Beto O’Rourke is all in on reparations for marijuana offenders
I continue to marvel that Beto O’Rourke almost became a senator from Texas. Of course, back then he didn’t sound quite as far-left as he does now.
Prior to that, O’Rourke was a member of the House from a largely Hispanic and strongly Democratic Texas district:
He defeated his Republican opponent, Barbara Carrasco, in the general election with 65 percent of the vote. Upon O’Rourke’s election, the district was no longer represented in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, a 26-member group established in 1976, because he lacks Hispanic heritage. As the district was 80 percent Hispanic, with 77.6 percent of Hispanics being of voting-age, some officials, including David Austin, the El Paso-based border representative for the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition, argued that he should be permitted to join.
O’Rourke has not endeared himself to the public by his tough talk about confiscating AR-15s. But the subject of this post is his latest, O’Rourke’s suggestion to pay formerly imprisoned drug (marijuana) offenders reparations.
Yes, you heard that right.
Let’s take a look at Beto’s proposal. It’s quite a document, and I’m not going to deal with all of it, just the reparations part:
Call for a federal tax on the marijuana industry, revenue from which will be used to:
Provide a monthly “Drug War Justice Grant” to those formerly incarcerated for nonviolent marijuana offenses in state and federal prison for a period based on time served. The grants will be funded completely by the tax on the marijuana industry.
Fund substance use treatment programs.
Support re-entry services for those who have been incarcerated for possession.
Invest in communities disproportionately impacted by marijuana arrests, including investments in housing and employment support, substance use and mental health treatment, peer and recovery support services, life skills training, victims’ services.
Support those disproportionately impacted by marijuana arrests, including those who have been convicted of marijuana possession themselves in participating in the marijuana businesses by providing technical assistance, industry-specific training, access to interest free/low-interest loans, and access to investment financing and legal services.
Ensure those most impacted by the War on Drugs are the ones benefiting from the economic activity related to marijuana. As President, Beto will tie federal funding for criminal justice systems to requirements that states or local governments:
Waive licensing fees for producing, distributing, or selling marijuana for low-income individuals who have been convicted of marijuana offenses.
Licensing fees can cost up to $120,000, a figure that excludes associated business costs such as legal fees, insurance, taxes, and marketing. These exorbitant fees shut out exactly those who have been unjustly penalized from America’s drug policies from benefiting from a legal marijuana economy.
Ensure that the majority of licenses go to minority-owned businesses and those disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs, including those who have been convicted of marijuana use or possession themselves.
Protect marijuana businesses owned by low-income individuals and people of color from predatory investors and discrimination.
What could possibly go wrong? Let’s help the former drug dealers and stoners go legit by giving them subsidies to become legal drug dealers. A creative proposal, is it not?
And among other flaws, Beto’s plan ignores the fact that further increasing the price of legally regulated marijuana as compared to the price of black-market marijuana by slapping a new and probably rather substantial federal tax on the former will only encourage the dominance of the latter, the unregulated black-market type (which is already thriving, as I discussed in this previous post).
O’Rourke is going nowhere as a candidate, although for a little while he was a media darling. What’s going on with this drug reparations proposal? Perhaps Beto’s just trying to move the Overton window so that the other candidates can step in with only-slightly-less harebrained schemes and they will sound relatively sane. Or perhaps he’s smoked too much dope in his young life.
“Provide a monthly “Drug War Justice Grant” to those formerly incarcerated for nonviolent marijuana offenses in state and federal prison for a period based on time served. The grants will be funded completely by the tax on the marijuana industry. ”
How about a justice grant to people like Bernie Madoff who were incarcerated for nonviolent financial offenses?
I’m sure that Beto is also a big supporter of leniency towards DWI offenders. After all, that is the treatment he got from his DWI offense. Not everyone has a Daddy for a judge, like Beto did, to help smooth things out. Beto wants everyone to have that advantage- but NOT if you happen to own a gun he doesn’t like.
I think what Beto has been telling us is that the business he supposedly founded is his wife’s and that any work he did in it was taking instruction from her.
Beto is one of the doomed test pilots in The Right Stuff. “I’ve tried A, I’ve tried B, I’ve tried C…”
Robert Francis O’Rouke seems more than a bit strange to me. Filming a visit to have his teeth cleaned, filming his skateboarding adventures, and I’m guessing that he will soon produce a montage of artful shots of him blowing his nose.
Also perhaps totally clueless how his policy ‘ideas’ are non-starts from the moment he shows them off on the national stage. But then all of the candidates come across just as clueless as they rush to virtue signal that they are the most leftist one of all.
I just don’t think there that many votes to be gotten from those serving sentences for violating the drug laws. But who knows?
College bro Beto bespoils himself.
How about Drug War Reparations to families of people who: were killed in the drug cartel gang shoot-outs; died from drug overdoses or adulterated drugs; were killed by drug addicts who burglarized their homes or mugged them to feed their habit.
