Tag Archives: funny

Clunkers, cops and cluelessness.

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Attorney General Eric Holder has clarified the new administration’s medical marijuana policy (see #145) by stating that the DEA will only go after pot dealers who violate both state and Federal law; i.e., anyone not sanctioned by a state where medical marijuana is legal.  So dispensaries in California and patients in Colorado with cultivation licenses should be safe from the Feds, but not illicit dealers.  It’s still not clear what this means for cases already pending in Federal courts, so it may not save Charlie Lynch, who was a licensed medical marijuana dealer in California but was tried and convicted on Federal charges, from a lengthy prison term.  And it does nothing to address the fundamentally broken drug policies at the Federal level.

On to the Daily Cuts:

148. After a six-year battle with the Feds over obscenity charges, two porn film entrepreneurs plead guilty to reduced charges, earning them up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, a far cry from the five decades they faced on the original indictment.  As Jacob Sullum points out, the prosecutor, U. S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, “seems to be a sincere moral crusader and therefore a public menace”.

149. Even though members of their own party seem lukewarm on the idea, it appears that the Obama administration still doesn’t have enough on its plate, and wants to add a revival of the Federal assault weapons ban.  This time it’s not for the children, but for the poor Mexicans caught in the crossfire of a vicious drug war.  Of course, if we Americans would just stop being such loser dope fiends, we wouldn’t need a drug war in the first place.

150. A Congresswoman from Ohio introduces a real clunker of a bill: $5,000 for any car you can drag to a dealership, to be applied towards the purchase of a new car.  Of course the automakers are supportive of this boondoggle.

151. Comic relief: What, would you rather have the cops kicking in your door?

Abuse, harassment, and customer service (but I repeat myself)

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143. Homer, Louisiana police chief Russell Mills, after one of his officers shot and killed a 73-year-old mute black man:

“If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names,” said Mills, who is white. “I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested.

“We’re not out there trying to abuse and harass people — we’re trying to protect the law-abiding citizens locked behind their doors in fear.”

Oh, but abusing and harassing black people—that’s just good police work.  I guess we should at least thank Mills for the tacit admission that cops engage in racial profiling.

144. Another drug raid gone wrong, this time resulting in an unarmed Michigan college student getting shot by a cop.  For what?  The police are tight-lipped so far.  But apparently the victim’s Facebook page is filled with drug references, so he must have been a dope-dealing punk, right?

145. President Barack Obama didn’t immediately make good on his campaign promise to end DEA raids on medical marijuana facilities, but eventually Attorney General Eric Holder directed Justice to call off the dogs.  At one point the U. S. Attorney for Los Angeles got the memo—then he didn’t.

146. Jacob Sullum on John Yoo’s disturbing post-9/11 Justice Department memos, which laid out justifications for wholesale curtailments of civil liberties, including suppression of the press:

Yet civil liberties do not mean much if they are abandoned whenever the government thinks it has a good reason to violate them. It is precisely in times of crisis, when politicians are most tempted to take legal shortcuts and the public is most inclined to go along, that constitutional protections are most needed. Although Attorney General Eric Holder claims to understand this, his embrace of Yoo-like rhetoric and reasoning suggests his differences with the former Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) lawyer may be a matter more of circumstance than of principle.

Read the whole thing here.

147. Comic relief: “Take a number, wait your fucking turn” (uh, NSFW).

Purity squads, then and now.

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127. But now, they call it “community policing”: from 1947project‘s always-fascinating social history blog On Bunker Hill, the Los Angeles “Purity Squad” raids the Saratoga Hotel in 1919, arresting 32 people “on charges of living in a house of prostitution.” And some alibis never change:

Many of those arrested said they worked in the movies as extras, but police determined that “extra work is not considered real work.”

128. Police in North Platte, Neb., respond to a complaint of a wedgie administered to an unfortunate youngster. No arrests were made, but a police spokesman warned such behavior would not be tolerated: “You might get away with that in Lincoln or Omaha. But we’re not going to allow wedgies in North Platte.” Because today’s wedgie-puller could be tomorrow’s school shooter.

129. The legislature and police have been busy in Florida:

But most importantly, the Florida Senate has passed an amendment to ban “Truck Nutz” (see # 22, here), because ridding rear bumpers of hanging genitalia will prevent the terrorists from winning. Or at least they won’t be quite so offended while they’re here.

130. Hang up the damn dog and drive!

131. The long arm of morality laws has caught up with a San Diego wife and mother of three. Marie Walsh was arrested Apr. 24 by U. S. Marshals after she was identified by Michigan authorities as Susan Lefevre, who walked out of a Detroit corrections facility 32 years ago. She was convicted in 1975 on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. She must serve at least nine more years before she is eligible for parole, at which point “mitigating circumstances”, such as the quiet family life she led in San Diego, may be heard to determine if she can be freed.

132. Crying over spilled milk: a Pennsylvanian Amish farmer was arrested, and his dairy operation shut down, for not having a state permit to sell raw milk. He also had been transporting the milk to Delaware and New York City, where the product is illegal but in apparently high demand. The farmer remains defiant: “The government doesn’t have the right to dictate what I eat, and never will.”

133. Denver police may be gearing up for a serious crackdown on protesters at the Democratic National Convention, which comes to town in August. In the past the police have issued citations for misdemeanor offenses committed by protestors, but now the city plans to arrest and detain protestors. The DPD first employed the policy at last year’s Columbus Day parade, where they arrested more than 80 people for attempting to block the parade route. At least now I know why they’re building the new county jail right downtown.