I’m writing this column as an open letter to my state’s US Senators (Republicans Marco Rubio and Rick Scott). I encourage you to write to yours as well, and if you like any of the language herein, feel free to “steal” it.

Dear Senators Rubio and Scott,

On December 4, the US House of Representatives passed, by a margin of 228 to 164, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act. If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, the MORE Act would  remove marijuana from the federal “controlled substances” schedule. While the bill unfortunately includes provisions for regulation and taxation of the plant, it’s a move in the right direction.

The Washington Post reports that, to their and their party’s shame, all but five House Republicans voted against the bill, and that Republican leaders in the House and Senate mocked it as a distraction from other matters such as COVID-19 relief.

As former President Barack Obama liked to say, “let me be clear” on this issue:

While I’m personally never inclined to vote for Republicans or Democrats, in Florida those are usually my only two options in US Senate races. You have a chance to get my vote for re-election in 2022 (Senator Rubio) or 2024 (Senator Scott) .

In fact, if you sponsor a Senate version of the bill, work to bring it to a vote, cast your vote in favor of it, and lean hard on President Trump (or, depending on time frame, President Biden) to sign it, you’ve got a pretty GOOD shot at my vote.

If you assist Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in keeping such a bill from coming to the floor for a vote, or if you vote against that bill when it comes before you, you’ve got NO shot at my vote. Not for US Senator, not for President, not even for dog-catcher.

It’s just that simple.

Thirty-six states now provide for medical access to marijuana, and 15 states have legalized recreational use. It’s time for the federal government to get with the program.

Marijuana is not and never has been a dangerous drug. It’s a medically and commercially useful plant, and as a recreational intoxicant it’s considerably less unhealthy and dangerous than alcohol or tobacco.

In fact, the most dangerous thing — practically the ONLY dangerous thing — about marijuana is the possibility of getting arrested over it.

Millions of Americans have, over the course of decades, found themselves entangled in the criminal justice system for using, possessing, growing, buying, or selling a common and beneficial plant.

That’s a moral crime, and politicians like you are chief among its perpetrators. Your participation in the ongoing conspiracy against rights known as marijuana prohibition ruins lives, destroys careers, and restrains commerce to the detriment of all Americans.

The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act offers you a chance to give up the thug life on this one issue. Seize that opportunity with both hands — if not because it’s the right thing to do, then because your political futures depend on it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Why,” Candice Holdsworth asks at British web site spiked, “aren’t more artists standing up to lockdown?” “The lockdown has completely decimated the live-performance industry,” she writes. “And yet we hear very little from leading people in theatre, music and the arts criticising the lockdown and what it is doing to their industry.”

There are exceptions. Probably the most prominent is Van Morrison, who’s recording lockdown protest songs (with, among others, Eric Clapton) and using the revenues to fund grants for working musicians left unemployed by government mandates.

But the exceptions prove the rule. Most entertainment celebrities have gone along with, and some have even actively promoted, government shutdowns of everything from movie theaters to nightclubs in the name of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even if one supports such measures, it’s important to understand that they impose costs on all of us.

As both closures and non-closure restrictions stretch on month after month, some performance venues will doubtless close permanently. They can’t pay rent, keep the lights on, and feed their owners forever without generating revenue.

How many musicians, dancers, and stage actors — aspiring, up-and-coming, or long-working but without financial resources to wait the pandemic out — have already given up and sought work that neither utilizes their talents nor brightens our lives nearly as much? How many will never return to entertainment?

Technology helps.  Music can be recorded, videos produced, shows live-streamed to home viewers. But for many artists and many fans, there’s just no substitute for live, in-person performances.

And speaking of audiences, the lockdown measures cost us as well. Missing those evenings out at the club or theater may not be Oliver Twist level deprivation, but it’s definitely a quality of life downer.

In late November, my wife and I went out to a club to see a band for the first time in ten months. Same club (the High Dive in Gainesville, Florida) and same band (The Grass is Dead — a fantastic combo melding bluegrass musicianship with Grateful Dead and related music) as the last time, in January.

The difference between the two gigs was stark. Masks, of course. Severely reduced audience size. No dance floor (you could stand next to your chair and dance, but not mix). Drinking outside only.

I’m not complaining as a customer, mind you. It wasn’t just better than nothing, it was fantastic. There’s nothing like joining fellow fans in a room to hear great musicians doing their thing and doing it well.

But with an audience of maybe 20 or so (The Grass is Dead can pack a venue in normal times), I have to wonder how either the band or the club made enough money on the show to keep going for very long. And in many places, that show couldn’t have happened at all, even with social distancing, masking, etc.

Politicians and bureaucrats, whose paychecks continue to arrive in full and on time, are doing terrible and likely long-term harm to both performers and fans in the name of fighting COVID-19.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

A November 23 headline at ABC News reads: “Joe Biden’s presidential transition allowed to proceed after 16-day standoff.” The 16 days in question, ABC tells us, are the 16 days since Biden “clinched the presidency.”

“Clinched the presidency” is ABC News-speak for “the media decided he won.” In point of fact, the 2020 presidential election isn’t over yet and won’t be for another three weeks.

No, I’m not referring to Donald Trump’s campaign of vexatious litigation, which is going, and will go, nowhere.

On November 3, American voters chose electors. They’re called “electors,” and constitute the “Electoral College,”  because THEY elect the president.

Those electors are set to meet and vote on December 14, after which Joe Biden will, one assumes, become the “president-elect.”  But that hasn’t happened yet, and while the law is somewhat unclear on the point, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that 270 of them could decide between now and then that they prefer Kanye West and Ted Nugent to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

And regardless of what happens on December 14, Donald Trump’s presidency doesn’t end until January 20.

So, what’s the hurry, Joe?

Well, ABC tells us, officially launching the transition process “unlocks more than $7 million for Biden’s team and allows his top advisers to begin outreach to counterparts with every federal agency preparing for the transfer of power.”

Joe Biden’s spent the last 50 years in national politics, serving in the US Senate, running for president three times, and serving for eight years as vice-president.

Yet he’s spent the last three weeks supposedly in a complex process of mulling over just who he plans to appoint to what position, with media breathlessly announcing each momentous leak about his decisions.

If Biden couldn’t even get his act together enough over the course of half a century to have a cabinet picked before the election, why should we believe that a few weeks, $7 million, and some “outreach” will magically prepare him for the job he’s been seeking that whole time?

Cue scary story time: “Biden and his aides had warned that the delay could endanger the lives of Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic.”

Joe Biden raised more than a billion dollars for his presidential campaign, at least some of which was spent generating and hyping his plan for dealing with the pandemic.

But unless he gets $7 million and his staffers get to spend the next eight weeks holding  college dorm style bull sessions with the people they’ll be replacing, we’re all gonna die, see?

Not buying it, Joe.

The only thing Donald Trump and his administration owe to Joe Biden is to get their stuff packed and have it and themselves out of their offices before noon on January 20, 2021. The rest is just theatrics.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY