CHANGE? Colorado Springs City Council sends recreational marijuana sale ban to the voters.

The Colorado Springs City Council voted 8 to 1 to send a question to the ballot that would ban recreational marijuana stores in the city’s charter. A charter amendment would trump a city ordinance.

The vote followed extensive public testimony that touched on the potential harms of marijuana, the benefits of expanding sales in town and letting voters decide how to regulate marijuana.

At the same time, a citizen’s group has submitted signatures to put a question on the ballot to allow recreational marijuana stores in town. The citizen’s proposal would only allow the existing medical marijuana shops to transition to selling marijuana recreationally. The revenues would support public safety, mental health services and the post-traumatic stress disorder treatment programs for veterans.

City Clerk Sarah Johnson said the city verifying signatures on Tuesday so she couldn’t say if the citizen’s question would make the ballot. The citizen’s group was about 8,800 signatures short, she said.

Two years ago, city residents turned down a question to legalize recreation[AL] marijuana sales in town with 57% voting against it.

Outside of the Denver-Boulder Axis and its resort-town annexes, Colorado is still pretty conservative.

MARK JUDGE: David French Isn’t a Conservative.

TAR AND FEATHERS: Most ‘swamp’ managers say voters don’t matter. “Washington’s bureaucracy, expanded and emboldened by the Biden-Harris administration, feels so secure that most managers would impose new regulations even if voters ‘overwhelmingly’ rejected their plans. In the latest sign of the disconnect between Washington’s ‘swamp’ and the rest of the country, 54% of federal government managers would defy voters to do what they want, according to a new Napolitan Institute survey conducted by Scott Rasmussen and shared with Secrets.”

BUT NOTHING WILL CHANGE: NOW They Tell Us: State-Run Media Admits Kamala Insiders Lied All Along About Joe’s Dementia.

LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: Texas Delegate Robbed at Gunpoint While Attending DNC.

ADL Leader Slams DNC: ‘I Could Not Have Imagined a Time Jews Would Have To Meet in Secret Locations in Chicago.’

MIT SEEMS TO BE COMPLYING (OR AT LEAST MOVING IN THAT DIRECTION):  After the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (2023), people wondered whether highly selective schools would comply.  Well, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s numbers are now in.

Last year, 15% of the incoming freshman class was Black/African American and 16% was Hispanic/Latino.  This year, it will be 5% and 11% respectively.  Asian American enrollment, on the other hand, has risen from 40% to 47%.  White/Caucasian enrollment is more or less steady (38% vs. 37%).

The good news is that the minority students who weren’t admitted to MIT this year because MIT couldn’t give them preferential treatment probably stand a better chance of getting a STEM degree at their second-choice school than they would have had at MIT.

*Note that the numbers in the chart aren’t perfectly comparable.  They add to 107% in last year’s class and 101% in this year’s.  I assume that’s either because (1) more students happened to put themselves in multiple categories last year than this; or (2) MIT did not allow students to put themselves in multiple categories this year and the 101% is just a rounding error.  That means the slight change in White/Caucasian enrollment is meaningless.

Michigan Secretary Of State Tries To Rush Potentially ‘Illegal’ Rules To Rig The November Election.

The bill’s effective date is 91 days after the final adjournment of the 2024 regular session. Because the legislative session is still ongoing, the bill will not go into effect until well beyond the November election. Nonetheless, confident of the bill’s passage and eager to expedite implementation, Benson’s office already had a first set of rules relating to the conduct of election recounts in the can and ready for public comment before Gov. Gretchen Whitmer even signed SB 603 into law on July 8.

A mandatory hearing for comment on this set of rules — which reflect the new law’s provisions drastically limiting the opportunity for recounts, the definition of fraud, and the ability of canvassers to investigate — was set for June 17. The SB 603 rules were then also sent to Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers for approval.

