Your Turn, Sean Hannity...

Speaking at the Take Back America conference on June 3, American Progress CEO John Podesta said, "I think when you get so distant from the facts as -- as guys like Limbaugh and Sean Hannity do, yeah, I think that tends to -- it kind of -- it tends to corrupt the dialogue." Apparently he struck a nerve with Fox News' Sean Hannity. Hannity challenged Podesta to "defend and explain one example where I -- where I said something that was so false." Since choosing just one of Hannity's distortions is too difficult, here are some examples:

HANNITY: "You're not listening, Susan. You've got to learn something. He had weapons of mass destruction. He promised to disclose them. And he didn't do it. You would have let him go free; we decided to hold him accountable." (4/13/04)

FACT: Hannity's assertion comes more than six months after Bush Administration weapons inspector David Kay testified his inspection team had "not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material" and had not discovered any chemical or biological weapons. (Bush Administration Weapons Inspector David Kay, 10/2/03)

HANNITY: "[After 9-11], liberal Democrats at first showed little interest in the investigation of the roots of this massive intelligence failure...[Bush and his team] made it clear that determining the causes of America's security failures and finding and remedying its weak points would be central to their mission." (Let Freedom Ring, by Sean Hannity)

TRUTH: Bush Opposed the creation of a special commission to probe the causes of 9/11 for over a year. On 5/23/02 CBS News Reported "President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11." Bush didn't relent to pressure to create a commission, mostly from those Hannity would consider "liberal" until September 2002. (CBS News, 5/23/02)

HANNITY: "Now here's where we are. The inherited Clinton/Gore recession. That's a fact." (5/6/03)

HANNITY: "The president inherited a recession." (7/10/03)

HANNITY: "He got us out of the Clinton-Gore recession." (10/23/03)

HANNITY: "They did inherit the recession. They did inherit the recession. We got out of the recession." (12/12/03)

HANNITY: "And this is the whole point behind this ad, because the president did inherit a recession." (1/6/04)

HANNITY: "Historically in every recovery, because the president rightly did inherit a recession. But historically, the lagging indicator always deals with employment." (1/15/04)

HANNITY: "Congressman Deutsch, maybe you forgot but I'll be glad to remind you, the president did inherit that recession." (1/20/04)

HANNITY: "He did inherit a recession, and we're out of the recession." (2/2/04)

HANNITY: "The president inherited a recession." (2/23/04)

HANNITY: "The president inherited a recession." (3/3/04)

HANNITY: "Clearly, we're out of the recession that President Bush inherited." (4/2/04)

HANNITY: "Stop me where I'm wrong. The president inherited a recession, the economic impact of 9/11 was tremendous on the economy, correct?" (4/6/04)

HANNITY: "[President George W. Bush] did inherit a recession." (5/3/04)

HANNITY: "[W]e got [the weak U.S. economy] out of the Clinton-Gore recession." (5/18/04)

HANNITY: "We got out of the Clinton-Gore recession." (5/27/04)

HANNITY: "We got out of the Clinton-Gore recession." (6/4/04)

FACT: "The recession officially began in March of 2001 -- two months after Bush was sworn in -- according to the universally acknowledged arbiter of such things, the National Bureau of Economic Research. And the president, at other times, has said so himself." (Washington Post, 7/1/03)

HANNITY: "It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state." (8/25/03)

FACT: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." (1st Amendment)

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." (Article VI)

His idiocy was made more apparent watching him interview Ed Smart about his daughter Elizabeth who, we discovered, is doing just super duper despite being raped by a greasy homeless pedophile for 9 months.

The interview centered on both men's relief that Elizabeth had escaped from her captors ensuring she would get back to a proper brainwashing at home with her family. Sean's smarmy religious posturing and moral high road superiority was especially amusing in this interview precisely because he was interviewing a Mormon (Ed Smart - fully owning the part with his aggressively serene demeanor).

Since Sean is a Catholic, it was obvious during the interview that both of these "Christians" think that the others' brand of faith is inappropriate, however they both strove to maintain a forced air of brotherhood, with limited (but funny) results.

In addition to listening to himself go on and on every day on radio and televsision, Sean has written a number of useless books, which blow about as hard as you might expect. With none of the deft humor that used to be the Hallmark of Rush Limbaugh (and is arguably carried on today by naughty conservative spinster Ann Coulter), Sean's latest book belies him to be an actual egotist blowhard asshole, and not a sly, "I'm saying things this way on purpose to piss off those of you who don't understand it's all a big joke" blowhard asshole.

