Michael Bloomberg, in 2001 (before he was mayor of New York), when asked if he’d ever tried marijuana:
“You bet I did. And I enjoyed it.”
These days, Mayor Bloomberg better watch his back before smoking spliffs on his Upper East Side terrace. He now oversees what the New York Civil Liberties Union describes as a “marijuana arrest crusade,” as the NYPD locks up more than 35,000 people each year for marijuana possession.
Arrests are up elevenfold since the 1990s, even though most people who are arrested aren’t even smoking up at the time. Why would cops do that? According to researchers:
[B]usting pot smokers is a relatively safe and easy way to pad arrest figures, which creates the illusion of productivity, and generate overtime pay, a practice known as “collars for dollars.”
Additionally, studies have shown white kids ages 18 to 25 are the most likely to light up a fat one, but black and Hispanic New Yorkers are arrested three to five times as often for possession. Which might explain why Mayor Bloomberg himself escaped his youth unscathed, hmm?
The Guardian reports:
Director Spike Lee has waded into the ongoing controversy surrounding Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago pastor whose provocative statements have proved a thorn in the side of Democrat frontrunner Barack Obama. Lee advises the preacher to do the right thing and keep quiet. “The more he opens his mouth, the more damage he does,” he told the Guardian yesterday.
For good measure, Lee hinted at a political conspiracy behind Wright’s recent, contentious attempts to justify his remarks. “It looks like he’s being paid to keep talking,” he said.
Spike Lee. Telling a paranoid conspiracy freak that he talks too much. And that he’s doing so as part of a conspiracy. Usually at this point in the post I try to throw something in to make the person’s words even sillier, but I’m not sure it’s possible in this case. Maybe if he made fun of Wright for being really short and making Girl 6, that might be slightly more ironic.
Quick follow-up on a story from a few months ago: We told you about how Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, self-proclaimed environmentalist and signer of Cullyfornia’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, has been flying back and forth every day in his private jet between his home in L.A. and his office in Sacramento. We all have our own ways of saving the planet, right?
Well, now Santa Monica residents and even members of his own family want to put a halt to Ahnold’s carbon-creating commute:
A federal judge will decide on May 15 whether the governor can land aboard a Gulfstream IV in Santa Monica, a 15-minute drive to his home in Los Angeles’ wealthy Brentwood enclave. The governor’s brother-in-law, Bobby Shriver, is among the Santa Monica city council members who voted unanimously on March 25 to ban large jets at the municipal airport.
“These guys aren’t listening so we have to lift the conversation to a different level,” said Shriver, referring to proponents of allowing the jets, including the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. A surge in flights “has changed the whole safety profile of this little airport,” said Shriver, 54, a brother of California’s first lady, Maria Shriver.
Man, Thanksgiving must be awkward!
When told he might have to spend hours every day driving being chauffeured to Sacramento and back — or possibly might even have to live there — due to the meddling of a bunch of nobodies who’ve never made a single blockbuster, here was Schwarzenegger’s reaction:
(Hat tip to faithful Deceiver reader Pastafarian)
Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s downfall Ashley Alexandra DuprĂ© has filed a $10-million lawsuit against Girls Gone Wild because, she alleges, they coerced her with booze into signing away the rights to her breasts when she was 17 years old.
Far be it from me to defend Joe Francis — talk about a Class-A douchebag — but seriously, an admitted hooker claiming that she had to be plied with alcohol to pull out the funbags for the camera? A bit hard to, um, swallow.
Francis tells TMZ:
“We were very surprised and in fact amazed today that Ms. Dupree filed a lawsuit against Girls Gone Wild. We have not publicly released any new video of Ms. Dupree, due to corporate policy of not using footage of individuals younger than 18. It is incomprehensible that Ms. Dupree could claim she did not give her consent to be filmed by Girls Gone Wild, when in fact we have videotape of her giving consent, while showing her identification.”
That would be her fake ID that said she was 21 at the time. How fast will this be tossed out of the courts? Before lunch, perhaps?
Apparently this is going to be the new tack for Global Warmingers who don’t live like Global Warming actually exists: “I realize I’m a hypocrite! How can you criticize me for being a hypocrite if I’ve already admitted it?” You got us there, Arianna, I guess we can’t. But we don’t have to take you seriously either. “Save the planet, dahlink!” Every time I hear her voice, I expect Eddie Albert to pop up with a pitchfork.
