Jimmy Carter, in apparent reversal, voices opposition to pot legalization

President Carter issued a statement Friday proclaiming that he does not favor marijuana legalization, despite previous statements that appeared to indicate that he favored state laws that allowed the possession and use of the drug.

“I do not favor legalization. We must do everything we can to discourage marijuana use, as we do now with tobacco and excessive drinking,” Carter said, according to a release from Project SAM. "We have to prevent making marijuana smoking from becoming attractive to young people, which is, I’m sure, what the producers of marijuana … are going to try and do.”

The group, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, opposes legalizing the drug, but instead believes those arrested for marijuana use should be sent to treatment facilities rather than jails. According to the group, Carter believes those caught with the drug should be given a warning hearing and screened for future use, but not have a permanent record kept.

“I said this 35 years ago … that I didn’t want to make it so that a person could possess … or smoke marijuana with impunity, but that they could be chastised, offered treatment, etc.," Carter said. The statement seemed to contradict a response Carter gave last year in Georgia, when he was asked if he favored legalization.

“I’m in favor of it. I think it’s OK,” Carter said during a forum. “I don’t think it’s going to happen in Georgia yet, but I think we can watch and see what happens in the state of Washington, for instance around Seattle, and let the American government and let the American people see does it cause a serious problem or not.”

But in his more recent comments, Carter said he was concerned with the potential implementation of laws legalizing pot use passed in November.

“I hope that Colorado and Washington, as you authorize the use of marijuana, will set up very strict experiments to ascertain how we can avoid the use of marijuana,” Carter said. “There should be no advertising for marijuana in any circumstances and no driving under the influence. We need to avoid the use of marijuana, particularly among young people.”

Project SAM was created by former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) and conservative author David Frum.

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Republicans Admit Intention To Sugarcoat Their Opposition To LGBT Equality

The Republican Party continues to struggle with its intentions moving forward in regards to LGBT equality. In its autopsy report of the 2012 elections — its “Growth & Opportunity Project” — the gay community was the one group that the Party was not actually interested in reaching out to. Instead, the plan was to convince young people to support conservative principles even if they support LGBT rights. Since then, GOP chairman Reince Priebus has attempted to model this by citing his own marriage as an example for building bridges and suggesting Mike Huckabee, a very vocal opponent of equality, be an ambassador on gay issues.

This week, both Priebus and potential presidential prospect Jeb Bush have both been a bit more candid about their intentions to simply sugarcoat their opposition to equality so it doesn’t sound so anti-gay. Bush told Newsmax that a different tone that expresses opposition to same-sex marriage “in a civil way” that is “not judgmental” would help keep conservatives united:

BUSH: I know for a fact that as it relates to gay marriage and other social issues there is growing divergence of opinion on this. When we talk about it, we ought to talk about it with a different tone — and we ought to talk about it recognizing that there is more than one point of view, and we should talk about it in a way that is not judgmental. If we can get to that point where people who have diverging points of view and express them in a civil way, the conservative coalition can stay intact.

Priebus, in turn, told USA Today that opposition to equality can be presented with “grace and respect”:

“We do have a platform, and we adhere to that platform,” Priebus said in an interview Monday on USA TODAY’s Capital Download video series. “But it doesn’t mean that we divide and subtract people from our party” who support the right of gay men and lesbians to marry.

“I don’t believe we need to act like Old Testament heretics,” he said, saying Republicans “have to strike a balance between principle and grace and respect.”

What the Republican Party cannot seem to accept is that no polishing of this message amounts to respect, grace, or civil discourse. Inequality is inequality, and no changes in tone can change that the GOP platform specifically calls for one group of people to be treated as second-class citizens.

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POLL: Opposition To Illinois Marriage Equality At All-Time Low

A new Crain’s/Ipsos Illinois poll shows that opposition to marriage equality in the Land of Lincoln is at an all-time low. While 50 percent support the same-sex marriage bill advancing through the state legislature, only 29 percent are committed to opposing it, while another 20 percent don’t know or have mixed feelings. Supporters also support with more intensity (37 percent “strongly” favor passage) than opponents oppose (19 percent “strongly” disagree with the bill). The legislation passed the Illinois Senate on Valentine’s Day, and proponents are cautiously optimistic about passage in the House.

