I recently attended a tax preparers’ gathering, and part of the advice we received as Colorado licensees regarding marijuana businesses was this: don’t advise them in any way or prepare tax returns for them. Don’t touch them.
The reason: at the federal level, pot is still illegal. Our licenses could be in jeopardy if there is a crackdown. We could be subject to prosecution for aiding a criminal enterprise.
A commenter down below left this morsel, which was superb, the reason why blogging is more than fun – even worth the effort. If he put it in a letter to the editor of the Missoulian, would be it published? I don’t know, but doubt that it would. It’s the kind of information that scares the gatekeepers of conventional wisdom. Newspaper editors don’t receive phone calls from advertisers or the publisher telling them what they can and cannot print. They intuitively understand what is acceptable and not. It is a shared consensus of silent power within a community, state and nation.
There I go again. Here is the comment:
Former Missoula resident Dan Baum, author of “Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure” got the money quote from Nixon Aide [Bob] Haldeman on why they chose to make a war on cannabis. Haldeman said that although they were fully aware that cannabis didn’t present any significant public health threat that you couldn’t outlaw rock music, black people or long hair so they just outlawed the common denominator. In other words they did it because it aided oppression of the young and the black. It allowed a culture war and a culture war victory for the side of repression.
Marijuana laws have long been enforced or ignored for various reasons. It is currently illegal because its use is widespread, thus allowing the state to use law enforcement selectively to punish groups that threaten its power. In this case, and going back to the successes of the Civil Rights movement, the targeted group is African Americans.
For this reason, the new and sensible laws passed in Colorado and Washington will not stand. The Feds may be tolerating us right now, but it is a mere tactical problem – how to crack down with the least amount of public outrage. So, and pure speculation of course, I venture that there will be late-night raids on dispensaries, and that our tooly local news outlets will remain silent when it happens.
It’s that shared consensus among the powerful I mentioned above.
Piece of Mindful 
I respectfully disagree on the politics, while generally agreeing on the policy and ultimatly the practice at DOJ, FBI and ATF. Colorado is a key “swing” state. DOJ is more or less directed by White House political insiders, as well as policy advisors. There is the Senate control to consider. Will Obama do anything to add to incumbent vulnerability to 2014 races in Colorado (Mark Udall) and Washington (Patti Murray)? Perhaps, but only if the ACA “clusterbomb” quits raining down bad news for health-insurance policy-holders.
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Easily resolved.
The raids begin the day after November’s election.
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Interesting. I don’t view politics, normally, as interfering with public policy – that is, once elected, they revert to looking after the money backers, and party labels are discarded. But perhaps it does.
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One thing to remember is that the 2016 race for the White House is underway. In 2014, the focus will be on the Senate, the next day it will shift to 2016. The national election cycle is perpetual, especially in Colorado.
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Apparently, it has been suggested to us now that Christie is not a viable candidate.
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My guess is that Christie is toast. It seems to keep getting worse.
Some are even saying that he was part of a conspiracy to politically punish an opponent by creating a week of horrendous traffic jams in his (FT Lee) city.
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Looks like a political take-down to me. The media can amplify or ignore any story, and this one could easily be ignored.
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Amplify would be the word.
“In less than 24 hours, the big three networks have devoted 17 times more coverage to a traffic scandal involving Chris Christie than they’ve allowed in the last six months to Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service controversy. Since the story broke on Wednesday that aides to the New Jersey governor punished a local mayor’s lack of endorsement with a massive traffic jam, ABC, CBS and NBC have responded with 34 minutes and 28 seconds of coverage. Since July 1, these same networks managed a scant two minutes and eight seconds for the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups.”
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2014/01/09/there-s-already-17-times-more-coverage-christie-scandal-last-six-mon#ixzz2q0WyPBZn
Political takedown indeed.
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Swede, any politician can be taken down, and the media doesn’t decide on its own to do it. It’s a function of power, consensus within the groups that decide who gets to be president. (Did you think that Obama just happened to get rave reviews for giving an ordinary speech at the 2004 convention?) Every politician is under surveillance, most have something to hide. Only a selected few get taken out – Gary Hart, Wilbur Mills, Pete Toricelli, Elliot Spitzer, John Edwards, Anthony Weiner, Howard Dean, and now Governor Christie. You should reevaluate your support for him, as he is now in the company of lefties taken out of commission.
Anyone can be called, but only a few are chosen for shunning. And what is most amazing is that this is testimony to the power of suggestion. His offense, if there even is any, is one that is minor and can be easily ignored. Imagine, if the same standards applied, how an honest media would have handled George Bush’s cocaine, abortions, military desertion – but he is protected, rather than attacked.
Welcome to politics. I found Christie likeable. Now I know why. He’s essentially honest. That will end a career any time.
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Quote: “Swede, any politician can be taken down, and the media doesn’t decide on its own to do it.”
What a short memory. Dan Rather rings a bell maybe?
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That was indeed a sting, courtesy Karl Rove, but the target was Rather, and not Bush, and sent a clear message to everyone in the media: Bush’s past is off-limits. There was never again any mention of his desertion.