(Hat tip: Hot Air)
Yesterday in U.S. federal court, film actor Wesley Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison for misdemeanor charges of failing to file his income tax papers for a bunch of years. He has paid back around $5 million in back taxes and made lots of self-flagellating apologies. But he’s going to Club Fed for three years anyway, even though he was acquitted of actual “tax fraud” charges.
Hit the rewind button, back to 1990. Remember country singer Willie Nelson’s tax troubles? His tax-evasion bill came to a whopping $30 million, and the Internal Revenue Service settled the case for just $16.7 million. Willie never sent to jail. Instead, he released a double album called The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories?
The IRS seized his assets too, but Willie’s friends purchased most of it and gave the stuff back to him — either free of charge or for a nominal fee. He managed to pay back the government in just three years, the same amount of time Snipes will be sitting in jail doing nothing of any value to anyone.
Here’s the moral of the story: Wouldn’t it be smarter if the U.S. government were to apply the same standard to Wesley Snipes? Let him stay the hell out of jail so he could make a few movies and pay off his tax bill.
I guess submitting a character reference from dope-smoking hippie Woodie Harrelson wasn’t good enough for this judge. Ironically, you have to actually be a dope-smoking hippie (or Cindy Sheehan) to get any sympathy from hypocritical Uncle Sam when you decide not to pay your taxes.
Not that the IRS is the sharpest knife in the drawer. True story: The agency once sent a nasty letter to my apartment demanding to know where I lived.
Any minute know, I’m sure federal agents are going to come busting down my door, so if I never write another word on this blog, just …
You may have heard that, as ABC News reported, the footage of the “collapsing Antarctic ice shelves” in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was actually made up of special-effects shots taken from the 2004 sci-fi doozy The Day After Tomorrow:
Well, it’s fake but accurate, you might say. “Just because Big Al manipulated my emotions with spectacular Hollywood fakery doesn’t mean we’re not ALL GONNA DIE FROM GLOBAL WARMING!!!” If you really believe that, there’s no point in arguing with you. But you’ll have to forgive me for laughing at the look on your face when you find out what the effects guys used to make all those “glaciers”:
Sculpted from Styrofoam and later scanned into a computer, the ice shelf “flyover” looks real.
That’s right, Styrofoam! You know, the evil, evil stuff that’s being banned all over the place because it’s destroying the environment. Wonder what the studio did with it when they were done with their dumb movie? Five hundred years from now, will the last few survivors of the human race stumble upon those beautifully sculpted glaciers, completely intact, in some forgotten landfill?
Guess it’s kind of like Al’s blazingly incandescent house: You can’t save the world without destroying more than your fair share of it.
(Thanks to faithful Deceiver reader Jenn for the tip!)
The Hills stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag have ducked out of attending the White House Correspondents dinner on Saturday — because, as Spencer reportedly sniffed, “It wasn’t ‘A-listy’ enough.”
You mean … Hollywood’s most notorious media whores are turning down an opportunity to be surrounded by the media? What a change in pace for these idiots.
Other sources claim the real reason they’re not going is that Heidi was invited but Spencer wasn’t, and as manager for the “feminist hero,” he calls the shots.
I think the real question is, why did President Bush even invite Heidi in the first place? It must have been that they needed someone to class up the joint, with Ashlee Simpson, Pam Anderson, and Karl Rove set to attend.
P.S. — I want to sit at that table.
Hat tip to National Public Radio (yes, you read that right…):
“Since the gas lines of the ’70’s, Democrats and Republicans have talked about energy independence, but nothing’s changed except now Exxon’s making $40 billion a year, and we’re paying $3.50 for gas. I’m Barack Obama. I don’t take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won’t let them block change anymore. They’ll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We’ll invest in alternative energy, create jobs and free ourselves from foreign oil.”
And yet, as Newhouse News Service reports:
… Obama has received tens of thousands of dollars from people in many of the same groups and industries he regularly rails against.
“He may not take money from Political Action Committees or lobbyists, but he is taking interest money,” said Sheila Krumholtz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign finance issues.
“He’s getting a lot of money from individuals representing lawyers and law firms, security firms, real estate and Hollywood,” Krumholtz said.
“You can’t say that he doesn’t take special-interest money.”
State lobbyists and nonwage-earning spouses of lobbyists and lobbying firm employees contributed $115,163 to Obama’s campaign through March 20, according to the center.
People in the oil and gas industries have given $222,309 to Obama. He received $528,765 from the pharmaceutical and health industry, making him the largest recipient of its largesse.
Not that Hillary Clinton or John McCain are much better, but the least we should expect of these goons is a frank admission that they’re bought and paid for, right?
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