Hosted by Wilson R. Smith, Attorney at Law on 100.9 FM WLYU. Presented by TCB Broadcasting, Lyons, Ga.
As an update on my post of the interview with the Georgia Right to Life concerning the judicial questionaire, you might be interested that one of the candidates for the Court of Appeals, Chris McFadden, has responded to the request to complete the judicial-questionaire.
His response makes sense.
My family went to Berlin on vacation this summer, via Amsterdam. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the place you can smoke a joint without fear of being arrested, at least in the coffee shops of the Red Light District. We walked through the District several times and you smell the activity, but not once did I see anyone do anything but mind their own business. Amsterdam was as safe as any big city, if not safer than most of them in America.
And here is the connection between marijuna and the American taxpayer, particularly taxpayers in Georgia: prisons costs money. Georgia currently has about 60,000 state prisoners, which is more than in New York State. A heck of a lot of them are in prison for drugs, including minor drug offenses, like possession of marijuana.
Georgia marijuana laws are fairly strict. As I found out recently when I served on the grand jury, while possession of less than an ounce may be a misdemeanor, if you are caught with more than an ounce, you are charged with distributing, a felony. And if you have one plant in your back yard to “grow your own,” you will be charged with manufacturing (1 to 10 years), even if you are the only one that uses the stuff.
This made me schedule this interview with Allen St. Pierre, the Executive Director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Allen explains it was 71 years ago this year that Congress passed a law that essentially made marijuana illegal. Actually, in 1937 the law required a tax stamp on marijuana, just like on cigarettes and alcohol. There was one problem. The government never issued the stamp. Somewhere in the 1960’s some smart guy decided to take the government to court and force it to issue the stamp and, of course, you know what happened: they changed the law.
In 1970 Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act. Everyone has heard of scheduled drugs. Drugs from morphine to oxycontin are scheduled. You can buy many scheduled drugs if you have a prescription, but marijuana is one of the drugs that you can’t have, legally, in any amount. It is in the category of drugs (Schedule 1) that Congress says adults can not use safely. Just like LSD, heroine and cocaine.
NORML believes marijuana should be legal and regulated, just like alcohol and tobacco. To put it another way, “use without abuse should be legal.” That, of course, would require that it be removed from the Schedule I list, which would require Congressional action, which would require intelligent evaluation, which would require elected officials who are wise, which would require…. which means it ain’t gonna happen for a few years. Allen estimates marijuana will be legalized within the next 8-12 years or so.
What is really humorous about any vigorous objection by conservatives to legalizing marijuana is the equally conservative mantra of “states rights.” Why not just let the states decided? Twelve states have passed medical marijuana. Thirteen states have decriminalized it, you pay a small fine if caught. In some states, California for one, you can buy 24-hours a day on the street in vending machines. Long live private enterprise!
Much of this state legal use is for medical purposes becasue marijuana gives relief to people who suffer from a lot of medical problems such as HIV-Aids, glaucoma, cancer, epilepsy and others. There are even a few people in America who can use marijuana legally under federal law. I think it is five. One of them is Irv Rosenfeld. If you really want a bird’s eye view of this controversy, listen to Irv’s testimony in Michigan before a legislative committee considering legalizing marijuana for medical purposes.
All the controversy over marijuana is pretty much a waste of time and money. Having said that, I assume I should never run for public office. Nevertheless, 26 to 30 million Americans (many of whom go to church) use it annually. More than 100 million have used it somewhere, sometime. Surprisingly, 47% admit to using it.
According to Allen, Harry J. Anslinger, the first drug czar 1932 to 1963, gave testimony before Congress in 1937 blaming marijuana for all sorts of bad things. Said Harry: “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.” Way to go Harry, you fool.
According to Allen, Louis Armstrong smoked it every day of his life and was one of the greatest jazz musicians. And then, everyone knows about Willie Nelson!
I will tell you what is going to get marijuana legalized: money. The cost of enforcing prohibition and putting people in prison are going to tear the American taxpayer a new one in the next decade. The 2005 Miron Report found: (1) “legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $5.3 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $2.4 billion would accrue to the federal government” and (2) “marijuana legalization would yield tax revenue of $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like all other goods and $6.2 billion annually if marijuana were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco.”
You would think that a seat on the Georgia Public Service Commission would not stir much controversy. Some people probably don’t even know we have a Public Service Commission, much less candidates for seats on it.
Jim Powell is seeking to replace Angela Speir as the commission member from District 4. Speir, a Republican, is not running for re-election. Powell is running as a Democrat and if successful, would be the only Democrat on the PSC.
