1/14-16 MLK Jr Holiday Weekend Open Thread

A note from Brasilia President Lula (translated from the tweet):

We are working to build a government to recover people’s eyes and hope. To see that this country can work. We conquer the right to smile again. Good Morning.

Join us for news, tweets, music, and yes, some libations with food to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Benny

orlbucfan

I love early U2. I have “The Unforgettable Fire” on a vinyl lp, and “War” on CD. They were such a great anthemic band. Sorta like the Stones and their tunes like “Street Fighting Man” and the brilliant “Gimme Shelter.”

orlbucfan

Couldn’t resist. 🙂

Benny

Our first leadership meeting for the Congressional Progressive Caucus this session 👏🏽 @RepJayapal @Ilhan @USProgressives pic.twitter.com/bE5ZKXjJtc
— Congressman Greg Casar (@RepCasar) January 13, 2023

orlbucfan

Keeping eyes on our neophyte Rep. Frost. 🙂

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

So am I. so far so good. Here’s my email from him today –
“Maxwell Frost Devotes First Speech to Defending Abortion Rights”

_____ – this week, I gave my first speech on the House floor as a member of Congress to call out Republican leaders’ continued attacks on abortion rights.
They’re continuing to weaponize abortion access, putting the lives of countless women at risk for their own political gain – all the while pushing the narrative that they’re the “pro-life” party.
It’s bad enough on paper, but it’s personal, too. My district in Central Florida is home to countless people facing the consequences of these attacks. Our Republican governor (Ron DeSantis, maybe you’ve heard of him?) and anti-choice state lawmakers have already passed a 15-week abortion ban.
These far-right crusaders won’t stop until abortion access is cut off entirely. But let me make this clear: abortion is a fundamental right.
I’ll keep fighting to protect this right – not just in Congress, but on the streets, alongside those most impacted by these attacks on bodily autonomy.

orlbucfan

We have plenty of young folks of all colors living here, Aint. My particular area is gentrifying like you would not believe, but it’s got plenty of young renters and owners. Anna Eskamani and Maxwell Frost prove it. They do not like Gov. Gargoyle and the Tallahassee Goon Squad. Every time the FRightie yo-yos gerrymander us, the area goes more and more progressive. Unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to the rest of the state. 🙁

orlbucfan

T and R x 2, Ms. Benny!! 🙂 Hope your healing is progressing!

orlbucfan

That should say x 3, but what do you expect outta an ole political warmare?? 🙂

Benny

I’m doing better. I squirreled away a bunch of medical leave days and that has made all of the difference. I can’t imagine having to go back after even 3 weeks; the healing would take even longer if I had gone back before the doctor ordered. I walk with a cane and just started PT to work on correcting my gait. A limp is still pretty evident at this juncture. However, I’ve driven myself to the store and dispensary a couple of times on my own in the past 2 weeks, whenever the weather has been kind.

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

Heal on!

orlbucfan

Very good news, fellow Progressive!!! I went back to work too soon after a drunk t-boned me in a car accident. Boy, did I pay a heavy price! Of course, down here in dumbsville, bennies don’t exist in jobs. That’s communism, you know.

Benny

I would not be surprised if more litigation pops up as a result of this article. This is lengthy, so I will divide this up in 2 parts. My immediate comment is the framing. Most journalists know that cannabis is used to neutralize the stigma of “pot” or “marijuana”.