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It’s actually a local story that got legs when they got the emails. It’s a conspiracy theory made good. Government purposely shuts down lanes to clog city for four days. There are even alternative theories as to who the main political target of the shutdown was.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-heart-the-scandal
But the what is pretty well documented and understood. A week of gridlock traffic both on the bridge as well as the cities around the effected areas were completely brought to a halt because lanes were shut down to create a traffic crises. People who long suspected it were vindicated by the emails.
Are you saying you have reason to believe the emails weren’t real? That they were made up? Or are you saying that Christie’s Chief of Staff did this all without Christie’s knowledge, to set him up? We know that traffic was blocked. Christie’s office claimed a traffic study but there was no study. When they found the emails between the governors top staffers and the port authority the jig was up. There may be a lot more to this. Apparently there are a lot more still as yet unreleased paperwork on this story.
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I am saying that the newsworthiness of any scandal is based on the person behind the scandal. Far worse things than this get a pass, like desertion, cocaine abuse, abortions by born-again Christian. Those things could have ended Bush’s career, but did not. Why?
If Christie were favored by insiders, if he was viewed as presidential timbre, the next coming of a fresh face ready to grace the cover of Time, this scandal would not have legs, might gain local and net coverage, but not penetrate national consciousness. The corporate media does not report news. It only tells us where we should focus our attention. Everything operates on power of suggestion.
Anyone can be called for scandal, only a few are chosen. Why?
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Also, a take-down does not make him a good guy. It only means that he is viewed as undependable. That is probably the only reason behind Howard Dean’s take-down in 2004. Insiders didn’t know what to make of him.
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In this case, a local paper had been reporting since last Sept on the issue. They used the freedom of information act. The paper thought it was weird that a traffic study would be ordered without notifying the cops or fire. Christie had already belittled the papers reporters and humiliated them as best he could for asking questions about it.
I happen to suspect the Senate Dems in NJ as being behind the disclosure. They used their subpoena powers, got the email and wrote a report.
Meanwhile Christie made sure to not ask his Chief of Staff any questions before he fired her. He was too irritated to learn the truth right just then I guess. You know, like “why?” she did it?
I think Rachael has a good theory. I think it’s about the senate Dems, who issued the report the paper published the letters from, and who is now releasing the entire report.
just politics as usual. Christie shot himself in the foot, as is so often the case.
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A first, I msut say that I can be wrong and you right. Let’s be clear. But it flies in the face of a couple things I know to be supported by vast evidence:
News reporting is a top-down enterprise, and not bottom up. Nothing goes in the paper without the OK from the publisher. The American news media is perhaps the worst on the face of the earth – even Tass looks at it and says “Wow, what tools!”
FOIA requests are not fishing expeditions. Someone has to know there is something to look for, and where.
Use of Yahoo accounts with real names is crazy, and further it is easy to open a Yahoo account and pin someone’s name on it. I can see keeping illegal activity off state servers, but beyond that, this is nuts.
This is a surveillance state, and NSA can track down anyone’s emails, monitor any server or computer. Even Patraeus and his girlfriend, who had opened one shared email account and deleted every message after reading it, were nabbed.
Just as with Nixon and the Watergate burglary, Christie may not have even known about it and could be framed.
Just keep all of that in mind. When I first heard the news, it wasn’t about traffic snarls. It was that Christie was done as a presidential candidate. That’s why it smells.
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I dont see it as being so clear that Christie is being taken down intentionally by some group. This is a media story that is going to drive internet clicks and make money. It is juicy and speaks to the common person in that anybody living in that area would have been directly harmed by this.
Its subjective whether GW using coke or deserting his post is ‘worse’ than this but I don’t believe it to be. The evidence is much more clear and much more fresh in this case as well.
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Compare and contrast Abe.
Obama shuts down parks, monuments, and memorials for weeks. Even posts guards and the MSM is silent.
The NJ bridge shuts down for hours and they go crazy.
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Swede, just like birds flocking again in a tree after being scattered by a passing owl, you always settle back on D vs R as your underlying explanation of all phenomena. You can be shaken off it for a few moments, and then it quickly settles in again.
Partisan politics is a distorted lens at best, at worst, utterly useless.
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Call it what u want Mark. R vs. D. Progressive vs Conservative. Commies vs Freedom lovers.
Watergate was a bungled break-in. Bengazi was the death of 4 Americans, Fast and Furious was the death of a border agent. But hey GW covered up his DUI and is not qualified to be president.
Or news readers have an agenda. Show me numbers to prove otherwise.
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R v D, conservative v progressive, Commies versus people who talk about freedom who don’t even know what the hell freedom means – doesn’t mean a thing to me.
Watergate was a deliberately bungled break in designed to entrap Nixon in a scandal, possibly revenge by George HW Bush for Nixon’s selection of Agnew (Nixon called him “life insurance”) over Bush. The burglars were also players in the JFK assassination. Nixon was no saint, but made the mistake of dissing a Bush.
Bengazi was a staged incident, but I am not clear on the who or why. Petraeus was surely involved. It appears the intended beneficiary was Romney, but details will not emerge for years, if ever. Four Americans? You’re kind of funny given the millions we’ve killed over there since 9/11. But these appear to be Americans sacrificed by other Americans, some sort of covert operation.
