Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of October 3

Biden pardons thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession, orders review of federal pot laws

• President Joe Biden pardoned all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession.
  The pardons also apply to anyone in the District of Columbia convicted of simple possession of marijuana.
• Biden has also instructed Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and Attorney General
• Merrick Garland to begin reviewing how marijuana is classified under federal drug laws.

Biden noted that marijuana is currently a schedule one substance under federal drug sentencing guidelines, “the same as heroin and LSD – and more serious than fentanyl,” he said. “It makes no sense.”

I’m signed up to work the polls again in November. It’s gonna be a looong day.

HOW HITLER’S ENABLERS UNDID DEMOCRACY IN GERMANY

In Mein Kampf, published in 1925–26, he explained that “the masses … more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one,” and that even a propaganda claim “so impudent that people thought it insane” could ultimately prevail. Essential to the “stab in the back” conspiracy theory’s effectiveness were a simple appeal to the emotions, not the intellect, and its endless repetition without concession to contrary evidence.

Hitler was arrested and put on trial for treason. His defense strategy was to use the trial as a platform to amplify the Big Lie. In a spectacular example of shameless historical inversion, he claimed that the founders of Weimar democracy, not he, were the real traitors, the November criminals. The insurrectionist on trial was the true patriot. Bavaria’s conservative judicial system was sympathetic; Hitler served just nine months in prison, where he held court and received more than 330 visitors.

Weimar has bequeathed three distinct cautions for the political right of any era about what not to do in comparable situations: join in disseminating a Big Lie; take inadequate action and impose an inadequate penalty after a treasonous uprising; and cement an alliance between traditional conservatives and fascists.

The price of being a Trump Republican was obsequious submission to a cult of personality and unembarrassed acceptance of a post-truth web of lies and conspiracy theories. That now includes, of course, the Big Lie of the stolen election.

Despite the failure of the “Stop the Steal” attempted coup of January 6, 2021, which briefly shocked traditional Republicans, their hopes for a successful legal revolution in 2024 continue to bind them to Trump and his base.

147 congressional Republicans voted against certifying Biden’s election, and 17 Republican state attorneys general joined a suit to overturn the election results in four battleground states; the party then rallied together to condemn and withdraw support for Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for daring to expose the Big Lie.

Today’s Republican faithful are going along with Trump’s Big Lie, which casts Biden’s Democrats as the November criminals of 2020 and Trump himself as the patriotic defender of American freedom. America is not Weimar, Trump is not Hitler, Republicans are not Nazis, yet the fate of this republic hangs in the balance.

(neat avoidance of Godwin's law there, at the end)

So, I don't have a specific article to post, but I didn't feel this warranted a new post...

It's now been a couple years since Trump left office, yet I can't remember the last time I went even one day without seeing a story about him. I'm torn - part of me thinks his seemingly never ending list of crimes needs to be covered, but another part just says stop giving him attention, and write a story when there's actually something major that happens (such as him being indicted or charged).

I guess I'm just curious as to everyone else's thoughts.