Cheney versus the rule of law.
Survey of emergency room physicians shows nearly all believe police use excessive force in arresting and detaining suspects.
Former Treasury Sec. John Snow says Bush administration “forgot” the basic principle that before the government implements expansive new programs pushing home ownership, it should probably make sure those people can actually afford the homes they’re buying.
Flash Speak & Spell.
Will it blend: Bic lighter? With fireball goodness.
Will Obama decriminalize marijuana?
Eartha Kitt, RIP. The Agitatrix does a mean version of “Santa Baby.”
Beautiful panoramic of Hong Kong at night.
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TheAgitator.com
More likely that it will take a President with a tough on crime reputation to begin decriminalization of MJ. Sort of like the old saying “Only Nixon can go to China”.
Quote from the article “Some of Obama’s biggest financial donors are friends of the legalization movement… if those three men, who put up $50 to $60 million to get Democrats and Obama elected, can’t pick up the phone and actually get a one-to-one meeting on where this drug policy is going, then maybe it’s true that when you give money, you don’t expect favors.”
Thing is, (unless someone has quotes to the contrary) I’d think legalization is not going to be in the top 10 things they want to discuss when they make that phone call.
Such a tax haul the feddies are missing by not legalizing maryJ.
Why it’s almost like the great depression. Suddenly booze was a valuable source of feddie revenue so it was re-legalized. According to ABC, marijuana is the “most valuable agricultural crop in the USA.” ( The value might be slightly overstated since there is that pesky risk premium included in the street price ). According to the US DEA, the potency of marijuana has increased significantly since the war on drugs began.
According to a friend of a cousin’s neighbour’s cellmate, if it were legal marijuana would sell for about a dollar an ounce. At which price it would put big pharma and big tobacco on the ropes. Might even cut into the sales of that Belgian Beer company.
I’d remind those of you who think Obama will decriminalize pot of a candidate forum during the Democratic primary. There’s a YouTube video available of it that I posted on my blog back then.
Senator Chris Dodd(?) suggested marijuana should be decriminalized. The moderator then asked, by a show of hands, how many other of the candidates agreed with Dodd. The only other candidate to raise his hand was Dennis Kuccinich.
In fact, what Mr Snow actually said was this:
If fact, if you read the original article in the NY Times, what Snow is referring to is the stunning and almost criminal lack of oversight by the Bush administration.
“Might even cut into the sales of that Belgian Beer company.”
And thus we arrive at the true reason pot is illegal. Pot just needs bigger lobbyists than big beer and DuPont and the prison industry.
Since it can be grown as a houseplant with minimum effort, these industries can easily convince the govt that there would be LESS money flowing to the govt if it were legal.
I disagree with them because if I could legally buy a pack of 20 pot “cigarettes” for $5, I would not bother growing my own even if it were legal. At $5, there should be plenty of room for the govt drug dealers to get their cut.
I would really like to see the wording of that ER doc survey. I mean, I suspect that the police frequently use excessive force, but I wouldn’t expect to see a survey reflect 99.8% concurrence that the earth went around the sun.
Decriminalizing isn’t legalizing. What Obama has suggested in the past is to decriminalize it, meaning that if you’re caught with a given amount or less (say, 1 ounce), then you will not be prosecuted because it’s considered personal use. You’d still be held criminally liable if you grow it or if you have more than the given amount in your possession.
That would really help the prisons to be able to shrink their populations and the criminal justice system would have time to prosecute more serious crimes instead of spending time on petty cases where some dude was busted with a joint in his pocket.
On a side note since this is the open thread, Craig Watkins is the 2008 Texan of the Year. Dallas, DNA exoneration stuff.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/texanofyear/stories/DN-toy1_28edi.State.Edition1.204965b.html
“Might even cut into the sales of that Belgian Beer company.”
I think anybody active in the brewing community will tell you that beer and weed are hardly mutually exclusive intoxicants, and the notion that one would chisel into the other’s profits is absurd. One need look no further than Lagunitas Brewing Co. for proof: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20060524/ai_n16413792
“Will Obama decriminalize marijuana?”
That will be a painful day indeed for me, as monkeys will be flying out of my ass.
“… beer and weed are hardly mutually exclusive intoxicants, and the notion that one would chisel into the other’s profits is absurd.”
Beer and weed are best when combined! And in that order. 100% agreement! The beer industry seems to be doing well in coexistence with a THRIVING marijuana market.
“And thus we arrive at the true reason pot is illegal.”