You may be aware that last week the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs announced that it was cutting the funding for the Consumer Utility Counsel which represents the little guy before the PSC. Due to a budget shortfall caused by our troubled economy, the Governor asked all state agencies and departments to cut their budgets by 6% (Education was 2%, I think) across the board. Well, when it came to the lawyers for the ordinary citizen, the cut wasn’t 6%, it was 100%.
I think it was last year that the PSC cut back on the part of its staff that represented consumers’ interests in opposing rate increases. I tried to find something on this, but could not, so I could be wrong, confused or just plain stupid, but my point is that it seems consumers and their interests don’t get much consideration from or at the PSC, or at least less and less.
But, Jim Powell is involved in much more than a campaign for a seat on the PSC. He is also having to fight with Georgia Secretary of State, Karen Handel. After Powell qualified as a candidate, a question was raised as to whether or not he was a resident of District 4. Now, that is something the Secretary of State is and should be concerned with and Handel did what she should have done. She referred the issue to a hearing before an ALJ (Administrative Law Judge). The ALJ found that Powell was a resident of District 4. Handel disagreed and overruled the ALJ. Well, you know what happened next. Powell had to appeal the matter to the Superior Court of Fulton County which ruled in Powell’s favor. Powell wins! Well, not exactly.
Handel has now appealed the Superior Court ruling to the Supreme Court of Georgia. I have interviewed Karen several times and I am a little surprised. She seemed to be a practical person with some common sense, but she did her job when she referred the matter to an ALJ for a due process hearing. Arbitrarily overruling the ALJ and then pursuing an adverse decision by the Superior Court gives the distinct impression of partisanship and is a waste of taxpayer money.
Handel’s conduct is even more questionable when you consider that she apparently made the decision to disqualify him on the Thursday before the primary election on Tuesday and did not even tell Powell he was being disqualified. Powell found out by rumor over the weekend and had to hire a lawyer and run to the courthouse on Monday to stay on the ballot. Sleazy Karen, pure sleaze. We deserve better than that.
Hang in there Jim.
Mike Sheffield is a criminal defense attorney from Lawrenceville, Georgia. I don’t know of any type of legal practice that is more stressful than defending people accussed of crimes. Many of them are guilty, but some of them are innocent, and they all need good, competent representation. Mike estimated that he had tried more than 300 jury trials and handled at least 60 appeals to either the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of Georgia.
This is not Mike’s first statewide campaign. As he explains in his interview he ran in 2004 for the position on the Georgia Court of Appeals now held by Judge Debra Bernes. That race resulted in a lawsuit by one of the candidates, Howard Mead, following the July election, an appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia, and an entirely new election in November.
While Mike did not like having to go through such a long race in 2004, it remains an example of how important the courts are in resolving disputes. That is the whole point. Courts are important. Judges are important and that is why everyone should be paying close attention to this election. Listen to the interviews and make your decision, but vote.
Mike told me that he had refused to sign the pledge proposed by the Committee for Ethical Judicial Campaigns. His reasoning was that he wasn’t going to do that stuff anyway. He didn’t see a need to sign something. While I can’t particularly fault Mike’s reasoning, I have to point out that he did fill out the judicial questionaire generated by Georgia Right to Life. This is the secret questionaire that I criticized in my interview with Dan Becker.
As I told Mike, I was surprised that he would think filling out the questionaire was of any benefit in selecting a judicial candidate. Since he did not see the logic of signing a pledge to run an ethical campaign, I would have thought Mike would have found any questionaire to be unnecessary. Mike’s explanation was, I must admit, straightforward and disarming. He explained that he thought people had a right to know things about him and if the questionaire was what people (some of them, at least) wanted to know, he had no problem filling it out.
As a criminal defense attorney, you might jump to the conclusion that Mike was liberal, at least liberal leaning (no offense intended Mike), you know, get the criminal off at all costs. By filling out the judicial questionaire, you might jump to the conclusion that Mike is conservative, at least on abortion issues (nothing wrong there, either). I don’t know Mike just because of one interview, but nothing in his coversation gave me pause for concern as to his philosophy, liberal or conservative or centrist or otherwise. I say this out of fairness to Mike and in light of my stated position on the judicial questionaire.
I still don’t like the idea of a judicial questionaire. Mike’s interview made me think about this further, which is good. He made me realize that it isn’t because he, or anyone else, fills out the questionaire, that I don’t like it. I don’t like it because of the mentality of the people that want a candidate to fill it out.
