Scrapbook
Scrapbook Don't Bogart that Ballot Petition, Dude THE SCRAPBOOK notes that a couple weeks back its friends at National Review gave cover-story treatment to a piece by Ethan Nadelmann entitled "An...
...iMuchas gracias, Senora Secretary...
...asks the cover, in (of course) blazing red, white, and blue...
...STEWART: Oh, I don't think in a minimum security prison there's gonna be strip searches...
...WALTERS: Do you have any idea what it's like...
...WALTERS: Do you have any idea what it's like...
...But nobody remembered to vote for it, and the darn thing got crushed, 61 percent to 39 percent...
...WALTERS: Strip searches...
...In Nevada, for example, backers of a ballot initiative to decriminalize possession of marijuana in small quantities have "pulled the plug" on their campaign, "citing financial trouble and organizational difficulties...
...Now you have said you are not afraid...
...After four more years of compassionate conservatism, pretty much every American will be ready to slurp up gov-benefits, bilingually...
...The other possibility— that the Post's headline writers could ever sincerely believe that something like this was appropriate— is really too horrible to contemplate, after all...
...If it is looming ahead of me, I'm going to have to face it and take it and do it and get it over with...
...That, at least, is the conclusion we very much want to draw from the preposterously April Fool's-like headline those editors stuck on Mil-bank's July 21 "story" from cedar Rapids, Ia., "Bush Attack on Foe Not Relentless...
...Just to be fair, we should point out that back in 2002, its organizers did not forget to turn in their petitions, and a marijuana liberalization initiative did appear on the Nevada ballot...
...And there are many other people that have gone to prison...
...ORGANIZERS FORGOT TO TURN IN BOX CONTAINING 6,000 SIGNATURES by Erin Neff An initiative seeking to legalize possession of up to one ounce of marijuana in Nevada could go up in smoke...
...I ask that you help us spread the word about this valuable service...
...Not really...
...Nadelmann's cheerful forecast of a free-pot future...
...Basically, according to Nadelmann and his colleagues, the good guys got screwed: "Nevada's secretary of state would not certify an initiative to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana for personal use, saying the petitions were 15,000 signatures short of being eligible...
...STEWART: No...
...STEWART: No...
...A Chicken in Every Email Inbox As a way of lifting spirits and spreading our customary good cheer, THE WEEKLY STANDARD was happy to mark Tax Day this year by drawing attention to www...
...No, I haven't...
...WALTERS: Oh, yes, Martha...
...He was pleading with me that they forgot to turn it in," Lomax said...
...To drive the point home, Chao also included a govbenefits.gov flier for youth leaders to pass around...
...Specifically, "We encourage you to promote govbenefits.gov valuable resources to your community" by distributing literature, placing a link on websites, and writing articles about its wonders...
...Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax said Rogers contacted him by phone Saturday asking whether he could turn in the box, which contains signatures that were notarized before the June 15 deadline to submit initiative petitions...
...Unfortunately, the state law says they have to turn it all in by June 15...
...If ever there was a mechanism designed to swell the Nanny State and corral free citizens into becoming its dependent clients, govbenefits.gov is it...
...STEWART: Well, I've thought about it a lot, Barbara...
...Someone you know...
...Petition organizers last week announced that they had submitted sufficient signatures to qualify the petition for the November ballot...
...Or—The Scrap-book rather prefers this theory—maybe everybody over at the Drug Policy Alliance was, like, so tooooootally bummed out by developments in Nevada that they simply spaced out and, you know, forgot how things had actually come to pass...
...About 20,000 signatures were rejected because they weren't properly signed—a requirement now being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union...
...Yeah, well...
...STEWART: Well, maybe I'm uninformed...
...Dear Friend," Chao wrote our acquaintance...
...Lucky visitors to govbene-fits.gov can fill out a brief questionnaire, click the submit button, and with the lightning speed of cyberspace learn precisely what federal and state government benefits they qualify for...
...You...
...Now Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is actively soliciting traffic to the site by peppering "youth organization leaders" with direct mail, encouraging them to have their young charges taste the delights of government benefits...
...govbenefits.gov, a website got up by your Department of Labor ("The Net Nanny State," by Andrew Ferguson, April 26, 2004...
...However, Billy Rogers, president of the political consulting firm seeking to qualify the petition, subsequently discovered a box of about 6,000 signatures that no one remembered to turn in...
...Look at Nelson Mandela—27 years in prison...
...But that was just the beginning...
...The key thing is, as Secretary Chao well knows, you got to grab 'em early...
...Just Like Nelson Mandela, But Naked Barbara Walters interviews the just-sentenced Martha Stewart on ABC's World News Tonight, July 16: WALTERS: You know, when we did an interview last March, you said that you were afraid of jail...
...Maybe Ethan Nadelmann stuck the rest of the story down his pants, took it home, and then inadvertently threw it away...
...Milbank Now Beyond Parody, Experts Say It's gotten to the point where even his own editors at the Washington Post have started poking sly, insider fun at reporter Dana Milbank's implacably hostile coverage of President Bush...
...One such youth leader forwarded her solicitation to THE SCRAPBOOK...
...That may be an exaggeration, in our opinion, but not for long...
...STEWART: I see them in movies...
...After all, Chao went on, the second anniversary of the site "was commemorated with the launching of GovBenefits en Espanol as well as a new loans-oriented section of the site...
...The Scrapbook further notes, however, a brief news item subsequently posted on its own website by an outfit called the Drug Policy Alliance (Ethan Nadelmann, executive director), which news item would seem somewhat less than fully consistent with Mr...
...Scrapbook Don't Bogart that Ballot Petition, Dude THE SCRAPBOOK notes that a couple weeks back its friends at National Review gave cover-story treatment to a piece by Ethan Nadelmann entitled "An End to Marijuana Prohibition," which piece reported that political prospects for such an end are brighter than ever...
...Naturally, it was conceived by the Bush administration...
...Who May Be Eligible for Government Benefits...
...Because that, it turns out, is how things actually came to pass in Nevada, as the following priceless dispatch from the June 24 Las Vegas Review-Journal makes clear: LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA: ERROR PUTS INITIATIVE IN JEOPARDY...
...WALTERS: Maybe you should do a little research on what it's like in prison...
...WALTERS: Have you ever visited a prison...
Vol. 9 • August 2004 • No. 44
