Milbank: How can Congress cure political ills? Smoke some marijuana.

Still, sovereign law hasn't budged, as good as the check sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) which would commend the healing worth of pot has languished for the year; it has usually twenty-three co-sponsors as good as no possibility of passing. On Monday, when members of the pro-legalization Americans for Safe Access hold their annual "lobby day" upon Capitol Hill, not the singular part of of Congress postulated them the personal audience.

Of course, the cannabis armed forces wasn't vibrated about that. It isn't vibrated about most of anything. This competence have something to do with the actuality which most of the members have make use of of marijuana.

The run day briefing, scheduled for eleven a.m., was pushed back
to noon, during which indicate the horde asked for the serve five-minute delay. There were no complaints, maybe since munchies had been supposing — potato chips as good as sandwiches, as good as Coca-Cola — as good as the crinkling of wrappers as good as crunching of chips could be listened via the event. If the pot proponents were any some-more laid back, they would have been horizontal.

In this sense, the eternally ready to fight lawmakers would have benefited from assembly with the legalization crowd, as good as maybe perplexing the little giveaway samples. Our ever-indignant member need urgently to chill out as good as giveaway their minds. If the benefits the healing pot advocates touted upon Monday have been real, Congress should rught away reefer the have the difference to cabinet to breeze the corner resolution: Everybody contingency get stoned.

Jahan Marcu, the PhD who gave the pharmacological apportionment of Monday's briefing, explained to me the resource by which healing marijuana, if used up by the enough series of lawmakers, could heal the domestic ills. "Cannabis acts upon the complement in the body, as good as which complement — the endocannabinoid complement — regulates 5 things," pronounced Marcu, who has prolonged sideburns as good as wore an open-collar purple shirt. "It helps us to eat, sleep, relax, dont think about as good as protect."

Our leaders don't have most difficulty eating, as good as either they nap good as good as have been stable from cancer as good as alternative illnesses is not the concern. But removing them to relax as good as to forget? This could be most therapeutic.

Marcu pronounced brand new investigate indicates which people who have make use of of pot perform improved intellectually than those who splash ethanol or fume tobacco. This suggests which if House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) were to switch vices from cigarettes as good as booze to pot, the physique gracious competence be healthier.

Tests uncover which pot creates animals reduction supportive to provocations such as the bell ringing. "If we ring it, they get freaked out," Marcu said. "If we give them the cannabinoid, they lend towards not to get freaked out."

In addition, cannabis competence assistance lawmakers climb upon top of the cycle of consistent fight as good as punish — most the approach it helps soldiers strike post-traumatic highlight disorder. "That's the single good thing about the endocannabinoid system," he said. "It's there to assistance we dont think about invalid report or report that's harmful."

Far out.

At the briefing, the advocates took heedfulness to denote their professionalism. Most wore commercial operation clothes (although the single male sported the black cap, sunglasses as good as the vast flowering plant in his lapel) as good as they spoke about production processes as good as flourishing standards.

"This is an attention that's in the maturation state," pronounced Tim Smale, who runs the pot hospital in Maine. "No longer do we see the hippies as good as the tie-dyes indispensably speaking." Still, the impulse after he got upon his knees as good as asked congressional staffers to assistance the cause. "I'm not against to begging," he said.

Smale, who uses cannabis for his migraines, wants his product to be treated with colour as any alternative "medicinal herb."

Mike Liszewski, Americans for Safe Access's process director, described the augmenting form of pot tinctures as good as lotions. "There have been all kinds of ways to devour healing cannabis but smoking," he said, "although smoking essentially does sojourn the really in effect smoothness complement for most patients."

And so it could be for chronically dyspeptic lawmakers. Smoking bone-head won't indispensably stop them from creation the crush of things. But it could frequency have things worse.

