United Liberty

I, like anyone else, wants to believe that America is made up of logical individuals. I wish I could agree with this assessment, but American culture and government makes me question this belief.

The fact that marijuana prohibition is still in place despite the overwhelming evidence that it is a safer substance than alcohol is truly mind-blowing. Any logical individual who gives any significant time towards understanding the issue will undoubtedly realize that the arguments against marijuana prohibition are large in number and substance.

One friend of mine said that there is just more important issues and people only have limited time in the day. This makes a lot of sense, but I still personally think the time commitment necessary to understand why marijuana should be legalized is minimal.

Even with that statement in mind, our culture daily make a big deal out of celebrities and athletes who are caught using marijuana, yet they do not find a problem with someone becoming intoxicated. Furthermore, you will hear alcohol users speak about marijuana users as if they are doing something wrong or are just “lazy stoners.”

Of course I am making generalities and there are many who are sympathetic to marijuana law reform, but the fact that there is not a large majority who support marijuana legalization shows how illogical Americans are.

Lets “get smart” as a nation and repeal marijuana prohibition.

I was watching President Obama at the House GOP retreat.  The biggest thing I noticed, unless I’m mistaken, he’s not reading from a teleprompter.  I think the President reads from the teleprompter too much and I have made fun of him for it.  So, I’d like to take this opportunity to say, this is one of his better presentations.

Mr. President, this is proof you don’t need a teleprompter to give a very well presented speech.  You came across as being more authentic and more confident.  Give more speeches without a teleprompter.

Question and Answers Session:

Speech:

The President “did something unusual” today as he engaged the opposition at the Republican GOP House Issues Conference. I caught bits and pieces on the radio and television, and I plan to record and watch the event in its entirety over the weekend. I have to admit that I’m a bit impressed with Obama on what I’ve seen/heard thus far.

The House Republican Conference invited Obama for a Q&A today in Baltimore, MD, and the cameras were rolling. In what became an American version of Prime Minister’s Questions (of which I am a big fan), Obama took questions from GOP House members. A bit of political wrangling mixed with solid debate led to a few honest answers from Barack Obama which put his intelligence and oratory on display without a teleprompter.

From what I’ve been able to dissect thus far, both sides scored some points. But, to me, while Obama toed the line between playing politics and denouncing politics, he scored some big points tonight. This is the Obama that I favored over John McCain. This is the Obama I wished we would have seen more of in the last year.

Let’s be clear. I’m no huge fan of many of Obama’s policies. Admittedly, I’ve always had an open ear to his anti-Washington populist message. Let’s also be clear that I’m not so naive that I’d immediately assume that he has changed. However, his change of tone since the election of Scott Brown opens the door for a second chance.

You have to love the Nanny State:

The Obama Administration has decided not to try Khalid Shiekh Mohammed and other 9/11 suspects in New York City:

The Obama administration on Friday gave up on its plan to try the Sept. 11 plotters in Lower Manhattan, bowing to almost unanimous pressure from New York officials and business leaders to move the terrorism trial elsewhere.

“I think I can acknowledge the obvious,” an administration official said. “We’re considering other options.”

The reversal on whether to try the alleged 9/11 terrorists blocks from the former World Trade Center site seemed to come suddenly this week, after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg abandoned his strong support for the plan and said the cost and disruption would be too great.

But behind the brave face that many New Yorkers had put on for weeks, resistance had been gathering steam.

After a dinner in New York on Dec. 14, Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, pulled aside David Axelrod, President Obama’s closest adviser, to convey an urgent plea: move the 9/11 trial out of Manhattan.

More recently, in a series of presentations to business leaders, local elected officials and community representatives of Chinatown, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly laid out his plan for securing the trial: blanketing a swath of Lower Manhattan with police checkpoints, vehicle searches, rooftop snipers and canine patrols.

“They were not received well,” said one city official.

Gee, I wonder why.

Apparently, the Justice Department is now looking for other locations for this trial, including here in Northern Virginia or at a secure military base.

With the exception of the fantastic work done at United Liberty, Campaign for Liberty and other libertarian leaning websites, right leaning websites tend to look horrible.

Take for instance Townhall.com. Townhall, as much as the writing there can often excel in quality, looks terribly corporate and seems more like a giant advertisement than an actual news website (which, to be frank, it probably is). The font of their title has that action movie look that also plagues sites like Powerline.

Then there is the horrible layout to The Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson’s website. Seeing as Carlson is very famous and influential, one would think that he could manage to get a layout that isn’t abhorrent. Instead, it looks more like a PDF version of a cheap tabloid paper like the National Enquirer or the New York Post.

The contrarian would say that, while these websites may not look that great, their content is superior. However, in the world of media, presentation is paramount. Slate, a moderate to left magazine, has some of the best layout of any internet publication. Is it any wonder their readership is in the millions?

A legislator in Tennessee are poking fun at Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) over the Cornhusker Kickback by using his name on an ethics bill:

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, the senator behind the so-called Nebraska Compromise that ended the threat of a filibuster of the Democratic health care bill, has gotten a bill named in his honor in Tennessee.

With a name that’s clearly tongue in cheek, the “Ben Nelson Act to Ensure Political Integrity” would redefine the state’s definition of bribery to include circumstances in which elected officials agree to vote for or against legislation in exchange for special consideration for their districts.

The bill, SB 3160/HB3123, is sponsored by Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland, and Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville.

By the way, Sen. Nelson was just named the Citizens Against Government Waste’s “Porker of the Month” for January because of the sweetheart deal he got for supporting ObamaCare, but later asked to be taken out of the bill because of national backlash.

Economist Veronique de Rugy writes that President Barack Obama’s freeze on non-defense discretionary spending is a “binge diet”:

That’s right. President Obama is talking about freezing—not cutting—16 percent of the total fiscal 2011 budget. This is a small part of the budget, especially considering that this portion grew by 16.3 percent between fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2010 (and, once we include all fiscal 2010 spending, this increase will reach 24 percent). And this is on top of the 5.5 percent increase a year during each of the Bush years.

In other words, this budget freeze is akin to skipping dessert after binging at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and still hoping to lose weight.
[…]
In addition, the across-the-board freeze is so full of caveats and loopholes that it can only be seen as a joke. Here, our dieter isn’t allowed to eat desserts, unless it’s one with chocolate and whipped cream.

For instance, the freeze won’t apply to the $513 billion in unspent stimulus funds. Nor will it apply to the $247 billion of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds or to any of the programs that cash from repaid TARP funds will pay for, such as the $30 billion to prop up community bank lending to small businesses proposed by the president during his speech.

She also notes that the proposal has been met with skepticism by more liberal congressional Democrats. So it’s likely that the proposal will not go anywhere.

For all the nanny staters out there, a new study shows that bans on talking on cell phones while driving have not reduced traffic accidents:

A new study suggests laws banning the use of hand-held devices while driving have not reduced the rate of accidents in three states and the District of Columbia.

In addition to the nation’s capital, the report by the Highway Loss Data Institute reviews insurance claims in New York, Connecticut and California. It also compares the data to other areas that do not have cell phone bans.

“The laws aren’t reducing crashes, even though we know that such laws have reduced hand-held phone use, and several studies have established that phoning while driving increases crash risk,” said Adrian Lund, president of the Highway Loss Data Institute.

There were no fluctuations in collision rates before and after the laws were put in place, the report said.

That’s not to say dialing a number or texting is safe, but most if not all states have distracted driving laws in place…there really is no need to make redundant laws.

If you want to ban distractions, ban eating in a car or ban small children in a car (yes, I’m being sarcastic). I’ve seen more accidents caused by those examples than people talking on a cell phone.