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Friday Talking Points [191] -- The White Knight Is Talking Backwards...

Chris Weigant — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:01:10 +0000

You know, it strikes me that this week may be one politics-watchers look back on when proving the thesis: "Anything can happen in politics, and usually does." I can picture seeing some wise pundit a few years down the road making the historical reference: "Yeah, but remember when Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul were leading the polls in the Iowa caucuses? Anything can happen... just anything..."

From The Archives -- Question For Obama: How About A Science-Based Drug Policy?

Chris Weigant — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:26:58 +0000

Two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote the following column, hoping that the Obama administration was going to live up to its promise to have a "science-based" drug policy. I spoke of two examples: medical marijuana, and the "morning after" pill. Today seemed a real good day to re-run this column.

Friday Talking Points [190] -- Fine With Me!

Chris Weigant — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 23:47:47 +0000

So here's my proposal: Congress should pass a new schedule of fines. Each would be worded thusly: "the fine shall be $10 million, or 10 percent of the profits the company reported on its annual shareholders' report last year, whichever is larger." That'd be for a minor fine, of course, like a parking ticket. A bigger infraction would lead to, say, "50 percent," or "100 percent," or even higher.

Marijuana Prohibition's Legal Insanity Continues

Chris Weigant — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:54:29 +0000

Like many other Americans, I thoroughly enjoyed watching historical documentarian Ken Burns' recent Prohibition series, on PBS. But I was disappointed by its abrupt end. Burns took the easy way out and didn't point out that right around the same time the legal federal prohibition on alcohol ended, the prohibition of marijuana was ramping up in a big way. And, while the alcohol-targeted Prohibition ended, this prohibition remains. In, fact, it is getting worse, as the Obama administration is continuing a crackdown on anyone who is approaching the problem in any sort of sane or rational manner -- including local and state government officials.

Friday Talking Points [173] -- Obama 2.0?

Chris Weigant — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 23:50:53 +0000

Are we seeing the new model of Barack Obama's presidency? Is this (in the parlance of Silicon Valley) "Obama 2.0"?

Friday Talking Points [170] -- Newt Loses Two, Huntsman Gains An "H"

Chris Weigant — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 23:13:30 +0000

Well, it's certainly been an eventful couple of weeks, hasn't it?

We're back on our regular weekly schedule here after returning home from our second trip this month (this one to Netroots Nation), after which I can firmly conclude that flying, these days, sucks. Big time. Sigh.

Friday Talking Points [160] -- "Name That War" Contest

Chris Weigant — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:27:43 +0000

Anyone who sits in the Oval Office -- no matter what their name or political party -- is going to have detractors. As they should, since disagreeing with political leaders is almost the national sport in America, and always has been (sorry, baseball, but political bickering has been around a lot longer). Sometimes criticism of the president is for very principled and deeply-held beliefs. Sometimes, it is just knee-jerk-ism of the first order.

A Spacey Three-Dot Thursday

Chris Weigant — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 01:49:00 +0000

OK, it's going to a be a quick and disjointed column today, because I have to get tomorrow's Friday column done early tonight. So we return to the "three-dot column" format pioneered by the intrepid Herb Caen of San Francisco newspaper fame (who also famously coined the term "beatnik," by the way...). Today, we've got two Sputnik footnotes, a Sarah Palin chuckle, and a quick note on Obama's "ask the president a question on YouTube" session. Without further ado...

Friday Talking Points [147] -- Democrats Fighting The Good Fight

Chris Weigant — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:24:24 +0000

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I thought that was a pretty good week for Democrats.

Terrifying Hallowe'en Nightmares, Left And Right

Chris Weigant — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:17:29 +0000

It's that time of year again... the time when we pre-empt our usual Friday Talking Points column here and instead gather 'round the virtual campfire and shove a metaphorical flashlight under our chin, and proceed to tell two tales of horror guaranteed to make your blood run like ice water in the veins, no matter which side of the political divide you hail from.

Friday Talking Points [144] -- Midterm Home Stretch

Chris Weigant — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 23:57:02 +0000

I'm going to (mostly) resist the urge to take advantage of this column's volume number in order to write a really gross column. Numerically, and inventory-wise, a "gross" is (of course) one dozen dozen. Twelve squared.

California Marijuana Proposition Update

Chris Weigant — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 23:56:10 +0000

I have to admit that I still have no answer to the question last week's article asked in its title. At this point, nothing more than sheer speculation can answer how President Obama and the White House would react to Proposition 19 passing.

If California Legalizes Marijuana, How Will Obama React?

Chris Weigant — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 23:37:32 +0000

California will vote in a few weeks on Proposition 19, which would (if it passes) effectively legalize the recreational use of marijuana in the state. Chances of it passing seem to be growing, if you'll excuse the metaphor, like a weed. Right now, the poll numbers for Proposition 19 are better than the numbers for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown or Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer against their respective Republican opponents, for instance. Meaning California could become a "test case" state in challenging federal laws on the matter. But what would this mean, practically? Well, a lot of it hinges on how President Barack Obama reacts. Which is impossible to say right now, but at least we can examine the possibilities, now that California legalizing marijuana seems to have moved from the "pipe dream" category (sorry about that, I couldn't resist) to a very real political possibility, if the polling trend continues.

Friday Talking Points [137] -- Listen To Westen And Lakoff, Democrats!

Chris Weigant — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:24:20 +0000

Jollification aside, though, we're still one week away from Congress returning to briefly do their job (or at least give the appearance of doing so), before they award themselves another month or so off, in order to campaign. Labor Day is right around the corner (or perhaps blowing past the corner at 75 miles per hour, if you live in the hurricane zone -- which contains, my television assures me, everything east of about Denver).

Cocaine Sentencing Injustice Slightly Lessened

Chris Weigant — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:34:36 +0000

Crack cocaine, it is widely known, causes irrational behavior. I speak not of irrational behavior among the drug's users, but rather among politicians. It has done so ever since crack appeared on the scene in America during the 1980s. Today it was announced that Congress has approved a bill (which will now head for President Obama's desk) which will scale back the worst of the irrational legislation which passed in the Reagan era. Somewhat. In true incrementalist fashion, Democrats have now made things slightly less unfair, but fell far short of actual fairness. It's as if, right after the Civil War, Congress announced that black people would now count as four-fifths of a person, instead of the previous three-fifths -- in other words, a step towards equality, but not exactly the giant leap of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Which makes it rather hard to praise such an effort, even though it does represent (some) progress.

What Is Jerry Brown Smoking?

Chris Weigant — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:46:13 +0000

I have to apologize right away for that headline. But it is hard to resist the urge to use the "what have you been smoking?" joke when discussing California Attorney General Jerry Brown's recent comments on marijuana, since Brown is talking such patent nonsense.

Friday Talking Points [125] -- Ask! Tell!

Chris Weigant — Fri, 28 May 2010 23:11:40 +0000

Our headline today quite obviously references the legislative progress this week on banning the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (of not allowing gay people to openly serve their country)... but we've got another asking-and-telling issue which we simply must deal with first, before we get to any of that.

Straight-Up, No-Chaser Libertarianism

Chris Weigant — Thu, 20 May 2010 23:30:25 +0000

Rand Paul, who just clinched the Republican Party nomination for the Senate race in Kentucky, is apparently not quite ready for primetime. His recent remarks on the Civil Rights Act painfully show why being a politician is not as easy as some people think. The problem for Paul, son of Ron Paul, is that even if he somehow survives this flap, it is almost guaranteed that there are going to be plenty more of them during the campaign. Because both Pauls, father and son, are (at heart) libertarians. Which requires some explanation, because many folks have never come into contact with the concept of libertarianism.

Friday Talking Points [123] -- A Working Senate

Chris Weigant — Sat, 15 May 2010 00:59:13 +0000

Now, you can take this as a joke in one of two ways. The first, of course, pokes fun at the fact that the Senate takes an absolutely gargantuan amount of vacation time every year, when they are instead supposed to be doing "The People's Business." The second, of course, refers to the fact that the Senate is somewhat of a broken mechanism these days, notorious for not getting much done, ever, on anything. Compare, for instance, the amount of bills the House passes to the glacial pace of "work" in the Senate, of late.

Friday Talking Points [120] -- Republicans Chicken Out

Chris Weigant — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 08:53:09 +0000

Democrats had a pretty good week last week. As attention shifts away from unpronounceable volcanoes (more on them in a moment) to the struggle in the Senate over Wall Street reform, the two parties almost seem to have changed their normal methods of playing the political game. The Republicans are all over the map on the issue, and extremely worried about the impression by angry voters that they are doing Wall Street's bidding -- as well they should be. Republicans are, one day, loudly denouncing the reform bill, using their standard Big Lie technique... and then, the next day, saying a deal is very close, and even voting for strong reform in committees. Republicans (some of them, at least) are chickening out of the upcoming partisan battle the Republican leadership seems to want over the issue (more on chickens later on, too). Democrats have, so far, managed both to admirably stay on message and showed an amazing amount of backbone in countering specious Republican arguments. And, so far, polls show the voters are solidly on the Democrats' side on this one, and just not buying what Republicans are telling them. As I said, we seem to have entered BackwardsLand, or something.