Twitter: @Milbank

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Dionne: Supreme oligarchy

On cases involving a right of Americans to perspective as well as a capability of a unequivocally little series of unequivocally abounding people to practice sum change upon a domestic process, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as well as his 4 allies regularly side with a wealthy, a absolute as well as a forces which would allege a domestic celebration which put them upon a court. The ideological reach beyond which is wrecking a governing body is right away additionally wrecking a jurisprudence.

The court's ultimate statute in McCutcheon et al. v. Federal Election Commission should not be seen in isolation. (The "et al.," by a way, refers to a Republican National Committee.) It is nonetheless an additional action of legal appropriation by 5 justices who provide a inaugurated branches of a supervision with disregard as well as fashion as meaningless. If Congress tries to enclose a energy of a rich, a Roberts Court will slap it in a face. And if Congress tries to pledge a choosing by casting votes rights of minorities, a Roberts Court will slap it in a face again.

Notice how these actions work in tandem to have a abounding some-more absolute as well as those who have suffered hardship as well as taste reduction powerful. You don't need most aptitude to see who benefits from what a justice is doing.

Roberts's McCutcheon statute obliterates long-standing manners which extent a sum amounts of income a super-rich can minister to assorted domestic possibilities as well as committees in any a single choosing cycle. In 2012, people could give no some-more than a sum of $ 70,800 to all domestic committees as well as no some-more than $ 46,200 to all sovereign candidates.

The order is formed upon a domestic being Roberts sweeps in reserve with mistake naivete: Access as well as energy come not only from relations with particular members of Congress though from clever links to celebration leaders as well as celebration structures. Someone who helps a celebration keep a infancy by contributing to 200 or 300 possibilities as well as Lord knows how most domestic committees will have a lot some-more energy than we will if we have a $ twenty-five grant in a congressional race.

Roberts writes as if he is fortifying a First Amendment rights of all of us. But how most people have been unequivocally empowered by this decision? According to a Center for Responsive Politics, 1,715 donors gave a limit volume to celebration committees in 2012, as well as 591 gave a limit volume to sovereign candidates. The stream guess of a race of a United States stands during some-more than 317 million.

Those regulating a word "oligarchy" to report a domestic system of administration a Supreme Court is formulating have been not we do so lightly. Combine McCutcheon with a preference in a Citizens United box as well as we can see which a justice is evenly transferring some-more energy to a tiny, absolved splinter of a people.

I keep emphasizing a word "power" since a Roberts preference pretends which a judgment is as apart from this emanate as Pluto is from Earth. The reflective thinker Michael Walzer, in his book "Spheres of Justice," done a necessary distinction: "Freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly: nothing of these need income payments; nothing of them have been accessible during auction; they have been simply upon trial to each citizen. . . . Quick entrance to immeasurable audiences is expensive, though which is an additional matter, not of leisure itself though of change as well as power."

In his McCutcheon opinion, Roberts piously declares: "There is no right some-more simple in a democracy than a right to experience in electing a domestic leaders." This poetic joining transient him wholly final summer when he as well as his allies threw out Section 4 of a Voting Rights Act. Suddenly, efforts to strengthen a right of minorities "to experience in electing a domestic leaders" took second place at a back of all demeanour of worries about how Congress had assembled a law. The preference unleashed a frenzy in Republican-controlled states to pass laws which have it harder for African Americans, Latinos as well as bad people to vote.

Thus has this justice conferred upon abounding people a right to give immeasurable sums of income to politicians whilst undercutting a rights of millions of adults to expel a ballot.

Send in a oligarchs.

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The Fix: What Starbucks can tell us about America, in 1 map

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The Fix is an unapologetic Starbucks guy. (When we go in to the Starbucks closest to the Post, they know my name; I’m there which much.) So, when we came opposite this good map upon Quartz regulating Starbucks interpretation to item drinks which were scarcely renouned in sure tools of the nation we was intrigued, to contend the least. (Click the map to see the bigger version.)

