Jeff Sessions Just Demonstrated Why We Need to Decentralize Government

Late last year, I wrote a series of posts where I highlighted three specific areas I thought the U.S. government might overreach and do something really stupid in 2018. Jeff Sessions didn’t waste any time making my first prediction look prescient.

Here’s an excerpt from that post, Expect Desperate and Insane Behavior From Government in 2018 – Part 1 (Cannabis):

Today’s topic is cannabis. This seems the least likely area for government action, specifically because it would be such a monumentally stupid move. That said, just because something’s idiotic doesn’t mean we should simply discount it, particularly with human fossil Jeff Sessions continuing to chirp on the issue every chance he gets.

If the Trump administration actually moves on this issue, we’ll know for sure how completely inept and desperate it is. Part of me almost wants to see them try, because the resulting monumental fail will demonstrate the power of the people and give a gigantic black eye to authoritarians in government.

Stuff like this is all part of the process we’ll be going through over the next few years, and we need to be mentally prepared for it. We the people will increasingly move to take sovereignty back in a variety of ways, and government will respond with panic. The good news is they’ll be reacting from a position of weakness, not strength.

Fast forward one month, and Jeff Sessions couldn’t help himself from doing something monumentally stupid and evil, both politically and ethically.

Here’s a brief summary of the changes from the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions has rescinded an Obama-era policy that paved the way for legalized marijuana to flourish in states across the country, creating new confusion about enforcement and use just three days after a new legalization law went into effect in California.

President Donald Trump’s top law enforcement official announced the change Thursday. Instead of the previous lenient-federal-enforcement policy, Sessions’ new stance will instead let federal prosecutors where marijuana is legal decide how aggressively to enforce longstanding federal law prohibiting it.

As I noted in last year’s post, in an incredibly toxic, divisive and insane political environment there are very few things Americans across the country and across partisan lines agree on. Cannabis legalization is one of them.

To give you a sense of just how strong the consensus is against what Sessions wants to do, take a look at some of the results from Gallup’s latest poll on the topic.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans continue to warm to legalizing marijuana, with 64% now saying its use should be made legal. This is the highest level of public support Gallup has found for the proposal in nearly a half-century of measurement.

Gallup first asked national adults about their views on the topic in 1969, when 12% supported legalization. Support had more than doubled by the end of the next decade but changed little throughout the 1980s and 1990s. By 2001, however, about a third of Americans favored legalizing marijuana, and support has steadily increased since. A majority of Americans have consistently supported legalizing marijuana since 2013.

Democrats and independents have historically been much more likely than Republicans to say marijuana should be legalized. In 2009, Democrats were the first partisan group to see majority support for legalization, followed by independents in 2010.

This year for the first time, a majority of Republicans express support for legalizing marijuana; the current 51% is up nine percentage points from last year.

If I were Donald Trump, furious wouldn’t even begin to describe how I’d feel right now. Not only is such a move incredibly unpopular across party lines, it’s patently ridiculous for him to prioritize such an issue given all the enormous problems facing the country. It also represents a clear and blatant attack against states’ rights, something Republicans claim to stand for. Finally, he’s giving the Democrats a winning issue on a silver platter for 2018. Dems can simply decide to rally around cannabis legalization, which will throw Trump into a corner and pave the way for a midterm sweep. Jeff Sessions just put Trump and the entire GOP in a terrible position for absolutely no good reason. Not only is he a petty fossil, he’s very, very stupid.

In fact, it’s so bad several Republican Senators immediately called him out on the move. Here’s what the Republican Senator from my state of Colorado had to say on Twitter.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, also a Republican, chimed in as well:

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) also weighed in on Thursday, stating in a Facebook post that she had “repeatedly discouraged Attorney General Sessions from taking this action.”