D.C. Legalizes Medical Marijuana

Chris Weigant — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:17:59 +0000

The Washington, D.C. Council voted today to legalize medicinal marijuana. The Washington Post reported the story in a straightforward manner, which failed to note the amusing part of the story:

My 2009 "McLaughlin Awards" [Part 1]

Chris Weigant — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:19:02 +0000

Welcome once again to our year-end wrapup and awards ceremony. Honesty dictates that I immediately genuflect to The McLaughlin Group, from whom I have stolen all these award categories. We will begin this week with Part 1 of these annual awards, and then next Friday on New Year's Day, we will present Part 2, with reduced volume levels (for those who are nursing hangovers... ahem).

Holder's Baby Step On Medical Marijuana

Chris Weigant — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:05:09 +0000

The underlying problem is the fact that the federal government, via the Controlled Substances Act, refuses to admit that marijuana can ever be used medically. This leads to some serious doublethink on the federal level, and also leads to some serious injustice in the courtroom. And nothing the Department of Justice said today changes any of that.

Friday Talking Points [90] -- Obama To Switch Parties

Chris Weigant — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:02:27 +0000

President Obama stunned the political world today by announcing he will switch political parties, and soon become a Republican. "It seems the only way we're going to get bipartisanship in this town is if I lead the way," he said, in brief remarks before leaving for vacation. "The Republicans have refused to work with me because I'm a Democrat, and Republicans' biggest strength has always been the ability to fall into line with whatever their leaders tell them, unlike other certain unnamed political parties in America..." (the president appeared to cough several times at this point, although one of his coughs sounded suspiciously like the word "Democrats," if truth be told...). The president, clear-throated now, continued, "So I will now be the leader of the Republican Party, and they will fall in line with what I tell them to we're going to do. The Democrats who are interested in bipartisanship can join us to pass Medicare-for-all, instead of the Rube Goldberg machine which they have been attempting to construct."

Taxing Marijuana

Chris Weigant — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:44:28 +0000

California voters may soon get a chance to weigh in on whether marijuana should be legalized and taxed by the state. If enacted, this may help the state's budget by providing revenue from a brand new source, while also freeing up money that previously went to enforcement efforts against marijuana growing. Of course, marijuana would still be illegal under federal law, but this may be a turning point in the legalization movement -- the point where politicians desperate for tax revenues see dollar signs instead of prison bars when looking at the cannabis plant.

Barney Frank Introduces Marijuana Legislation

Chris Weigant — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:37:07 +0000

Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts has introduced two pieces of legislation on marijuana -- one medical, and one recreational -- that deserve a lot more attention (and support by fellow House members) than they have been getting. The first would change federal law to allow states to experiment with medical marijuana without interference from Washington. And the second would drastically reduce federal penalties for "personal possession" of marijuana.

Friday Talking Points [82] -- Is Obama The Only Person Who Remembers What America Did In Iran In 1953?

Chris Weigant — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:17:40 +0000

Welcome back to your weekly Friday Talking Points roundup. This week will be a bit unusual, as instead of the normal list of talking points Democrats everywhere should be using this weekend in conversations (especially with the media), I'm devoting the entire talking points segment to one single issue -- why what President Obama is doing on the situation in Iran is exactly the right thing to do, and why his hands are tied (by the ropes of American history) so that saying anything more enthusiastic than he's already said would actually be counterproductive if you support the Iranians currently marching in the streets. Because there is a giant elephant in the room of the discussion of American/Iranian relations that nobody wants to discuss, and nobody (other than Obama himself) is even admitting exists -- an elephant with the year "1953" painted on its side. But more about that later, let's take care of the weekly chores first.

Friday Talking Points [77] -- There's Always Next Week...

Chris Weigant — Sat, 16 May 2009 00:44:07 +0000

I have to start by saying that in all honesty, President Obama and the Democrats didn't have a great week.

