MMJ Dispensary to Open in Dolan Springs, Town Hall Meeting Set

Hello Friends, Family and supporters around CD4,

One of the issues i addressed in my campaign was cannabis reform, both on the long range social justice issue of legalization, but more immediately to address the inherent problems, oversights, glitches, errors if you will, with our state's nascent medical marijuana regulations. One of the first places in Mohave County to be approved for a medical marijuana (MMJ) dispensary is in tiny Dolan Springs, a wide spread but sparsely populated desert community about 30 miles north of Kingman, the home-base of my tireless campaign assistant, Perry Wickerd. 

Due to decades of stigmatization and restricted access of information, many Arizonans are uninformed of their rights and the implications of having a MMJ dispensary in their community. Current AZ MMJ laws restrict general public information and advertising about dispensaries, so, in the public interest, in conjunction with Jay Fleming from the Mohave County LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), Perry has organized a town hall meeting. Please feel encouraged to attend if possible and share this information.

If my campaign was about anything, it was about informing the public that we have the power to shape our lives and our country if we will only begin taking action. I have pledged to continue working on the issues as best i can. In this case that means helping spread word of the great work LEAP & Perry Wickerd.

mikel 

Informational Open Forum for Residents of Mohave County

@ Castle Rock Ranch and Arena in downtown DOLAN SPRINGS (formerly known as the “Ranch Club”)

on December 13, 2012 from 5:30-7:00 PM

Featuring former Undercover Narcotics Investigator and Activist E. Jay Fleming of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)

Castle Rock and LEAP are hosting a Town Hall Meeting for residents of Mohave County to learn about the laws and implications of the medical marijuana dispensary being approved for the Dolan Springs district. This is the first and only dispensary to be approved in Mohave County so far. Speaker Jay Fleming will present information followed by a question and answer session for residents.

Admission is free and the forum is open to all. In addition, a $5 pizza buffet will be available to anyone interested in refreshments.

For more information call Perry Wickerd at (928) 530-4737

For more info on LEAP: http://www.leap.cc/

Celebrating the 5th Anniversary of My Online Blog

In during the Thanksgiving holidays of 2007 i decided to resume writing political commentary. I had written for years and stopped when both my mother-in-law and then my wife died in 2005. Taking the column back up and becoming politically active again was a great fork in my life, a crossroads that ultimately led to running for Congress and writing to you now.

Here is the 5th anniversary thank you column for Current Comedy.  Starting this month, columns will be cross-posted between the two sites. thank you and may you gave much thanks and have much to give thanks for.

***

Hello anybody who is still reading Current Comedy. Happy 5th anniversary! Happy Thanksgiving; I am thankful for you.

I so appreciate your attention and apologize for largely ignoring this blog for the past year while i ran for Congress in AZ's 1st election for the actual left coast of AZ, the newly created Congressional District 4, which includes almost all of the three river counties in AZ: Mohave, La Paz & Yuma (in addition to portions of Yavapai, Maricopa, Pinal & Gila Counties). It was a grand adventure and one i hope to repeat, but in the meantime, I am continuing my work of raising awareness of issues in westerrn AZ, promoting art and humor, and working with progressive groups and the AZ Democratic Party to advance the progressive agenda.

For me, the creation of CD4 has been an immense opportunity for Mohave County, and rural AZ in general, to be free from the stamp of PHX and the reign of Trent Franks. We can create our own imagery now and the rural AZ mentality isn't simply a matter of Bibles and bullets anymore. Tolerance and diversity are a redeeming strength in our country and a coming wave here in the "Mississippi of the West" as our state was affectionately known back in the day it took the entire federal gov't and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to stop our racist shenagans. Our future is tolerance and diversity. America is changing and whether they like it or not, Arizonans are leading the change. I am even in favor of tolerance of Bibles and bullets but not when one is used to force the other down my throat.

I should acknowledge the 2012 election cycle has changed my life and my vision profoundly and probably permanently. I see the wisdom of working to affect change throught he poltical process and am off and running. In an effort to resume having an impact while i await the actual 2014 election cycle i have resumed my opinion column and aim to re-establish the posting schedule i once followed that allowed the column to be published (well, posted anyway) regularly on numerous sites and thus affect opinion and thus change throughout America.

To any long-time readers still out there, I ask you to consider the time pressures of campaigning and forgive my ignoring this site. At the end of 2010, during the period i consider some of the best articles in this long running series, i was spending 8-12 per week on each single column. I know it didn't seem that way considering the typos i'd strewn about; but the point is there was no way to continue writing those kinds of articles and campaign for Congress ... or pretty much do anything other than teach, feed the chickens, occasionally kiss the wife and campaign, campaign, campaign.