Sean, like most modern Neo-con pundits (the ones who can actually bring themselves to perform as apologists for the obvious stupidity of George W. Bush) mistakenly posits that because some issues are black and white, all issues are black and white, and the grey areas loved by liberals in matters of morality and social policy are nonexistent. Sean also mistakenly thinks that all conservatives agree with him and his fellow right-wing nutjob talking heads, and this absolute conviction of bluster is what makes him all but unwatchable among the South Park Conservatives.

The night after Sean Hannity is caught by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” using tape of the “9/12 Rally” in Washington, mixed in with footage of the Congress protest in Washington on November 5, Hannity tells Jon Stewart: “You were right.”:

SO busted. And Hannity tries to play it off like it was a simple mistake.

Let us not forget Mr. Hannity's affiliation with known Neo-Nazi's:

Now before any of my right-wing readers get their collective panties in a bunch, understand that I am NOT a supporter of Malik Shabazz, who is quite possibly a bigger racist than Hannity.

Neo-Nazi broadcaster and Sean Hannity's fascist homeboy Hal Turner was convicted Friday of threatening three federal judges who ruled to uphold handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois last year, earning him a sentence of up to 10 years during which Misplaced hopes this monstrous freak is stomped to death by authentic Neo-Nazi murderers.

Two trials were scrubbed last year due to, first, a deadlocked jury and then a mistrial declaration by a judge. Prosecutors accused this freak of writing on his website in June 2009, “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed.” Accompanying this recommendation for his fans who could read were photographs, phone numbers and work addresses for the judges, clearly targeting data for psychopaths.

A righteously resolute jury took just two hours to convict this monstrous piece of shit of threatening to kill three federal judges. His mommy complained the first amendment had been destroyed by the conviction and his kid had the good fortune of seeing his dad dragged off and will hopefully never have to endure this Nazi’s twisted presence again.

During the trial, Turner tried to pass off his threats as inspired prose vetted and approved of by the FBI who hired this piece of shit as a snitch to inform on the Neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements, a consulting contract that should make Turner very popular in the federal penitentiary. Mid-trial, this fucking idiot also tried to extort an FBI agent, threatening to expose him as a perjurer and destroy his law enforcement career.

It may be true that the agents tutored him on boundaries of protected speech but, as taxpayers, we at Misplaced In The Midwest hope the FBI made sure he went clearly and unambiguously over the line so this piece of shit could be fitted for a wedding gown and be shipped off to a federal penitentiary for inmate entertainment. Any asshole who would take a federal agent at face value and think he is not being gamed twice sideways deserves to be stomped to death by Neo-Nazi murderers in a federal penitentiary.

The unindicted co-conspirator Sean Hannity is still, however, at large. Hannity used his radio talk show in the late 1990s to propagate Turner’s psychonazi ravings, raise his profile and to spew the kind of psychopathic Nazi rage and hatred that Hannity wanted to cultivate. By the time Hannity’s brand began maturing, in the early naughts, and Hannity’s TV show, Hannity and Colmes (with pathetic stage-liberal posing as battered wife Alan Colmes) began establishing itself as a ratings leader, according to a 2005 report by The Nation, even crypto-nazi Hannity had to distance himself from Turner and stopped taking his calls on the radio program.

By that time, though, Turner had been emboldened apparently by his brush with a ratings icon like Hannity, to start his own shortwave hatecast, according to The Nation’s 2005 report on Hannity and Turner’s courtship. Who knows what kind of inspiration Hannity provided for a small-town Nazi like Turner? Good question for the FBI to ask Hannity, if they haven’t already.

That's enough for today. More Anti-Right venom tomorrow.

Glenn Beck... What Can I Say?

During his show on 1/20/09, the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, Glenn Beck purported to be celebrating the election of an African American. “Martin Luther King's dream has come to life,” Beck began. But then he added, “Or at least I thought so.” Beck's problem was the benediction by civil rights icon Rev. Joseph Lowery. The next thing you knew, Beck was accusing Lowery and Obama of attacking white people. With video.

Lowery's offending words were: "We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."

“Even at the inauguration of a black president, we are being called racist,” Beck complained. This, from the man who asked the first Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison, to prove that he was not working with our enemies.

