“Marijuana has not been decriminalized in Texas”

So reads the letter, signed by Gov. Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, and Attorney General Ken Paxton. It may not be decriminalized, but it sure has taken an interesting turn with the passage of House Bill 1325 this past session.

The so-called “Hemp Bill” took the drug off the list of controlled substances in Texas, as long as products such as CBD oil contain no more than 0.3 percent THC, the psychoactive ingredient that gives users their buzz.

So what’s the problem? It seems measuring the difference between legal (0.3 percent) and illegal (0.4 percent) requires very special equipment which is not readily available and expensive. Some estimates projected the equipment and training for 25 new employees to be around $5.5 million annually. Since no funding was provided, many district attorneys are delaying, or even dropping low-level marijuana cases.

The letter signed by Abbott, Patrick, Bonnen and Paxton went to say…

“Since H.B. 1325 did not repeal the marijuana laws of Texas, as Judicial Branch Members, you should continue to enforce those laws by ‘faithfully executing the duties of the office of the [District or County Attorney], of the State of Texas, and … to the best of [your] ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State.”

The problem is lawmakers were told before they voted that H.B. 1325 was going to make prosecuting marijuana a lot tougher. The Texas Department of Public Safety testified to state budget officials the bill would need to be funded to work.  Democratic state Rep. Tracy King’s office was told that, without funds for new lab testing, the legislation would “essentially legalize marijuana.”

It’s all part of the “un-funded mandate” game. Austin makes the rules, then wants to local jurisdictions to figure out how to pay for it. Texas lawmakers take great pride passing tax cuts, implementing new laws, then screaming foul when local authorities try to figure out how to make it work, or worse don’t try at all.

With lawmakers approving a $250.7 billion two-year budget, could someone in Austin have listened a little more carefully to the people testifying and come up with $5 million?

Here is a question for you; what do  President Trump and actor Jussie Smollett have in common? The word “Exonerate”.

Merriam-Webster defines it is as…

1. to relieve of a responsibility, obligation or hardship
2. to clear from accusation or blame

When the long awaited Mueller report came out (we’re still waiting to see exactly what it said), U.S. Attorney William Barr, in letter to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary wrote…

The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion – one way or the other – as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as “difficult issues” of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. The Special Counsel states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

The president immediately took to Twitter saying…

It is not surprising the president would interpret the memo to his advantage, while others have looked at this saying there was not enough evidence to prosecute collusion, which people much smarter than me say that charge is very difficult to prove in court.

Now let’s head from Washington D.C. to Chicago where Empire actor Jussie Smollett claimed to have been attacked by two people in what was thought to be a hate crime.

When Chicago police investigated the attack, they determined he orchestrated the alleged hate crime in January on himself because he was unhappy with his salary on the show “Empire.” Smollett was arrested and charged with felony disorderly  conduct, but the story does end there.

A representative for Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx, whose office was prosecuting Smollett, said,

“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case.”

This of course led to the actor saying (through his attorneys)…

“Today, all criminal charges against Jussie Smollett were dropped and his record has been wiped clean of the filing of this tragic complaint against him. Jussie was attacked by two people he was unable to identify on January 29th. He was a victim who was vilified and made to appear as a perpetrator as a result of false and inappropriate remarks made to the public causing an inappropriate rush to judgement.”

After the evitable fire storm hit the internet, First Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Mages (the lead prosecutor) told CNN affiliate WLS that dropping the charges did not mean the actor was exonerated. When asked whether he considered Smollett to be innocent, the prosecutor said “No.”

So where does that leave us? I would suggest on the road to nowhere.**

**a plan, project, development, or course of action that appears to have or offer no meaningful, desirable or useful conclusion.

We have crisis on the border.

That is the message the White House is delivering in an attempt to win the perception game on the proposed border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

President Trump recently visited the border joined by fellow republicans including Sen. John Cornyn, Sen. Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. The rhetoric of really bad people including terrorists and/or members of vicious gangs coming across smuggling drugs and making our country less safe continues to ratchet up.

While I do agree the border and immigration are issues that have to be addressed, I am struck by the tone of trying to convince America that we need a wall. It sounds as if Texas, and especially the border, is a really dangerous place right now that no one should want to be a part of.

It seems to me that if a business was looking to relocate, the last place they would want to move to is somewhere that is so dangerous, the U.S. is willing to implement a partial shutdown of the government. And what about the tourism industry. What family would want to visit towns like El Paso, McAllen or Brownsville?

It has been pointed out by opponents of Trump’s proposal, that the facts are simply not there to support his claim, but I think in the case (as is too often the case), the facts really don’t matter. It’s about tone, innuendo and scaring people into believing something is real (anybody remember Joe McCarthy and the fear of “Reds Under The Bed”?).

I do sympathize with people who have lost loved ones by people who are here illegally, but not anymore than those who lost a loved one in mass shooting. Both are wrong and both issues need to be fixed.

The Republican Party has always flown the “We Support Business” banner, but in this case, they may be more Chicken Little running around yelling the sky is falling and we all know how that turned out.

How far has American come in terms of tolerance? Consider this, a group of Tarrant County Republicans will vote this week on whether or not to remove Tarrant County Republican Vice-Chair Shahid Shafi. His crime? Being Muslim.

Shafi, a trauma surgeon and Southlake City Council member, is having his position challenged because he doesn’t represent all Tarrant County Republicans. They point out that Islamic ideologies do not align with the U.S. Constitution even though Amendment I says…

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

According to the Texas Tribune, Dorrie O’Brien, one of the precinct chairs, said she wants to boot Shafi out, not because he is Muslim, but because she questions whether he supports Islam or is connected “to Islamic terror groups”. I guess she is also unaware of the 14^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees ‘equal protection under the law’ which basically ensures a person to be innocent until proven guilty.

Ironically, the argument O’Brien is making is the same the KKK made against Catholics. The Klan pointed out that since Catholics had to put the pope first, they could not put the country’s interests ahead of the pope who would be the de facto leader (the same argument was made when JFK ran for president).

The good news in all of this is several high ranking Texas Republicans are standing with Shafi including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former House Speaker Joe Straus.

It looks like there is common ground to be found in politics. Unfortunately, it takes something this extreme for it to happen.

Today is National Repeal Day.

On January 16th, 1919, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, outlawing alcohol and the following year, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote.

In a strange way, these two events were connected to each other. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union had been promoting prohibition for many years, believing alcohol was the cause of many social ills facing our nation. In those days, a man controlled the household money and could drink away the family’s life savings with the wife having little recourse to stop him.

Another factor that played a large role in all of this was World War I. Many women became involved in the war efforts, working in factories, running the house with husbands at war, allowing them to earn their own money and even great freedom.

All of this led America into the Roaring Twenties where consumerism took off. Advances in printing found magazines entering more and more homes, offering a plethora of manufactured goods just waiting to be gobbled up. Sensing a growing market, many companies began to market directly at women, thus giving them an even greater voice to advance their status.

Fast forward thirteen years and America found itself in the Great Depression. Because of Prohibition, organized crime grew with gangsters taking control of big cities. Both men and women struggled to survive. Many Americans were looking for something to cheer about and their thoughts soon turned to drink.

Franklin D. Roosevelt called for a repeal during the 1932 presidential campaign. He won the election in a landslide and Prohibition was dead one year later. On December 5th, 1933, Utah (being the final state needed for a three quarters majority) the 21st Amendment was ratified repealing Prohibition.