Further, as soon as i announced in Jan. some of the papers stopped running my online column to not give me undue advantage. Not having those audiences made the prospect of investing the labor even less appealing. So, i further hope any of my regular readers had continued to follow our efforts change at the campaign website: www.mikelweisser.org
or at the campaign blog: http://www.mikelweisser.blogspot.com/

I have now adapted the campaign site to be a non-profit activist site and will continue to post updates and hopefully get to the point of being a nexus for Mohave/CD 4  activists. We are continuing to move forward and i have already begun creating public activism and events to advance the progressive cause, the same way this column once attempted to. So towards that end, and in celebration of the both Thanksgiving (my 2nd favorite holiday) and this 5th anniversary, I encourage everybody to re-read my first article:
http://yzurblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/current-comedy-112307-if-dems-really.html

Also, i ask you to be thankful. Be thankful the Romney vision did not capture America. Be thankful enough of America is wise enough to not follow lockstep in line with the dominant propaganda. Be thankful the people appear to have spoken and said they want more progress and less plutocrats. Be thankful you all know each other are out there working for the better. And be thankful America still has another chance.

So now we must take it--
--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ

CORRECTION: What Money Can't Buy

Apologies dear readers and tip of the hat to eagle eye Eli Blake who noticed a data error in a longer earlier version of this column:

What Money Can’t Buy

As a recently defeated candidate for public office, few people may consider my advice sound, but here goes anyway. 

Hey Mohave County Republican Party: Congratulations on your recent victory. I remember another victory you guys had back in 2004--an embattled president facing a challenge from a controversial politician out of Massachusetts, a divided nation. In the end, though, a decisive victory of more than three million votes and a re-elected president who took that margin and claimed it was a mandate. “I have earned some political capital and I aim to spend it!” George Bush then launched into a program that totally ignored the wishes of the half of the electorate to kowtow to his perpetually shrinking, but none the less, rabid base. Welcome to 2012, that rabid base of yours has shrunk nationally to below the 50% mark. Now, don’t you hope that Dems’ donkeys are more gracious than your sorry donkeys have been?

Don’t get me wrong. The Mohave County Republican Party can be indisputably proud of their accomplishments this round. We are clearly the reddest county in the state. You guys thunderously won virtually every local and state elective office and got Romney 70% of the vote. Only two states turned out such numbers, Wild West Wyoming and, small wonder, Romney loving Utah. In fact only ten states nationally went red by 60+%. Metro area counties like Maricopa and Pinal weren’t even greater than 60%. Four counties entirely refused your Tea Party and went over to the blue side. College counties Pima and Coconino both backed Obama. He took two-thirds of the Apache County vote and, a whopping 68% of Santa Cruz County.

So, Mohave County Republican Party, job well done. Now shut up and learn to listen before your party demographically goes the way of the Dixiecrats and other such red-meat eating dinosaurs.  A three million vote margin is a mandate. Your team just lost the presidency in more than half the states, lost seats in Congress in general, lost your supermajority in PHX, and lost more than half of the state’s Congressional seats.  AND, it’s the fifth time in the last six presidential elections that Dems earned more votes.  If ever a presidential election could have simply been bought, this surely should have been it. If ever there was a president who has been demonized, vilified, it has been Barack Obama. And it did no good.

Turns out the American public also does not actually honestly desire a massive repudiation of Obamacare. We actually honestly do care about caring about people. You know how the Right always say, “The law’s the law”?  Well, the law’s the law. The Affordable Care Act passed. It’s the law. Shut up about it. Get used to the ACA and stop wasting state money on losing litigation trying to battle a program that, while compromised, has more strengths than weaknesses.

Know what else? There is no rich man’s tax cut worth giving up my son’s education over, or my mother’s healthcare, just sayin’. No tax cut ever built a highway, taught a child, or stopped a criminal, just sayin’. Also Cannabis is going to legal someday. Women want birth control, not rapists’ babies, and same sex marriage won on the ballot. Face it: if you really have to worry about the sex in someone’s else marriage, that means you are not having enough of your own.

But seriously, while your numbers and sheer orneriness might give you guys the west side of the state home-team advantage for now, the politics of race and rights and money are slipping away from you. The angrier old white men get about losing their will to stem the tide of time, the more rapidly their dominance will slide. In California they even voted to raise their own taxes. Less than 30% of the public are still willing to register Republican. And you know what they say about Californians: they keep moving to Arizona.