Last week was a busy week for myself and other Glenn Beck watchers. On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League released a report warning of the paranoia and stridency that increasingly define the conservative grass roots. It echoed an April report issued by the Department of Homeland Security, but unlike the DHS report, the ADL named names, and fingered Beck as the figure most responsible for the unhinging of the right.

"Beck has acted as a 'fearmonger-in-chief,' raising anxiety about and distrust towards the government [which] if it continues to grow in intensity and scope, may result in an increase in anti-government extremists and the potential for a rise of violent anti-government acts," the ADL wrote.

Amazingly, just after the ADL report's release, Sarah Palin responded to a question about a possible Palin-Beck ticket by refusing to rule out Beck as a running mate. She praised him effusively, describing him as "bold, clever, and very, very, very effective."

Effective at what, exactly?

Earlier this week, Sam Stein of the Huffington Post detailed several instances in which Beck has welcomed onto his shows guests with ties to groups that traffic in white supremacy, neo-Confederate secession, and anti-Semitism. Stein's reporting was a good start, but it would take a chalkboard the size of Idaho to fully map out Beck's racially paranoid guest list.

But Beck insists his critics are imagining things, that he does not engage in racial fear-mongering, that a string of guests with ties to hate groups do not form a meaningful pattern, and that he's not a racist. It occurred to me the other day that if you really want to know whether Beck and his guests are blowing racial dog-whistles, it's best to ask a dog.

I decided to reach out to Don Black, the avowed white nationalist who runs the Web site Stormfront.org, the country's leading "Discussion board for pro-White activists and anyone else interested in White survival." But Black hung up on me. I next tried to get in touch with David Duke, the former gubernatorial candidate and current head of the European American Unity and Rights Organization. Duke, too, had little interest in talking to me, likely because of my past association with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks the activities of white supremacist groups.

Unable to get through to the highest-profile spokesmen of the racist grass roots, I took a page from the other side and trawled their Web sites for insight. I scanned Davidduke.com and Stormfront.org to see what they had to say, if anything, about Beck. Admittedly, this method is not scientific, and certainly folks on the left don't like it when righties cherry-pick an extreme comment from Daily Kos or the Huffington Post and pretend the whole site can be summed up by such extremism.

On the other hand, Stormfront.org isn't a media organization but a self-described discussion board. And when it comes to Beck, the discussions are fairly positive. On both David Duke's Web site and Stormfront, Beck's July 28 claim that President Obama harbors a "deep-seated hatred of white people, or the white culture" was met with attention and appreciation.

Duke was heartened by the discussion it generated, and placed it in a larger context. "A lot of stuff is happening in the world of race relations and little of it points towards a post-racial society," Duke noted. "Beck is steadily losing advertisers, but his viewers seem to be sticking with him ... White desperation is manifesting itself in various forms."

Beck's charge that the president hates white people sparked a more expansive discussion at Stormfront.org. Some participants saw Beck as an important ally in the White Nationalist cause. Others were skeptical, viewing him as a clueless conservative version of Lenin's "useful idiot." But some of Stormfront's most active members generally agreed that, whether he was fully conscious or not, Beck was nudging his audience toward an embrace of racial consciousness.

"Glen [sic] Beck can be useful," said one frequent Stormfront contributor who posts under the name SS_marching. "When Glen beck said 'Obama Has A Deep-Seated Hatred For White People' he is able to reach a much wider audience than we can. They will [be] predisposed to the idea and the next time Obama pushes an anti-white policy they will see it as such."

Stormfront member PowerCommander agreed. Beck, he wrote:

"seems to have ignited a flame under the asses of some folks with similar ideas by pushing the right buttons. It appears as if the current regime [is] directly blaming GB and fox news for throwing a wrench in their machine. Is Beck's rambling getting America fired up and ready to fight? Has Beck told enough of the truth to start something bigger? Even an engine needs a starter to get fired off and go down the road."

Thor357, a Stormfront sustaining member who has posted on the site more than 3,500 times, had this to say:

"Glenn Beck and Alex Jones [a controversial conservative media figure who believes 9/11 was an inside job] are the front line in the war of Ideals we grapple with, they are far from perfect and are somewhat compromised. But every person in the last 2 years that I have introduced to the WN [White Nationalist] Philosophy have come largely from Alex Jones, Glen Beck and the Scriptures for America founder Pastor Pete Peters ... Baby steps are required for people like these, but the trio Beck, Jones, Peters are the baby food that feeds potential Nationalists… Glenn Beck is not far behind as his Mormon background indicates to me as most Mormons I have met are not friends of Jews like the Church was years ago. Most Mormons I know are arming themselves, with guns, bullets and food."

