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posted by martyb on Wednesday August 26 2020, @08:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the plans-going-up-in-smoke dept.

Trump Is Petrified That Pro-Weed Forces Will Roast Him:

The president and some of his team, already obsessed with the potential drop-off of various demographic groups that make up his battered coalition, have begun openly worrying that the drive to legalize or decriminalize marijuana might hurt him and fellow Republicans at the ballot box.

According to two GOP strategists who've independently discussed the topic with Trump this year, the president believes that inclusion of marijuana initiatives on state ballots could supercharge turnout for voters who lean toward Democratic candidates and causes. The president, according to one of the sources, asked for updates on critical swing-states that could see such ballot measures in the 2020 elections.

"The president is keenly aware of how presidential elections [nowadays]... can be won at the margins," one of the Republican strategists said. "The pot issue is one of many that he thinks could be a danger... He once told me it would be very 'smart' for the Democrat[ic] Party to get as many of these on the ballot as they could."

Decades ago, Trump had publicly advocated full-on legalization, arguing that "we're losing badly the war on drugs," and that "you have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars." During this iteration of his political identity, he put the blame on politicians who "don't have any guts" to tackle drug legalization.

But by his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had come out "strongly" against legal weed. By the time he reached the Oval Office, he was enthusiastically proposing executing drug dealers by firing squad. And his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, revoked an Obama-era guidance that discouraged the feds from prosecuting marijuana-based criminal cases in states where it was legal.


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:36AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:36AM (#1042626) Journal

    So let me get this straight: The EU has all the forces they'd need to defend themselves without US help, but at the same time the only way they can afford to have fancy social benefits is with US help?

    The force posture of the US in Europe is a relic of the Cold War, when NATO was facing down the Warsaw Pact. The US spends 3.5% of GDP [forbes.com], which is as much as the next 10 countries combined. Germany spends 1.2% of GDP [worldbank.org]. Doesn't it strike you as odd that the US spends more to defend Germany, than Germany spends to defend Germany?

    As far as Europe's own military strength goes, taken together [worldatlas.com] they have 1.43 million troops. Russia has 900K. Russia has nukes, but so does Europe. Europe can defend itself against Russia.

    So, America really doesn't need to spend that kind of money "defending Europe from Russia." If the Europeans like having that American security blanket in addition to what they already have themselves (which I have argued is quite sufficient to keep the Russians at bay), then they should pony up more money to have it. That might mean they have to cut back on other kinds of spending.

    (b) not having their military budgets be the giant cesspool of corruption and pork spending that the Pentagon is. (It doesn't take much digging to see what kind of money is going to waste, either: All the military contractors have shareholder reports declaring billions in profits that came right out of the US Treasury.)

    I'll cede this point. The MIC is notorious. I will further observe, however, that such a sorry state of affairs is not unique to America. There was a recent scandal in Europe [theguardian.com], was there not, surrounding the Typhoon fighter?

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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