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Jennifer Granholm Destroys Santorum’s Opposition To Gun Safety: ‘Why Do You Need An Armor Piercing Bullet?’

Former Republican presidential candidate and likely 2016 contender Rick Santorum dismissed the need for gun safety regulations during an appearance on ABC’s This Week Sunday, arguing that Americans should have access to military-style weapons and magazines, including the armor piercing bullets used by criminals to kill cops.

During a heated exchange with former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Santorum argued that Obama should have focused on restricting access violent Hollywood movies and video games, rather than limiting the availability of assault weapons or high capacity magazines. Asked why American gun owners needed such powerful firearms and bullets that are often used by criminals to kill police officers, Santorum briefly hesitated, before insisting that Americans have a right to defend themselves with the most dangerous weapons:

GRANHOLM: Why do you need armor-piercing bullets, why do you need that?

SANTORUM: Because we’re talking about a particular type of bullet that is and can be available –

GRANHOLM: Deer don’t wear armor. Why do you need an armor piercing bullet?

SANTORUM: Criminals could and having, having…

GRANHOLM: And police officers certainly do…

SANTORUM: And having the ability to defend yourself is a right in our country.

Watch it:

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — a stach advocate of gun safety — has railed against armor piercing bullets, arguing that they pose high risks to police officers. Police departments and prosecutors across the country supporting restricting access to such ammunition. As Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta asked troops at the U.S. Army Garrison Vicenza in Italy this week, “I mean who the hell needs armor-piercing bullets except you guys in battle?”

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Virginia Republicans Work To Implement Obamacare, Despite GOP Governor’s Opposition To Reform

Even though President Obama will be inaugurated for his second term on Monday, GOP lawmakers across the country are still in denial about the fact that Obama’s re-election secured the future of his landmark health reform law. Republicans have been digging in their heels against reform, allowing deadlines to come and go without making any progress toward implementing the Affordable Care Act in their states.

But even in states led by GOP politicians who remain resistant to health reform, like Virginia’s Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), some Republican officials are taking matters into their own hands to prepare for Obamacare’s implementation. As the Huffington Post reports, Virginia Republicans — including some members of the governor’s own administration — are working behind the scenes to plan a health exchange, despite Gov. Bob McDonnell’s resistance to reform:

McDonnell surprised no one when he decided last month Virginia wouldn’t create a health insurance exchange under Obamacare. The trouble, though, is that health care reform is coming to the state and its residents whether Virginia’s Republican politicians want it or not. It’s a reality Republican opponents of Obama’s health care law are facing across the country.

That’s why the McDonnell administration and some GOP legislators are working behind the scenes to get ready, as the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Wednesday.

Against McDonnell’s stated position that the federal government should do all the work to set up and maintain a health insurance exchange, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported some Republican legislators are pushing for the state to work in partnership with federal authorities, an option seven other states including neighboring West Virginia and North Carolina already have chosen. Twenty-five states, including Virginia, will have a federally operated exchange while 17 states and the District of Columbia will run their own. Mississippi’s case is still up in the air.

Virginia isn’t alone. Even before the presidential election, conservative officials in states like Mississippi, Kansas, and Arizona were working under the radar to quietly prepare their states for the inevitable wave of health care reforms. Those Republican lawmakers have begun to clash with the other members of their party because they realize that resisting Obamacare may not be in their best interests anymore — particularly when it comes to setting up exchanges, which the federal government will simply step in and do for the states that refuse to do it themselves.

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Scottish Archbishop Expects Government To Cater To Church’s Opposition To Marriage Equality

Archbishop Mario Conti

Not expecting to be outdone by the many other bishops who’ve attacked same-sex couples already this month, Scottish Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti penned a letter this week to the Catholic journal The Tablet expressing his own opposition to marriage equality. In fact, he believes the Catholic Church’s stance must “surely be worthy of consideration” by the government because it helps “promote the moral well-being of society.” Here’s how Conti framed that position:

While it is true, certainly within Catholic social teaching, that governments are not required to make all immoral actions illegal, to many it is unhelpful, unnecessary and indeed profoundly unwise for political action to do quite the opposite, namely to attempt through the law, by equating homosexual unions with heterosexual marriage, to render moral what is in itself morally defective.