Later in the same discussion thread, Thor357 added:

"I have talked to 6 people in two days because Glenn Beck woke them up, it's amazing how angry they are. They are pissing fire over Obama, this is a good thing. Now I educate them. If out of 100 of the Glen Beckers I keep 20 then I have won 20 more to cover my back side. I never lost the 80 as they never were."

Carolina Patriot, whose member picture features a kitten aiming an assassin's rifle, was conflicted but admiring:

"Every now and again when an infomercial takes the place of hunting or fishing, I'll turn over to Glenn Beck if he's on and watch his show. Sometimes it is amusing, sometimes it is informed, and sometimes, I think he comes to SF [Stormfront] to steal show idea's"

UstashaNY offered up an analogy to substance abuse, with Beck as the soft-stuff hook:

"Beck, Dobbs etc. are like gateway drugs. If it wakes up one person to learn something about whats really going on and that person does the research, looks deeper and deeper into WHO and WHAT is behind all of this, then its a win for the movement. NOBODY in the msm is reporting the stuff Beck does, let him keep talking. It will wake people up, believe me… He is more of a help to us then you may think. Until we have a REAL voice in the msm, guys like him and Dobbs are a stepping stone right into our laps. Its only a matter of time..."

Even those who don't think Beck understands what he’s doing appreciate his instincts. According to WhiteManMarchesOn88:

"There is no doubt that Beck is not a WN [white nationalist], but I have to agree that he does raise a lot of really good questions that do promote White survival. I'm sure he would go a lot farther with a lot of his questions, but ZOG [Zionist Occupied Government] would more than likely kick him off television if he did."

ZOG or no ZOG, Beck is clearly doing something right from the point of view of the average white nationalist.

"By no means do I think [Beck] is aware of the racial issue, and for the moment that is ok," wrote Stormfront member QHelios. "He is stirring the pot, and I thank him for that."

Taking up the mantle of “I’m Saved, You’re Going to Hell” is, of course, Glenn Beck, who parted the seas on Saturday in his big revival honor rally at the Lincoln Memorial. And just a day after his return to God and faith and traditional values (“Something that is beyond man is happening. America today begins to turn back to God.”), he criticized Obama’s religious beliefs and his “version of Christianity.” Because the only true version of Christianity is…Glenn Beck’s distorted version of Christianity.

Beck claims that Obama practices “liberation theology,” which centers on the struggles of African Americans and the importance of empowering the oppressed, and is typically the religion of choice for racists with a deep-seated hatred for white people. That and Wiccan.

“You see, it’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation. I don’t know what that is, other than it’s not Muslim, it’s not Christian. It’s a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it,” Beck said.

For those of you who don’t know, Beck’s a Mormon. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I didn’t know anything about Mormons until Mitt Romney ran for president. (Jury’s still out on whether Mormons are Christians. I mean, they don’t even drink.) More importantly, why are all these Real American Conservative Christians following a guy who, according to his faith, views all non-Mormons as “misdirected from the true teaching of God”? That’s why the missionaries are all over the place. They want to convert you and steal your bicycle.

A few prominent evangelical activists were forced to defend their decision to attend Beck’s rally after some Christians complained that they shouldn’t be aligning themselves with the likes of Glenn Beck and the Osmonds. “There is no need to ‘de-Christianize’ each other over the matter,” wrote influential pastor Jim Garlow. “Glenn Beck is being used by God—mightily.”

Sure he is.

I get the distinct impression that Mr. Beck's version of MLK's "I Have A Dream) speech would go something like this:

I have a dream that white people will continue to control America.

I have a dream that Christian white people will continue to control America.

I have a dream that straight Christian white people will continue to control America.

I have a dream that straight Christian white people who control America will continue to watch FOX News.

I have a dream that straight Christian white people who control America will continue to watch FOX News and believe what I say.

I have a dream that straight Christian white people who control America will continue to watch FOX News and believe what I say and elect Sarah Palin as President of the United States.

