roaringsilence's blog

I emailed Rep John Hall (D-NY) about his views on the drug provision of the Higher Education Act, and here is what he wrote back to me: Dear Mr. ___, Thank you for contacting me regarding drug convictions and federal financial aid. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue. It is important to me as a freshman member of Congress to know what my constituents think on a wide range of issues as I study them and consider my vote.

Jerry Brown once said in a radio show: http://www.sonic.net/~doretk/Issues/97-04%20APR/jbdrugwar.html

The war on drugs is really no war at all-it's a business! It's a practice of the government, of the institutions that have grown up around it. I'm talking about the hardware-the helicopters, the weapons, the radar, the surveillance...

http://www.joinrudy2008.com/news/pr/72/index.php Lately Robert Ehrlich, former gov of Maryland, endorsed Rudy for president. In the medical marijuana circles, Mr. Ehrlich is remembered as the first Republican governor to sign a med-pot law. The bill he signed decriminalized, but did not legalize, medical use of marijuana in Maryland. He and Rudy would disagree, certainly, on the issue of med-pot.

Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican in the U.S. Senate who, when he was a state attorney general, gave an award to the infamous police officer who started the Tulia scandal, one of the most notorious incidence of racial injustice in the United States. Willie Nelson is a country singer who is very supportive of drug law reform. So what do these two have in common? The answer is, they are both from Texas. But I didn't discover this fact, in fact, the authoritarian, Bushie senator bragged about it after all:

What do classical pianist Van Cliburn, country great Willie Nelson and rock legend Janis Joplin have in common? They’re all from Texas.

If Senator Cornyn really has any respect of Nelson or Joplin (remember she was a heroin user), he would have advocated for the end of the drug war, and not like what he is doing now. But as a Texan Republican, a Nixonian "law and order" conservative, it takes a bit courage to have any positive word to say about Janis Joplin. Is he a closet hippie? I don't think so, but possibly his ghost-writer is.

The famous and dreaded conservative firebrand Michelle Malkin wrote articles against the War on Drugs several years ago, they are still on the Internet: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin120400.asp

http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/help/ask-the-doc.aspx I asked the above website, the drug czar's kids campaign, on the "ask the doc" section, that whether should non-violent drug users to receive tr

Today I called the Washington office of my congressman, John Hall. I have vigorously supported him in the 2006 election against a Bush rubber stamp Sue Kelly. He was seemed to be a progressive democrat (indeed he joined the progressive caucus after entering office). However, he voted against Hinchey-Rohrabacher, refusing the step to stop DEA from raiding the dispensaries.