"The Other Green Economy" Quoted!

Thanks to RIMarijuana.org for quoting my research on their page of alternatives to marijuana prohibition:

In his honors thesis for the Brown University Department of Economics, Max Chaiken effectively argues that Gettman and Miron's studies underestimate potential revenue from marijuana taxation. Instead, he calculates $211 billion in annual revenue for the entire United States. We estimate that this equates to $157 million annually for Rhode Island.

Thanks! I should note that I did not calculate state-by-state figures (pdf) in my report. In other words, my methodology is specific to estimating the potential federal tax revenue from a regulated marijuana market and there are a number of important considerations that I do not address in my paper that would affect revenues at the state level. Regardless, it does not seem far fetched that of the over $200 billion, lil' Rhody would benefit from some $157 million.

Perhaps what is more interesting, however, is that while I am not sure exactly how they came up with their figure of $157 million in potential tax revenue for Rhode Island, this figure could prove to be even larger still if Rhode Island was the first state to enact such a law. Any state that gets ahead of the curve in this way with the marijuana industry—by signaling to producers that growing marijuana, indoors or outdoors, in their state, will cost less—should benefit from an initial "green rush" boost as well. So assuming that RICIMP's estimate of $157 million is based on, say, the proportion of the national population that live in Rhode Island, this estimate too could be biased downward if lil' Rhody acts quickly!

"When Life Hands You Lemons, Make a Margarita"

Mike has a nice recap of his reactions last week to the New York State Senate defeating gay marriage 38-24:

Thursday’s defeat of Gay Marriage in New York hit hard. It wasn’t as bad as Proposition 8, which hit with the sting of a fresh injury, but it was bad. Proposition 8 was a vote of the people, and I think that gay marriage’s short-term future is in the courts and legislatures, not popular votes. As was the case with Civil Rights, the people cannot be trusted (and should not always be consulted) to protect the minority. Of all the popular votes taken so far in the US on the issue of same-sex marriage, not one has come out in its favor. Vermont and New Hampshire, on the other hand, have legalized it through their legislatures, and MA and CT through court cases.

He also points to a number of other impassioned speeches from the Senators in support of marriage equality, including this one from Senator Eric Adams:



Money quote: "Because the numerical majority is in the one place does not mean they are in the right place. We are in a position right now where we must lead the country to the right place."

Torah Queeries: Vayishlach וישלח

Another nice piece from Jewish Mosaic's Torah Queeries project. Marisa James writes:

Since last week’s parasha, more than twenty years have passed since Jacob and Esau parted from each other with fear and anger, Esau threatening Jacob’s life. So when Jacob learns that Esau is approaching with 400 men, he rightfully fears for his life and the lives of his family members...

After sending Esau flocks of livestock, Jacob strategically divides his people and possessions, trying to ensure their safety. After his preparations are complete, “Vayivater Ya’akov levado vaye’avek ish imo ad alot hashachar. / Jacob remained alone. A stranger appeared and wrestled with him until just before daybreak.” (Genesis 32:25)

With whom does Jacob struggle? I have always believed it was Esau, expressing years of anger in the only way he knows. The endless gifts Jacob sends cannot erase the past. The humiliated older brother, who can no longer claim his status as firstborn, might want to avoid a public reunion. No matter how much time has passed, the fist of Esau’s heart does not fully unclench until it is clear that they are wrestling, finally, on equal terms. And when the brothers finally encounter each other by day, it is Esau who runs to embrace Jacob first.

Making peace, finding and granting forgiveness, reuniting and finding joy amid terrors… these are the building blocks of adult life for many GLB and T people. With whom do we struggle? With our families, frequently; with ourselves, certainly. But this parasha teaches us that we cannot always be anticipating a fight. Whenever there is the possibility of reconciliation, it is worthwhile to look deeper and realize that we can never know the intentions of another. Even our twin has a mind that is not ours, that we cannot know.

Shabbat Shalom. שבת שלום!

