IF SO, HE SHOULD STOP ENFORCING FEDERAL MARIJUANA LAW EVERYWHERE: Will Obama Let Washington And Colorado Keep Their Legal Pot?

While our president may be famous for saying he inhaled as a teenager (“because that was the point”) marijuana is still very much banned under federal law. It’s designated as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, just like other oh-so-not-legal drugs as LSD and heroin. After essentially promising to defer to state law on medical marijuana early in the Obama administration, the Justice Department has, by some accounts, lowered the boom. According to Americans for Safe Access, the Drug Enforcement Administration has raided at least 200 cannabis dispensaries since 2009 and prosecutors have brought more than 60 indictments against medical marijuana providers.

“There’s no question that Obama’s the worst president on medical marijuana,” Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “He’s gone from first to worst.” . . .

The hope is that, if Washington and Colorado set up smart laws with well defined bounds, federal prosecutors will decide to leave legal recreational marijuana alone, just like they mostly have with medical marijuana. Will that theory hold up? We’ll find out in the coming year or so, as state regulators figure out their game plan. But the good news for pot fans is this: In 2010 Attorney General Eric Holder officially opposed California’s initiative to legalize recreational marijuana. This time around, he was silent.

Then again, it also happened to be a presidential election year, and Colorado was a swing state. Of course Obama wasn’t going to intervene. Now that he’s been reelected, and two states want to adopt drug laws more liberal than the Netherlands, the president might not be so mellow. But Colorado and Washington can hope.

That whole “hope” thing hasn’t really worked out.

RIGHT ON SCHEDULE:  Time to go after those awful “price gougers:”

When allowed to function properly, the free market works very smoothly in bringing people the goods and services they want, in the amount that they want them, and for the price at which they value them. As much as people don’t like hearing it, the laws of supply and demand are no less vital in the event of an emergency — but politicians sure do love to rag on those greedy, profiteering businesses that jack up their prices in the event of a sudden supply shock or demand spike (a.k.a., “price gouging”). Anti-price gouging laws are a huge mistake that hurt the public at large, because all they accomplish is preventing the free market from doing what it does best: Quickly and efficiently adapting to conditions in a way that benefits everyone, and in an emergency especially, price gouging can save lives.

Predictably, of course, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, so begins the outrageous outrage against those who had the audacity to raise prices on things like gasoline and lodging, via NBC:

NBC, you say? They’re pretty cool themselves with the notion of manipulating prices of consumer goods such as gasoline when faced with what the network perceives to be a natural catastrophe.

RON BAILEY: Environmentalist Money Buys Elections. Remember, if the Washington Post likes the cause, it’s not “special interest” money, it’s public interest money.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Electronics Gift List.

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama Wins By Going Negative And Turning Out Base.

Lukewarm. That’s the feeling I get from the election numbers.

Turnout was apparently down, at least as a percentage of eligible voters. The president was re-elected by a reduced margin. The challenger didn’t inspire the turnout surge he needed.

Every re-elected president since Andrew Jackson has won with an increased popular vote percentage. Barack Obama didn’t. He won 53 to 46 percent in 2008. His numbers as I write are 50 to 48 percent over Mitt Romney. That could go up to 51 to 48 percent when California finishes its count, which took five weeks in 2008.

Obama owes most of his electoral vote majority of 332 to negative campaigning. His strategists barraged the target states of Florida, Ohio and Virginia with attack ads on Romney for months.

The ads took a toll. Preliminary figures show that outside the eight clear target states, Obama’s percentage declined by 2.8 points. In the firewall states, it was down only 1.4 and in five other target states down only 2.1.

As I said yesterday, Republicans needed more Lee Atwater and less Karl Rove.

LIFE IN THE PROGRESSIVE HAVEN OF OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA:

A KPIX news cameraman was punched and robbed during a live broadcast outside an Oakland high school, the latest in a spate of holdups targeting the media, police said Thursday.

Reporter Anne Makovec and cameraman Gregg Welk were on the air shortly after noon Wednesday outside Oakland Technical High School near the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway. They were at the school to do a story on the passage of Proposition 30, the tax measure preventing deep cuts to education.

As Makovec was finishing her report, police said, five men rushed up and grabbed a $6,000 camera from the tripod. Viewers saw the live picture being jarred and turned sideways for about two seconds.

One of the assailants punched Welk in the mouth before the group fled in a Mercedes-Benz, which apparently was accompanied by a Lexus, police said. Welk declined treatment by paramedics but saw his doctor.

“He is fine, and he is actually working today,” KPIX spokeswoman Akilah Bolden-Monifa said Thursday.

Bolden-Monifa said the station would continue to report in Oakland but declined to specify whether any changes would be made to protect its crews.

Sources, however, said all KPIX crews covering stories in Oakland would be accompanied by security guards, day or night, effective immediately.

Wow, now you need armed guards escorting your camera crews? How third-world. But then, that’s how things usually go in progressive havens.

GARY TAUBES, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Denmark To Abolish Tax on High-Fat Foods.

MEGAN MCARDLE: DC Government vs. Market Competition, Round 7,894.

I think that DC needs a new regulation. All current councilmembers should have to register–and run–as Republicans in 2014. This would encourage political diversity in DC, creating a space for Republicans as well as Democrats to compete in our elections. It’s is a pro-competition initiative that would empower a currently disenfranchised minority and help the DC government build new ties to a party from which it is currently somewhat alienated.