I have a dream that straight Christian white people who control America will continue to watch FOX News and believe what I say and elect Sarah Palin as President of the United States so that taxes will be lowered and there will be no government intervention in our lives.

I have a dream that straight, ignorant Christian white men who control America will continue to watch FOX News and believe whatever I say and elect Sarah Palin as President of the United States so that taxes will be eliminated and there will be no government intervention in our lives; that the man who pays my salary, Rupert Murdoch, will never realize that he’s a fool for letting me say all the stupid things I say; that there will be no Mosque within three thousand miles of Ground Zero; that we will build a great wall around America so high that none of those unmentionables from the rest of the world will be able to crawl over it or tunnel under it; that my divorce and substance abuse will not disqualify me from being Sarah Palin’s running mate; that I can continue to fool most of the people all of the time and that I will continue to be paid millions of dollars each year for my TV antics, the books I publish, the questionable products I push, and that these riches of my life will continue forever in spite of my less fortunate viewers who must surely be blessed for their ignorance.

Amen.

(Courtesy of Charles Larson)

Oops...

Somehow, I lost track of time yet again.

Sorry about that.

Check this out instead.

Legalize It... for Medicinal Purposes Part III

This is courtesy of Russ Belville, Outreach Coordinator for NORML.

As California gets set to vote on Prop 19 – an initiative to legalize marijuana statewide – some people’s minds are being completely blown, man. But it’s not the people smoking the stuff, it’s the people trying to keep it banned.

I’ve collected the eight craziest claims about a post-legalization state of California predicted by opponents of Prop 19. Stunningly, three of these crazy predictions come from people who do use marijuana, proving once again that with enough repetition and scaremongering, you can convince a certain percentage of any group to vote against their own best interests.

8. The federal government will pull all its contracts with California businesses because they won’t be able to drug test employees!

This is a favorite of the California Chamber of Commerce. The idea is that since the federal government has a Drug Free Workplace Act, when California law no longer allows employers to discriminate based on pee, all these California companies wouldn’t be able to comply and the feds would pull all their contracts and grants.

Never mind that these same opponents predicted the same dire consequence when California was considering Prop 215, the initiative that legalized medical marijuana fourteen years ago, and we haven’t seen any contracts or grants pulled since. The plain fact is that the Drug Free Workplace Act doesn’t actually require workplace pee tests. This from “HRHero.com: Your Employment Law Resource” (emphasis mine)…

…employers must certify that they will provide a drug-free workplace. The law doesn’t require alcohol or drug testing, but testing is implicitly authorized as a means to maintain a drug-free workplace.

So what does it mean to provide a “drug-free workplace”? Certainly that must mean that even if they don’t have to drug-test, they couldn’t comply because Prop 19 would allow employees to possess marijuana, right? Wrong.

Employers whose companies fall under this category must have a policy prohibiting the unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensation, possession, or use of a controlled substance in the workplace and specifying what actions will be taken in the event of violations.

When Prop 19 passes, possession of marijuana, up to an ounce, is no longer unlawful. There is no basis to claim a California company was allowing “unlawful possession”, so they could still maintain an “(illegal) drug-free workplace” and therefore, give no reason for the federal government to pull any contracts or grants.

7. Legalizing marijuana for healthy people will end medical marijuana for sick people!

Try to wrap your mind around the idea that allowing everyone to grow a 25 square foot garden means sick people will not get their medicine. Then imagine that a court will decide that a public that voted for legal marijuana for healthy people really meant to end medical marijuana for sick people. If you can manage that, you’ve entered the mind of J. Craig Canada.

Canada’s analysis rests on this bit of Prop 19’s language:

Provide easier, safer access for patients who need cannabis for medical purposes.

The courts will determine that this means Prop. 19 is intended to amend and supersede California’s medical marijuana laws; Proposition 215 (H&S 11362.5) and SB 420 (H&S 11362.7-H&S 11362.9).

Then Canada goes on to criticize the next two paragraphs in the initiative, which provides cities the right to tax and regulate marijuana for adults, “except as permitted under Health and Safety Sections 11362.5 and 11362.7 through 11362.9.”

Got it? Canada says the first paragraph will supersede – that is, eliminate – California’s Prop 215, and then moves on to the next two paragraphs that specifically provide exceptions under Prop 215. So I guess Prop 19 makes Prop 215 moot… except when it doesn’t.