The board, composed of two Republicans and two Democrats appointed by Gov. Whitmer, gave the green light to Benson’s rules within two weeks of the bill being signed into law. Neither of the Republicans, Richard Houskamp and Anthony Daunt, responded to a request for comment regarding the approval of the rules.

The new board-approved rules regarding the conduct of election recounts concentrate power at the state and county levels. Michigan Fair Elections Founder Patrice Johnson noted this potential danger.

Read the whole thing.

MOO MEANS MOO:  Russian tourist who ‘tried to rape a cow’ is gored by the animal and has to be rescued by stunned Thai police.

WELL, THIS SUMS IT UP:

They need you to hate Donald Trump more than inflation.

They need to you hate Donald Trump more than open borders.

They need to you hate Donald Trump more than fentanyl and drugs on our streets.

They need to you hate Donald Trump more than our children being killed by…

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) August 20, 2024

BRITAIN IS BECOMING A RACIST, TOTALITARIAN STATE: I’m Sure Throwing J.K. Rowling In Jail Over Her Tweets Will Calm Everything Down.

UPDATE:

How bad are hate speech laws in the UK? Saying "it's OK to be white" can result in a harsher sentence than child pornography. @abigailandwords found numerous cases in which UK judges jailed thought criminals while letting actual criminals off the hook.

The list is shocking.🧵 pic.twitter.com/ell2A5hjdi

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 20, 2024

EITHER THAT OR ITS A MONEY LAUNDRY: Are ActBlue’s Donors Even Real? “There’s definitely something fishy going on. And there is definitely no chance at all that the Department of Justice or the FEC will investigate it in this administration.”

ROBERT SPENCER: PBS’s Failed Attempt to Cook Up a New Trump Scandal Shows Again How the Media is Worse Than Useless. “What is noteworthy is that PBS was clearly caught out because it thought it had a sensational story, one so useful to the leftist cause that it just had to be true. Any critical eye it might once have had is long gone, and now PBS and the rest judge stories only on the basis of how bad they make Trump and other patriots look.”

OH, I HOPE HE MEANS IT:

I mentioned this a month or so ago, now it has cropped up again. Pres. Trump has repeatedly indicated a preference for a massive senior leadership turnover at the Pentagon, should he win in November.

I think there’s a good chance he means it.
pic.twitter.com/AnWWfcDHpg

— Patrick Fox (@RealCynicalFox) August 22, 2024

RULE OF LAW: One of DA Gascon’s Top Deputies Will Face Trial on Six Felony Counts.

THEY’D PROBABLY BE BETTER EDUCATED AT STATE & COMMUNITY COLLEGES:  Beating the odds: How students stand out and get into Harvard.

ALL DEMOCRATS LIE CONSTANTLY. BECAUSE THE MEDIA ABETS THEM:  How Walz Gets Away With It.

THEY’RE NOT AS IN CHARGE AS THEY PRETEND TO BE:  The Illusion of Control.

THIS IS NO SURPRISE TO ANYONE:  Bullet Wounds Found on Bodies of Recovered Israeli Hostages, Confirming Hamas Murdered Them.

THERE IS NO ELECTRICITY AND ENERGY:  ‘The Electricity and Energy:’ Media Cranks Up Operation Demoralize at Democrat National Convention.

“SNUB” BY DEMS? IT WAS OPEN LAWFARE:  RFK Jr. to suspend campaign after month of talks with Trump allies, snub by Democrats.

THEY ARE ALL BROKEN CHILDREN:  What’s Up With the Media’s Creepy Obsession With Making Democrats Your Dad?

TELLING THE TRUTH: ‘It Hurts Black People’: Chicago Barbershop Voters Unload On Democrats Over Immigration Policy.

NO, I’M NOT READY. I’M STILL BROKEN:  Are You Ready for It? October 7 Unfiltered.

HE HAS MUCH TO BE MODEST ABOUT:  Tim Walz claimed his family has modest means — but racked up significant pensions.

THERE WILL BE MORE OF THIS:  Utah sues federal government over land control.