pepper tumbles

Costas: “Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.”

I couldn’t agree more.  I think we saw this in the case of Trayvon Martin and in the recent murder of Jordan Davis.  If George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn truly felt threatened and they WEREN’T carrying guns, would they have confronted these young men?  I think not. 

Martin, Davis, and Kasandra Perkins are just a few examples of gun violence.  In this country, it’s happening every day, every minute.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/bob-costas-and-jovan-belcher.html#ixzz2EJ1bnF6F

newyorker:

Amy Davidson: Bob Costas was right to bring up Jovan Belcher’s guns. Now can we talk about the role of guns in domestic violence, too? Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/TLLbMD

Photograph by Jamie Squire/Getty.

Whoever runs the Obama tumblr deserves a raise.  I’m loving the unicorn chasers.

barackobama:

In case you’re watching the GOP convention tonight and need periodic unicorn chasers: POTUS and high-fiving children have you covered.

stfuconservatives:

anarcho-queer:

The Top Five Special Interest Groups Lobbying To Keep Marijuana Illegal

Last year, over 850,000 people in America were arrested for marijuana-related crimes. Despite public opinion, the medical community, and human rights experts all moving in favor of relaxing marijuana prohibition laws, little has changed in terms of policy.

There have been many great books and articles detailing the history of the drug war. Part of America’s fixation with keeping the leafy green plant illegal is rooted in cultural and political clashes from the past.

However, we at Republic Report think it’s worth showing that there are entrenched interest groups that are spending large sums of money to keep our broken drug laws on the books:

1.) Police Unions: Police departments across the country have become dependent on federal drug war grants to finance their budget. In March, we published a story revealing that a police union lobbyist in California coordinated the effort to defeat Prop 19, a ballot measure in 2010 to legalize marijuana, while helping his police department clients collect tens of millions in federal marijuana-eradication grants. And it’s not just in California. Federal lobbying disclosures show that other police union lobbyists have pushed for stiffer penalties for marijuana-related crimes nationwide.

2.) Private Prisons Corporations: Private prison corporations make millions by incarcerating people who have been imprisoned for drug crimes, including marijuana. As Republic Report’s Matt Stoller noted last year, Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison companies, revealed in a regulatory filing that continuing the drug war is part in parcel to their business strategy. Prison companies have spent millions bankrolling pro-drug war politicians and have used secretive front groups, like the American Legislative Exchange Council, to pass harsh sentencing requirements for drug crimes.

3.) Alcohol and Beer Companies: Fearing competition for the dollars Americans spend on leisure, alcohol and tobacco interests have lobbied to keep marijuana out of reach. For instance, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors contributed campaign contributions to a committee set up to prevent marijuana from being legalized and taxed.

4.) Pharmaceutical Corporations: Like the sin industries listed above, pharmaceutical interests would like to keep marijuana illegal so American don’t have the option of cheap medical alternatives to their products. Howard Wooldridge, a retired police officer who now lobbies the government to relax marijuana prohibition laws, told Republic Report that next to police unions, the “second biggest opponent on Capitol Hill is big PhRMA” because marijuana can replace “everything from Advil to Vicodin and other expensive pills.”

5.) Prison Guard Unions: Prison guard unions have a vested interest in keeping people behind bars just like for-profit prison companies. In 2008, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association spent a whopping $1 million to defeat a measure that would have “reduced sentences and parole times for nonviolent drug offenders while emphasizing drug treatment over prison.”

RELATED: Why Can’t You Smoke Pot? Because Lobbyists Are Getting Rich Off of the War on Drugs

If you’re anti-marijuana, you need to reassess your priorities. To clarify: It’s one thing to not want to smoke/ingest it (you do you, choose your choices, etc and so forth). It’s another to side with corporations and privatized prisons to keep racist, classist anti-marijuana laws on the books.

(via stfuconservatives)

stfuconservatives:

drugpolicyreform:

The government is threatening and raiding even the most professional and well-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries in California. Recently, the Los Angeles City Council voted to ban all dispensaries and the federal government threatened the nation’s largest dispensary, Harborside Health Center. This federal crackdown runs roughshod over the will of voters and the repeated promises made by President Obama, Attorney General Holder and the Department of Justice to defer to responsible state and local regulation of medical marijuana. Take action and urge your legislators to support a new bill in Congress that could stop the federal threats on medical marijuana.

Did you know that owners of medical marijuana dispensaries actually encouraged their workers to unionize? In light of the recent decision by the City Council to close all MMJ dispensaries, the union that represents them has started a petition to repeal the ban. Please consider signing it.

(via stfuconservatives)

nevver:

“You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it’s for something else.” ― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness