Grab Bag for the Day

Written by Daniel on July 28, 2007 – 12:59 pm -

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1. Steve Kagen and Medical Marijuana:
From failed US Senate candidate Ben Masel in a 2005 DailyKos comment:

Spent some time with him [Steve Kagen] at Fighting Bob Fest. Good first impression.
It should be no suprise that my first question was drug policy. He came out unequivocally for hemp as an agricultural commodity, and was fairly knowldgeable on its advantages, especially for a district whose economy is dominated by the paper industry.
Turning to medical marijuana, I was in for a suprise. He supports its use only in non-smoked forms. Turns out that 25 years ago he published a paper on mold and bacterial contamination of street marijuana, and thus considers it unsafe.

Steve Kagen’s position on Marijuana in the House this last week:

Shamefully, one of those was Wisconsin Democrat Rep. Steve Kagen, who joined Republicans Jim Sensenbrenner, Paul Ryan and Tom Petri in voting against Hinchey to continue funding federal efforts aimed at subverting state medical marijuana laws. His fellow Democrats, Tammy Baldwin, Ron Kind, Gwen Moore and David Obey all voted to protect patients in the 12 states with state laws.

Someone doesn’t want to tick off suburban moms…

2. Prudence and Proportionality
I showed up on Mirror of Justice this week (MOJ is the nation’s main Catholic legal thought blog) with an email comment responding to a very misguided fellow comment-emailing-reader. This, in turn, set off a series of posts on Catholic considerations in the voting booth. It was an interesting exchange…

3. Driving Potential Students Away, Part 47In the May edition of COLUMBIA, the worldwide magazine of the Knights of Columbus, there’s an article from the Catholic writer Russell Shaw on “Dissent and Human Dignity.” In it, he takes on Dan Maguire’s arguments one by one. He also makes it pretty likely we won’t get any new admissions candidates whose dads read the magazine… (You can find the hardcopy of the magazine in the Raynor, 2nd floor, right by the bathrooms)

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5 Comments to “Grab Bag for the Day”

  1. Kevin Binversie Says:
    July 28th, 2007 at 2:32 pm

    Dan, you seen the follow-up post at Madison NORML, it’s even more classic.

    http://www.madisonnorml.org/blog/archives/000197.php#more

  2. ben masel Says:
    July 28th, 2007 at 5:10 pm

    you guys would have a chance at picking up the seat by running someone with a more enlightened position on drug policy, but nah. You’ll put up Gard again.

    (most of the current Assembly Republicans in the District are behind the Hemp bill. Ott, mursau, and williams voted for it in the Rural Affairs Committee.

  3. ben masel Says:
    July 28th, 2007 at 11:52 pm

    80 percent of respondents supported the Wisconsin state legislature “passing a law to allow seriously ill or terminally ill patients to use marijuana for medical purposes if supported by their physician.”
    POLL: Chamberlain Research
    DATE: February 2002
    Sample Size: 600

    70 percent of respondents supported “allowing seriously ill or terminally ill patients to use marijuana for medical purposes if supported by their physician.”
    POLL: Scott Rasmussen Public Opinion Poll
    DATE: October 2002
    Sample size: 1000

    I’m told the Chamberlain poll broke the 8th District out at the Statewide average. I’m not aware of the breakwn for Rasmussen.

  4. Kevin Binversie Says:
    July 29th, 2007 at 5:11 pm

    But if 80% of Wisconsinites are for it Ben, why does Kagen feel he must vote against the Hinchey amendment?

    Or is this all to CYA himself after the media got word of his boy Tommy’s bong-bust the day after his election?

    And I doubt a lack of an “enlightened position on drug policy” will cost Gard votes.

  5. ben masel Says:
    July 30th, 2007 at 12:08 am

    It’s not votes he’d lose, but votes he can’t gain.

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