here I am, trying to get people to care about a Senate race that is only 4 points apart at the moment but the national media refuses to act like it's competitive
look, I am under NO illusions about what Florida is. I am not here to tell you it's full of the best most well-meaning people who by-golly-goshdarn-shucks have the misfortune of living under Republicans, because that picture of the South is pretty rosy for reals. It's gotten more deeply Southern culturally in the last two decades especially. The Florida of my teen years when Lawton Chiles was governor feels like a very distant memory.
But look: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is a GREAT candidate. You know how Tim Walz is being praised for representing a quintessential midwesterner? Mucarsel-Powell is a quintessential Floridian, in that she's an immigrant and a Latina and she's very smart and accomplished. That is the best of Florida that so rarely gets represented, or gets twisted in representation to ghouls like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz whose families are Cuban conservative. Rick Scott is one of the most unpopular members of the Senate.
Ron Desantis has gone too far in this state, warping our education, our human rights, our very freedom of speech, and he's done NOTHING to fix runaway housing and home insurance costs in a state that is acutely aware of climate change.
Abortion is on the ballot. So is legal weed. I am by no means saying I think Harris will carry the state, but there's SO MUCH that is really important on the ballot for me beyond that AND including it. But it's one of those funky years where turnout for the good guys will probably be higher because of the ballot initiatives and there's a lot of angry moderates in this state pissed about what Desantis did to education. So. Please consider sharing and spreading the word that there's a really important and more to the point: COMPETITIVE senate race in Florida. But if we ignore it, neglect it, don't spread the buzz and don't donate, then Florida just becomes another self-fulfilling prophecy.
I seen people on Twitter, leftist I think, accusing Harris of giving unfair sentences for weed possession in the past. Could I ask you how true that is since you seem knowledgeable about this?
hello
the true story is, in the 7 years Harris was San Fran DA 45 people were sentenced to state prison for marijuana convictions, compared to 135 in the 8 years under the DA before her.
the head of her drug enforcement department said “Our policy was that no one with a marijuana conviction for mere possession could do any (jail time) at all,”
So the true story is that, years before "decriminalization" of possession was a thing people were pushing leftie DAs to do, Harris was doing in in the 2000s
Some people are mad she was against a 2010 ballot measure to legalize (she objected to their failure to have anything about driving while high) and remained neutral as part of her job as California AG on a 2016 ballot measure (the AG's office has to write official explainers of ballot measures that are sent to Cali voters and she felt it was unfair for her to weigh in)
But in 2018 she was endorsing legal weed in 2019 she pushed her own legalization bill that would also wipe out offensives she got a lot of good press from pot circles at first when she ran for President because she was clearly the most pro-weed person running
Indeed President Biden was more conservative on the issue, the only candidate not sure about legalization. Now President Biden has taken big steps pardoning everyone convicted of a federal offensive and working to reschedule Marijuana from a class I to a class III (ie proscription) drug, but Harris is likely to push for a full federal legalization which would be huge
The Binghamton Press, New York, October 16, 1943
Content Label: Mature: Drug Use
Content Label: Mature
Drug and alcohol addiction
4/20 related post that I forgot to make yesterday.
Edit- "stopped for some reason" includes job, reliable access, a home environment that allows it, sobriety, etc.
"Maryland Gov. Wes Moore issued a mass pardon of more than 175,000 marijuana convictions Monday morning [June 17, 2024], one of the nation’s most sweeping acts of clemency involving a drug now in widespread recreational use.
The pardons forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people in what the Democratic governor said is a step to heal decades of social and economic injustice that disproportionately harms Black and Brown people. Moore noted criminal records have been used to deny housing, employment and education, holding people and their families back long after their sentences have been served.
[Note: If you're wondering how 175,000 convictions were pardoned but only 100,000 people are benefiting, it's because there are often multiple convictions per person.]
A Sweeping Act
“We aren’t nibbling around the edges. We are taking actions that are intentional, that are sweeping and unapologetic,” Moore said at an Annapolis event interrupted three times by standing ovations. “Policymaking is powerful. And if you look at the past, you see how policies have been intentionally deployed to hold back entire communities.”
Moore called the scope of his pardons “the most far-reaching and aggressive” executive action among officials nationwide who have sought to unwind criminal justice inequities with the growing legalization of marijuana. Nine other states and multiple cities have pardoned hundreds of thousands of old marijuana convictions in recent years, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Legalized marijuana markets reap billions in revenue for state governments each year, and polls show public sentiment on the drug has also turned — with more people both embracing cannabis use and repudiating racial disparities exacerbated by the War on Drugs.
The pardons, timed to coincide with Wednesday’s Juneteenth holiday, a day that has come to symbolize the end of slavery in the United States, come from a rising star in the Democratic Party and the lone Black governor of a U.S. state whose ascent is built on the promise to “leave no one behind.”
The Pardons and Demographics
Derek Liggins, 57, will be among those pardoned Monday, more than 16 years after his last day in prison for possessing and dealing marijuana in the late 1990s. Despite working hard to build a new life after serving time, Liggins said he still loses out on job opportunities and potential income.
“You can’t hold people accountable for possession of marijuana when you’ve got a dispensary on almost every corner,” he said.
Nationwide, according to the ACLU, Black people were more than three times more likely than White people to be arrested for marijuana possession. President Biden in 2022 issued a mass pardon of federal marijuana convictions — a reprieve for roughly 6,500 people — and urged governors to follow suit in states, where the vast majority of marijuana prosecutions take place.
Maryland’s pardon action rivals only Massachusetts, where the governor and an executive council together issued a blanket pardon in March expected to affect hundreds of thousands of people.
But Moore’s pardons appear to stand alone in the impact to communities of color in a state known for having one of the nation’s worst records for disproportionately incarcerating Black people for any crimes. More than 70 percent of the state’s male incarcerated population is Black, according to state data, more than double their proportion in society.
In announcing the pardons, he directly addressed how policies in Maryland and nationwide have systematically held back people of color — through incarceration and restricted access to jobs and housing...
Maryland, the most diverse state on the East Coast, has a dramatically higher concentration of Black people compared with other states that have issued broad pardons for marijuana: 33 percent of Maryland’s population is Black, while the next highest is Illinois, with 15 percent...
Reducing the state’s mass incarceration disparity has been a chief goal of Moore, Brown and Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue, who are all the first Black people to hold their offices in the state. Brown and Dartigue have launched a prosecutor-defender partnership to study the “the entire continuum of the criminal system,” from stops with law enforcement to reentry, trying to detect all junctures where discretion or bias could influence how justice is applied, and ultimately reform it.
How It Will Work
Maryland officials said the pardons, which would also apply to people who are dead, will not result in releasing anyone from incarceration because none are imprisoned. Misdemeanor cannabis charges yield short sentences and prosecutions for misdemeanor criminal possession have stopped, as possessing small amounts of the drug is legal statewide.
Moore’s pardon action will automatically forgive every misdemeanor marijuana possession charge the Maryland judiciary could locate in the state’s electronic court records system, along with every misdemeanor paraphernalia charge tied to use or possession of marijuana. Maryland is the only state to pardon such paraphernalia charges, state officials said...
People who benefit from the mass pardon will see the charges marked in state court records within two weeks, and they will be eliminated from criminal background check databases within 10 months."
-via The Washington Post, June 17, 2024. Headings added by me.
Can't deny a weed dog their weed!
True story when me and Malcolm went to share a joint after a long day at Further Confusion. This fella comes up in a very specific kind of fursuit and I just couldn't say no to their request.
(traditional inks with just a little color touchup)