Sick of Smelling Neighbor’s Legal Pot, She Sued

Josefa Ippolito-Shepherd tried cleaning, pleading and suing, but she said the attack on her home of 30 years was unrelenting. Sometimes she felt as though she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t live out her retirement in her manicured Cleveland Park colonial.
The assailant? The smell of marijuana.
Ippolito-Shepherd believed it drifted into her house through the cracks along her stairs, behind the web of pipes underneath a kitchen sink and above the recessed lights from her downstairs neighbor, a tenant of the adjoining home’s owner. She asked the neighboring landlord to evict her tenant and she told the smoker to cease lighting up inside, but both refused her.
Before the legalization of marijuana, Ippolito-Shepherd could have called 911 and police would have criminally charged her neighbor; but now officers told her nothing could be done. She wrote to D.C. Council chair Phil Mendelson, who said the only way to rectify her problem would be to undo the legalization of marijuana.
So she took the dispute to court, claiming the smell is a public nuisance, and the trial, which began this week, is the first of its kind to make it this far in the District court.
Marijuana is now permitted in most states in some form, and that has brought complaints of the scent and possible secondhand-smoke exposure from neighbors of marijuana farms, dispensaries and smokers. The debates surfacing around the country have led to new restrictions on where people can smoke as well as lawsuits over the nuisance.
The divide over the smell of marijuana is sharp, with one camp of nonsmokers decrying the odor as noxious and potentially detrimental, while smokers contend that such complaints have impeded their ability to freely partake in the drug — for medicinal or personal reasons — within the comforts of their own homes. The detrimental effects of secondhand marijuana smoke remain shrouded in uncertainty due to federal regulations on research — a relatively new frontier after decades of contention over tobacco smoke.
“I have the right to breathe fresh air in my home,” Ippolito-Shepherd told The Washington Post before the trial. “I’m not talking about if I go to someone else’s house or a place people go to smoke pot. They have the freedom to do whatever. I just do not want to be invaded in my own home.”
Overall, local governments are not passing major reform on this front. The National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties told The Post they are not tracking policy changes related to marijuana smell. But the signature scent of marijuana — once used by police to provide probable cause to search homes, cars and people — is now an increasingly ubiquitous olfactory experience in cities where smoking is most common.
California cities have begun to seriously contemplate the prospect of outlawing smoking within the confines of apartments and residential buildings, a development brought about by the anti-smoking movement, said Dale Gieringer, who leads the California chapter of a pro-decriminalization advocacy group, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
San Francisco had considered a proposal that would ban smoking tobacco and marijuana in apartments due to the secondhand smoke but narrowed the restriction after cannabis activists argued users already could not smoke in public places.
Gieringer argues such restrictions are “draconian” because they limit where medical marijuana patients can smoke.
“If you are a medical marijuana user — and we have hundreds of thousands of them, actually — you can’t smoke outside your house and in public,” he said, “and now with these no-smoking ordinances, you can’t smoke in your apartment either. So we’ve been fighting those ordinances.”
Gieringer, one of the authors of the California law that made medical marijuana legal, said despite the success in cities such as San Francisco that did not ultimately ban marijuana smoking, “it’s an ongoing issue” as people who do not like the distinctive smell complain. He said the odor should not dissuade its legalization, pointing to the alternative forms of consuming marijuana that do not cause as much of a smell, such as eating edibles and vaping oils.