Partisan politics might appear to be important, but interests are what matters – who owns the politicians. Wall Street, for instance, owns both parties to a large degree, and that has been the case since the turn of the twentieth century, with notable exceptions.
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I pass not judgment on Bush’s youthful lack of direction. I loved John Lennon, perhaps one of the most indiscreet men who ever lived. I forgive him everything. I don’t care about traffic jams or a man sitting in a toilet stall in Minneapolis. Subjective judgment of the underlying sin is not at issue. The point is that the media is a mighty Wurlitzer, and can make any story big or cause it to shrink from view and disappear. Howard Dean did nothing to ruin his presidential run. Nothing. The Bush’s stories were expertly managed to minimize damage, even baiting and then sending Dan Rather to pasture in the process.
You might also ask yourselves, knowing we live in a surveillance state, why private communications become public, as with Anthony Weiner, or Christie’s staff. Before they are public, they are discovered. Then it is just a tactical maneuver to make their appearance seem random or happenstance.
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The “Dean scream” I agree with as well as your interpretation of how GW’s indiscretions were handled. You and I have disagreed in the past about the Weiner scandal (back when I was merely jack ruby and had not transformed to the great and wonderful abe froman.) As you may recall the disclosure of Weiner’s weiner came at his own hand (or click), it was not something leaked by anyone else it was his own misuse and lack of knowledge on how he was using the internet.
At this early stage I take the same position on this matter as I did with Weiner in the sense that I don’t see any evidence of a hidden hand here. What happened is newsworthy from the standpoint the coverage of it is going to draw a lot of attention and therefore make $. I guess you could say if Christie were on the “protected list” like GW was maybe it would not be as big but this is not something from the 1960s 1970s with hazy details and contradicting witnesses. We have emails and thousands of people who were effected in very recent times. Intentionally punishing every day citizens by creating traffic jams is really a step beyond the pale of things despite what the swede says.
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The real problem here is that Christie’s aides apparently didn’t realize they need to use yahoo email accounts as Karl Rove & company did so their machinations aren’t subject to FOIA.
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See above regarding use of Yahoo and other reasons why this story needs to be scrutinized carefully.
The Dean scream is pure power of suggestion. Without talking heads telling us to be disturbed by it, it is nothing. In fact, it should not even have made the air, as, again, it is nothing. Nothing. It was nothing made into something.
Weiner was most likely nailed in the same manner as Gary Hart, steeped in his own juice, played to his own weakness, but the question is not that he did it, but why do we know about it. Further, why do we know about him, and not scores of
ottersothers (my best typo today) doing the same thing. When every Wall Street office is clouded with cocaine and hookers are giving blow jobs under every desk, why do we learn about Elliot Spitzer?And that is my overreaching point, something I have written about many times, falling under the heading “The nature of power,” or the selective use of scandal to out some, while others are protected (until they step out of line).
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You mention Petraues above to Swede about an unrelated matter, but his downfall seems far more suspicious to me if we’re talking hidden hands than does this business with Christie.
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Who do you believe Abe? The Post or Powerline? Classic R vs. D.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/05/washington-post-blames-benghazigate-on-petraeus.php
Interesting tho. The good general is gainfully employed by a Soros backed hedge fund.
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Your point? If Democrats and Republicans are essentially two wings of the same party packaged to appeal to different constituencies, then each needs big money backing. Soros could be Koch could be Goldman could be Exxon.
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I know your point.
I was asking Abe.
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Fair enough, but I don’t think you do “know” my point, as it is oil and you are water.
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The downfall or Patraeus is as suspicious as any, including McCrystal, who was definitely tagged for downfall by someone in the bowels do the administration. Any one can be brought down in a surveillance state with a subordinate media.
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Can you wrap NSA/adm./subordinate media into Rove’s camp?
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Why would I? He’s just a political operative, pretty good at it, however. But we spend too much time talking about names in the paper, which is just a distraction. Real power lay elsewhere. Politics, especially, is a distraction, and if you notice, barely affects public policy.
Try following the money, sometime. Ask yourself, for instance, while Clinton was messing with Monica in the Oval office, that the phone rang and on the other end was Carl Lindner, head of Chiquita Banana, formerly United Fruit … why does he have a direct line to the president? Does that sort of thing ever enter your querulous mind?
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Also makes me wonder why Clinton was using a cigar instead of a banana.
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I wish I could tell this whole story. Regardless I was listening to Max tell a story amongst some friends about Clinton. This was right after the Monica thing blew up. Max and a couple aides where on Air Force 1 and Clinton invited them back to the lounge for a smoke.
Bill handed Max and others the cigars but before cutting and lighting took a big whiff of the stogie. There was this long silence, then laughter. The whole place was up for grabs.
I’ve probably said too much, but we all had a good laugh again.
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Swede about the only thing I can say that I know about why Petraues went down is that I don’t know. But I feel as reasonably confident as anything that it had little to nothing to do with R v D politics. CIA vs Pentagon maybe? I don’t know.
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/02/05/petraeus-the-plot-thickens-1/
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