Read full essay >>

Parker: Democrats try to make the Koch brothers the new face of the GOP

Exactly. Though wire as good as online headlines junkies know a names, a immeasurable infancy of Americans substantially have no thought who a Kochs are. They're about to find out.

For a uninitiated, a brothers have been libertarian billionaires whose immeasurable industries in petroleum, asphalt, healthy gas liquids, spark as good as ethanol occupy 60,000 people. More to a point, they have been spending gobs of their own income to lean governing body toward free-market beliefs as good as divided from stream supervision expansionist trends.

For this, they have been targeted by Democrats, who have been not only poverty-stricken when it comes to some-more modernized their own politicians as good as policies. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pennyless down all barriers to custom not long ago when he called a Kochs "un-American."

Charles Koch, in an op-ed in a Wall Street Journal, responded by job Democrats "collectivists."

"Instead of enlivening giveaway as good as open debate, collectivists essay to disprove as good as dominate opponents," wrote Koch. "They rivet in impression assassination. (I should know, as a roughly every day aim of their attacks.) This is a proceed which Arthur Schopenhauer described in a 19th century, which Saul Alinsky famously advocated in a 20th, as good as which so many despots have infamously practiced. Such strategy have been a discord of what is compulsory for a giveaway multitude — as good as a revealing pointer which a collectivists do not have great answers."

Billionaires, ya gotta adore 'em.

But they're so many simpler to hate.

Thus, Democrats have been perplexing to have a Koch brothers a brand new face of a Republican Party. Conveniently, a name Koch is conspicuous a same as which alternative entrepreneur goliath, Coke.

Appointing a chairman — or a span of brothers — as a tellurian face of a "enemy" is not a novel idea. During a prior choosing cycle, a Obama administration department identified Limbaugh as a loyal personality of a Republican Party. This was an easy sell as many Republicans genuflected to Limbaugh, even apologizing when they competence have annoyed him.

And Limbaugh, whose grandiosity needs no buffing, was all as good peaceful to accept use upon a credential. The some-more a left hates Limbaugh, a richer he gets. Oh, please, Mr. Democrat, hatred my courage a little more.

Mr. Limbaugh, take your bow, it's Koch time.

The doubling down upon a Kochs has been in fool around for a little months, modernized by visit mentions between magnanimous commentators who, yet maybe not as successful as Limbaugh, have vast followings. But Reid's McCarthyesque name-calling took ruin to a devil. It was not usually cringe-inducing though additionally profoundly sad. One would goal a personality of a Senate Democrats competence have improved controversial inclination during his egghead disposal.

Reid suffers no distress as good as dismissed behind which he was gay if people right away knew who those un-Americans are. The some-more who depreciate a Kochs, a better. The Kochs aren't only leaders of a Republican Party, as Democrats have been proposing; they have been a face of a Haves. To be vexed a Kochs is to be vexed a rich in general.

This is unequivocally a heart of a Democratic proposition. As a midterm elections take figure around a discuss about income inequality, a Kochs model a uncaring-est of a 1 percenters. Before Nov comes as good as goes, a Kochs competence as good have been tarred as good as feathered as good as done to float back upon a jackass down Pennsylvania Avenue.

One needn't await a brothers' welfare for unobstructed markets or their eagerness to account positions which competence preference them. Plenty of conservatives remonstrate with their await for tea celebration insurgents as good as their climate-change skepticism.

Allowing a super-wealthy to disproportionately change domestic outcomes competence in truth be bad for a approved routine — as good as that's of bona fide regard to all. But one's eyes should be far-reaching open when people have been singled out as un-American. What's next? A Senate cabinet questioning such un-American activities as advocating free-market beliefs or posterior entrepreneur endeavors?

Of course, I'm kidding. That could never occur here, solely it arrange of already has. When Reid called a Kochs un-American, a absolute supervision central dismissed a shot opposite a crawl of dual in isolation adults who have acted inside of a law whilst contributing resources to a manage to buy by employment.

