Just when you thinks it’s gone for good, “Reefer Madness” returns.

New York has dawdled, diddled, and dithered for two-years. And when the inaction of New York State officials is the cause of action by the affected parties, the pols first reaction is, let’s punish them for our failure. — wfw

Crackdown proposed for illegal pot shops in NY —

Michael Hill – Associated Press

ALBANY — New York authorities would be given expanded power to shut down illegal pot shops and levy fines of up to $200,000 under legislation proposed Wednesday by Gov. Kathy Hochul, who’s seeking to protect the state’s fledgling legal market for recreational marijuana.

New York is trying to get its potentially massive adult legal market into high gear, but has just three shops opened so far in New York City, two in upstate New York and more shops planned.

Legal operations in the city are being undermined by a proliferation of unlicensed stores.

City officials have already gone after landlords who have allowed illicit shops to operate. The new bill before Legislature would give the state Office of Cannabis Management and state tax officials new powers to crack down on unlicensed activity.

The bill would give the cannabis office expanded authority to seize illicit products and establish procedures for the government to shut down unlicensed businesses. Violations could lead to fines of $200,000 for illicit cannabis plants or products and businesses could be fined $10,000 a day for selling cannabis without a license, according to the Hochul administration.

“The continued existence of illegal dispensaries is unacceptable, and we need additional enforcement tools to protect New Yorkers from dangerous products and support our equity initiatives,” Hochul said in prepared statement.

New York has moved slowly since legalizing recreational marijuana use in March 2021.

READ MORE

Another GOP traitor on the job

Congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, (NY-21), continues to support Donald Trump, despite the fact — repeat, despite the fact — that her president lost the 2020 election, instigated an insurrection in January, 2020 , and continues his attempts to overthrow — or otherwise destroy the legitimately elected government of the United States. — wfw

‘You’re a mess’: Elise Stefanik slammed for parroting Donald Trump’s debunked ‘illegal leak’ screed

United States Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-New York), the chair of the GOP Conference in the House of Representatives, suggested on Saturday that former President Donald Trump is a victim of political persecution by “corrupt Leftist prosecutors” who are expected to indict Trump as soon as this upcoming week.

That includes Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, and Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith – all of whom are investigating Trump for an array of alleged crimes.

Stefanik being floated as possible Trump VP

America has Ignored GOP Crimes to Seize the White House Long Enough – It’s Time to Put this One in Prison

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‘Had to borrow $10 million’: MyPillow CEO complains company in debt due to pushing Trump 2020 election lies

by Myra Boddie, Alternate

Right-wing extremist and MyPillow CEO, Mike Lindell, said during an interview with former President Donald Trump strategist, Steve Bannon, his successful company is in debt thanks to “voting machine companies.”

Bannon and Lindell have both “repeatedly pushed Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’ through an unprecedented, nationwide voter fraud conspiracy” — one Fox News has admitted was false.

Former federal prosecutor and Republican Ron Filipkowski shared a clip from the interview via Twitter, writing, “Mike Lindell reveals that MyPillow is going broke because of his battle to prove Trump won, and he had to borrow $10 million to keep things going.”

Bannon asked the multi-millionaire, “The loan you took out at MyPillow — people were all over you about this?”

Lindell replied, “Yeah, last year, actually there were three separate loans, as the machine companies continue to sue us for billions of dollars.”

The CEO continued, “we had to borrow almost $10 million dollars. We’re an employee-owned company.

It just baffles me, Steve, you’ve got all these machine companies — these voting machine companies, that nobody even knew their name before, but everybody protects them. And yet you attack a USA company, MyPillow, and my employees, and it’s just disgusting.”

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Lindsey Graham admits under oath that Trump’s outlandish election conspiracies were farfetched

Rupert Murdoch says Fox stars ‘endorsed’ lies about 2020. He chose not to stop them

The long, strange trip of Mountain Girl

From the Merry Pranksters to the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia’s former wife opens up about what the age of free love was really like

I came home from Vietnam in 1966 and plunged into the hippie movement — began my own “long, strange trip”– and had a good time at it. Todtay, I’m still drinking beer, smoking pot, and listening to the Grateful Dead. — wfw

Carolyn and Jerry in El Camino Park, Palo Alto, CA, 1967.

By David Kushner

It’s a bright, crisp morning on a leafy street in Eugene, Oregon. Inside her plant-filled home lined with scientific books on psilocybin and posters of the Grateful Dead, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, legendary godmother of the hippie counterculture, Jerry’s ex-wife, and mother of their two daughters, sits on a red leather couch dressed in a red shirt and purple pants. Now 76, with shoulder-length gray hair and black-framed glasses, she’s reading me an excerpt from her unpublished memoir, which she just dug out of an old brown box. It’s a familiar story from a revelatory point of view: her own.

“The Beatles came to the old Cow Palace down in the mudflat south of San Francisco,” she reads. “Someone got us all tickets and we dressed up to go.”

It was August 31, 1965, and everyone piled into Furthur, the painted school bus that would soon become one of the most renowned icons of the Sixties. “We mustered the instruments up on the roof thinking to lead a parade to the Cow Palace. The bus, however, was in a hiccupy mood and would only get moving 25 miles an hour up the hill, choking and gasping, overloaded and full of very high Pranksters.”

In those days, Mountain Girl was the brash, 19-year-old “it girl” of the nascent psychedelic underground. She’d fled her hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York, to become the unlikely teenage matriarch for the counterculture’s most celebrated influencers, the Merry Pranksters. Led by Ken Kesey, the swashbuckling author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the communal crew of seekers and misfits road-tripped the USA in Furthur, experimenting with the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll that would come to define their generation. Their adventures, as immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s seminal book “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” inspired legions of young people eager to break the shackles of the 1950s and embark on a new age of personal freedom. And none of the Pranksters embodied that emerging spirit more than Mountain Girl.

MAGIC TRIP – Official Trailer – Ken Kesey Documentary

Where to sing karaoke in the Capital Region

by: Sara Rizzo

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — If you’re looking for a place to sing your heart out, a karaoke night may be right for you. Many restaurants and bars around the area host karaoke nights once, twice or even almost every night.

It’s not Albany. NY, but it’s K-a-r-o-a-k-e

What’s on your plate? 60% of foods in America contain unhealthy additives

By John Anderer

A classic example of “what goes around comes around.” — wfw

Americans (60%) contain any number of artificial additives such as preservatives, sweeteners, and coloring or flavoring agents. Even worse, these levels represent a 10-percent increase since 2001. The study makes a strong case that the prevalence of food additives is on the rise in a major way. For instance, the average amount of additives in food and beverage products added by manufacturers has increased significantly between 2001 (3.7) and 2019 (4.5).

Food additives are so ubiquitous in the first place thanks to their ability to extend various foods’ shelf lives and improve palatability. Despite this, the health consequences of consuming these substances are still woefully understudied and not clear. So, analyzing and better grasping the impact of food-additive exposure over time is a vital step in understanding its role in numerous negative health developments linked to their consumption, including increased bodyweight and negative changes to the gut microbiome.

Common food additives and chemicals harmful to children

“Let them eat cake”

“These guys talk about states’ rights all the time, except when it comes to poor people,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, one of the biggest anti-hunger advocates in the House.

Republicans launch opening salvo against food aid By MEREDITH LEE HILL and GARRETT DOWNS

By MEREDITH LEE HILL and GARRETT DOWNS

House Republicans are taking their first shot at slashing federal spending on nutrition programs for low-income Americans. It won’t be their last.

Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), is introducing a bill Tuesday, shared exclusively with POLITICO, to expand current restrictions on who qualifies for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. It’s the first of what is expected to be a wave of GOP efforts this year to set limits on SNAP, the country’s largest food assistance program, which grew significantly during the pandemic. But while Republicans have telegraphed their desire to curb nutrition spending, House Democrats have yet to mount a coordinated response, raising concerns in the caucus about whether they can fend off likely GOP attacks on the program during the negotiations over the debt limit, budget and 2023 farm bill.

Johnson’s bill would expand the age bracket for able-bodied SNAP recipients without dependents, who have to meet complicated work requirements. The legislation would also limit the federal government’s ability to waive those work requirements for states he says are abusing loopholes in the system.

Republicans Are Consigning the Poor to Disease and Death

The government clings to the mantle of Reefer Madness

The government’ claims that their intent is to stop violent people from buying guns. If that were true then people who consume alcohol should also be banned from possessing firearms — it’s a no-brainer. — wfw

Justice Department Appealing Federal Ruling That Struck Down Gun Ban for Cannabis Consumers

BY NORML POSTED ON MARCH 9, 2023

Washington, DC: The Justice Department is appealing a ruling issued by a federal judge last month that struck down a longstanding federal law prohibiting marijuana users from possessing firearms.

In early February, a federal judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma determined that the 1968 law was unconstitutional. The judge determined: “[T]he mere use of marijuana carries none of the characteristics that the Nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation supports. The use of marijuana — which can be bought legally (under state law) at more than 2,000 ordinary store fronts in Oklahoma — is not in and of itself a violent, forceful, or threatening act. It is not a ‘crime of violence.’ Nor does it involve ‘the actual use or threatened use of force.’”

On Friday, the Justice Department announced that it was appealing the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

In 2016, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the federal government’s interpretation of the law. Justices opined that the ban “furthers the Government’s interest in preventing gun violence” because marijuana users “are more likely to be involved in violent crimes.”

The case is United States of America v. James Michael Harrison.

Alcohol Use and Firearm Violence

Alcohol Misuse And Gun Violence: What We Know

Trump’s Dead-Enders: here’s how they roll

When you come across comments, statements, or declarations by Trump’s dead-enders, you know there’s a pile of bullshit on display . They rail against Joe Biden, they whine, carp and complain about Hunter Biden, they babble about a myriad of fanciful transgressions committed by Democrats which is predictable, but — what really defines them — is what they don’t complain about.

Donald Trump falsely claimed that the 2020 election was rigged against him and there wasn’t a hint of outrage from his supporters. Donald Trump actively engaged in a treasonous effort to negate the votes of the 81.5 million people who voted for Joe Biden — or against the Donald — and there wasn’t a mouse-squeak of protest from his followers.

I think it’s fair to conclude that the many of folks who ignored Trump’s lies, and quietly sloughed off his effort to overthrow the legitimately elected government of the United States, supported his goal of becoming president for life. And now they think they can distance themselves from his treasonous behavior by ignoring it.

On September 24, 2020, Forbes magazine published the article, “Here’s Everything Trump Has Said About Refusing To Give Up Power.” you can look it up online, check out the URL: https://tinyurl.com/55st8apf or — if you’re a Trump dead-ender — dismiss it as “fake news”.

The bottom line is: engaging these folks is an exercise in futility. They’re woefully ignorant — by choice,– preferring instead, to wallow in the outright lies provided by FOX News. Eventually, they’ll realize that they were duped — and they’ll deal with that fact by rationalizing their failure and setting themselves up for the next bullsjit artist that tells them what they want to hear. It’s how they roll.— wfw

A former producer of the largest Fox show calls Trump supporters inbred ‘terrorists’A former producer of the largest Fox show calls Trump supporters inbred ‘terrorists’

Opinion | I Helped Write the Jan. 6 Committee Report. Here’s What Tucker Carlson Left Out.

Republican senator refuses to discuss new footage of MAGA rioters smashing up his office