New York State Senator Diane Savino on Gay Marriage

From the Daily Dish. A passionate, resonant argument from State Senator Diane Savino (D-Staten Island) on allowing people to choose love and commitment to eachother. In the days after the failed vote in New York, and the days that very well might be just before a failed vote in New Jersey, my home state, it seems all the more important to maintain our hope and our hard work.

Ezra Klein and the Filibuster

After expressing my own thoughts on the filibuster and the conserva-dem threat to use the filibuster to prevent a floor vote on healthcare, I came across this neat piece by Ezra Klein, lamenting the way that the filibuster has changed, even since the 1960s:

...Though we've long had the filibuster, we have not long had a Senate that used it to impose a 60-vote requirement on all controversial legislation. Dramatizing the difference between the filibuster that was used to express opposition and filibuster that is used to impose a supermajority voting requirement is a bit difficult.

Until 1975, it took 67 votes, not 60, to break a filibuster. If the Senate had operated under a de facto 67 votes rule, little would have been done, because so much could have been stopped. Medicare eventually passed with 68 votes, but that was in part because it was going to pass, and bills that pass attract more votes than they would otherwise get...

The filibuster of yesteryear, in other words, was not a supermajority requirement. It was closer to a tantrum. That's not to say it was never used to prevent a vote: Southerners did exactly that to block the Civil Rights Act, and Johnson was forced to find 67 votes to break their effort. But such measures were left for extraordinary moments, not built into the everyday workings of the body.

"It was closer to a tantrum." Indeed. And Senators were forced to the floor by Senate leadership on controversial bills if they wanted to filibuster—they weren't allowed to threaten from their offices and the media that they would filibuster if their demands were not met. They actually had to go to the floor and have that tantrum when they felt strongly enough about trying to prevent a vote. And sometimes it worked, but often it didn't, and legislation was allowed to pass with a simple majority.

Senator Reid has a strong simple majority. He has 54-56 very solid votes for a public option. I really, truly hope that he does everything in his power—including letting a filibuster happen—to get a vote on health care this year.

Obamahuana

Found this yesterday from rubenslp on deviantart

Final Fantasy Covers Mariah Carey

Saw this guy, Owen Pallet and Final Fantasy, in concert last night at the Wilbur Theater opening for the Mountain Goats. Pretty neat. He didn't do this cover, however:

On Comment Moderation

After reading this post by David Wilensky a week or so ago about comments and the URJ technology initiative, I have decided to change my own policy. Comments on posts written within the past ten days will be unmoderated.

When I started the blog, I kept moderation on for comments after recognizing the work of spammers and bots. Yes, I'm sure there are still bots who may try to comment spam me, and there are any number of people (tea-partiers, radical right-wing zionists, you name it) that may find the blog and trash it or trash me or use hateful comments to try to achieve something. And if these kind of comments pick up after I turn off comment moderation, I may delete some of the most spammy or hateful ones.

[But] Ultimately... one of the goals of Social Jewstice is to be in dialogue with the world—to react, explore, and investigate—and to share this experience. And perhaps most importantly, for me this constant dialogue represents a search for truth that is an absolutely critical part of what it means to be part of Am Yisrael, עם ישראל, the people of Israel—most literally the people who struggle with God.

And so if one of my fundamental goals is to create dialogue, my comments "policy" should foster and support that goal. After all, one of the greatest benefits to the medium of a blog is that real people can react to stories in real time from anywhere in the world. So hopefully this change will encourage anybody who happens to read or find a recent post to share their thoughts—agree, disagree or anything in between.

Attention Harry Reid: PLEASE Make Joe Lieberman ACTUALLY Filibuster

Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly has a great recap of Senator Joe Lieberman's constantly evolving explanations for why he will filibuster any sort of public option:

In June, Lieberman said, "I don't favor a public option because I think there's plenty of competition in the private insurance market." That didn't make sense, and it was quickly dropped from his talking points.

In July, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public is going to end up paying for it." No one could figure out exactly what that meant, and the senator moved onto other arguments.

In August, he said we'd have to wait "until the economy's out of recession," which is incoherent, since a public option, even if passed this year, still wouldn't kick in for quite a while.