VOTE!!! NOVEMBER 4TH!!!!!
When people start messing with the courts and the judicial system, I get upset, very upset. Why? Because courts and judges are supposed to be above the politics and partisanship that we have become accustomed to. In some respects, it is very difficult to avoid political tampering in Supreme Court (US) appointments because those judges are appointed by a politician, the president, and approved by politicians, the Senate. But, I consider state court judges to be sacrosanct. Leave them alone, let them campaign and get elected on the basis of their legal qualifications, not their political viewpoints.
Enter, Georgia Right to Life and its “judicial questionaire”.
I don’t doubt the sincerity of organizations on both sides of this issue, the abortion issue. However, when they make the fight about courts and judges, they are misguided. No court in Georgia will ever, ever decide the abortion issue. It does not matter what any judge or candidate for judge believes about the issue or about any of the other issues on their judicial questionaire.
So, why have such a thing? Why ask a candidate to fill out something that is irrelevant to being a judge? Why?
There is only one reason that I can think of. There are questions you can’t ask candidates. You can’t ask judicial candidates if they favor business over the individual. You can’t ask them if they will give any legislation passed by the representatives of the people the benefit of the doubt, and declare it okay (constitutional), even if it really isn’t. You can’t ask them if their basic philosophy is conservative or liberal. Well, actually, you can ask all the questions, just not in public or at least you can’t expect them to answer them in public.
But, you can certainly ask them if they prefer life over choice, or life over death. You can certainly ask them anything you want about abortion, and if they answer that one, you know their answer to the rest of the questions which aren’t on the questionaire. This one answer will tell you all you really want to know about their political orientation, their leanings, liberal or conservative. For example, if you ask someone if they watch Fox News, you can take their answer and reasonably decide whether they are Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. Sad, but true.
And I should point out that it might not even be Georgia Right to Life asking the questions in their judicial questionaire. My first interview regarding judicial questionaires was with Sadie Fields, the head of the Christian Coalition of Georgia. If you listen to the interview (circa 2006), you will find that Sadie did not have a clue about her organizations questionaire. It was prepared by a lawyer in another state. Sadie and her CC was nothing more than a pawn, a willing pawn, unfortunately. By the way, Sadie hung up on me!
What really got me in this interview with Dan Becker is his response when I asked him which of the candidates for the Georgia Court of Appeals had filled out the judicial questionaire. He wouldn’t tell me! He said it was a secret! A secret? Well, that seals it for me. Dan, you and your organization, ought to ashamed of yourselves. You cloak yourselves with the mantel of religion, of godliness, and at the same time deal in secret. When Dan told me that, I just lost all respect.
I have other problems with Georgia Right to Life when it proclaims the sanctity of life from “conception to the grave,” and yet, apparently has no position on the death penalty. I can’t think of any reason that the life of an innocent man facing the death penalty is not a concern of an organization that has “Right to Life” in its name. You would think they would at least have some concern for innocent lives lost in places other than an abortion clinic. The fact they apparently don’t says a lot, none of it good.
You should take a look at the questionaire and see the questions concerning whether or not someone should be able to sue for the wrongfull birth of a child. These suits have been raised in Georgia and have never been allowed and will never be allowed unless the constitution of Georgia is amended, which is unlikely. So, why is Georgia Right to Life asking a judicial candidate an opinion about an issue that has already been decided in Georgia, years ago, if my memory is correct? I suspect it is because this questionaire was not prepared for Georgia, but other states by outsiders.
And then, what really gets my goat is while Georgia Right to Life doesn’t want any fetus or embryo aborted, it doesn’t mind if the doctor just happens to kill it, negligently. If you don’t know it, you should, but the law in Georgia prohibits parents from suinig doctors for negligently killing a fetus before it is viable, capable of living outside the womb, usually around 23-24 weeks.
In the very least, I expect Georgia Right to Life to put some effort into changing the law so that physicians are held responsible for negligently killing fetuses after conception. Dan, let me know when you have the rally on the steps of the state capital. I will be there and I will bring thousands of parents (and their lawyers) with me.
I had my heart set on accomplishing something I thought entirely possible: interviewing all 7 lawyers running for a position on the Georgia Court of Appeals. Five down, two to go, but one of them has seemingly dropped off the face of the earth, and that one is a fellow by the name of Perry McGuire. Perry, where are you, man!
I have done everything I can do to contact Perry, except maybe find out where he lives and visit him at home. In this day and age, that could even be a crime.
We have called his office and left messages. No response.
