Justin's Political Corner

Romney Campaign: Obama Can’t Create Jobs ‘Because He Spent His Early Years In Hawaii Smoking Something’

During an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday morning, Mitt Romney surrogate and former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R) argued that President Obama did not have the requisite business experience to create jobs because he was “smoking something” in Hawaii:

SUNUNU: This guy doesn’t understand how to create jobs. So there is no surprise — there should be because of that statement no surprise on why he failed so miserably over the last four years, in terms of job creation. He has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn’t be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, another set of years in Indonesia, and, frankly, when he came to the U.S. he worked as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure, and then got into politics in Chicago.

Chris Christie Calls War On Drugs 'A Failure' →

WASHINGTON — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has become the latest leader to condemn the now 40-year-old war on drugs.

“The war on drugs, while well-intentioned, has been a failure,” Christie said Monday during a speech at The Brookings Institution. “We’re warehousing addicted people everyday in state prisons in New Jersey, giving them no treatment.”

Christie stressed the merits of legislation recently passed by New Jersey state lawmakers that institutes a year of mandatory treatment for first-time, nonviolent drug offenders instead of jail time. The mandatory treatment program, slated to be put in place in at least three counties during its first year, will eventually expand statewide over the next five years.

Christie, one of the few Republican lawmakers to actively speak out against the effects of America’s drug war policies, sought to put a conservative moral spin on his position.

“If you’re pro-life, as I am, you can’t be pro-life just in the womb,” he said. “Every life is precious and every one of God’s creatures can be redeemed, but they won’t if we ignore them.”

Perhaps to blunt conservative criticism of the cost of such a program to the state, Christie argued in favor of the economics of drug treatment over incarceration.

“It costs us $49,000 a year to warehouse a prisoner in New Jersey state prisons last year,” Christie said. “A full year of inpatient drug treatment costs 24,000 a year.”

Christie’s strong stance on the war on drugs and drug treatment contrasts sharply with the less-defined series of positions on drug policy taken by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. A recent overview of Romney’s past statements on drugs, undertaken by The Atlantic, concluded that the former Massachusetts governor’s position has been difficult to pin down.

H/T: HuffPo

Obama Will Seek To Scale Back Drug War In Second Term: Report →

President Barack Obama will take steps to draw down the nation’s decades-long war on drugs if he wins a second term, Marc Ambinder reports Monday in GQ.

According to Ambinder, Obama’s “aides and associates” say that the president is looking to prioritize reform, a reflection of the president’s long-held beliefs that strict drug prohibition and enforcement policies have done greater damage to society than good.

Sources close to the White House also told The Huffington Post that the administration is looking at ways that it can reduce barriers to reentering society for those caught up in the drug war, such as a longstanding policy that denies federal financial aid to college students convicted of drug-related offenses, including possession.

The president has been repeatedly accused of going back on campaign-era promises regarding deemphasizing enforcement of federal laws against medical marijuana. While Obama said in 2008 that he wouldn’t use Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on medical marijuana, Attorney General Eric Holder later announced that federal authorities would continue to prosecute individuals for marijuana possession, regardless of its legalized status in some states.

“Obama — as candidate and as president — and his drug czar have already repeatedly talked about scaling back the war on drugs. But it’s been all talk,” Tom Angell, spokesman for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said. “Drug Czar Kerlikowske, in his very first interview with the Wall Street Journal after taking office, declared the end of the ‘war on drugs’ terminology. He has repeatedly said that this is a health and not just a crime issue. But the problem is: the drug control budget still overwhelmingly devotes more resources to old, failed punishment strategies than effective treatment and prevention strategies. The rhetoric doesn’t match the reality.”

h/t: Nick Wing at HuffPo

Chicago city council overwhelmingly votes to decriminalize marijuana | The Raw Story →

In a sweeping victory for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago City Council voted 43 to 3 on Wednesday to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Instead of requiring police to make an arrest when they discover someone possessing less than 15 grams of the drug, they have the option of simply issuing a ticket. Arrests are still mandatory for people who use the drug in public. Fines for misdemeanor possession will range from $100-$500, whereas the prior policy placed the fine at $1,500.

