Uncle Sam Smoking a Joint

Well it's official. The Fed is not going to enforce the law. Pot smokers don't have to worry anymore because if their state passes a law legalizing pot then it's   a-l-l   g-o-o-d   m-a-n...

I don't smoke pot so I don't really have a dog in this fight. Do I think that pot legalization is the end of the world? No. Would I rather be trapped in a jail cell with 10 dudes that are high, or 10 dudes that are drunk? I'd rather not be in jail! People are going to do what they are going to do. Some people might be deterred by the law, but most aren't. After all like Maurice said, "...I don't wanna hurt no-one."

I just have issue with the way that this going down. The Justice Department has unilaterally decided that it doesn't want to enforce the law. Obama took an oath to uphold The Constitution, the Justice Department is part of The Executive Branch --Eric Holder is part of Obama's Cabinet. So, where does it go from here? Oh, that's right! The Justice Department is also not enforcing federal immigration laws either. See this memo (quoted below).

One of ICE's central responsibilities is to enforce the nation's civil immigration laws in coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). ICE, however, has limited resources to remove those illegally in the United States. ICE must prioritize the use of its enforcement personnel, detention space, and removal assets to ensure that the aliens it removes represent, as much as reasonably possible, the agency's enforcement priorities, namely the promotion of national security, border security, public safety, and the integrity of the immigration system. These priorities are outlined in the ICE Civil Immigration Enforcement Priorities memorandum of March 2,2011, which this memorandum is intended to support.

Because the agency is confronted with more administrative violations than its resources can address, the agency must regularly exercise "prosecutorial discretion" if it is to prioritize its efforts. In basic terms, prosecutorial discretion is the authority of an agency charged with enforcing a law to decide to what degree to enforce the law against a particular individual. ICE, like any other law enforcement agency, has prosecutorial discretion and may exercise it in the ordinary course of enforcement. When ICE favorably exercises prosecutorial discretion, it essentially decides not to assert the full scope of the enforcement authority available to the agency in a given case.

The strangest thing is the disclaimer???

Disclaimer

As there is no right to the favorable exercise of discretion by the agency, nothing in this memorandum should be construed to prohibit the apprehension, detention, or removal of any alien unlawfully in the United States or to limit the legal authority of ICE or any of its personnel to enforce federal immigration law. Similarly, this memorandum, which may be modified, superseded, or rescinded at any time without notice, is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law by any party in any administrative, civil, or criminal matter.

That's right, because if you don't follow written law you are going to be in big trouble --after we just told you it's OK to not follow the law.

So it's not a directive to not follow the law. It's a memo telling you that if you choose not to follow the law there will be no consequences. Oh, and it's a good idea to not follow it, you just don't have to not follow it...

This is a very troubling precedent. Right now discretion might be applied in a "mostly" logical manner, but what happens when it's not? What happens when the laws that directly protect citizens are also ignored? Discretion is an extremely vague term and differs depending on who is exercising it.

So if you get pulled over in a state where pot is legal, just ask the police officer if you wants a toke, he might use discretion and let you go.

I have changed my domain from haveabadone.homedns.org to winduprubberfinger.com

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Gay Protesters Face Prosecution in Russia

Russia is not the kind of place where openly homosexual individuals can display their affection in public. One Russian lawmaker has passed a law banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations." For some people in America this is considered a scandal. I think it's quite the opposite.

Considering that the vast majority of the Russian population doesn't approve of homosexuality; this law is not surprising.

Sociologists say that tolerance (particularly to homosexual individuals) as a social phenomenon has been fading in Russia during the recent decade. The majority of respondents said in 2010 that they refused to take homosexual practice for normal relationships. Seventy-four percent of the polled said that gays and lesbians were morally perverted and mentally unbalanced individuals (68% - in 1998). Only 15 percent of Russians believe that homosexual and heterosexual individuals should enjoy equal rights in the Russian society. The research was conducted by Levada Center.

There is no scandal here, just a law that represents the majority opinion.

There would be a scandal only if Russian authorities arrested people and prosecuted them without this law in place. This law will protect LGBT individuals by letting them know that there are consequences should they do what is considered unacceptable by the majority of Russians.

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There was a point when I thought that some people were simply not paying attention.

Now that the Obama administration's true character is becoming publicly visible; there is no way that the American people can honestly look at all of the insanely obtrusive and morally defunct actions of this administration and excuse it. After the IRS scandal does anyone really believe there was no voter fraud taking place? Does anyone really trust these people anymore?

As for the Republicans; I'm afraid that the party is dead and just doesn't know it yet. The Republicans have managed to keep Democrats hating them, while simultaneously losing the respect of the people who were hoping they would come through. No amount of charisma is going to make someone's beliefs invisible (Marco Rubio).

I've said it once and I'll say it again. The Democrats don't have to worry about what their candidates do or say, because they know that their constituents don't care anyway --even when they do actually pay attention. Republicans have to truly and honestly give their constituents reasons to vote for them.

If people don't wake up to what's been happening over the past 4+ years. I don't think that they are going to wake up. It's probably going to be a nasty decade or two.

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Budget Control Act of 2011

Before you freak out you should see what's really going on here. First we have to go over Baseline Budgeting. In a nutshell the government forecasts an increase in the budget of (7)% each year.

The Deficit Control Act of 1985 provided the first legal definition of baseline. For the most part, the act defined the baseline in conformity with previous usage. If appropriations had not been enacted for the upcoming fiscal year, the baseline was to assume the previous year's level without any adjustment for inflation. In 1987, however, the Congress amended the definition of the baseline so that discretionary appropriations would be adjusted to keep pace with inflation. Other technical changes, annual increase of now approximately 3% plus inflation, to the definition of the baseline were enacted in 1990, 1993, and 1997. Presently, the [automatic annual] Baseline Budgeting increase is about 7%.

The Sequester is around a 2% reduction in the budget for fiscal year 2013. So what we really have here is an increase of roughly 5% instead of 7%. Obama and the Democrats have made as if half of the government will shut down because of a 2% difference in the forecast government budget.

Now let's look at Stimulus Spending and its aggregate impact thus far. The stimulus bill, passed in 2009, allotted more than 800 billion dollars to various areas of government. The budget in 2009 was roughly 2.7 trillion. That means that the Obama Stimulus Plan, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was a budget increase of roughly 29%. Did the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 create never-ending jobs? Where did the money go? Did it go into programs that were projected to have Stimulus spending forever?

Knowing that the Stimulus Bill, an increase of almost 29%, didn't create tons of jobs; how are we supposed to believe that a budget decrease of 2% is going to cause mass layoffs?

Mass layoffs don't make any sense when looked at logically. Are we to believe that labor is the last 2% of the federal budget?

If I made $500,000 a year and have a decrease of 2% I now would be left with $490,000. Does that mean that my family will starve now because of a $10,000 reduction in pay? That is what Obama and the Democrats want you to believe. Don't buy it. Now that Obama's bluff has been called; I'm wondering how the media is going to hide this.

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