--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ and was a 2012 primary candidate for US House of Representatives

What Money Can’t Buy

As a recently defeated candidate for public office, few people may consider my advice sound, but here goes anyway.

Hey Mohave County Republican Party: Congratulations on your recent victory. It feels good to win, doesn’t it? I remember another victory you guys had back in 2004--an embattled president facing a challenge from a controversial politician out of Massachusetts, a divided nation, everything hanging on Ohio. In the end, though, a decisive victory with the majority of more than three million votes and a re-elected president who took that margin and claimed it was a mandate. “I have earned some political capital and I aim to spend it!” George Bush crowed and then launched into a program that totally ignored the wishes of the half of the electorate to kowtow to his perpetually shrinking, but none the less, rabid base.

Sure, you remember. We all do. Welcome to 2012, that rabid base of yours has shrunk nationally to below the 50% mark and as the song goes turnabout is fair play. Now, don’t you hope that Dems’ donkeys are more gracious than your sorry donkeys have been?

Don’t get me wrong. The Mohave County Republican Party can be indisputably proud of their accomplishment this round. We are clearly the reddest county in the state. You guys thunderously won virtually every local and state elective office and got Romney 70% of the vote. Only two states turned out such numbers, Wild West Wyoming and, small wonder, Romney loving Utah. In fact only ten states nationally went 60+%, more than half of AZ Counties did. The only AZ county even close were the immigrant haters down in Santa Cruz County, at 68%. Metro area counties like Maricopa and Pinal weren’t even greater than 60%. Pima went 51% Obama by 25,000 votes, which is approximately the same difference the other way as the Mohave County difference.

So, Mohave County Republican Party, job well done. Now here’s my advice:  we forgive you for being so incredibly deluded, now, rather than continuing to crow, it’s time to shut up and learn to listen before your party demographically goes the way of the Dixiecrats and other such red meat eating dinosaurs.  Look outside the Fox News “Romney by a Landslide” bubble. A three million vote margin is a mandate. Your team just lost the presidency in more than half the states, lost seats in Congress in general, lost your super-majority in PHX, and lost more than half of the state’s Congressional seats.

This wasn’t an error, no matter what joy juice Rush is currently snorting, it’s the fifth time in the last six presidential elections that Dems earned more votes. The GOP wants to claim they lost the election because of Hurricane Sandy. But the people in Tempe didn’t vote for Kyrsten Sinema because of CNN broadcast Obama-Christie man-hugs. Whether or not the purist conservative ideologues who claim to shape the party like it or not, the AZ GOP is based by base emotions, blatant greed and brute force. While that approach may win barroom brawls, it’s not what the public is looking for in governance.

It's not like you didn't try, though. If ever a presidential election could have simply been bought, this surely should have been an example. The GOP and the plutocrats poured over six billion into this election. If ever there was a president who has been demonized, vilified, painted as evil as imaginable, it has been Barack Obama. And it did no good.

Turns out asking the public to sacrifice their own best interests for someone else’s tax cut isn’t the sure fire winner it once was. No tax cut ever built a highway, taught a child, or stopped a criminal. There is no rich man’s tax cut worth giving up my son’s education over, or my mother’s healthcare, just sayin’.

Turns out the American public also does not actually honestly desire a massive repudiation of Obamacare. We actually honestly do care about caring about people. So, AZ GOP, it is time to get used to the ACA and stop wasting state money on losing litigation trying to battle a program that, while compromised, has more strengths than weaknesses. You know how the Right always complains that us lefty bleeding hearts should stop whining about undocumented immigrants? They say, “The law’s the law. What part of illegal don’t you understand?”  Well the law’s the law. The Affordable Care Act passed. It’s the law. Shut up about it. SB 1070 got gutted, stop whining. The law’s the law, right?

Know what else? Cannabis is going to legal someday. Get used to it. Women want birth control, not rapists’ babies, and same sex marriage won on the ballot. If you really have to worry about the sex in someone’s else marriage, that means you are not having enough of your own.

But seriously, while your numbers and sheer orneriness might give you guys the west side of the state home-team advantage for now, the politics of race and rights and money are slipping away from you. America has just had our first true post-racial election, the angrier old white men get about losing their will to stem the tide of time, the more rapidly their time of dominance will slide. In California they even voted to raise their own taxes. Less than 30% of the public is even willing to register Republican. And you know what they say about Californians: they keep moving to Arizona.

--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