynch. I’m wondering too how this will play out for Hillary’s chances….I’m sure her “feminist” (read Corporate) backers will try to make this about Roe v. Wade as a distraction to her history of war-mongering and race-baiting. Here’s a glimpse into the personality of her self-confessed mentor, Henry Kissinger:
http://www.alternet.org/world/top-10-most-inhuman-henry-kissinger-quotes
“We can’t be so fixated on our desire
to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.â€
– Bill Clinton
“Today, America would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the world government.â€
– Henry Kissinger (Bilderburg Conference 1991 Evians, France)
Nixon’s Treason
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/486
Nixon lied to schedule Ganja #1
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1650
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/2-month-old-baby-youngest-patient-receive-cannabis-treatment-hospital/#OZmaXHEHXxAyI7Mh.99
Last year, the Italian government finally made a legal distinction between cannabis and so-called hard drugs. Today, Italy’s MPs are considering legalizing cannabis. What’s driving this new renaissance attitude?
First, Pope Francis excommunicates the mafia, now this. It’s getting so the mafia can’t make a dishonest living. Many of the legalizing factions will likely get a boost once UNGASS meets in April of this year.
Source: http://www.thelocal.it/20150728/is-italy-about-to-legalize-cannabis
Bill Maher lights up during a monologue on legalization. Warns us we’re not totally there yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_4ND12gEOs
I’m glad someone mainstream like Bill Maher has mentioned the difference between gay marriage and drug reform…. nobody loses income when gay people marry, unlike prison investors, DEA and police (plus a whole load of other parasites Maher didn’t mention) if the drug war boondoggle is brought to an end. No doubt Obama is looking forward to a whole heap of “speaking fees” from Wall St for being a good boy after January next year.
OT, from Maia Szalavitz
8 Ways America’s Scandal-Plagued Rehab Industry Needs to Clean Up Its Act
http://tinyurl.com/jn2v7ap
A fun passage;
“[I]n no other area of medicine do insurers pay for hours of group “therapy,†films and lectures that consist overwhelmingly of indoctrination into the teachings of a self-help group, available for free in church basements.”
Zing!
You beat me to it Will. The business model of many treatment centers is totally dependent on prohibition to round up customers, leading to poor service and management lazyness. This was one bit which struck me as insightful:
“The great harm reductionist Alan Marlatt (RIP) frequently used an analogy that compared the rehab industry to other customer-focused businesses. A car company, he noted, faced with declining sales and lack of consumer interest, would not complain that customers are “in denial†about the quality of their vehicles. Nor would it try to have the government arrest people who refused to buy their cars. Instead, they’d improve their offerings—or, at the very least, their marketing and consumer outreach.”
Marijuana legalization and drug law reform has an enemy that rarely gets mentioned, except indirectly. The enemy is Producerism.
Under producerism, a type of master/slave society, a person’s value is determined by how productive they are according to certain, set standards. The business sector’s conclusion has always been that marijuana consumers are too dysfunctional to make good little producers. Thus the efforts to eliminate the “parasiteâ€. Producerism doesn’t just affect marijuana customers:
And more specifically:
Producerism explains the current government attacks on welfare recipients, whereby recipients are subjected to drug testing. For the offending government, it’s a twofer. While this is happening, drug law reformers are made to feel a need to prove to the world that drug consumers are good producers. They are good producers, of course, as much as anyone else, if not better in some cases. They shouldn’t need to prove it. Whether a person is a good producer is a private matter, or a matter between an employer and an employee. Neither the government, nor its judicial system, should assume any role, given how officials typically implement producer-based laws.
Producerism falls in line with my theory on ECS deficiency from 12,000 years of use into a cold turkey prohibition. CAT scans determined brain fear centers are larger in “conservative” or non using people. More dependence on authority. Those not abstaining are those questioning authority. Not good for business if business is as usual. The entire concept of urine testing is to weed out the undesirables who might question their methods. We know it has nothing to do with impairment. The flip side of prison cages are asylum rehab cages. Depending where your investments are. Plus the corporate competition kept out of the way with prohibition is a factor. Producerism sucks.