Dope no more, Illinois reaps dope revenue..and minority justice

OK, cannabis is dope, but on the scale of dopes, relatively harmless compared to illegal dope like heroin and cocaine; even the legal dope alcohol and prescription pain killers that have killed hundreds of thousands this century. The direct cannabis death toll is zero. In addition, hundreds of thousands Illinoisans find it an effective stress reliever, and in times of pandemic, racial polarization and a deranged president, its demand is skyrocketing. Up till this year all of that hundreds of millions, possibly a billion in Illinois, has been spent with off-the-books street entrepreneurs, following in the footsteps of Prohibition moonshiners.

But wise, newbie Illinois Governor Pritzker legalized it January 1 to accomplish two critical policy improvements: divert much of that billion to licensed businesses and Illinois’ coffers. Possibly more important, was completion of the decriminalization of cannabis which has horribly degraded mostly minority communities with mass legal entrapment and incarceration. Pritzker’s words deserve repeating: “Illinois has done more to put justice and equity at the forefront of this industry than any other state in the nation, and we’re ensuring that communities that have been hurt by the war on drugs have the opportunity to participate”.

How financially significant is legitimizing cannabis sales? Pritzker estimated the first six months take would be $28 million. That was nearly doubled to $52 million. Not one dollar of that new revenue came from me. I learned half a century ago pot was not my cup of tea. But I fervently support wise public policy that improves society desperately needing improvement.

Illinois: a dope on dope no more.

5.4 million losing insurance in pandemic not enough for Trump

An estimated 5.4 million Americans have lost their health insurance in pandemic. The real number is 27 million but 21.6 million became eligible for free Medicaid programs or subsidized private insurance under Obamacare. But in Trumpworld no good government program goes unpunished. Trump continues his ghoulish lust to destroy Obamacare, his signature 2016 campaign pledge, by again going to the Supreme Court in another attempt to overturn it.

Filing to overturn Obamacare during pandemic, which could add another 20 million uninsured, is cruel beyond comprehension. Trump’s brief arguing for repeal didn’t even mention pandemic. Hey, why inject a critical reason to not overturn Obamacare into the argument for repealing it. Apparently, the only thing Trump considers injecting….is disinfectant.

Murder, she wrote

From 1984 to 1996, Dame Angela Lansbury portrayed mystery writer Jessica Fletcher, whose fictional pursuits were overshadowed by her penchant in solving real life murders on ‘Murder, She Wrote’. As good as Fletcher was, we didn’t need her fictional expertise to pin premeditated state sponsored murder of a foreign official on President Trump and his loyal Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. But it did take a woman, Agnes Callamard, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. She had responsibility for investigating the January 3 drone attack at Baghdad International Airport that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and nine others as they departed the airport for a meeting called by our Iraq ally to broker peaceful relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

It took Callamard six months, somewhat longer than the fictional Fletcher’s one hour to solve the killing. But her verdict, which breaks new ground on the international law of war is stark:

“The targeted killing of General Qasem Soleimani is the first case of a drone attack against the representative of the armed forces of a state. Until now, all drone kills that I am aware of have targeted non-state targets, particularly individuals associated with acts of terror.”

How might the U.S. react if Iran, not at war with the U.S., launched a drone attack which, like the Soleimani murder, incinerated the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and nine others he was meeting with to discuss peace? My guess? Iran would be bombed back to the Stone Age.

The extrajudicial murders of Gen. Soleimani and his nine member entourage compared to the 268 murders solved by Lansbury’s fictional Jessica Fletcher, reveal once again that truth is stranger than fiction…and a lot more grisly.

Carlson's Blake Neff no Ted Sorensen

Brilliant writer Ted Sorensen joined newly elected senator John Kennedy’s staff in 1953. Together, the two formed one of the most important and historic presidential partnerships. Sorensen sacrificed his marriage and health to write some of the most memorable presidential speeches ever: the 1961 inaugural, the August 22, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Speech, the June 9, 1963 Peace Speech and the Civil Rights Speech just a day later. He never recovered emotionally from JFK’s assassination.

We learned this weekend of another brilliant writer deeply attached to a highly influential figure. Blake Neff served as chief writer for top rated Fox News host Tucker Carlson for four years till his abrupt resignation Friday. Neff also wrote for Carlson’s opinion site The Daily Caller. He boasted about his influence over the influential Carlson, whose views touch, and sometimes stray over the line of promoting White Nationalism.

Now we know why Neff was so effective as Carlson’s chief writer exploiting racial animus on Fox News. Neff was outed as an anonymous, scurrilous author spewing extreme racist and misogynous hate on the online forum AutoAdmit. Posing as CharlesXII, no minority group was safe from CharlesXII’s vitriol. It took some time but CNN, Carlson’s frequent target as being a left leaning ‘fake news’ agency, pieced together five years of Neff’s anonymous hate speech to reveal CharlesXII was Neff.

Those of us fortunate to have grown up listening to Sorensen’s mellifluous and heartfelt words pouring from JFK’s mouth can dismiss Blake Neff with, “You’re no Ted Sorensen”.