“Alaskans are waking up to media reports that the US Department of Justice is withdrawing the ‘Cole Memorandum,’ an Obama era policy statement that the federal government will respect state marijuana laws like Alaska’s,” she wrote. “My office can confirm that we received notification from the Justice Department this morning that they intended to withdraw the ‘Cole Memorandum.’ Over the past year I repeatedly discouraged Attorney General Sessions from taking this action and asked that he work with the states and Congress if he feels changes are necessary. Today’s announcement is disruptive to state regulatory regimes and regrettable.”

Then there’s Rand Paul:

“I continue to believe that this is a states’ rights issue, and the federal government has better things to focus on,” he said, according to Reason criminal justice reporter CJ Ciaramella.

As you can see, there’s a huge silver lining to all this. Sessions’ move is such a blatant attack on the will of the American public, it’ll remind many of us why states’ rights and local governance matter in the first place. In fact, this was a bedrock principle upon which this Republic was founded, despite the fact its application in practice has atrophied in recent decades. Personally, I think we’re going to see a major move toward political decentralization in the years ahead, and it’s actions like this one by disconnected, authoritarians like Jeff Sessions that will wake people of all political stripes up to the dangers of centralized government power.

For example, we also saw strong comments from Democratic politicians in cannabis friendly states.

The Hill reported:

Several state leaders said they would explore options to fight the decision.

“If news reports are accurate, today’s forthcoming announcement from Attorney General Sessions is the wrong direction for our state,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said in a statement. “Make no mistake: As we have told the Department of Justice ever since I-502 was passed in 2012, we will vigorously defend our state’s laws against undue federal infringement.” 

“My staff and state agencies are working to evaluate reports of the Attorney General’s decision and will fight to continue Oregon’s commitment to a safe and prosperous recreational marijuana market,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) said. 

Finally, here’s what the Colorado Attorney General, who was appointed by Sessions himself in November, had to say on the matter:

Jeff Sessions is basically getting smacked down by the entirety of the American public for being a disconnected fool, and he’s reminding us “we the people” have local power that we can and will flex when necessary. This should be seen as a shot across the bow to those in Washington D.C. who think they can just boss around a diverse and sprawling population of 325 million people. Those days are coming to an end.

I shared some additional thoughts via Twitter earlier today. Here are a few:

Jeff Sessions inadvertently just did more for states’ rights than any other politician in modern U.S. history.

Thank you sir, your monumental idiocy will force Americans of all political leanings to rediscover the importance of freedom and the power of local government.

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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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15 thoughts on “Jeff Sessions Just Demonstrated Why We Need to Decentralize Government”

  1. I wrote about this Turd Blossom in Beyond Real Time. This guy is such a troll but then again, he’s not alone in this wretched administration from hell. Great post for sure. Am surprised Trump isn’t tightening this guy up given the amount of money CO is making on pot. Unreal.

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  2. As much as I dislike Sessions! Wasn’t this move actually Decentralizing? He took a nation wide federal rule and hit delete. Then said it will be up to the prosecutors in the states to decide how to prosecute the federal laws. Just because the rule was one that most are in favor of doesn’t mean it isn’t centralizing. I 100% believe the Gov never had the authority to make it illegal anyway. If those prosecutors go against the people in their states. Well it will be easier to hold them accountable. Get out your pitchforks and torches ready.

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    • 122313, I agree that Sessions has actually helped advance the legalization ball up the field towards the end zone.

      The self-important narcissists inside the beltway (aka/Congress) fear nothing more than being rejected and losing their office and the privilege it provides them. So IMO this will be the spark that leads to legalization on a Federal level.

      Which is what needs to happen in order to put this ridiculous issue in the annals of history along with Prohibition, where it belongs.

      Legalization on a Federal level would also legally force the hand of State legislators in States where the Baptist mentality still holds sway with the State House, Senate, and the Governors.

      I’m still convinced that Jeff had a bad experience with some potent Colombian gold while he was still in law school at the University of Alabama back in the early 70’s. Back in those days the most potent “Bo” (Colombian)
      was available in the deep south because most of it was entering the country through the Panhandle of Florida and getting bought up before it could even get up to the northeastern States. So they, along with California, had to settle for the Mexican “dirge weed” that we didn’t want down here in Gods Country because we had the red and gold from Colombia.