Benny

part 2

Secondhand marijuana smoke contains many of the same cancer-causing toxins as secondhand tobacco smoke, said Brooke Hoots, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist. The substance within marijuana that causes a high — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — can be passed through young children from secondhand smoke, according to the CDC. Researchers in New York City found about one-third of parents surveyed reported marijuana smells in their home while their child was there, according to an Academic Pediatrics article published in January 2021.
Hoots, the team leader of the Cannabis Strategy Unit at the CDC, said researchers do not fully understand the long-term health consequences due to the federal government classifying marijuana as a Schedule I drug.
“It’s very difficult to do cannabis research,” Hoots said. “It’s difficult to obtain products, to do research and honestly jump through a lot of the regulatory requirements to qualify to do cannabis research.”
President Biden in October urged his administration to expedite a review of the schedule of marijuana when he announced he would offer pardons to anyone convicted of a federal crime for simply possessing the drug, the most drastic reform to federal marijuana policy in more than a half-century.
Despite the federal legal status of marijuana, a swell of states have pivoted in their stance on the drug, decriminalizing and legalizing it after decades of police disproportionately charging Black and Brown people with possession. It has also become more mainstream: Marijuana use is at a record high among young adults in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health.
But with the newfound acceptance of marijuana and its increasing availability comes questions about how society will reform, from new protections for employees who fail drug tests to evolving conversations parents have with their kids. More Americans are smoking marijuana than cigarettes, according to a recent Gallup poll, as legal battles over tobacco have waned.
In the first case over secondhand tobacco smoke in 1976, New Jersey’s superior court sided with an office worker who sued her company for allowing co-workers to smoke cigarettes at their desks. Since that case, hundreds of lawsuits have followed over the health threats of exposure to secondhand smoke, establishing a decades-long record of liability when smoke drifts into people’s homes. But the matter of marijuana smoke is less established.
The stench can be disconcerting, especially for those who are unaccustomed to it or dislike it.
Meredith Kinner, an attorney who represents members of the cannabis industry in D.C., said zoning is something potential cannabis businesses keep in mind when they think about location, especially if their shop might invite people to hang around outside smoking.
“You don’t want to be in a residential neighborhood,” Kinner said. “Because odor and nuisance complaints are a concern.”
After legalization went into effect in 2015, D.C. was quick to adopt a more casual attitude toward marijuana and the distinctive waft that accompanied it. A Washington Post poll conducted that year found that 57 percent of District residents said they smelled marijuana at least once a month.
Of those residents, 45 percent said the smell didn’t bother them at all; fewer than 4 in 10 respondents said the smell bothered them at least to a degree.
Unwelcome aromas are not uncommon in densely populated cities such as D.C. According to the D.C. Office of Unified Communications, which processes odor and air quality complaints, there were 202 odor complaints entered into the city’s 311 system in 2022, though the data does not include marijuana smell complaints.
As more states give marijuana the green light, more litigation from squabbles over scent will likely arise.
Ippolito-Shepherd, who is representing herself, said she is not seeking the illegalization of marijuana but rather a restriction on smoking in multiunit buildings. She said she will never move and has resolved to take her case as far up the judicial chain as she must until she prevails. The owner of the adjoining home, Angella Farserotu, and Thomas Cackett, who rents a ground-level, accessory apartment, have argued in court that they have no legal responsibility for Ippolito-Shepherd’s ailments.
Farserotu confirmed she was once good friends with Ippolito-Shepherd but declined to comment further other than that she “felt sorry for her.” Cackett did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Post.
Meanwhile, Ippolito-Shepherd is convinced that traces of marijuana are all over her house: in the fibers of her eggshell-colored mid-century couches, her numerous Oriental rugs, the embroidered pillow Farserotu once gifted her that exclaims “Snowflakes, Friendship, And Winter Cheer!”
In a wood-paneled courtroom in early January, the trial over the contentious issue of the smell has devolved into a protracted and fiery dispute. The neighbors have engaged in heated verbal exchanges, speaking over each other and accusing each other lying. The judge has had to intervene repeatedly, imploring everyone to uphold the decorum of the court.
“I understand emotions are high,” she said.

orlbucfan

Pot desperately needs to be taken off Schedule One. There are two sides to every fight, but this woman sounds like a crank.

Benny

I can see why she’s annoyed, but I don’t quite see how her story adds up when it comes to how it penetrated into her dwelling. When Mr. Benny and I were out in CA shortly before the pandemic shut down, lots of residents in the apt bldg (airbnb rental) in Central Hollywood were smoking joints, and one could definitely smell it, especially in the patio/pool area, but I didn’t smell it in the apt itself.

At first, I thought maybe was vape smoke we smelled, but vape cartridges don’t produce a lot of odors. I know now because I’ve been limiting to vape in my house as I wasn’t able to go out, not even into the garage as it required big steps. Mr Benny doesn’t detect the scent very readily or else he would mention it. (He’s a tea totaler except an occasional glass of brandy or whiskey in his eggnog).

