It's Hemp History Week!

How much do you know about industrial hemp?

Hemp is not Pot

First, let's get one common misconception out of the way. Marijuana and industrial hemp are not the same thing. Let's hear from Dr. David P. West, who holds a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding from the University of Minnesota. (There's lots more information on the myths and realities of hemp and marijuana at the link.)

Botanically, the genus Cannabis is composed of several variants. Although there has been a long-standing debate among taxonomists about how to classify these variants into species, applied plant breeders generally embrace a biochemical method to classify variants along utilitarian lines.

Cannabis is the only plant genus that contains the unique class of molecular compounds called cannabinoids. Many cannabinoids have been identified, but two preponderate: THC, which is the psychoactive ingredient of Cannabis, and CBD, which is an antipsychoactive ingredient. One type of Cannabis is high in the psychoactive cannabinoid, THC, and low in the antipsychoactive cannabinoid, CBD. This type is popularly known as marijuana. Another type is high in CBD and low in THC. Variants of this type are called industrial hemp.

The conflation of the word "marijuana" and the word "hemp" has placed a heavy burden on public policymakers. Many believe that by legalizing hemp they are legalizing marijuana. Yet in more than two dozen other countries, governments have accepted the distinction between the two types of Cannabis and, while continuing to penalize the growing of marijuana, have legalized the growing of industrial hemp. The U.S. government remains unconvinced.

Fondling Fees Expected to Double

You may soon be paying twice the price for that affectionate send-off you receive from agents of the Transportation Security Administration. The Democratic-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee has approved an increase in the one-way fee from $2.50 to $5.00, and in the round-trip fee from $5.00 to $10.00. No "two-fer" specials have been announced to date.

The author of the proposal, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said that the current fee structure only covers about one-fourth of TSA's airport security costs and that people who fly should bear a greater cost of TSA's $7.6 billion budget – rather than taxpayers as a whole.

Let's not forget that they're going to need all these funds to expand VIPER, the Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response teams, which have been increasingly a presence in metro stations, ballgames, on highways, in truckstops, and at Amtrak stations. Talk about an appropriate acronym!

Connecting the Dots: Obama's Value

What Makes Obama Worth a Billion Bucks?
First Dot: President Obama just became the first politician to ever collect over a billion dollars in career political contributions.

His total take reached $1,017,892,305 in April, some nine years after he began his 2004 race for the Senate. Obama is widely expected to raise at least $300 million more before November.

Second Dot: The Washington Post reports White House visitor logs provide window into lobbying activity.

Is Directive 10-289 in Our Future?

I'm currently rereading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, thanks to an ongoing discussion of the book with a first-time reader-friend from the previously mentioned Absolute Write Politics & Current Events forum.

For those not familiar with the novel, it tells the story of an America choking on special favors and regulation, where each attempt to "fix" things leads only to more problems, where legislation promoted for the "common good" instead serves to line the pockets of the politically-connected, where regulations claimed to promote stability instead institutionalize stagnation. An America where "too big to fail" applies not only to banks, but to the steel mills, copper mines, and railroads of those who curry favor with the administration.

An America, in short, not too far distant from the one we inhabit today.

Criminalizing Dissent

In First Amendment (1791-2012) R.I.P. we discussed H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act, that further criminalized the First Amendment. Slate concisely summarized the new law like this.

It is a federal offense, punishable by up to 10 years in prison to protest anywhere the Secret Service might be guarding someone. For another, it’s almost impossible to predict what constitutes “disorderly or disruptive conduct” or what sorts of conduct authorities deem to “impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”

Instead of turning on a designated place, the protest ban turns on what persons and spaces are deemed to warrant Secret Service protection. It’s a perfect circle: The people who believe they are important enough to warrant protest can now shield themselves from protestors. No wonder the Occupy supporters are worried. In the spirit of “free speech zones,” this law creates another space in which protesters are free to be nowhere near the people they are protesting.

Among others, three major upcoming events will test the impact of this new law on First Amendment activities. First comes Chicago's NATO Summit, May 20-21. The Presidential nominating conventions follow this fall, first the Republicans in Tampa, August 27-30, then the Democrats in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 3-6.

CISPA: What's Next?

Author's Note: I've covered the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act thoroughly in three previous columns you may want to read if you're not up to speed on the issue: CISPA Keynotes Cybersecurity Week, Who's Buying CISPA and Selling Us Out? and CISPA House Debate Starts Tomorrow.

Congress is currently considering CISPA – the Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act – a bill that purports to protect the United States from “cyber threats” but would in fact create a gaping loophole in all existing privacy laws. If CISPA passes, companies could vacuum up huge swaths of data on everyday Internet users and share it with the government without a court order. I oppose CISPA, and I’m calling on Congress to reject any legislation that: Uses dangerously vague language to define the breadth of data that can be shared with the government. Hands the reins of America’s cybersecurity defenses to the NSA, an agency with no transparency and little accountability. Allows data shared with the government to be used for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity. Join me in opposing this bill by posting this statement on your own page and using this online form to send a letter to Congress against CISPA.

