Salon.com > Ben Feuerherd

Tom Tancredo breaks pot-smoking promise

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:56:00 +0000

Those who were waiting with bated breath for Tom Tancredo to light up will be disappointed. The former Republican congressman from Colorado, who promised to smoke weed—in public—if his state's marijuana legalization bill passed, has reneged on his pact. The conservative Republican was an unlikely supporter of Colorado's Amendment 64, which legalized weed for recreational use, but he says he never thought the bill would actually pass. "I thought it would take at least one more time around to do it," Tancredo told ABC News last week. In the newly released trailer for his film, Grassroots—The Comeback of Cannabis, comedian Adam Hartle asks Tancredo if he would agree to smoke a joint if the bill passed. “When marijuana legalization passes and marijuana is legal, the next time I’m out in Colorado, we’re going to smoke a joint together,” Hartle proposes. “Deal,” Tancredo replies, and they shake on it. Although on Friday, Tancredo vowed to keep the promise, he has now reportedly backed out of the deal due to pressure from his wife, who is "pissed" and his grandchildren who he says are "very upset with grandpa." "Will have to welch. Political heat is one thing. Am use to that," Tancredo wrote in an email. "Heat from my family is quite another."

Do electronic cigarettes really work?

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Smoking without the health risks may sound like a pipe dream for many smokers; but this is just what makers of electronic cigarettes (or "e-cigs") promise their consumers. E-cigarettes are battery-operated products, often resembling cigarettes, that turn nicotine and/or other chemicals into a vapor that users inhale. Companies like LOGIC E-Cigarettes use aggressive marketing tactics, like street campaigns and taxi cab ads, to push their products as an easy, safe alternative to smoking. Although these companies are profit-driven, they also claim to have the public's interest at heart. “This is the 21st century. The public deserves an alternative to smoking,” Eli Alelov, CEO of LOGIC, tells The Fix. Alelov says that his products emulate the experience of smoking a cigarette—the motion of smoking, the oral fixation and the inhaling—but without tobacco, tar or “4,000 other chemicals in cigarettes.” A nicotine addict himself, he lost his father to lung cancer at the age of eight; he believes e-cigarettes are a way to “save hundreds of thousands of lives every year.” Alelov is urging the US government to back e-cigarettes as an alternative to "poisonous" tobacco, "which the American government now benefits from tax-wise."

Walters to Christie: “You’re a little overweight”

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 20:36:00 +0000

Gov. Chris Christie thinks his weight is a non-issue when it comes to how well he can do his job.

"There are people who say you couldn't be president because you're so heavy," Barbara Walters said to Gov. Christie in a recent interview. "I mean, that's ridiculous," Christie told Walters. "I don't know what the basis for that is."

Barbara Walters' 2012 "Most Fascinating People" [ABC News]

Romney wins “lie of the year” award

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:46:00 +0000

PolitiFact awarded its “lie of the year" award this morning, and the winner is Mitt Romney, specifically his claim that Jeep is moving U.S. production to China.

Here’s is the ad that delivered the win to Romney:

Despite outrage from the media and the public, and a denial from Jeep’s parent company, the Romney campaign stood by the claim.

ESPN talkers suspended

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:58:00 +0000

Two D.C. area ESPN radio hosts were “temporarily removed” from the show Sports Reporters after banter about a transgender junior college basketball player in California. Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin were called out by LGBT activists for their offensive comments, and removed from their positions by the station's Vice President/Programming, Chuck Sapienza, Tuesday.

The radio hosts were discussing Gabrielle Ludwig, a 50-year-old transgender woman playing junior college basketball in California. Ludwig told the USA Today last week that she wants to be a role model:

“If the example I can set for the kids who are transgenders in high school, for the people who hate transgender people and for those learning to deal with transgenders, transsexuals, if they see me as a normal person and we are not the bogeyman and love life and raise kids just like you, maybe some of this mystery of who these people are will be taken away and there can be more blending into society,” she said.

Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin offered their thoughts on the issue last Thursday.

“That’s a man, baby,” Chris Knoche began. “That could be a Russian chick….So how does this work? You lose testicles and gain eligibility?”

What you need to know about breathalyzers

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:48:00 +0000

Rep. Tim Ryan, D.-Ohio., was arrested for public intoxication this past summer, before he managed to get the case dismissed this week. Refusing to take a breathalyzer test probably helped him.

You might be thinking: "Those politicians get all the breaks!" But it turns out that refusing to take a breathalyzer can be a cunning move.