Yes, it was bad when right-wingers called Obama un-American, though Obama is a many absolute male in a universe as good as a waste is only that. Reid owes a Kochs — as good as a American people — an apology.

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Lawmakers call on Commerce IG to fire top managers for alleged whistleblower silencing

All members of a House subcommittee which oversees a Commerce Department sealed a minute Tuesday job on a agency's examiner general, Todd Zinser, to glow a managers immediately.

They described a actions as a "thinly potential bid to dominate whistleblowers in to not stating misconduct."

"I would appreciate inaction by a IG on this make a difference to meant await for a dual [officials'] actions, in which box you have a bigger censure in which office," pronounced Rep. Paul C. Broun (R-Ga.), who heads a subcommittee.

The Office of Special Counsel carefully thought about Zinser's purpose in a purported bungle during Commerce as well as found no "documentary evidence" which he was wakeful of it, according to a letter.

The bipartisan minute came between taking flight concerns which sovereign agencies have been violating
whistleblower-protection laws with nondisclosure agreements.

A examination expelled Wednesday by a bureau of Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) found which usually a single senior manager dialect out of fifteen — Treasury — could uncover which it notifies employees which their whistleblower rights sojourn total notwithstanding a agreements.

Grassley pronounced in a make a difference which sovereign workers have been mostly "led to hold which they have sealed divided their rights to verbalise outward a sequence of command."

Zinser, who was allocated to his on all sides by President George W. Bush, signaled hostility Tuesday to glow a unnamed officials, observant in a make a difference which his bureau had already implemented a series of changes in reply to a Office of Special Counsel's findings.

The visual actions enclosed stealing a managers from supervisory duties for a single year, substantiating unchanging discipline for employee-separation agreements as well as destroying all copies of a disastrous opening reviews.

"We worked cooperatively with OSC via their review as well as took their concerns seriously," Zinser said. "We have changed on as well as go on to concentration on on condition which slip of a programs as well as operations of a Department of Commerce."

The examiner ubiquitous additionally remarkable which a Office of Special Counsel had sealed a box since of a actions which his bureau had implemented.

In their letter, a lawmakers described Zinser's reply to a OSC review as well as commentary as "entirely deficient as well as contemptuous."

The Office of Special Counsel pronounced in May which 4 members of Zinser's staff filed complaints about subdivision agreements.

Around which time, Zinser indicted dual of his agents in Dec 2012 of waging a allegation debate opposite his office.

The dual were underneath review for filing fake responsibility claims as well as clocking hours they didn't work.

The former employees, Rachel Ondrik as well as Kirk Yamatani, pleaded guilty in May to charges of time as well as assemblage fraud. They concluded to trial as well as $ 42,000 any in fines as well as compensation to a U.S. government.

A U.S. District Court decider authorised a dual agents to repel their pleas on interest after last which a court decider who rubbed their cases had not followed correct procedures.

The make a difference is right away tentative with prosecutors again, according to Steven Levin, an profession for Yamatani.

Prior to their defence agreements, a dual agents filed a censure with then-acting custom cabinet member Rebecca Blank observant which Zinser had used "meritless" inquiries to force employees out of his agency.

The Office of Special Counsel pronounced Yamatani as well as Ondrik were not between a employees who filed whistleblower complaints.

In the Loop: As health-care enrollees breeze past the 7 million goal, tech warriors celebrate a win

When attack 7 million enrollments seemed distant out of reach, White House officials denied which was ever an tangible benchmark, observant it was usually the array floated by the Congressional Budget Office. With enrollments during the yield when the marketplaces initial opened, the administration department department department tripped over itself to rage expectations. (The Post's Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, gave the White House dual "Pinocchios" in Jan for personification down 7 million as the target.)

But leading which sorcery array certain was means for jubilee for Park as well as the IT team.