Emanuel, former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, said he backed the proposal to free up police for more important work, like tracking down violent criminals instead of spending hundreds of hours on misdemeanor arrests. He also noted that over 18,000 cases concerning small amounts of marijuana flooded the judicial system in 2010 alone, adding that the vast majority were dismissed.

President Obama, similarly, said early in his political career that he favors decriminalization, but he has not acted on that belief as president. His administration has been even more adamant about enforcing federal marijuana laws than his predecessor’s, carrying out hundreds of busts in states where voters or officials have approved the drug for medical use.

h/t: Stephen C. Webster at The Raw Story

Fla. Welfare Applicants Less Likely to Use Drugs - ABC News →

Preliminary figures on a new Florida law requiring drug tests for welfare applicants show that they are less likely than other people to use drugs, not more. One famous Floridian suggests that it’s the people who came up with the law who should be submitting specimens. Columnist and best-selling author Carl Hiaasen offered to pay for drug testing for all 160 members of the Florida Legislature in what he called “a patriotic whiz-fest.”

(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)

cognitivedissonance:

Uh-oh. Looks like Florida’s mandatory drug testing for taxpayers is costing the taxpayers more than they’re actually saving.

Governor Rick Scott had praised the program when he signed it June 1st of this year, proclaiming, “It’s the right thing for citizens of this state that need public assistance. We don’t want to waste tax dollars.”

However, the numbers are not adding up. From WFTV:

Just six weeks after Florida began drug testing welfare applicants, WFTV uncovered numbers which show that the program is already costing Central Florida taxpayers more than it saves. 9 Investigates’ reporter George Spencer found very few applicants are testing positive for drugs. The Department of Central Florida’s (DCF) region tested 40 applicants and only two tested positive for drugs, officials said. One of the tests is being appealed.

Governor Rick Scott said the program would save money. Critics said it already looks like a boondoggle. “We have a diminishing amount of returns for our tax dollars. Do we want out governor throwing our precious tax dollars into a program that has already been proven not to work?” Derek Brett of the ACLU said.

DCF said it has been referring applicants to clinics where drug screenings cost between $30 and $35. The applicant pays for the test and the state reimburses [the applicant] if they test negative. Therefore, the 38 applicants in the Central Florida area, who tested negative, were reimbursed at least $30 each and cost taxpayers $1,140. Meanwhile, the state is saving less than $240 a month by refusing benefits to those two applicants who tested positive.

I’m not at all shocked by this, and the ACLU is planning to file suit. Oh, and they’re also saying to Rick Scott: “We told you so.” Literally.

The sad part? These measures scare people off from applying for benefits. If people test positive for drugs, it means two things: Either they ingested that substance at least once, and maybe only once, within the testing window - or it’s a false positive. Here’s a short list of things that can cause a false positive:

Poppy seeds: (Opioids)

Cold medications: (amphetamines)

Wellbutrin: (amphetamines)

Tricyclic antidepressants: (amphetamines)

Zoloft: (benzodiazepine)

Daypro: (benzodiazepine)

Quinolone antibiotic drugs: (Opioids)

Sustiva (prescribed for HIV): (cannabinoids)

Ibuprofen: (cannabinoids, barbiturates, phencyclidine [PCP])

Foods made with hemp and hemp oil: (cannabinoids)

Effexor: (phencyclidine)

Vicks Inhalers: (methamphetamines)

Zantac: (amphetamines)

Ultram: (phencyclidine)

Over-the-counter cough medicine containing dextromethorphan: (Opioids)

Huh. So drug tests aren’t infallible and they’re not saving Florida any money? As the ACLU points out, Florida should have learned this 10 years ago, when they tried this program and had to dump it for cost reasons.

I’ll indulge the governor for a moment, though. Let’s say there’s parents who have used some kind of drugs in the period before the test. Why deprive children of quite possibly the only support they’ll receive because their parent(s) may or may not have used drugs voluntarily or involuntarily in the testing period? I’m not comfortable with that thought, and any other person with an iota of compassion should not be thrilled with that proposition either.

(via sarahlee310)