CISPA passed the House of Representatives on Thursday, with a vote of 258-168, even after this Tireless Agorist's impassioned pleas. I guess I don't run the world... yet.

CISPA House Debate Starts Tomorrow

Author's Note: If you haven't been keeping up with CISPA, here are two earlier Tireless Agorist posts about CISPA: CISPA Keynotes Cybersecurity Week and Who's Buying CISPA and Selling Us Out?

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The ACLU is asking that you contact your representative today because tomorrow the House of Representatives will open debate tomorrow on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, including more than 40 potential amendments. The first link above includes a lookup for your representative's phone number and even a sample script for the phone call.

Have you made that phonecall yet? Don't disappoint the ACLU, Tim Berners-Lee, Ron Paul, this Tireless Aorist, and a large group of other people. Go make your call, then come back and read what those people, and others, have to say about CISPA.

Jury Nullification Still Legal

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
Thomas Jefferson
In celebration of a recent decision that it's still legal to discuss jury nullification, I'll take this window of opportunity to dedicate a blog post to the topic. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood determined that it's perfectly legitimate to encourage jurors to vote their conscience, even when that conflicts with the letter of the law. More specifically, she found that distributing pamphlets about jury nullification is not jury tampering, even in front of a courthouse.

Jurors have the authority to judge the law and may vote to acquit a defendant who is guilty of doing something that should not be a crime.

Who's Buying CISPA and Selling Us Out?

Congress is currently considering CISPA – the Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act – a bill that purports to protect the United States from “cyber threats” but would in fact create a gaping loophole in all existing privacy laws. If CISPA passes, companies could vacuum up huge swaths of data on everyday Internet users and share it with the government without a court order. I oppose CISPA, and I’m calling on Congress to reject any legislation that: Uses dangerously vague language to define the breadth of data that can be shared with the government. Hands the reins of America’s cybersecurity defenses to the NSA, an agency with no transparency and little accountability. Allows data shared with the government to be used for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity. Join me in opposing this bill by posting this statement on your own page and using this online form to send a letter to Congress against CISPA.

For those who haven't yet read my previous column, here's a brief analysis from CNET. Others can skip ahead to Who's Selling Us Out?

CISPA Keynotes Cybersecurity Week

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), H.R. 3523, is Congress' most recent incarnation of the SOPA/PIPA battle that the Internet community fought and won handily in January of this year.

Congress is set to act on cybersecurity legislation that has been making its way through committees in both chambers for several years. The House is set to vote on these bills during the week of April 23, dubbed "Cybersecurity Week." The Senate will take action soon after.

The House is expected to kick off Cybersecurity week by taking up HR 3523, a bill sponsored by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.).

The House Intelligence Committee approved the bill in a secret session held one day after the bill was introduced and without a single public hearing on the legislation.

The Rogers bill creates a sweeping "cybersecurity exception" to every single federal and state law, including key privacy laws---the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Wiretap Act, the Privacy Act—allowing private companies holding our private communications to share them with each other, with the National Security Agency (NSA), and with other intelligence and defense agencies, and all other agencies of the federal government.

...under Rogers, once your personal information is in the hands of the government, all bets are off. It can be used for any national security purpose, including to track patterns of communications to decide whether to seek authorization to wiretap you. In can be used to prosecute you for any crime, provided an intelligence agency also finds at least a significant national security or cyber security purpose for the information.

Where in the World is Ron Paul?

... and what's Wolf Blitzer doing in that tire swing?

On April 4, FOX Nation asked "Where in the World is Ron Paul?" They weren't looking very hard. Ron Paul is all over the place, and he's drawing crowds the other Republican candidates only dream about.

White Male Privilege

It must be nice to be a baby boomer heterosexual white man.
During an online discussion about voting, after I sarcastically recommended the lesser of two evils theory, I got this clever non-sequiter dropped in my lap.

It must be nice to be a baby boomer heterosexual white man.

My reply, although pointed, was far too brief.

Actually, it sucks. We can't blame our failures on the inequities in the system and postulate that if only we get the right people into political office they'll fix everything. We have to face the stark reality that the One Percent's idea of "equality" is to destroy the "privileged" middle class so that all the ninety-nine percent are equally disadvantaged and dependent on their largess, rather than removing the roadblocks that allow everyone to compete with those who are politically protected and achieve all they're capable of achieving.

My concept of equality does not mean we're all equally powerless to do anything without permission from the state and grateful for whatever paltry portion of our own efforts they deign to let us keep.

Elizabeth Warren, Clueless or Complicit?

On March 8, 2007 the University of California Berkeley Jefferson Lecture Series presented The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net.

Since the title of the lecture closely paralled a topic I've been intending to explore, I decided that watching this lecture would serve to help me collect my own thoughts in preparation for writing on the subject.

The lecture was delivered by Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard University and past chair of the Congressional oversight panel created to oversee the 2008 U.S banking bailout. She conceived and led the establishment of the U.S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and is currently a US Senate candidate from Massachusetts. I've embedded the video, and I recommend watching it if you have the time.