6. Legalizing marijuana will never raise any money because the social costs would outweigh any fiscal benefits… look at alcohol and tobacco!

Forget for a moment that in this country, we don’t determine people’s rights based on whether it makes a buck or not. (I mean, we shouldn’t.) It doesn’t matter whether legalizing marijuana will make a dime; it is simply wrong to lock up adults for smoking pot. Proponents of Prop 19 have floated the idea that legalizing pot would raise tax revenues for the state and the opponents, like San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer, who is acting president of the California Police Chiefs Association, deny that advantage of the proposition by pointing out that alcohol and tobacco taxes bring in less than what alcohol and tobacco cause in health and safety costs

This is one of the instances where figures don’t lie, but liars figure. Indeed, the taxes we collect from alcohol and tobacco don’t come close to covering the social costs from those substances. Lung cancer, cirrhosis, emphysema, drunk driving, cigarette breaks, domestic violence, after a while the costs of smoking and drinking add up… because smoking and drinking are toxic and addictive.

Marijuana is neither toxic nor addictive. A Canadian study found that a tobacco smoker cost the country $800 per year, each drinker cost $165, and each toker cost $20, and half of that was laundry costs for Cheetos stains (I kid!). Also, it is not as if nobody is smoking pot now and post Prop-19 we’ll be overrun with tokers. People are smoking pot now and we’re taking in zero dollars in taxes and we’re spending a billion dollars in California failing to stop it.

5. Big Tobacco will buy up great huge tracts of land in Northern California and mass produce lousy joints pumped full of toxic addictive chemicals!

This is one of the complaints by the people making money growing marijuana now, mostly in Northern California, who have long claimed that “Philip Morris is buying up 400 acres of land in Humboldt County in case legalization passes” and “RJ Reynolds already has the trademark on such names as ‘Acapulco Gold’, ‘Maui Wowie’, and ‘Panama Red’ for their joints once legalization passes”.

These urban legends have been around as long as there have been hippies. Any in-depth search of news archives from Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity, and Del Norte counties in California will fail to find the great Philip Morris land buy – you can imagine that would make for an above-the-fold headline in a local “Emerald Triangle” newspaper. Another search on the US Patent & Trademark Office finds all sorts of interesting trademarks for pot names, but none owned by a cigarette company.

But let’s suppose Big Tobacco wants to get into cannabis production. Prop 19 gives individuals the right to grow their own marijuana and share it with friends. This isn’t tobacco, where cigarette companies have a captive audience for an addictive substance with proven toxic results from repeated use. If Big Tobacco makes a bunch of toxic schwaggy joints, who’s buying them? They’ll have to produce a product that’s a better deal than growing and rolling your own.

4. Today’s pot is fourteen times more powerful than Sixties weed and will lead to more crack babies!

Credit Los Angeles Bishop Ron Allen for this bit of reefer madness. “It’s going to cause crime to go up. There will be more drug babies,” he warned the LA Times. The New York Times reported on Allen describing marijuana as “the most sinister drug,” and asking that “the demonic spirits be cast back into hell.” The good Bishop should know, because he was a former crack addict and the first illegal drug he used was marijuana.

The logical problem with Bishop Allen’s gateway theory is that while nearly all crack addicts have smoked pot, very few pot smokers have ever smoked crack. The only commonality between marijuana and crack is that they are both illegal drugs (even then, marijuana is more illegal; it is in Schedule I while cocaine is in Schedule II). Marijuana doesn’t make people smoke crack any more than alcohol or tobacco makes people smoke crack, at least according to the US Institute of Medicine.

I’ve been following the US government’s Potency Monitoring Project for years (yes, there is a federal agency using your tax dollars to prove just how diggity dank your chronic is). The most potent weed seizure I recall was 37.2% THC. So if Bishop Allen was smoking weed that was 14x weaker than that, he was smoking 2.65% THC weed, or a grade somewhere between ditchweed and feral hemp at best! Since the average weed seizure tests at 8.52%, Bishop Allen was smoking the equivalent of a hemp t-shirt.

The Project has shown average potency to have doubled, which means nothing since THC is non-toxic, can’t cause overdose, and is self-titrating, which is a fancy way of saying you smoke til you get stoned then you stop, whether it’s one regular joint or one-quarter of a potent joint.

3. People who smoke marijuana in the same apartment building as a child will be arrested! (Not that your landlord will let you grow pot anyway.)