In light of Rep. Ryan's brush with the law, Salon sought legal advice from lawyers in Virginia, where Ryan was picked up for his misdemeanor. The circumstances surrounding Ryan are not public, but the decision to take or not take a breathalyzer can even matter when drivers get stopped for drunk driving. Here's what we learned:

Richard J. Bonnie, Director of UVA's Institute of Law said that when a driver is stopped:

All states have so-called implied consent laws under which refusal to submit to a breathalyzer test or other measure of recent alcohol consumption is a ground for suspension of your driver’s license. Use of the refusal as evidence in a criminal prosecution is a different story. As a practical matter, the prosecution still needs other evidence of intoxication, such as police testimony about odor of alcohol or apparent cognitive or behavioral impairment.

Religion scholar Mark Silk: “Catholics always go with the winner”

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:30:00 +0000

A generation or two ago, Catholics were a rock-solid Democratic constituency. No longer. Today, they make up the nation's largest and most coveted swing voting bloc. Since the 1960s, white Catholics have moved somewhat to the right and now trend slightly Republican -- though they narrowly went for Obama in 2008 -- while the Catholic position on the left has been shored up by Latinos. How will they vote this year? The question is an even bigger deal than it seems: In recent elections, the Catholic bloc has voted the way the country votes. "Catholics are the ultimate religious swing group," says religious scholar Mark Silk. "They’re always going with the winner."

Silk, who writes a blog for the Religion News Service and is the director of the Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Connecticut, spends his time analyzing polls and studying voting data, looking for clues to how Catholics will swing this time around. What will weigh more with them? Mitt Romney's talk of religious freedom or President Obama's of social justice? (Catholic) Paul Ryan's antiabortion absolutism or (Catholic) Joe Biden's commitment to choice?

Randi Weingarten answers “anything”

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 22:01:00 +0000

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, took to Reddit to discuss the federation, her salary and public sector unions. Reddit's Ask Me Anything ("AMA,") is a popular feature where anonymous users can pose questions to notable people.

Weingarten was writing from the back of a tour bus between stops in Florida, where she is campaigning for President Obama. Here are a few highlights:

bobman15: I hear a lot of people slamming teachers unions because of how easy it is to get tenure and how hard it is to fire bad teachers. Are they correct or not and why?

Teacher unions represent teachers. And it’s management (e.g. principals, school boards, superintendents) who hire and evaluate teachers and grant tenure – not teachers unions...Tenure should be about fairness and not an excuse for managers not to manage or an inadvertent cloak of incompetence.

fejorama: FDR warnd against allowing government employees to unionize, because of the large potential for a conflict of interest. Why do you believe he was incorrect?

Choice nuggets from the New York Times’ huge China story

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:39:00 +0000

China has blocked NYTimes.com following the paper's expose on the nation's ruling elite, which has enriched itself during the Middle Kingdom's prolonged economic boom. Among other revelations, the piece found that family members of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao are making a fortune in lucrative Chinese business deals.

The prime minister's mother made $120 million in just one investment five years ago. His wife, the "Diamond Queen" of China, has amassed great wealth through her diamond and gem businesses. The prime minister denies involvement and appears unhappy with his family's greed, but, as the Times found out, his political position perhaps sowed the seeds for their business ventures.

Here are the four most ground-shaking parts of the article.

Reporter David Barboza shows how Wen's position aided his family members in a country where the line between private and public is increasingly blurred:

As prime minister in an economy that remains heavily state-driven, Mr. Wen, who is best known for his simple ways and common touch, more importantly has broad authority over the major industries where his relatives have made their fortunes. Chinese companies cannot list their shares on a stock exchange without approval from agencies overseen by Mr. Wen, for example. He also has the power to influence investments in strategic sectors like energy and telecommunications."

Poll shows support for “Dream Act”

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:37:00 +0000

Leading up to the November vote, a recent Washington Post poll found that Maryland voters broadly support a variation of the “Dream Act,” that will allow undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. If the measure passes in November, it will become the first statewide vote for a version of the law.

According to the poll, the initiative has garnered widespread support from Maryland Democrats and independents, while Republicans oppose the law by about 2 to 1. 58 percent of Maryland independent voters and 75 percent of Maryland Democrats support the measure.

The D.C. sniper 10 years later

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:03:00 +0000

This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the Washington D.C. area sniper attacks when John Muhammad and Boyd Lee Malvo terrorized the Washington, D.C. suburbs for three weeks. The pair shot 13 unsuspecting strangers, killing 10.

Muhammad received the death penalty in 2009 for his role in the random killings. Malvo, who was a teenager at the time of the shootings, received life in prison. He is now 27.

In a recent Washington Post interview, Malvo said: “I was a monster; if you look up the definition, that’s what a monster is. I was a ghoul. I was a thief. I stole people’s lives. I did someone else’s bidding just because they said so . . . There is no rhyme or reason or sense.”

Following his arrest, a boastful Malvo admitted to killing Ted Franklin, one of the 13 people shot during the attacks, and he laughed when investigators questioned him about it.