Along with raising taxes on those making over $250,000, what about Congressmen getting a lifetime of income and health insurance even if they are only in Congress a term or two? How many millions have been spent over the generations to support them? We have to work years to get Social Security and invest in a retirement plan to have enough to live on after we retire. My husband and I have to work to 70 to get enough SS with our savings to live until 85+ (based on our family longevity). We already pay over $400 a month for my husband's retirement insurance to cover us both. Why should congressmen get income and insurance for life? Why not set it up like STRS, PERS, SERS is?- Work 30 years and then draw the benefits. If they don't get re-elected, well so be it. When mainstream Americans lose their jobs, they don't get paid for life and continued health insurance. Instead they end up moving in with relatives or living on the street when they can't find another job and lose their houses. I know, I know - they are public servants. Well, personally and as a social worker, I don't see we have been served all that well by a Congress that put their agenda to get rid of Obama over what is truly best for our citizens.
Thanks to both of you for the comments. My abridged description of the relationship between nullification and slavery was oversimplified, so I cut the reference entirely because it was an insignificant point and distracted from the article.
But, I still don't see how a state allowing marijuana to be used for recreational or medicinal purposes does anything to "nullify" the federal laws outlawing the same. The states are not treating federal drug laws "as if they don't exist" nor are they "directly contraven[ing]" those laws. They are largely deciding that state law enforcement and judicial resources are not going to be dedicated towards arresting and prosecuting potheads. The federal government never told the states to pass anti-drug laws (it would have clearly violated the Tenth Amendment if it had), so states are not contravening nor are they ignoring any federal law by refusing to do so.
What is particularly notable about the Gonzalez v Reich decision is that the court did NOT tell California to rescind its state laws allowing medical marijuana. Instead, the decision held that the federal government can enforce federal anti-marijuana laws in a state whose own laws allow marijuana.
If a state had passed a law declaring that federal marijuana laws cannot be enforced within its borders, then we would be talking nullification. But none have done so.
Labeling yourself an environmentalist, essentially means nothing. I can call myself the Queen of Westchester and it wouldn't mean any more or less. Being the author of a book on alternative energy doesn't qualify you either. What does matter is whether or not you've been paid or influenced to call opposition to fracking "blind opposition" or making a judgement such as "misguided". Scientists who are not on the payroll of companies who stand to profit from fracking, beg to differ with you.
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