"There was the array which essentially was set out by the Congressional Budget Office. . . . And everybody suspicion which was impossible, in all after you essentially had the hilly start," Park says upon the recording. "And you essentially am unapproachable to discuss it y'all, as well as you're the initial to know, which y'all with this day alone . . . have carried the round over the unfit line. We essentially exceeded the 7 million enrollments."

And the throng went wild. So, as is no warn to anyone, 7 million regularly was the goal.

Limos? That's the stretch.

Luxury limos have been the tiny fragment of the sovereign government's car fleet, as well as the Homeland Security as well as State departments work roughly all of the sovereign government's 130 limousines, save for 5 used by the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to 2012 interpretation from the General Services Administration. But during slightest the single congressman, the Democrat from the Deep South, thinks that's 65 limos as well many.

Rep. John Barrow (Ga.) introduced legislation late final week job for the 50 percent rebate in the sovereign government's limo tenure in mercantile 2015. The array of taxpayer-funded limousines jumped in the initial dual years of the Obama administration, with 412 in the supervision swift in 2010. But which has been cut by around two-thirds in the past dual years. (Government agencies have 650,061 vehicles in all.)

But which shift is mostly the make the difference of correctness rsther than than austerity. It turns out which agencies had been misreporting their sorts of vehicles, counting vans as well as convey buses as limousines. More correct stating — the limo is right away privately tangible by the GSA as "a car with the extended wheelbase, in all driven by the dedicated driver" — explains the dump in supervision limo use, not the clever bid to cut, yet an administration department department department central forked to an Obama gauge in 2011 to reassess the distance of the supervision swift as the factor.

Still, Barrow thinks some-more cuts could be had.

"No the single questions the need for protected as well as secure transport for the tip supervision officials as well as unfamiliar dignitaries, though in tough times you can have as well many of the great thing," Barrow told the Loop in an e-mail.

His bureau estimates which the assets could volume to millions, though it didn't have an expect figure. Barrow, the assuage Democrat fighting for his reelection, has pinpointed the array of tiny supervision expenditures to discharge in the name of weeding out greedy spending.

Also upon Barrow's chopping block? Tax deductions for authorised brothels.

'Nuclear' power

The Democrats might be saying the little proxy benefits from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Nov preference to go chief as well as mislay the Republicans' capability to obstructing legislation many nominees.

The acknowledgment Monday of Los Angeles counsel John Owens to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit — the chair had been empty for some-more than 9 years — brought the sum array of Obama picks donning the black robes for this initial entertain to 19, together with 3 appellate judges.

Compared with Obama's initial buliding in pre-nuclear-option years, that's the little progress. In the initial 3 months of 2010, the Senate reliable usually 6 Obama judges, according to the equate by the Alliance for Justice. The Senate reliable fourteen in which duration in both 2011 as well as 2012, though the array fell to 9 final year.

Owens's acknowledgment leaves 85 vacancies in the sovereign judiciary, together with fifteen upon the critical appeals courts. Obama has changed to fill 47 of those seats, with twenty-five of the nominees tentative upon the Senate building as well as twenty-two available Judiciary Committee action. (There have been additionally twenty-one judges so distant who pronounced they have been relocating upon inside of the subsequent year.)

The Federal Judicial Center reports which Obama has so distant filled 235 judgeships, 44 of them for appellate slots. By approach of comparison, President George W. Bush put 324 people upon the sovereign dais (62 of them for appeals courts) as well as Bill Clinton put the robes upon 372 nominees (66 upon appeals courts.)

If the Senate keeps up tighten to the stream gait — may be with the flurry toward the finish of this year — Obama could flattering many compare Bush's total.

But with the clever probability of the Senate switching to Republican carry out for Obama's final dual years, the array of legal confirmations is expected to turn the drip during best, with maybe usually the little district judges picked by bipartisan commissions removing through.