That’s why I don’t totally buy her claim.

orlbucfan

I don’t buy her noize cos there are non-lethal ways to handle that odor. A lot of us older heads had to use them.

Benny

Not a fan of hip hop but this song honors MLK, Jr.

Benny

I had thought Beshear was up for re-election this past cycle. Guess not; it’s this year. I’m glad voters who answer polls like him though. However, the reporter from this Lexington Herald article is accurate in that popularity now doesn’t still forecast voting day this far away.

https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article271155622.html

Gov. Andy Beshear might be feeling pretty good right about now.
Despite being a Democrat in an increasingly red state, three new reports this week show Beshear is highly popular and the favorite heading into his quest for re-election in November. The governor has raised more than $5 million to support his campaign, all the while a dozen Republicans are vying to secure their party’s nomination in the May primary. TOP VIDEOS × “Kentuckians know Andy Beshear,” Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colmon Elridge said in a statement. “They know he has stood with them through some of our toughest days and they know as the best jobs governor in our history he’s building a better commonwealth with more opportunities for our families in every corner of Kentucky.” Kentucky’s election will be closely watched, as just three states — Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi — elect governors this year. Kentucky is likely to be the most competitive of all three.
On Tuesday, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rated the Kentucky governor’s race as a “lean Democrat.” Two days later, Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics concurred. “Considering the governor’s personal popularity and the potential for uncertainty in the Republican primary, we are starting Beshear off as a slight favorite and calling the Kentucky contest leans Democratic,” the authors wrote.
A Morning Consult survey also released Thursday found Beshear to be the most popular Democratic governor in the nation and tied for seventh most popular governor over all. Survey data was collected between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31. Sixty percent of Kentucky voters approve of his performance, while 34% disapprove. Among Republicans, half disapprove of Beshear, but almost as many — 46% — approve. Beshear also cracked the Top 10 most popular governors in a Morning Consult survey released in October, and he was the most popular Democratic governor in an April survey, too. But as the most recent Morning Consult report points out, popularity doesn’t guarantee a win at the ballot box. Nevada’s Democratic governor, Steve Sisolak, had an approval rating of at least 50% in the last half of 2022, but lost his re-election bid to Republican Joe Lombardo.
Another Democratic governor, Laura Kelly of Kansas, held on and beat her Republican challenger, Derek Schmidt, in November. “The only poll that matters is the one taken on election day,” Sean Southard, spokesman for the Republican Party of Kentucky, said. “We have a robust field of candidates running in the 2023 Republican primary and we stand ready to support our nominee once the primary process is concluded. … We look forward to electing a Republican governor who, unlike Andy Beshear, will work with our supermajorities in the General Assembly to deliver for Kentucky’s families, workers, and small businesses.” Southard pointed to Republicans’ successes in the November 2022 general election, which grew GOP supermajorities in both chambers of Kentucky’s legislature, as a rejection of Beshear and his party.
Beshear does face two challengers in the May 16 primary — perennial candidate Geoff Young and 1999 Republican gubernatorial nominee Peppy Martin — but is expected to easily secure the Democratic nomination. Beshear, the son of former two-term governor Steve Beshear, narrowly defeated the deeply unpopular Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in 2019, winning by little more than 5,000 voters. The GOP field hoping to face Beshear for governor is crowded: Attorney General Daniel Cameron, Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, Auditor Mike Harmon, former United Nations Ambassador Kelly Craft and Somerset Mayor Alan Keck are among the Republicans competing for the chance to take on Beshear.

Benny

So much coverage about gas stoves but just accepted fact that over 10 million lead pipes that are 50+ years old and corroding under the ground are delivering water to you and your kids
— Jordan (@JordanChariton) January 15, 2023

Benny

David Gelles writes on the war-sparked energy crunch in Europe. It only reinforces a key lesson of the war: “that renewable energy is not just good for the climate, but good for nat’l security, too.” I am old to remember when a candidate for prez was ridiculed for saying that.
— Meteor_Blades (@Meteor_Blades) January 15, 2023

orlbucfan

I wonder if MB is talking about Jimmy Carter?

Benny

I believe he is referring to Bernie, but I may be mistaken. This is a reaction on twitter in watching the responses about what is the greatest threat to National Security in the debate between O’Malley, Clinton, and Bernie, fall 2015.

I think @BernieSanders is exactly right–biggest threat to natl sec. is climate change. And he’s been leading the charge for a long time now
— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) October 14, 2015

orlbucfan

You’re right but Carter took all kinds of static when he put solar panels on the WH. The MICC was also starting to drop tiny hints back then.

Benny

This one is for MLK, Jr as January 15th is his exact birth date.

orlbucfan

Sad but a very good tune. 🙁

Benny

A reminder that this woman spent years lying for Trump, getting mocked for lying for Trump, getting caught by Mueller lying for Trump and…here she is… governor of an American state (and still lying). The Trump people continue to fail up and dodge any kind of accountability. https://t.co/6CQQqjppBN
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) January 15, 2023

orlbucfan

We all know about how backwards Arkansas is thanks to phatkhat who was able to move to a civilized state. 🙂

Benny

F-35s: Trudeau Breaks Another Major Promise https://t.co/vs32gmTdE8
— The Rational National (@TRNshow) January 15, 2023

orlbucfan

This yahoo is an insult to his father.

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

Patrick Toomey over at DWT did a nice piece on MLK for his holiday.

Happy Birthday To A Socialist Antiwar Victim Of Gun Violence

This weekend, our nation is engaging in its annual ritual of amnesia. It will celebrate the birth of an activist minister who was, in the public mind, trapped in amber in August 1963. We will hear countless commemorations of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, with its famous soundbite about his children not being “judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
We won’t hear other, more controversial provisions from that speech, such as this description of the promise of the Declaration of Independence: “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’.” More important, we won’t hear anything meaningful about the actual Dr. King, whose views were a lot closer to those of, say, Bernie Sanders, than they were to the wide variety of political figures who are purportedly proclaiming his message on this holiday.
King made no bones about his disdain for capitalism. In an era with vastly less inequality than we have come to accept in the past 4 decades, King said in 1961:
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”
– Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961.
Five years later, he said:
“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.”
– Speech to his staff, 1966.
MLK wasn’t exactly a fan of the military-industrial complex, either:
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

There’s more –
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/happy-birthday-to-a-socialist-antiwar-victim-of-gun-violence

orlbucfan

“This weekend, our nation is engaging in its annual ritual of amnesia.”
———————————-
Astute, Aint, sigh….. 🙁

Benny

Department of the Interior announces that it has given new names to 5 places that previously included a racist term for a Native American woman. Interior has previously changed place names which included derogatory terms for Black people and the Japanese. https://t.co/CugasmkM2h
— Alexandra Halaby🏳️‍⚧️ (@iskandrah) January 16, 2023

Benny

“We find no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the 2016 Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.”https://t.co/h0mlOE1WFA
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) January 16, 2023

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

From Pat Toomey at Down with Tyranny,
Happy Birthday To A Socialist Antiwar Victim Of Gun Violence

This weekend, our nation is engaging in its annual ritual of amnesia. It will celebrate the birth of an activist minister who was, in the public mind, trapped in amber in August 1963. We will hear countless commemorations of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, with its famous soundbite about his children not being “judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
We won’t hear other, more controversial provisions from that speech, such as this description of the promise of the Declaration of Independence: “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’.” More important, we won’t hear anything meaningful about the actual Dr. King, whose views were a lot closer to those of, say, Bernie Sanders, than they were to the wide variety of political figures who are purportedly proclaiming his message on this holiday.

There’s more, including a video of MLK’s Beyond Vietnam speech. Check it out at –
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/happy-birthday-to-a-socialist-antiwar-victim-of-gun-violence

The Progressive Wing

You Are The Revolution

1/14-16 MLK Jr Holiday Weekend Open Thread