Apparently not yet. But now we do:
Pot is illegal in order to secure MASSIVE profits for the drug cartels and their government/statist sponsors, as well as union job security for the DEA, police forces and prison guards.
Legalize pot and all the profit goes out of it. Poooooffff.
Two words everyone should know: Cui bono.
Marijuana is a weed. I remember as a kid finding it growing wild in the woods where we played. I don’t think it was cultivated there.
If it were legalized, the price would probably be less than $1/ounce. However, it could be taxed at a higher rate. Nobody’s going to fund their state off sales taxes from mj transactions, but a separate mj tax can be quite high and still have the product be cheaper than the current street price, but with most of the money going to the state governments.
The real money maker here isn’t the revenue generated, but rather the revenue *saved* by not jailing hundreds of thousands of people (at $30K/year/inmate) and the bonus to society when we have more workers available. Remember that the $30K/year/inmate is the direct cost to house them, that doesn’t count the corresponding (and statistically equal) hit to the GDP when we remove a producer from the economy. I’m not even counting the other bonuses, such as fewer broken families, fathers being around for their kids instead of in jail, cops having to actually work instead of chasing pot smokers, fewer cops due to the lowered workload, etc.
Even if we didn’t tax mj at all, the savings would be many billions of dollars to the country.
The stats from the ER is hard to put in context. I’d assume there’s something along the lines of self-selection going on here, since most people taken into police custody aren’t routed through the ER first.
That said, there definitely should be established processes by which medical personnel can report the instances they do see. Perhaps there should even be a legal requirement that they do so.
I would bet heavily against legalization. The marijuana community has no political clout with the democrats, because they will ALWAYS vote democrat. Whadder they gonna do, vote republican if the dems don’t repeal prohibition? Of course not: we have to have the lesser of two evils! And if by some chance the dems did repeal it, they would lose money and votes from all the competing industries and drug-crime fear-mongers.
Micheal Chaney,
To the Keynesians in the DC those are not benefits. To them, reducing the jailing industry costs jobs and increases the labor supply. The concept that reducing government spending might help the economy is not even in their playbook.
Unfortunately, the valid points in the article by Dahlia Lithwick’s article are obscured by its weaknesses. Ms. Lithwick asserts that the question of the legality of waterboarding has been resolved “as a legal matter for centuries.” Yet, neither her article nor the one she links provides support for that proposition. It would be interesting to see what legal precedent she could produce from prior to 1808 that supports her legal conclusion.
Ms. Lithwick rejects Mr. Cheney’s comment that those prisoners still left at Guantanamo Bay represent “the hard-core.” In so doing, she relies upon a 2002 CIA report and ignores the fact that the crowd at Guantanamo Bay is quite different from the one there in 2002. Prisoners have come and prisoners have gone. A more current study would be necessary to support her view.
Finally, Ms. Lithwick demonstrates a stunning lack of understanding of the theory of the Unitary Executive. That theory merely holds that whatever executive power exists is ultimately controllable by the president. Possibly in connection with her misunderstanding of the Unitary Executive theory, she seems to be criticizing Mr. Cheney’s comments about the authority of the president to launch a defensive nuclear attack without authorization from Congress. The president’s authority to do so is well settled in law. See The Prize Cases 67 U.S. 235 (U.S. 1862).
I hope one day to be free to smoke a great bowl of fine mj while sipping some nice bourbon with a hooker and not be arrested in America. Better odds of Bush seeing prison time.
#13 Matt D:
“That said, there definitely should be established processes by which medical personnel can report the instances they do see. Perhaps there should even be a legal requirement that they do so.”
Absolutley correct. Healthcare workers here in IL are mandatory reporters for a number of other incidents (possible child abuse, gunshot wounds, dog bites, etc.). Possible injuries that occur in custody should be added to the list for sure.
What, am I the only one reliving her childhood with that speakandspell? That things the awesomest awesome I’ve seen on the internet.
After the Oregon Trail emulator, that is.
http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=GameMuseum.Detail&id=266
It’s also occurred to me upon further reflection that the survey in question is going to reflect a pretty hefty selection bias. By definition, the vast majority of arrestees that an ER doc sees are going to be… in the ER. And you don’t normally end up in the ER after being arrested if you’re not bleeding.
#20 Perlhaqr:
Good point. Though the results of the survey concern me (along with many of the other posts on the Agitator) I don’t think this is going to be a definitive study. What a doc sees in ER may look suspicous, and should definitely be considered. But who knows what took place in the field, and who knows what the suspect/patient was doing prior being subdued by police. This study could be a starting point for other studies that start at the time of arrest and continue through transport, booking, visits to jail medical units (if applicaple), etc..