      That was the primary market motivator that eventually led to the homegrown cultivation of high end sensimilla in northern California.

  3. In the not too distant future we may see a change that will profoundly decentralize the world. Investigate what is going on at a company called Brilliant Light Power. Pay particular attention to the people on the management team and the people on the advisory board. Its a regular who’s who.

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  4. What this really shows us is that this parasitic federal political machine is simply not needed here — just like the parasitic federal reserve.

    Time to give BOTH of these criminal organizations the boot.

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  5. This tells me how powerful the pharmaceutical companies are. People dropping dead all over the place from legal drugs or heroin (thanks CIA) but holy shit, crack down on the natural plant people can grow in their back yard that has all sorts of medicinal uses and is way more mellow than booze.

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  6. I think many are missing the point. In fact this article never mentioned why the AG would do this. So this rant really makes no sense. If we follow the money could it be that there are other forces at work here? Just throwing this out there, could the large drug companies have played a part in this?

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  7. So Obama refused to enforce laws that were enacted by our democratically elected represenatives, defining him as a dictator, and Trump’s a tryant for doing so? It seems you have this backwards. I’m not in favor of any laws whatsoever regarding any kinds of substances, but we need to keep our definitions straight to enhance political discourse. In this instance Obama was the tryant, and Trump (Sessions) are adhering to democratic principals.

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    • Nonsense. They are all tyrants. When it comes to consuming a relatively benign plant this should be up to the people and the people alone. The people in the respective states have decided. If Sessions want to step up and try to stop the will of the people because some imbeciles in centralized D.C. think they know best, I would like to see him try.

      This debate is already over. If D.C. dinosaurs are too lazy and corrupt to catch up, that’s their problem. We the people have spoken, and we are sovereign.

  8. I think Sessions did the right thing for the wrong reasons. As is often the case, the Executive Branch’s rule-making is a result of Congress not doing it’s job. The fact that a Shedule 1 drug is legal for sale in some state is rediculous. Session’s actions will force Congress to act to remove this contradiction.

    Of course, the swamp tentacles still extend to the states. For example, in Colorado the drug is now legal for recreational use, just like cigarettes. However, they still penalize those who were convicted of simple marijuana posession from owning – or even workign at – a dispensary. Now if the convictions were limited to *distribution*, then perhaps that bars dangerous criminals and gangs. However, even a simple possession convictions is enough. The poor are much more liekly to be arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for possesion. What is the purpose of this law other than to further tilt “free-market” capitalism to those that already have the capital?

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    • What I have always found humorous is how possession is Ok, but distribution immediately makes the leap that you’re Tony Montana.

      Guess what. You can’t end up possessing it unless you either grew it yourself or you bought it from a distributor. Everyone knows that 99% of the people who possess weed bought it from someone.

      So they need to commute the sentences for both.

  9. Hamilton was a con artist that set up the first privately owned central bank.

    People must consider the ends of what America would be like today had there not been a federalist movement. That would be most of America under control and ownership of England, France, and Spain.

    To consider what that could have turned out to be, we can look to the Philippines, Caribbean, the African continent, Central and South America, the Middle East , or, if we lucked out, Canada and Australia.

    Canada and Australia both have centralized governments. Just sayin.

    It’s simply a matter of choosing your poison.

    Hey Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches, America Called and We Want Our Rights Back!
    https://rebel0007com.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/hey-executive-legislative-and-judicial-branches-america-called-and-we-the-people-want-our-rights-back/

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  10. You are correct of course. But let’s not forget who it is that wants and has the POWER to keep cannabis illegal: Big pharma, big cotton, oil, DEA (weapons) and prison industrial complex.

    Wouldn’t shrinking government only give ruling interests more power? Will they fall in line and cooperate with humanity? Wouldn’t shrinking it only remove the already flimsy protections we can appeal to?

    Reply

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