Dems in N.J. spill bong water all over themselves, then bogart the joint
Imagine having the governor’s office, the state Assembly, and the state Senate and not being able to pass your own legislation. Now imagine that you don’t even have to pass a law per se, you just have to craft legislation that was handed to you by the public, who overwhelmingly voted for the new law in the first place. Now imagine this legislation is about something as inconsequential, in the grand scheme of things, as marijuana.
Well, you don’t have to imagine. That’s exactly what’s happening in New Jersey right now, where Gov. Phil Murphy - he who promised marijuana legalization within his first year in office (we are on year four) - and the state Legislature are acting like stoned fools who are refusing to get up to switch out the Tom Petty “Full Moon Fever” CD for the new Black Crowes. Come on guys, get up and get this done.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s a pox on both their houses,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “Not only do they have the control and ability to do it, but they have the clearest possible direction that they could have from the public, that they asked the public for, because they didn’t have the guts to do it in the first place without making sure they weren’t getting too far ahead of the public. They get the public all lined up, they got their marching orders, and they still can’t figure it out.
It really does reflect very poorly on the party, on the Legislature itself. They really are the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.”
To summarize, then: The Democrats can never get out of their own way, and the state Legislature wouldn’t pass marijuana legalization, so they punted it to the voters, who overwhelmingly - by a 2-to-1 margin - voted to legalize cannabis this past November. All the legislature had to do was craft a bill that would organize legal weed and have the governor sign it. Well, they did, but Murphy balked, because it didn’t include punishments for underage use. This angered portions of the Legislature, mostly those who serve urban communities, as Black New Jerseyans are arrested at three times the rate of white New Jerseyans for weed. They saw underage penalties affecting their communities, and they’re not wrong. So the Legislature went back to work, and then on Wednesday, pretty much quit. Murphy is still sitting on the original bills, but has said he’ll veto them.
“If he vetoes it, yea, we’ll be going back to the drawing board, but I don’t know when that’s going to be,” Sen. Nicholas Scutari said, according to the New Jersey Globe. “That’s going to be not now. We’ve got to get into the budget. We’ve got a lot of other things. It can’t just be a lot of marijuana all the time, and that’s not just me. There’s been a lot of members that have spent a lot of time on this now.”
Meanwhile, despite New Jerseyans wanting weed to be legal, thousands of us are still being arrested for simple possession.
The Democrats in the Legislature should be ashamed of themselves. Something so easy, and they’re messing it up. (They should listen to me, and have underage marijuana users do some community service in drug and alcohol rehab clinics so they see, first hand, what real drugs like heroin, pills, and vodka can do to someone.)
And for anyone who watches the political space in New Jersey, this is a sadly familiar story. The Democrats gain control, spend their time fighting with each other, and then a Republican
comes in and takes the governor’s office.
“The biggest reason is that there are so many regional power bases within the Democratic party,” Rasmussen said. “No one needs each other to work together to get things done. There’s never any compromise. You go to your corner, I’ll go to my corner, and there’s never any coming together. No one needs the statewide election except for Murphy. Everyone else is just King of South Jersey or King of Essex or King of Hudson and as a result of that they never compromise.”
The Democrats in New Jersey Legislature are like poorly behaved kindergarteners. What a joke.
UPDATE 2/19: Lawmakers went back to the table on Friday, and somehow dragged underage alcohol consumption into this. Murphy needs to act Monday, or it’s back to square one. Sheesh.
WEST CHESTER » A local animal rights advocate and model, Anna Kovach, earned herself a “One Can Make a Difference” Award from PETA after she single-handedly persuaded QVC to drop a mousetrap that electrocutes animals.
Kovach insisted that the retailer stop selling the traps — and after hearing from her several times, West Chester-based QVC agreed to her request. This success is the latest in a long line of animal rights advocacy efforts, including using her modeling platform to promote feral cat rescues, cosmetics not tested on animals, and vegan eating.
“Anna’s persistence and QVC’s adaptability won this victory for sensitive mice and rats,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges others to follow her example by sticking to humane rodent control and always speaking up for animals.”
Kovach will receive a certificate and a copy of PETA President Ingrid Newkirk’s One Can Make a Difference, a book about visionaries as diverse as Dr. Henry Heimlich, who invented a lifesaving heart valve, and filmmaker Rebecca Hosking, who used her documentary about albatrosses dying from eating plastic to get England’s first-ever ban on plastic bags passed in her hometown.
Lethal traps, including electronic traps, indiscriminately kill any small animal who comes across them, including birds, squirrels, and kittens. Such traps also backfire: When animals are killed, the resultant spike in the food supply causes accelerated breeding and increased populations among survivors and newcomers. PETA, which offers a humane mousetrap for sale on its website, recommends the following for humane rodent control:
Put all food and garbage in sturdy, well-sealed containers that rats and mice can’t chew through, and feed animal companions indoors (and pick up the dishes when they’ve finished eating).
Trim back vegetation around buildings, stack wood in tight piles away from the house, and seal holes larger than ¼ inch in diameter, cracks in the walls and floors, and gaps around doors, windows, and plumbing.
After rodent-proofing a building, live-trap and remove any rats and mice still inside. Use a commercially available Havahart trap, or make your own. Check the trap hourly and release any captured rats within 100 yards of where they were caught.