The bush Administration had little to do with the bad loans. Carter and Clinton signed and expanded the requirements to extend loans to those without good credit and ability to pay.
Clinton made some sensible remarks re: drug laws prior to his becoming president. Then he appointed Barry McCaffrey as his “Drug Czar.”
As was seen in the ‘debate’ over California’s Proposition 5 in the last election, the Democratic party is as beholden to the prison-industrial complex as is the Republican.
As a sop to people who are more liberal-minded, Obama will likely pump more money into treatment and “prevention,” but not a dime will be taken from budgets for cops, prosecutors and jail guards.
I can’t believe I ever came close to thinking this guy would do something about the drug war. I remember DB saying once that he wasn’t disappointed in the Bush administration because disappointment requires an expectation of success. If that’s true, I think we’re going to see some widespread and bitter disappointment with Obama, and fast.
At least I hope we do.
“I remember DB saying once that he wasn’t disappointed in the Bush administration because disappointment requires an expectation of success.”
Expectation is the root of disappointment.
I suppose the question is whether expectation is reasonable in a given circumstance.
In the political realm, expectation from the peonage is insane.
“Beer and weed are best when combined! ”
Sorry CA I beg to differ on that. I prefer one or the other. Not at the same time. To me one counter acts the other.
I guess there is a lot of variety within the human species.
“I prefer one or the other. Not at the same time. To me one counter acts the other.”
When I was young and full of vim and vigor, and had lots less to lose, :) the combination of the two usually ended up with me drinking less beer than I would have otherwise. They are both depressants and when combined take less of each to make you just pass out.
Nowadays, I just drink beer while sitting on the bank of a river while waiting on a fish to bite. :) Then my neighbor drives me home.
In the rush to praise Ms. Kitt lets us not forget that she forsake her American citizenship for one from france. After gaining all her fame in America she left for a small country, as uncivilized as any in the world.
Eartha Kitt stood up to “Lady Bird” Johnson at a White House luncheon and spoke out against the Vietnam War. For speaking the absolute truth about a cruel and unjust war, Ms. Kitt was “rewarded” by her county by being blacklisted in her industry, investigated by the FBI and the CIA, and being placed on Richard Nixon’s infamous “enemies” list. Who forsook whom?
#18 Helmut O’ Hooligan:
“Absolutley correct. Healthcare workers here in IL are mandatory reporters for a number of other incidents (possible child abuse, gunshot wounds, dog bites, etc.). Possible injuries that occur in custody should be added to the list for sure.”
No, absolutely incorrect. I’m a mandated reporter in IL and the system is a nightmare. It’d be great if there was some kind of channel for doctors to report suspected abuse of arrestees (provided the person in question gives consent) but mandated reporting is a terrible idea. At best mandated reports are going to cause more paperwork for health care workers, reduce the likelihood that an arrestee will be taken to the hospital, and either devour cash on more government workers to “investigate” reports or lead to no reports being investigated at all because of the sheer volume. Because of mandated reporting laws here DCFS has told me on several occasions (off the record) that they are only investigating current cases of sexual abuse or cases in which there is an immediate and well documented threat to life. On the rare occasions that they do take the case they almost always miss their 12 hour emergency window, generally don’t show up within 24 hours, and about a third of the time take 72 hours to bother making a contact.
What mandated reporting means is that you are forcing doctors, under penalty of law, to report suspected government abuse to the government. How on earth do you think increasing executive power is going to lead to better self-regulation? You’re going to end up with prisoners having treatment withheld, retaliation on the part of police who have already demonstrated a willingness to abuse suspects, and states getting to brush the whole issue under the rug by making it look like they’re doing something. In exchange patient privacy and autonomy will be further gutted and the government will get yet more influence over the way doctors treat patients.
#30 William:
Interesting points, William. I was just theorizing, but maybe I was wrong. I suppose it should be left to the victim’s discretion whether these incidents are reported. This is the way it is for most other potential criminal incidents, non-injury MVA’s, etc. And I definitely don’t want to make things anymore complicated for healthcare workers (I work in a hospital, and things are damn complicated enough). In hindsight, I guess the emphasis needs to be on other accounability measures, true “civilian control” of P.D.’s, and a renewed vigor for civil liberties among a populace that seems to be rather ambivalent to the subject.