He even has a website. I have heard he has even appeared at some candidate forums. So why won’t Perry talk to me?
Perry, if you see this give me a call: 912-537-4330. If I am not in, please talk with Elissa. She will set up the interview.
If you know ole Perry, give him a call and tell him to give me a break.
I don’t get to read every book whose author I interview. I read every word of this one. It should be required reading for anyone who is thinking about voting Republican in November.
In “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism” Ron Suskind provides insight into the real world that George W. Bush has created, as well as the real world Bush does not understand, the Muslim world.
Ron demonstrates through the lives of real people, one of them a baker from Iraq, how the Republicans, in concert with Bush, have sacrificed our moral leadership in the world in return for a war we can’t win, torture we can’t reveal and lies we can’t admit. The baker is sick and dying in Guatanamo, having been there years without any semblance of justice. If you can’t appreciate the hypocrisy of Bush’s hollow and deceitful concept of justice at Guantanamo, then I just don’t know whether there is any hope for you.
In addition to the injustice done to a baker, the book reveals how Bush intentionally (through his dirty, little helper, Cheney) torpedoes a British anti-terrorist sting operation in order to get a headline about terrorist activity just before the 2006 elections. Why? To scare the American people with a revelation about terrorism and influence their vote.
Read about how Bush, months before invading Iraq, ignores two reliable Iraqi sources of intelligence developed by the British that said without qualification that Saddam had no WMD’s. He just didn’t want to admit it for fear of what Iran might do. These sources were ignored by Bush, not because of credibilty problems, but solely because Bush and his cronies did not want to hear anything, even the truth, that might interfere with their intention to invade Iraq, no matter what.
Read about how the Bush Administration, months after the invasion, fabricated a letter in order to justify what they had done. The President of the United States having to stoop to the level of a petty criminal is just infuriating. Talk about serious mental problems, these guys have it.
Most importantly, read how the rest of the world, not just Arabs and Muslims, view an America that is morally corrupt, hypocritical and which has abandoned its founding principles of equality and freedom.
I can’t begin to summarize the revelations in this book. It is an easy read. If it doesn’t change your view of the Bush Administration, then all I can say is that I hope you live long enough to see the truth.
If you are definitely voting for McCain, if you are even considering voting for McCain, you really ought to think about the economy. Why is the American economy experiencing the worst losses in half a century? Forget corporate greed. Forget corporate arrogance. Forget million dollar, billion dollar, bonuses for corporate executives managing failing companies. All that doesn’t explain why the largest insurance company in the world, AIG, needs (and gets) an $85 billion dollar baleout. Some of that is my damn money, my tax money, my “cut my taxes” tax money.
By the way, if you go to the AIG website, you will see their motto: “The Strength to be There.” Give me a break!
Why? Republican policies. Republican policies of doing away with government regulations because it is killing small businesses. Republican policies of false, hypocritical faith in the “free market.” They believe the free market solves all problems. Republicans deny to their last sorry breath that there is any evil in the free market. @#$@#% the free market. It works until its excesses and abuses catch up with it and then we (working people) pay for it.
Everyone in America had better thank whatever God they believe in that we are going to baleout these sorry sacks of feces, because if we didn’t, you just wouldn’t like the world you live (exist) in.
Republicans love unregulated business because it makes them tons of money, but it also allows business to put the dollar (the love of which I have heard is the root of all evil) ahead of wise business decisions. The corporations that are doing this are not the small business down the street skimming a few bucks out of the cash register. These corporations are multinational, have more money than any individual can even dream about, and are powerful enough to put you out of a job or a mortgage or a home when they risk your financial security so they can make another dollar.
If you think this election is about abortion, you are a moron. If you think it is about morality (gay marriage) in government, you are a fool. You should look in your investment portfolio, your wallet or more importantly, your employer’s wallet, and see which you love the most: your morals or your financial future.
If you vote Republican in November, I sincerely hope you reap what you sow.
No, I don’t think the Democrats are going to miraculously change all of this overnight. They are not going to eliminate waste and corruption. They are not going to solve all our problems. But if there is one damn thing the Democrats understand, it is corporate power. If there is one thing the damn Democrats know how to do, it is regular the s*** out of business. And by god, I am ready for a little of that with these bastards!
By the way, I didn’t lose a dime! I wouldn’t put my money in the stock market if you guaranteed me a 50% return.
Subscribe to What Is Goin' On comments
You can also subscribe to my podcast in iTunes by searching the iTunes Store for what is goin on.
Comments