What Ms. Warren Got Right

She opened her lecture by expressing her belief that "The single most important economic shift of the second half of the 20th century, in the United States, [was] that that millions of mothers poured into the full-time paid work force. A woman in 1970 who had a 16-year-old child was less likely to be in the work force than a woman in 2003 who had a six-month-old child at home. It was a profound shift in America."

"The median family in America went, over a 30-year period, from being a one-income household to a two-income household."

Malum in se, Malum Prohibitum

When it comes to the proper role of government, most people seem to agree on a few basic issues; murder, rape, fraud, theft and vandalism (acts of aggression against individuals and their property) are almost universally accepted as violations that government should prevent or punish. Conflicts tend to arise only after we step beyond that common theme.

Two legal terms illustrate that fundamental split: malum in se and malum prohibitum.

Pizza Federalism, Kickstarter and the Arts

Discussion of federalism is all the rage these days among conservatives. Such conversations are generally framed by the Tenth Amendment, interpreted as an issue of "States Rights," and then dismissed by the left as a throwback to the days of the Civil War.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I believe a more honest appraisal of the concept requires consideration of the Ninth Amendment as well, and others are becoming at least tangentially aware of that idea.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

When both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are included in the discussion, federalism expands to encompass "pushing government decisions down to the lowest democratic level possible," as Jonah Goldberg notes.

Government Integrity Analyzed

A consortium led by the Center for Public Integrity, a "nonpartisan" watchdog group, released a report on the integrity of state-level governments on Monday.

Not one state got an "A," the breakdown was 5 "B"s, 19 "C"s, 18 "D"s, and 8 "F"s.

I found it particularly telling that this "nonpartisan" watchgroup did not issue grades for either the District of Columbia or the federal government.

Here's how they begin their lament.

The Booze Cause of the Economic Crisis

Everybody should believe in something; I believe I'll have another drink.
Author unknown
Appearing at Real Clear Politics today, Causes of the Crisis, wherein Robert Samuelson proclaims "Four years after the onset of the financial crisis -- in March 2008 Bear Stearns was rescued from failure -- we still lack a clear understanding of the underlying causes."

He makes note of the two competing theories; that Wall Street, unregulated, took too many risks, and that mortgage-lending standards created the housing bubble. He then examines the case for a root cause of both.

Actually, both theories are correct -- and neither is... But the fact that these theories are not mutually exclusive suggests that both were consequences of some larger cause. Just so. What ultimately explains the financial crisis and Great Recession is an old-fashioned boom and bust, of which the housing collapse was merely a part.

In this, Samuelson is correct. He then proceeds to give a history lesson, pointing out that the boom began with the decisive defeat of double-digit inflation in the early 1980s, (while failing to address the cause of, or cure for, that inflation, however). He points to two mild recessions in the ensuing years, and gives credit to the Federal Reserve for "defusing" those two threats. He then states "booms become busts because justifiable confidence becomes foolish optimism," and continues his history lesson by spreading the blame everywhere; on investment banks, households, lending standards, regulators, ethical standards, even criminals. But not one word of explanation as to how "justifiable confidence becomes foolish optimism."

30 Seconds to Destroy Democracy

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
Author's Note: Regardless of your position on the Presidential candidacy of Dr. Ron Paul, I believe you will find this attack on the democratic process profoundly disturbing. If the rule of law means nothing at the lowest levels of the political process in America, how can we expect it to have meaning at the highest? Please share this column with everyone you know. Our silence grants a foothold to tyranny.

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If you believe that democracy is still alive and well in the United States, I invite you to watch the video below. In less than 30 seconds, from the call for the vote to the closing of the convention, you'll see an attack on democracy intended to destroy the will of the people, bringing to mind Jimmy Doolittle's 30 seconds over Tokyo, intended to destroy the will of a different people. This Tireless Agorist is sure that just as the raid on Tokyo provided a morale boost for the American people, the Athens-Clarke County Republican Party establishment got a boost in their morale from believing they had successfully completed their raid on democracy.

But just as Doolittle's raid strengthened the resolve of the Japanese people, so too has this action strengthened the resolve of those who expect their voices to be heard through peaceful, democratic means and the rule of law.

The Rise of the Phoenix Society

In the first column in this series, The Apolitical Economic Superpower, we discussed the rapid growth of the untaxed, unregulated economy. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), it already provides an estimated 50% of the world's jobs. And in only eight short years, they estimate that two out of three workers world-wide will be employed in jobs outside the control of government, in the apolitical economy that this article from Foreign Policy refers to as System D.

By 2020, the OECD projects, two-thirds of the workers of the world will be employed in System D. There's no multinational, no Daddy Warbucks or Bill Gates, no government that can rival that level of job creation. Given its size, it makes no sense to talk of development, growth, sustainability, or globalization without reckoning with System D.

Beware the Ides of March

Caesar, beware the Ides of March... a day for all the world's autocrats, despots and grandees to ponder the consequences of their deeds.
Salman Rushdie, today, on Twitter

Salman Rushdie's tweet seems an appropriate call to this Tireless Agorist to recap those articles I've published that address autocrats, despots and grandees, and the consequences of their deeds. I'll even throw in a column or two that offers some hope for the future. I've categorized the articles for your convenience. The groupings are just rough approximations; some essays may fit in more than one category.