The genuine subject is either any Supreme Court retirees would be transposed with the GOP in charge. Should Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who usually incited 81) step down, it's probable someone could be found. But if Justices Antonin Scalia (who usually incited 78) or Anthony Kennedy (78 in July) step down, thereby melancholy the court's regressive majority, you could see an eight-justice tall justice for the while.

— With Colby Itkowitz

The blog: washingtonpost.com/
intheloop. Twitter:@InTheLoopWP.

Gerson: ‘Noah’ and ‘God’s Not Dead’: Graceless and clueless

But whilst "Noah" tries (and fails) to reconceptualize religion, the warn strike "God's Not Dead" definitely discredits it. This film is an lengthened practice in devout instruct fulfillment. (Freud is apparently not dead, either.) The plot: Fresh-faced Christian kid bests abusive, non-believer truth highbrow during his own game, as great as afterwards the highbrow converts usually prior to he dies. Along the way, the Muslim lady gets knocked about by her father as great as converts, as great as the magnanimous blogger gets cancer as great as converts. Everyone is the willing, resilient member in the clear fantasy, vaguely bringing to thoughts the really opposite kind of film.

The categorical complaint with "God's Not Dead" is not the cosmology or ethics yet the anthropology. It assumes which tellurian beings have been done out of cardboard. Academics have been conceited as great as cruel. Liberal bloggers have been preening as great as snarky (well, may be the film has the indicate here). Unbelievers mistrust since of personal demons. It is characterization by caricature.

And it raises the sobering question: Do evangelicals essentially perspective their neighbors this way, as dignified sorts as great as apologetic tools? Not in my experience. Most devout leaders as great as laymen we know would commend which the line in in between great as great as immorality (to counterfeit Solzhenitsyn) runs not in in between groups yet inside of each heart — as great as which beauty mostly moves in rebellious as great as indeterminate ways. In general, devout lives have been improved than their art.

Here evangelicals could sense from Catholic writers, whose art was mostly improved than their lives. Evelyn Waugh comes to mind. In "Brideshead Revisited," the operative of beauty leaves everybody — Sebastian failing during his monastery, Charles as great as Julia forgoing their adore — both cracked as great as transformed. In Graham Greene's "The Power as great as the Glory," the bad clergyman — the alcoholic father of an deceptive kid — unknowingly reenacts the Passion as great as becomes the saint as great as sufferer whilst desiring himself the failure. In Flannery O'Connor's "Revelation," Mrs. Turpin — respectable, upright, unpleasant — is postulated the prophesy of souls rock climbing toward sky in which the important come final as great as "even their virtues were being burnt away."

All these would have for great Lenten celebration of the mass as great as time improved outlayed than during the movies. Good eremite art — or great art by eremite people — does not figure the anticipation universe to heed to divine platitudes. It finds hints of beauty between the hull of damaged lives, where many of us can usually goal to find it. Art is indeed eremite usually when it is entirely human.

Consider the finale of "God's Not Dead," in which the non-believer professor, strike by the car, professes conviction to dual fortuitously nearing pastors who have been contented about the securing of his almighty fate. All's great which ends great — yet the male had died of inner draining upon the stormy pavement.

Compare this to Lord Marchmain's tortured slip toward genocide nearby the finish of "Brideshead Revisited." Since Marchmain is the over Catholic of "irregular life," Charles resists the attainment of the clergyman for the final rites as an e.g. of "superstition as great as trickery." But finally, during the bedside of the failing man, with the clergyman in attendance, Charles prays, "O God, if there is the God, pardon him his sins, if there is such the thing as sin." And then, some-more simply, "God pardon him his sins."

When Marchmain creates the pointer of the cross, Charles reflects: "Then we knew which the pointer we had asked for was not the small thing, not the flitting curtsy of recognition, as great as the word came behind to me from my childhood of the deceive of the church being lease from tip to bottom."

A doubter prays for the libertine, as great as both find grace. Which is some-more similar to art, as great as some-more similar to grace.

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.