With Jeff Sessions now officially leading the Justice Department, Donald Trump has set the stage for the administration to quote "restore safety in America" by getting tough on crime - especially drugs.

"I've been here two weeks. I've met a lot of law enforcement officials. Yesterday, I brought them into the Oval Office. I asked a group, what impact do drugs have in terms of a percentage on crime? They said, 75 to 80 percent. That's pretty sad. We're going to stop the drugs from pouring in. We're going to stop those drugs from poisoning our youth, from poisoning our people. We're going to be ruthless in that fight. We have no choice."

Alternet contributor Phillip Smith recently penned an article bluntly titled "Trump Goes Full Nixon on Law-and-Order Executive Orders, Vows 'Ruthless' War on Drugs and Crime".

But as Nixon's domestic-policy advisor and Watergate co-conspirator John Ehrlichman later admitted - Nixon's drug war was never about drugs.

It was about destroying Nixon's enemies.

Ehrlichman told Dan Baum in 1994 the "[The Nixon White House] knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. ... Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Since Nixon though, a lot has changed.

28 states and the District of Columbia have already legalized marijuana in some form, and more are following suit.

So will the Trump administration respect the 10th Amendment and embrace the budding industry across the country?

Or is it just a matter of time until Jeff "Good People Don't Smoke Marijuana" Sessions decides to disrupt your community and comes for YOUR pot?

-Thom

(What do you think? Tell us here.)

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10:30pm... Is the GOP Telling Women, 'You're Just a Toaster-Oven?' (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

Tuesday's Daily Stack 

Article: "Ex-Goldman banker Mnuchin installed as Treasury secretary" by David Lawder.

Article: "Trump national security aide Flynn resigns over Russian contacts" by Steve Holland and John Walcott .

Article: "Standing Rock Update" by Deborah MacKay.

Article: "Army veterans return to Standing Rock to form a human shield against police" by Sam Levin.

Book: "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn.

Bible: Genesis 2:16-17 "And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die."".

Bible: Genesis 3:5 "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil".

Article: "13th Amendment", December 6, 1865. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Book: "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late" by Thom Hartmann

Case: "Bush v. Gore", 2000. "The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States"

Article: "Hammurabi" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Epic of Gilgamesh".

Article: "Quantitative easing" by Wikipedia.

Article: "'Extraordinary' levels of pollutants found in 10km deep Mariana trench" by Damian Carrington.

Site: Big Oil Whistleblower John Bolenbaugh.

Site: #DefundDAPL.

Article: "The Original Affluent Society" by Marshall Sahlins.

Article: "Mental Health Professionals Warn About Trump" by Lance Dodes, Joseph Schachter.

Event: Boston, 17 February: "The War of North Dakota" Film Screening w/ Director Rod Webber" by Rod Webber.

Article: "Trump ban is boon for ISIS recruitment, former jihadists and experts say" by Eliza Mackintosh.

Article: "Donald Trump now being used in terrorist propaganda videos, Hillary Clinton says" by C. Eugene Emery Jr..

Book: What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return to Democracy by Thom Hartmann by Thom Hartmann

Article: "Oklahoma lawmaker: pregnant women's bodies aren't their own, because they are "hosts"" by Emily Crockett.

Book: The Population Bomb by The Population Bomb.

Book: Maybe One: A Case for Smaller Families by Bill McKibben.

Bible: Genesis 1:28 "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."".

Bible: Revelation 11:18 "The nations were angry, and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your people who revere your name, both great and small-- and for destroying those who destroy the earth."".

Article: "Oklahoma Lawmakers Want Men To Approve All Abortions" by Jordan Smith.

Article: "Homunculus" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Stockholm syndrome " by Wikipedia.

Article: "Trump and Trudeau are discussing women in the workforce, but a look at their cabinets reveals their opposing views on gender" by Neha Thirani Bagri.

Book: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Book: The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler.

Site: The Darwin Project.

Article: "Survival of the fittest" by Wikipedia.

Book: The history of England by Paul Rapin de Thoyras.

Bible: Leviticus 15:16 "And if any man's seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the even.".

Case: "Griswold v. Connecticut", 1965.

Book: "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image" by Leonard Shlain (Thom's review).

Article: "Aileen Wuornos" by Wikipedia.

Movie: "Monster (2003 film)".

Site: The Stephanie Miller Show.

Site: The Rachel Maddow Show.

Site: The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.

Article: "Betsy DeVos "never believed" in conversion therapy, but donated millions to organizations that do" by Mathew Rodriguez.

 

Talk Media News Segment:
- Patrick Gavin   

Article: "Sean Spicer press conference - live updates", Feb 14, 2017.

Article: "Trump fired Flynn over lack of 'trust,' Spicer says" by Justin Duckham.

Article: "Senate approves Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary; Shulkin as Veterans Affairs Secretary" by Bryan Renbaum.

Article: "What Happened While Trump Was Tweeting" by Jack Shafer.

Article: "Labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder in jeopardy" by John King.

Site: "Goats for the old Goat".

Hour Three: Should Progressives Support a GOP-Backed Carbon Tax?
- Charles Komanoff, The Carbon Tax Center/The Nation

Article: "Progressives Need to Get Over Themselves and Support This GOP-Backed Carbon-Tax Plan" by Charles Komanoff.

Article: "Republican elders call for new national carbon tax to replace federal regulations" by Oliver Milman.

Article: "The Conservative Case For Carbon Dividends" by James A. Baker, III, Martin Feldstein, Ted Halstead, N. Gregory Mankiw, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., George P. Shultz, Thomas Stephenson, Rob Walton.

Article: "The Clean Power Plan: A Climate Game Changer" by Union of Concerned Scientists.

Law: "Glass-Steagall Act", 1933.

Law: Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1999) (Financial Services Modernization Act Of 1999).

Book: The price of power : electric utilities and the environment (pdf) by Charles Komanoff, Council on Economic Priorities.

 

Article: "Serial Killer Statistics" by Aamodt, M. G. ("Frequency of Serial Killers - Gender by Decade - United States Only" is on page 8)

Article: "Oklahoma Republican Pushing Anti-Choice Bill Calls Women 'Hosts'" by Nadia Prupis.

Article: "Trump knew Flynn misled officials on Russia calls for 'weeks,' White House says" by Abby Phillip.

Article: "Superfund" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Love Canal" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Sweden's recycling is so revolutionary, the country has run out of rubbish" by Hazel Sheffield.

Video: Every Sperm is Sacred - Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

Article: "Tennessee GOP bill says children born through artificial insemination are not 'legitimate'" by David Edwards.

 

Is Trump Causing Us All To Become Depressed?
- Deborah Stokes, PhD  

Article: "D. C. sniper attacks", 2002 by Wikipedia.

Article: "September 11 attacks", 2001 by Wikipedia.

Wednesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET 

 

I'll be debating Libertarian Charles Sauer of the The Market Institute

 

Plus, Dan Miller will be here to discuss the conservative Carbon Dividends Plan.

 

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

 

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"

 

And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...