Kinky Friedman calls for legalization of marijuana

[CheckO]

Friedman calls for legalization of marijuana

08:54 PM CDT on Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Associated Press


AUSTIN – Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman said Wednesday he favored legalizing marijuana to keep nonviolent users out of prison and said he would push to release those already in prison for the offense to free prison space for more violent criminals.

"I think that's long overdue," Friedman said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think everybody knows what (U.S. Sen.) John McCain said is right: We've pretty well lost the war on drugs doing it the way we're doing it. Drugs are more available and cheaper than ever before. What we're doing is not working."

Friedman, an author and entertainer known for his political incorrectness, is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry. Also in the race are Democrat Chris Bell, a former congressman from Houston; and Carole Strayhorn, the Texas comptroller elected as a Republican but running as an independent. The AP is meeting with each of the major candidates in the weeks before the Nov. 7 election. Libertarian James Werner also is running.

Friedman bristled at criticism of his comments about Houston's Katrina evacuees contributing to a spike in crime in the state's largest city; said he would "clean house" in numerous state boards and commissions whose members are appointed by the governor; would get rid of the Texas TAKS test for public school students even if that meant the state would lose federal school money; and would give more careful review to death row inmates facing imminent execution.

Friedman last week said he would provide $100 million to Houston, or any other city facing similar crime problems, so Houston could hire 1,200 new police officers to deal with crime and weed out the "crackheads and thugs" among the thousands of Katrina evacuees from New Orleans who relocated to Houston.

Roundly criticized as a thinly veiled attack on blacks from Louisiana, Friedman said Wednesday his proposal "was not in any way racist."

"How can you possibly regret that, telling the truth?" he asked. "I am not a racist, I am a realist. In looking at the statistics, I know that 20 percent of the homicides in Houston have been committed by the element in the evacuee population.

"I never said what color their skin was. I never said all evacuees are crack dealers or crackheads. I'm smarter than that."

He said one of the first calls he'd make as governor would be to Robert Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam in Houston, who he said "the Lord put in my path at the Austin airport earlier this year."

"He's a very visionary man," Friedman said. "You would think we're at opposite poles, but we're not. That's the guy I would tap. I would tap him to help us get those gangsters and thugs and crackheads out of there."

He said he also didn't like being called a politician.

"I don't mind being called a flip-flopper," he said, a description Perry's campaign has placed on him. "I think we actually could use a flip-flopper as governor because a flip-flopper is a human being open to change, and God knows change is what we need now. We don't need a guy who is driving this train into a ditch because he stayed the course. And I mean the governor."

Acknowledging the Texas governor's authority is limited compared with executives in other states, Friedman said he would use the bully pulpit of the governor's office to cajole legislators, whom he said he didn't trust.

"I do not trust the media either," he said. "This is a no-brainer right here. The legislators are not the visionary leaders of Texas. We don't look for them to lead us. Right now the lobbyists are leading us. We have a lack of leadership, a vacuum.

"I think I could charm the pants off legislators, but I never want the Legislature to lead. Can you imagine what the Ten Commandments would look like if they went through the state Legislature?"

He also said he would use one of the governor's few powerful roles in appointing state board members to replace as many as he could, including regents at the University of Texas and Texas A&M.

"You clean house," he said. "You get the old farts out of there. You put a bunch of young people in and you put a bunch of people who care about Texas. It's pretty simple."

He singled out lottery Director Anthony Sadberry for firing, branding the Texas lottery a failure.

"The main thing we know is the lottery hasn't worked here in helping education," Friedman said. "It was never our salvation."

And he criticized an ad campaign touting the lottery success as a tool that's "made the incumbent look good. Not one kid in this rich state has gone to college with the help of the lottery."

He also cited the state's education commissioner, Shirley Neeley, for dismissal.

"She might be Ghandi, but she's going," he said.

He called the TAKS tests "a flawed concept," and said he would get rid of it. But he wasn't sure if he would replace it with something else, even when reminded federal money – some $2.3 billion in the 2005-2006 biennium – was tied to the testing.

"I'll have to have somebody show this to me, but I don't think we're making much money on it. I don't think this has worked out," he said. "If there's a way of getting federal money, I'd have better clout with George W. than the current governor.

"It's a bad idea," he said of the TAKS test. "It would fail Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein if we gave it to them.... It's driving the good teachers out or crazy."

On the death penalty, he said he would more carefully look at capital cases approaching execution and suggested he would be more liberal in using the governor's authority to grant a one-time 30-day reprieve to condemned killers.

"I would be careful killing a guy," he said. "I think there are people who need to die, but the question I've asked mostly is: When was the last time we've executed a rich man in Texas?

"We're working with a very imperfect system and I think we've made mistakes. I would not say if it was good enough for the jury, it's good enough for me. I'm not (actress) Susan Sarandon. I don't think every murderer is innocent. I would take these case by case."

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[Ash]

That's awesome, but too bad he'll get his ass handed to him by a filthy republican.

[Roos]

Kinky is on 105.3 right now.

[KING SIZE]

damn.

[e-brake]

this guy just gets better and better.

[LaunchPaD]

Originally Posted by Ash

That's awesome, but too bad he'll get his ass handed to him by a filthy republican.

Its going to be close

[Croix]

i probably should have gone ahead and filled out that voter registration card when i got my license renewed 2 days ago....

damn


on the plus side, I have never been called for jury duty.

[Blake]

Originally Posted by Croix

i probably should have gone ahead and filled out that voter registration card when i got my license renewed 2 days ago....

damn


on the plus side, I have never been called for jury duty.

go ahead and register to vote! you have enough time.

Voter Information

[e-brake]

Originally Posted by Croix

i probably should have gone ahead and filled out that voter registration card when i got my license renewed 2 days ago....

damn


on the plus side, I have never been called for jury duty.

register while you can, its going to be a close election, and one that might actually mean somehting for a change.

[SOA Child]

That will go over well with the texas voters.

[kalamu]

the more he talks, the less likely he'll be elected in this state

no matter how valid his reasoning is... it just won't happen right now

[Roos]

Originally Posted by kalamu

the more he talks, the less likely he'll be elected in this state

no matter how valid his reasoning is... it just won't happen right now

As much as I hate to partially agree with you:

I like everything I have heard from him and I will vote for him. He's real and the issues he focuses on make sense to me (as someone who doesn't follow political issues regularly).

But joking around about drinking tequila and smoking cigars with Willie while in office just doesn't seem like a good strategy to win. It's a good strategy to keep it real because I think he honestly is keeping it real... but to win over any conservatives, it just doesn't seem the right angle to take.

Whoa. Someone slap me. Talkin' politics.

[e-brake]

I think with his new plan to shake up the old people at the board's at the universities will get the college stuents to the polls for a change.

[Blake]

For those wondering about his "conservative" voters:

cbs11tv.com - Friedman's Ideas Sound Good To Many Republicans
Laredo Morning Times - Friedman casts net towards Perry fans

[e-brake]

Originally Posted by shadymuz

For those wondering about his "conservative" voters:

cbs11tv.com - Friedman's Ideas Sound Good To Many Republicans
Laredo Morning Times - Friedman casts net towards Perry fans

was about to say his property tax proposals definately peeked a lot of conservitive intrest.