So far in 2013, members of the Catholic hierarchy have already referred to same-sex marriage as “morally defective” and an “immoral activity,” and claimed that gay people don’t really exist, but if they claim to, then God obliges them to a life of chastity. And Conti’s implication here isn’t just that he wants to prevent same-sex marriage, but that his preference would be to make homosexuality itself “illegal.”

Combined with Pope Benedict’s multiple malignant statements in December, the Catholic Church’s hierarchy has established itself as the archenemy of loving same-sex families in 2013. These religious leaders provide no argument against marriage equality except their own moral judgment, but then expect the governments of the world to cater to their whims when even their own followers largely do not agree. They imagine a universe where there is no such thing as gay people or same-sex marriage, but with each passing day that false reality becomes more delusional.

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Tech at Night: Barack Obama covering for Lieberman-Collins power grab via CISPA opposition, Darrell Issa does good on Transparency

In an example of lucky timing, the GSA scandal proved why Darrell Issa’s DATA act was needed. Transparency in government allows for oversight. So the bill passed the House by voice vote.

I first floated a while back the idea that this sudden, strident CISPA opposition was roote d in a desire to distract the public from the much stronger and more dangerous Lieberman-Collins bill in the Senate. It’ll work with the libertarian left because hey, they’ll believe whatever the left says about eeevil Bushitlerian Rethuglicans. But it disappoints me when the right, including FreedomWorks, is tricked and puts effort into CISPA instead of Lieberman-Collins. Did we learn nothing from Net Neutrality?

But yeah, when the usual whiny groups along with Barack Obama and the administration are joining together to talk exclusively about CISPA but not at all about Lieberman-Collins, I’m right.

House Republicans may in fact limit the bill in response to the veto threat, but the fact is we need a flexible legal framework to empower the good guys to have information which is critical when countering bad guys who share information all the time.

International attacks are real though. In fact, everyone may want to check into this account by the FBI about a thwarted attack that may still infect your computer.

Let’s do some FCC: They’re already expanding Internet subsidies. Also, while they like to drag their feet on some spectrum sales, one in particular they man aged to approve rather quickly. How coincidental that it’s one that is only happening because FCC rejected an earlier T-Mobile/AT&T deal, eh? Meanwhile, Republicans are on the case of FCC trying to expand its authority again, this time into political speech regulation, even as Chuck Grassley milks all he can to get FCC transparency.

PATENT WARS PAUSED: Hey all. When I started out writing about PATENT WARS, it was fresh and interesting. But, as all this stuff has gotten more and more expansive, with everyone suing or allying with everyone else, it’s becoming too much to cover, and very repetitive. I hope the point is made though, that real patent reform was needed, not the first-to-file mess we passed. So, no more PATENT WARS coverage unless something really big happens.

There’s some more good stuff to cover, but it’s 2am, so… quick hits:

Here we go: Calls to end the light-touch regime of the Telecommunications Act 1996 and replace it with a state-centered model of controlled Internet. Funny how Barry Diller says we need a total rewrite of Internet laws… except when it comes to copyright. Funny, that. Unless it’s all about a power grab, which we know it is, then it makes perfect sense.

Can we please retire Jay Rockefeller? He’s whining about paying too much for the latest in Internet technology even as he pushes for regulation that would only make Internet competition harder. It’s crazy.

Speaking of Internet competition: The desire for a free lunch lives on in the form of Net Neutrality whiners whose goal all along was to get their high-end bandwidth use subsidized by the masses and the taxpayers.

As I’ve been saying all along, state Amazon taxes are unconstitutional, as a Cook County judge ruled this week with respect to the Illinois attempt. If you want interstate sales taxation, you need Congressional involvement in the form of a legal interstate compact. The Marketplace Fairness Act could be a good start to such a deal, assuming it got amended to ensure no national sales tax could ever be imposed through it.

Oh look, The Washington Post is carrying water for Jim DeMint’s opponents as DeMint tries to level the playing field of cable television. Remember Jay Rockefeller’s whining? Regulations biased against cable companies and for broadcast television stations, they’re part of the problem.

North Carolina censoring Internet content. Do you have your blog license?

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