Category Archives: Poltics

Massachusetts votes to legalize marijuana at the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016

This week the Boston Herald wrote that 62% of Massachusetts businesses polled oppose the legalization of marijuana. The way they wrote it, you would have thought that 62% was a lot of businesses but what surprised me was how low that was. I would’ve anticipated 80 – 90% opposing such legislation.

Full legalization of marijuana will be on the ballot on November 8th and is widely expected to pass. In anticipation of its passage, the MA State Senate is now drafting regulations to license, regulate and tax its production and distribution in a manner similar to alcohol – which I am 100% okay with and look forward to. Maybe we can use the tax revenue to finally fix the MBTA.

You can read the referendum (a.k.a. Massachusetts Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Initiative) that will be voted on at the ballot box on November 8th, here. If you would like to see marijuana legalized, regulated and taxed link here for more information, regulatemassachusetts.org.

“America doesn’t have a gun problem. It has several of them.”

The debate over gun regulation in the US seems intractable, but there is one fact that both sides can agree on: Mass shootings are just the tip of a very complicated gun problem in America. This video runs though several charts that tries to breakdown and explain the state of gun violence in America.

Unfortunately elected officials and the nation’s largest gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), believe the only way to mitigate gun violence in the US is to better arm everyone – despite the fact that gun violence appears to be directly related to the number of guns available. So where does that leave us?

One of the very few remaining civic duties is voting. If you are a registered voter and you live in one of the following states listed below, you owe it to yourself and your community to vote.

I don’t care if you vote for a candidate I support or someone I detest. For more than two centuries men and women have fought to preserve this right; you do their memory and their sacrifice a disservice when you walk away and choose not to participate in the election process.

LOVE THIS: Kentucky state representative, Mary Lou Marzian, believed that a new law requiring women to have a medical consultation 24 hours before having an abortion smacked of sexism so last week she proposed a bill in the male-dominated House to drive home the point.

Under the legislation, men would have to navigate a series of obstacles before they could obtain erectile dysfunction drugs, like Viagra. They would be required to have two doctor visits, a signed-and-dated letter from his spouse providing consent, and a sworn statement — delivered with his hand on a Bible — that he would use the drugs only to have sex with his spouse. And only married men would be eligible for the drugs.

You can read the full story here.

This week the conservative Texas Republican Senator, Ted  Cruz, learned a new word, karma.  Cruz must be disliked by everyone because nobody in the Republican Party is coming to his defense in what is clearly a non-issue. After listening to Cruz and others question Obama’s citizenship, it is hard not to feel smug about the blow back he is now getting just weeks prior to IA and NH.

Republican Senator John McCain on Senator Cruz eligibility: “I was born in the Canal Zone which is a territory… That’s different from being born on foreign soil… I’m not a constitutional scholar on that, but I think it’s worth looking into. I don’t think it’s illegitimate to look into it.”

Republican Senator Rand Paul on Senator Cruz eligibility: “I think without question he is qualified to make the cut to be prime minister of Canada.”

Republican front-runner Donald Trump on Senator Cruz eligibility: “Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question: ‘Do we want a candidate who could be tied up in court for two years?’ That’d be a big problem… I’d hate to see something like that get in his way. But a lot of people are talking about it and I know that even some states are looking at it…”

Donald Trump’s recent comment about banning all Muslims from entering the US has a lot of Republicans distancing themselves, but the fact is the Republican Party of 2015 is far more conservative than it has ever been and while many may revile Mr. Trump, his running mates are in many ways just as extreme. The Hillary Clinton campaign has created a rather interesting online game I’d suggest you try called Who said it: Donald Trump or not Donald Trump?

It seems like Americans are more comfortable talking about our nations’ ideals rather than living up to them.  The inscription on the Statue of Liberty says:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

I can understand the need for carefully screening refugees from Syria and the Middle East, but to date we’ve welcomed approximately 1,500 refugees; a pitiful few considering we are a nation of immigrants some 300 million strong. The terrors taking place in Syria have resulted in more than 250,000 civilians killed and more than 22 million forced to flee their homes (that includes children). I can’t think of another nation more in need of the United States, but it seems like our country’s “Christian ideals” have been forgotten or are simply lip service.

Explain to me how having 22 million displaced Syrians living in poverty in the Middle East (because nobody will take them) won’t result in providing ISIS and others with a new generation ripe for recruiting.

NYT: G.O.P. governors vow to close doors to Syrian refugees
CNN: More than half of the nation’s governors say Syrian refugees not welcome
FOX News: Where are the Syrian refugees now?
NBC: House Speaker Ryan: “Pause” needed in resettling Syrian refugees