A motley assortment

More than two years after marijuana was legalized in New York State, only 27 businesses have been licensed. Yet Queens City Councilwoman Lynn Schulman supports cracking down on unlicensed shops.

The shop that I have bought from has a sign saying "No entry if you're under 21" and checks younger people's IDs. The smoke I've gotten is excellent. Yet Schulman complains that unlicensed shops "sell unregulated products to underaged youth."

Schulman also favors the new law that allows for landlords to be fined for renting stores to smoke shop operators. The fact that Schulman is a self-style progressive does not make her any less unreasonable.

On another dope note, The Colorado Supreme Court rightly ruled, by a 4-3 vote, that Donald Trump should not be on the state's primary ballot. They ruled based on him leading an insurrection, which disqualifies him according to the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

This would not have been necessary if President Biden's Justice Department had indicted and gotten a conviction of Trump for insurrection. But indictments of Trump only started this year, and so far none have been for insurrection.

Now I doubt the U.S. Supreme Court, consisting of six Republicans, half of whom were nominated by Trump, will uphold the Colorado decision. But if two Republicans were to side with Democrats to uphold this, they would do more to stop Trump than Biden's Justice Department has done.

Then there's the battle between the Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, and the Democratic dominated City Council. The Council voted, with a veto-proof majority, to outlaw solitary confinement. As of this writing, Adams has suggested he could nonetheless veto the legislation.

On the morning of Dec. 16th, a Rikers inmate, Latif Gina, apparently attacked Correction Officer Kristin Lonnborg, biting her on her wrists. Gina was put in solitary confinement. That's something that could not have been done if this bill was already law.

The bill’s sponsor, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, argued that solitary confinement should not be used for infractions. But it is needed to protect correction officers and other inmates from violently out-of-control inmates.

Politicians often take extreme positions one way or another without showing the flexibility to take things on a case-by-case basis. Obviously, solitary confinement should only be used for the

most dangerous inmates and not merely to punish for infractions.

Officers who do the former should be supported while those who do the latter should be forced to find a new line of work.

Finally, members of the Association of Legislative Employees, the recently formed union for aides to City Council members, have still not been offered a decent contract. They want salaries raised to a barely livable level of $75,000 a year while the Council is offering between $44,000 and $50,000. They also want the newfangled idea of being paid for overtime they work. That's apparently too progressive for the Council’s alleged progressives.

Those are just some more examples of how if the Republicans were not so much worse, the Democrats would look like garbage.

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