There are some marijuana smokers who think that an ounce of cannabis and a 25 square foot garden just aren’t enough. They’ve taken to sifting through the initiative for every possible flaw, misinterpretation, and slippery slope to muddy the conversation. Take this 2am-stoned-to-the-gills contemplation of “space”.

…consuming cannabis would be illegal in the same “space” as a minor. Police and judges are free to interpret the word “space” to mean the same room, house, or entire apartment complex.

Well, I suppose police and judges are free to interpret the word “space” to mean the Cosmos, and since there are children in the universe, the vote to legalize marijuana means nobody can smoke pot anywhere!

If that wasn’t enough to dissuade you, renters would have to (*gasp*) ask their landlord’s permission to grow marijuana! I can’t imagine why property owners would be apprehensive about that…

While growing your own supply is fun as hell, it can also be messy, dangerous, and can easily cause damage if done improperly. (Not to mention homeowners insurance is likely to rise and homes containing cannabis could face seizure by the federal government.)

So, to sum up, you should vote no on being able to grow weed and hold an ounce, even if you own your own home, because some renters wouldn’t be able to grow (but could still hold an ounce) and you couldn’t smoke around kids.

2. Legally home-grown marijuana will lead to outbreaks of toxic deadly molds!

It’s fascinating to me the little niches some prohibitionists stake out. Canada’s Barbara Kay works the “pot causes schizophrenia” angle (it doesn’t). Calvina Fay likes to put quotes around “medical” marijuana. But for sheer 50’s sci-fi horror predictions about legalization, nobody can touch Alexandra Datig of NipItInTheBud2010.org and her dire warnings of toxic mold…

Aspergillus & Stachybotrys

Next Health Nightmare If Marijuana Legalization Takes Place?

In 1996, there was a study of 10,000 cases of Aspergillosis with treatment costs of $633 Million. That means on average, just to try and treat (not cure) the problem, each case accrued average costs of roughly $63,300.

If the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 passes, 1/3 of California will be at risk of serious BLACK MOLD CONTAMINATION as well as Aspergillus exposure. And how will anyone be able to control the contamination when anyone can cultivate marijuana in their home or backyard at any time without supervision? …Well? …Anyone?

Aspergillus is a toxic mold and yes, it does grow on marijuana (if you’re a lousy grower). It grows on carpets, trees, and drywall, too. It killed 261 people in 2004 for a death rate of 0.88255 deaths per 1 million people. You are more likely to die from appendicitis (371 deaths) than aspergillus.

Still, it might be scary until you realize that people are growing marijuana indoors now and because it is illegal, do it in ways that are more likely to cause an outbreak of mold.

1. Workplaces would be overrun by workers smoking marijuana on the job!

We opened up with the California Chamber of Commerce, so it is only fitting we end with their most apocalyptic pronouncement to date:

Imagine a workplace where employees show up to work high on marijuana and there is nothing you can do about it. That’s what employers can look forward to if Proposition 19 passes.

Employers would have to permit to employees to smoke marijuana at work.

Prop 19 does nothing of the sort. It specifically retains “the existing right of an employer to address consumption that actually impairs job performance by an employee shall not be affected.” Nobody is going to be working blazed with no fear of being fired – California is an “at will” employment state, anyway.

The Chamber’s real fear – and they’re not even shy about saying so publicly – is that management won’t be able to discriminate against workers who might smoke pot off the job:

Employers would be prohibited from discriminating against marijuana users by taking marijuana use into account when deciding whether to hire an applicant.

When it comes to legal analysis, I prefer the non-partisan California Legislative Analysts Office take on Prop 19 and the workplace:

State and local law enforcement agencies could not seize or destroy marijuana from persons in compliance with the measure. In addition, the measure states that no individual could be punished, fined, or discriminated against for engaging in any conduct permitted by the measure. However, it does specify that employers would retain existing rights to address consumption of marijuana that impairs an employee’s job performance.

So that’s it – if you vote to legalize and tax pot in California, the state will lose all federal contracts, end medical marijuana, cost billions, create toxic addictive schwaggy joints, lead to crack babies, eliminate smoking in the Cosmos, overwhelm us with toxic mold, and fill the workplaces with blazed wastoids.

And they say smoking pot will make you crazy. Seems like legalizing it makes some people crazier.

Wasn't California supposed to be leading the way on this? The Governator is a hypocrite.