Mark Kleiman

I’m glad to see President Obama using the annual ritual of “pardoning” a turkey to tease the Republicans about “amnesty.” And I’m fully in sympathy with his daughters in their disdain for what has become more more bit of meaningless nonsense, performed only because it can’t be omitted. But, like Etruscan liturgies that kept being performed […]

Any pundit or politician who helped promote the Benghazi! hoax, and who doesn’t fully retract and apologize now that a Republican-dominated House committee has fully debunked all the accusations against the Administration other than having paid attention to what turned out to be inaccurate initial reports from the intelligence agencies, should from now on be […]

Over the past couple of weeks, my essays in search of temperate cannabis policies have appeared in Slate, Vice, the New York Times, and now National Review. Other than the expected trolling from pot fans, pot-industry flacks, and fundamentalist libertarians, they haven’t drawn much response. I sometimes think that trying to talk reasonably about cannabis […]

Ballot initiatives are a terrible way to make policy changes when the technical details matter. Despite the simple-minded sloganeering on both sides, the question of creating legal cannabis market is about as technical as they come, with equally valid public goals in sharp conflict, many unknowns, a variety of tricky design issues, and some big […]

[See update below] Apparently the rules of the Florida gubernatorial debate forbade the contestants from using electronic equipment.  Rick Scott refused to participate (until his handlers told him how silly he looked) because Charlie Crist brought a fan on to the stage. Yes, I know that there’s no legal minimum IQ required to become the […]

According to a statistic I just made up, 97.3% of all technical “breakthroughs” trumpeted in press releases turn out to be either wrong or minor. Moreover, it’s well known that fusion is the energy source of the future, and always will be. When I was ten years old, economically relevant fusion power was thirty years […]

By and large, I’m not a fan of the work of the (self-appointed) Global Commission on Drug Policy. The Commission’s latest report draws strong conclusions: Ultimately the most effective way to reduce the extensive harms of the global drug prohibition regime and advance the goals of public health and safety is to get drugs under control through responsible legal regulation. […]

A serving airman was refused re-enlistment because he crossed out the words “So help me God” in the oath he was told to take. (This is based on reporting by Air Force Times – not an especially radical journal – and the story quotes an Air Force spokeswoman, so I’m treating it as fact rather […]

Of course I’m always delighted to see Republican politicians nailed for corruption: how else are we going to recruit conservatives to the cause of criminal justice reform? And there seems to be no doubt that Gov. McDonnell was using his office to line his pockets, though it’s less clear what Star Scientific thought it was […]

I don’t know whether Gov. Rick Perry is guilty of anything, or – assuming he is – whether the special prosecutor has the goods to prove it, let alone whether the right-leaning Texas Court of Criminal Appeals would sustain such a conviction. (Since Perry isn’t an innocent person on Death Row, the court will tend […]