I don’t think Beto and his BeBopper buddies have considered that a lot of the people jailed for “nonviolent drug use” actually pled down from a raft of much more serious charges. PowerLine discussed that a lot in the context of the Get Out Of Jail Early reform laws.
How about Drug War Reparations to families of people who: were killed in the drug cartel gang shoot-outs; died from drug overdoses or adulterated drugs; were killed by drug addicts who burglarized their homes or mugged them to feed their habit.
I’d add reparations to families of people who were killed in traffic accidents by drivers high on drugs; and families of doctors, nurses, and first responders attacked by drug addicts. “According to a 2018 survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians, nearly 47 percent of ER doctors reported physical assault at work, with 60 percent confirming attacks in the past year.” See https://www.city-journal.org/violence-in-americas-emergency-rooms
Desperate and stupid. Hope he has enough money and stupid to stay in the da e for a good long time.
Sounds like soon we will all be standing around in a circle handing money to each other.
He seems to have a bad case of what’s sometimes quaintly referred to as “attention deficit disorder.” In other words, he’s an exhibitionist. A lot of people seem to be these days.
miklos000,
So are you’re predicting he will expose himself during the next ‘debate’? Possible, I am sure he thinks he is enormously endowed in every aspect of the beta male arena. Bless his heart, Robert Francis O’Rourke is the star in the imaginary movie of his own YUGENESS.
It is so easy to make fun of RFO and the rest.
We have already had a cool stoner president, we don’t need a Skate Board Beta ~ BEE-TOE ~ who spent over twice the amount of the least liked Texas Senator to lose his last election.
Free everything for everybody.
Wow! I am in favor ending drug prohibition and this sounds loony even to me!
Speaking of free everything for everyone, this one just pegged my absurd-ometer into the red zone…
Menstrual Equality is now a thing:
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sns-tns-bc-life-period-poverty-1st-lede-20190921-story.html
Esther on September 20, 2019 at 8:04 pm said:
“Sounds like soon we will all be standing around in a circle handing money to each other.”
LOL – I can see a great graphic for that; wish I had some l33t photo-op skilz.
For my generation, the circle would include Monopoly’s Mr. Moneybags, or maybe Scrooge McDuck, and certainly Maynard G. krebs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJxwgNqgobM
Neo: “I continue to marvel that Beto O’Rourke almost became a senator from Texas. ”
As do I.
But this is a sign. The TX electorate has been seriously dumbed down by latinos and the Dems that control the big cities. TX has three of the ten most populous cities in the country, and we know who runs them: DEMs: the Castro brothers in San Antonio, the likes of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in Houston. Dallas is a tad more conservative.
This dumbing down, this cultural destruction at the hands of the globalist elites awaits us all.
What the heck! I’ve been reading the current issue of First Things, and I agree with that journal that I am a white nationalist, which only the MSM deems bad.
NOT THE ONION
Well, not to be outdone, today Bernie is reported to be proposing cancelling all outstanding medical debt in this country, estimated at $81 billion dollars, as a way to start reshaping our health care system into “Medicare for All” or some such.
Man, the Left’s bidding to buy off voters is getting more and more fierce by the hour.
How about just “cutting to the chase,” and have a gigantic fire sale on the United States–everything for sale, no offer too low, free U.S. citizenship and lifetime everything for free for everyone in the world with a pulse.
The 24/7 all you can eat Smorgasbord and open bar are free to everyone in the world, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.
Come and get it!
Someone has to pay for it all but, don’t worry, we’ll figure all that out later, when the bills start to become due!
May be the new slogan of Beto and others of these Leftist candidates promising the moon and the stars ought to be:
“I can’t be out of money, I still have checks!
Snow – you do know there are people who really believe that about checks, don’t you?
They also believe that the government has money of its own, and gives it to you when you get a tax refund.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/383405.php
AeosopFan–Yeah, I do know that some people think this way, and that’s why I used this brainless dea.
The problem here is, of course, that Beto and others on the Left aren’t writing checks on their bank accounts, they are counting on writing checks on ours.
iIs very easy to give away others money.
Make that “idea.”
Gee, I wish we had an always there edit feature.
Sorry again. Make that “Its very easy….
Fumble fingered and bleary eyed this morning.
Roy N:
I hope you understand just how sexist the word “menstrual” is. Wouldn’t you think “womenstrual” is less triggering?
F:
Get with it! Don’t you know that transsexuals (male to female) have “periods” (didn’t use that gendered word)! Physical reality is soo triggering! /sarc
F,
So sorry… it must have been my toxic masculinity…
Snow on Pine on September 22, 2019 at 9:30 am said:
it’s very easy to give away others money.
* * *
PowerLine pictures.
https://www.whatfinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/lifelongdemocratvoter.jpg