What’s that you say? This regulation would effectively cause all current council members to lose their seats? Well, I don’t think I agree with that. A revitalized DC Republican party ticket might sweep the current polls. Just because Barack Obama carries 90% of the vote in DC doesn’t mean that a Republican can’t be competitive in our city. But even if you were right, I don’t think that’s a reason to oppose this legislation. I mean, sure, it’s sad for current council members who might like to serve another term, and, I dunno, run on the ticket of the party they actually vote like better. But isn’t that really a small price to pay for a more fair and transparent system that’s more finely tuned to the needs of DC voters?

Stop snorting. I don’t see why council members would oppose such a sensible rule, since after all, that’s how they think business should be regulated. Whether it’s car services or food trucks, the city likes to hamstring upstart competitors by enacting ostensibly neutral “sensible regulation” which just happens–who knew!–to have the side effect of putting those new entrants out of business. This is always done in the name of the consumer, even though the consumer has expressed no desire for many of the “benefits” provided by the new legislation, like . . . paper receipts, or taxis that are all the same color.

It’s like they’re corrupt tools of the established interests or something.

ROGER SIMON: A Tale of Three (or More) Roger Simons. “Everyone was confused by this, including me. It went so far as my being flown across country to appear on Meet the Press only to find they expected the other Roger Simon. (Yes, that really happened. My consolation prize was five minutes on air with Norah O’Donnell, who had no idea what to make of my strange libertarian utterings.) I finally did bump into the other Roger at some Washington news gathering or other. He didn’t look pleased to see me, though perhaps that was projection.”

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS: Bacon Band-Aids.

DOWN IN THE DUMPS OVER THE ELECTION? Let Stephen Kruiser bring back your mojo.

SO SAD I’LL BE AWAY FROM MY TV TODAY: Sunday shows feature many members of Congress arguing money and stuff.

THE ISLAND OF Lost Apple Products.

POLITICO: 6 lingering questions about the exit of Gen. David Petraeus.

THE ENDURING APPEAL OF FIREFLY.

Firefly” aired for only one season 10 years ago, but Nathan Fillion still hasn’t gotten over it.

“It was the best character I ever played,” Fillion told The Post. “The best dialogue to ever come out of my mouth was on that show.

“It was my first time truly being in love with my work,” he says. “It’s the bar to which we compare every job.”

I’m beginning to think, though, that in real life Joss Whedon would have been on the side of the Alliance.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Survival & Disaster Preparation.

Also, bestsellers in Dress Watches.

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON (CONT’D): New York officials reportedly consider closed prison for displaced Sandy victims. “The New York Post reports that state officials are considering the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility on Staten Island to feed and house as many as 900 victims with nowhere else to turn. . . . As many as 40,000 New Yorkers need shelter from extreme weather events, according to city estimates. On Staten Island alone, about 5,200 people applied for temporary FEMA housing, but only about two dozen people have been successfully placed, federal sources told the newspaper.” (Emphasis added, because . . . wow).

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON (CONT’D): A major disaster occurs on the outskirts of one of the most advanced civilizations on earth, and 10 days later there are victims walking 6 miles to find food?

Yep. In Coney Island. “Down on Surf Avenue, businesses are shuttered, leaving local residents unable to get basic necessities like food, medicine, or even do laundry. Once the sun goes down, residents say it’s too dangerous to venture out anyway.”

Plus: “A lot of people are desperate. They don’t know where they are getting their next meal.”

Related: Doctors Without Borders Tend To NY Storm Victims. Just like it was some third-world country. President Bush sent Americans to the third world. Under President Obama, the third world comes to you!

IF SHE DOES, I’VE GOT A DOCUMENT TO DROP ON HER: Will Ashley Judd run for the U.S. Senate? Actress to challenge ‘Mitch McConnell in 2014.’

ANDREW MARCUS: After Election 2012: WWBD — What Would Breitbart Do?

Everything that Andrew predicted in my film, Hating Breitbart, played out in real-time during the election right before our eyes. From Candy Crowley interrupting and taking Obama’s side in the debate to George Stephonopoulous’s introducing the ‘war on women’ narrative in the primary debates, members of the so-called mainstream media did everything they could to re-elect Obama and they were successful. And many of us are, as Andrew so often was, righteously indignant. Some might even be feeling hopeless, tired or defeated. And while I can understand a temporary crisis of faith, I believe Andrew would refuse to surrender to a defeatist attitude over one election loss.

He understood that the true fight is with the Mainstream Media and Institutional Left and that they don’t get ‘elected.’ We must bring the fight directly to them relentlessly. That was always his fight and that does not change with an election cycle.

No, it doesn’t. And if you get a chance to see Hating Breitbart, I highly recommend it. I felt like Andrew was still alive while watching it.

UPDATE: Reader John Miller writes: “The reality is that if every cent spent on the Romney campaign had been spent instead acquiring and dismembering legacy media properties, the long-term result would have been better than where we are now. Holding and extending statehouse control has to be conservatives’ #1 priority, but if there’s money floating around out there, at this point it’d be better spent exterminating NBC and the NY Times than propping up national candidates.”

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on Shoes, Boots & Slippers. For men, women, and children. Winter is coming.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: New York Times: “The fact that you’re willing to accept your wife’s infidelity for some greater political good is beyond honorable.”

SPIN: It’s good that Sandy victims are stuck without power.

Related: “It was a democratizing experience,” he said. “Because no one had power.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: ‘If your stomach is starting to obstruct the view of your manhood you shouldn’t ignore it.”

AT AMAZON, Turkey Fryers, Smokers & Outdoor Cookers.

Also, today only: Up to 63% Off Corel Photo and Video Pro Suite X5 or PaintShop Pro X5.