In September, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public doesn't support it." A wide variety of credible polling proved otherwise.

In October, Lieberman said the public option would mean "trouble ... for the national debt," by creating "a whole new government entitlement program." Soon after, Jon Chait explained that this "literally makes no sense whatsoever."

Of course it makes very little sense for Lieberman to filibuster a public option—there is broad public support for a public option and it is absolutely critical to keeping costs down in the long run—but that doesn't mean he won't filibuster. Via the Huffington Post:

Naturally, there's a much simpler explanation for why Joe Lieberman keeps shifting wildly between different, incoherent rationales for opposing the public option: he's entirely beholden to the health insurance industry, who have given him millions of dollars, through thick and thin!

Ok, so what's Harry Reid to do? Reid knows that not passing a health care bill will be disastrous for the party and for his own personal reelection prospects, but Lieberman is threatening a filibuster, and Nelson, Landrieu and Lincoln are all potential thorns in the Dems' side. So?

Let them filibuster when the time comes, Senator Reid! Take everything else off the Senate calendar, and do not allow any business to reach the Senate floor unless we get and up-or-down, simple majority vote on the health care bill. Even Strom Thurmond's record setting filibuster eventually ended, and the bill passed:

Senator Strom Thurmond (D/R-SC) set a record in 1957 by filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes,^[15] although the bill ultimately passed. Thurmond broke the previous record of 22 hours and 26 minutes which Wayne Morse (I-OR) had established in 1953 protesting the Tidelands Oil legislation

So let the Senators who are threatening to filibuster actually go through with it. Many of them will change their tune and vote for cloture so that other pressing business can be brought to the Senate floor. Let the GOP and the Dem Senators who have delayed the process without contributing anything new or useful waste even more time—their states will be thrilled, I'm sure. Let Lieberman go back to Connecticut and get booed for wasting time killing the most popular component of the President's health care reform. The filibuster would (eventually) end, Reid would get his majority vote, the bill would earn 54 or 55 votes, easy—maybe more, and the filibusters would get negative press. Seems like Reid's best choice, to me.

Support for Legalizing Marijuana Growing Rapidly Across U.S.

This headline from the Washington Post was a great find last night:

"This issue is breaking out in a remarkably rapid way now," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "Public opinion is changing very, very rapidly."

The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of marijuana -- a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per year, "the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years."

Certainly I think that the generational effect is critical to the surge in support for a more rational marijuana policy, and I agree about Obama's influence:

Interest in medical marijuana and easing other marijuana laws picked up markedly about 18 months ago, but advocates say the biggest surge came with the election of Barack Obama, the third straight president to acknowledge having smoked marijuana, and the first to regard it with anything like nonchalance...

In office, Obama made good on a promise to halt federal prosecutions of medical marijuana use where permitted by state law. That has recalibrated the federal attitude, which had been consistently hostile to marijuana since the early 1970s, when President Richard Nixon cast aside the recommendations of a presidential commission arguing against lumping pot with hard drugs.

Ultimately, though, I believe that this issue is also gaining momentum because of several other reasons.

First and foremost, the recession. The sagging economy has hurt state and local governments dearly, not just the federal government. While the economy is starting to bounce back, employment is not, which means that government revenues at all levels may still be hard to predict over the next several years. Ultimately, a lot of politicians and activists have recognized this as an opportunity to advocate for a more rational, sane drug policy when it comes to marijuana.

I think that this issue is also surging in part because of the diversity of the coalition that could support it—the irrationality of U.S. drug policy leaves it open to attack from both sides of the aisle. For example, the libertarian argument that the government should have no role, or less of a role, in determining what substances adults use—or what plants they grow in their backyard—appeals to many Americans regardless of political affiliation.

Whatever the reason that marijuana and drug policy advocacy has surged, it is still critical that those who believe in this issue work to keep the surge going. It will still be an issue of political danger to politicians, I believe, for years to come. But the more that the issue polls well and the more that there is action at the state and local level, led by activists, advocates and anybody in between, the more quickly this issue will come to be more politically ripe for action.