Obama's First 94 Days

Chris Weigant — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 01:04:32 +0000

I admit, I am getting the jump on the rest of the media here, by writing my "First 100 Days" article six days early (some would say five days early, but they would be wrong). I have jumped this particular gun already, I should point out, having already written one article (after Obama's first week in office) entitled "Obama's First 168 Hours." So today we are going to pre-empt the usual Friday Talking Points article this week with a special edition on President Obama's "First 100 Days," since everyone will be talking about it starting this weekend.

American Violet A Powerful Movie With A Powerful Message On Race And The Drug War

Chris Weigant — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:44:30 +0000

American Violet is not a "horror movie." It has no monsters, zombies, or mass murderers in it. Just people. But the movie's powerful message on the role racism plays in the Drug War will likely horrify you just the same. So while American Violet is about as far from the "horror" genre in moviemaking as you can get, audiences may indeed be horrified (or perhaps outraged) at the injustice displayed by one district attorney in Texas.

Friday Talking Points [71] -- Historically Speaking (From A TelePrompTer)

Chris Weigant — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:15:11 +0000

"After 27 days, the best House Republicans could come up with is a 19-page pamphlet that does not include a single real budget proposal or estimate. There are more numbers in my last sentence than there are in the entire House GOP 'budget.' "

Question For Obama: How About A Science-Based Drug Policy?

Chris Weigant — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:07:56 +0000

President Obama is taking your questions now, and will answer them tomorrow. In a move to make Obama more accessible and answerable to the public, the White House web site is soliciting questions from the public for Obama to answer on their new "Open For Questions" page. So, given the opportunity, what question would you ask the president? Personally, I would choose: "Will drug policy be included in your new science-based approach to government, or will you let politics continue to trump science in this arena?" Because there have been two specific news items in the past few weeks, and while they are almost completely unrelated, they both come from the "science/politics" debate on drugs. The first is the "morning after" pill, and the second is medical marijuana.

Friday Talking Points [57] -- End Of Prohibition 75th Anniversary Edition

Chris Weigant — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:43:27 +0000

Brian Williams, NBC's talking head extraordinaire, is probably a decent guy, a guy with whom you could sit down and have a beer. [More on the alcohol subject at the end, I promise.] But that doesn't excuse something he said last night on Jay Leno's show.

Election 2008 Odds And Ends -- Waiting For Missouri And Alaska, Pro-Marijuana Initiatives And More...

Chris Weigant — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:02:44 +0000

First, though, I got tired of endlessly downloading various "election results" webpages, in the hopes of getting some final results. And I also got tired of waiting for the mainstream media to do its job and inform the public what is going on with the remaining states, whose election results have not yet been reported. So I called up the state election officials myself, and thought I would share with you what I found.

Debate Questions I'd (Still) Like To Ask

Chris Weigant — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:02:41 +0000

Back in the dim and distant past of this presidential campaign (i.e., February), I wrote a pre-debate column listing questions I would like to hear both Democratic candidates answer. Today's column is a revision of this original. Many of the questions I have are the same, for which I apologize. I don't normally recycle my own material in this fashion, but unfortunately these questions remain largely unanswered, almost two months after the last debate.

In Defense Of Hookers

Chris Weigant — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:35:41 +0000

So maybe we can get beyond our Puritanical roots when it comes to sex scandals as well. Maybe the next time around, John McCain will be on the front page of the New York Times for a lobbyist scandal, without having to throw sex into it. Maybe we'll all realize that it is simply impossible to describe the relationship between Washington politicians, lobbyists, corporations, and campaign cash -- and still have it come out sounding somehow different than what a prostitute does for a living. Or somehow more moral.

Debate Questions I'd Like To Ask

Chris Weigant — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:41:36 +0000

Because watching a televised debate is really the only chance most voters have to see the candidates answer questions and have to think on their feet in a live format. Which means that the more debates that happen, the more people get to see the candidates. And that is indeed a good thing, because it informs the electorate about the candidates to a certain degree.

He Should've Said: "Legalize Bong Hits 4 Jesus"

Chris Weigant — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 22:23:58 +0000

It should be pointed out that it's not often you get to read the phrase (even with brackets): "bong hits [are a good thing]" in a Supreme Court decision.

"Bong Hits 4 Jesus"? Ras Tafari! Amen!

Chris Weigant — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 03:28:19 +0000

Because it's hard to reconcile federal law which states that if you are a certain race (Native American) you are allowed to use an illegal drug (peyote) with your religious ceremony, the practice of many Christian sects which use a legal drug (wine) as a sacrament, and the fact that Rastafarians can be arrested for being caught using their illegal sacrament (ganja). Legally, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But then common sense has never been a strong point of the Drug War.