Want to hear the first chapter of my book HOW TO ARGUE THE CONSTITUTION WITH A CONSERVATIVE? Of course you do!
by Guest Blogger Steve Vaughan
Our favorite Chinese restaurant is a five-minute drive from our house. For my money–which they get a lot of–it’s the best in town.
Whenever we order from–whether it’s dinner for eight adults or a snack for Alex and me–they give us the same delivery time, “45 minute.” And the food is always here in 30 minutes, tops. And the order is always correct and the food is always great. I’m pretty sure they know the delivery isn’t going to take 45 minutes, but they build in time to deal with complications. If the food gets here in 45 minutes, we’re satisfied.
That’s a smart way to run a business. It’s a smart way to run public policy too.
Unfortunately for us, our favorite restaurant is “closed until further notice.” I’m not sure why. It has a very tiny dining room. I’d think delivery and takeout makes up a big part of their business. I hope no one is ill.
So, when Alex and I wanted Chinese for dinner a couple of weeks ago, we had to try a new place. They were even closer to our house. With a decent size catapult they could literally have thrown the food to our porch.
They promised the food in 30 minutes and got it there in 20, but part of the order was wrong and the rest was awful. To be fair the new place confounded my Egg Roll Test for Chinese restaurants. The egg rolls were good and Alex said his hot and sour soup was delicious. (Yes, my 12-year-old eats hotter food than I do. Don’t judge.)
But when we turned to our entrees the corner cutting was obvious. Alex had his usual, chicken fried rice and I felt like something simple and had shrimp fried rice.
Okay, first, fried rice is supposed to be fried. This was white rice with a few peas and carrots thrown in.
Second, the protein is supposed to be cooked in the rice, at least briefly. Here it had been tossed on top of the previously prepared rice. My entree had tiny pink baby shrimp of the kind I would expect to find garnishing a salad. They tasted okay, but were wrong for the dish.
About 30 seconds after he started his rice, Alex held out a piece of chicken on a fork and said, “Try this.” He was doing that thing where you can’t believe how bad something tastes until you get a second opinion. Although we teach Alex never to spit out food, I spit it into the kitchen trash can. I don’t know what they did to that chicken but they made it foul, not fowl.
And so this restaurant will never get another dollar from us, showing that cutting corners is a bad way to run a business. Or to create public policy. Particularly public health policy.
If you’re following along this far, you probably know where I’m going with this.
The majority of the nation’s governors–Democrats and Republicans alike–and all of our leading healthcare experts are running a good restaurant. They know, that in the biggest public health emergency in 100 years, there are potentially a lot of “unknown unknowns“ out there. So they are setting goals for ending social distancing that are data-driven, which take into account how much we have flattened the curve and the danger of new outbreaks if restrictions are relaxed too soon.
Unfortunately, they are competing with an unlicensed food truck parked on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The administration’s response to this crisis has been driven by everything but the data. By Trump’s arrogance and insecurity. By partisanship. By wishful thinking. And by an almost instinctive anti-intellectualism from the president and his supporters.
Some are saying they are willing to die to restart the economy. You can count me out of storming that hill.
Others, “Corona Virus Resisters,” are flouting state regulations and gathering in large groups. As long as they keep to themselves, great. They will shortly prove Darwin (who they probably don’t believe in) right. However, if they endanger other people, they should be arrested like anyone else who is a threat to public safety.
What the emergence of these groups show is that in the Age of Trump, stupidity is no longer a character trait–it’s an ideology.
These people are fools. Let us not suffer fools gladly.
And let us demand that US public health policy is run at least as well as a good Chinese restaurant.
Steve Vaughan is a reporter and writer residing in Richmond, Virginia. He holds a degree in Political Science from VCU and a masters in Wise Ass from the School of Life.
Bernie has now dropped out of the race, leaving us with Biden as our candidate.
Look, I’m an old guy. The only time my choice in the primaries won the nomination and the presidency was with Obama. I’m used to not always getting my way — that’s how democracy works.
Biden wasn’t even in my top 5 this time, but he’s still going to be a gigantic improvement over Trump. (Hell, most Republicans would be an improvement, so that’s not saying much.)
Refusing to vote for him because he isn’t perfect is like a kid holding his breath till he turns blue and gets his way. Let’s be adults. Sometimes our choices aren’t perfect.
I currently have an appeal pending in the Pennsylvania Superior Court regarding our DUI laws as they relate to the presence of marijuana in one’s system. The Pennsylvania ACLU has joined my appeal.
Here’s the press release my law office has prepared:
The current DUI law punishes anyone with any amount of marijuana in their system and as such is unconstitutional, according to Fisher and Fisher Attorney Michael A. Ventrella of Stroudsburg. He has filed an appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court on this issue which has been joined by the Pennsylvania ACLU.
“The DUI law was written years ago, before there was legal marijuana in many states and before Pennsylvania provided for medical marijuana,” Ventrella explains. “The law says that if you have any amount of marijuana in your system while driving, you are automatically guilty of Driving Under the Influence even if the marijuana is no longer affecting you.”
The case on appeal concerns a driver who was pulled over for a taillight violation. The officer thought he smelled marijuana so requested the driver to give blood to prove he was not under the influence. No marijuana was found on the driver or in the car. The blood test came back with an inactive metabolite of marijuana in the driver’s system. He was charged and at his trial, the Commonwealth’s expert witness testified that an “inactive metabolite” meant that he had consumed the marijuana possibly days earlier and that the presence of the metabolite did not affect his driving in the slightest.
Under Pennsylvania DUI law, you can be charged with DUI if it is clear that your driving was impaired due to alcohol or drugs, but you can also be charged with DUI simply if there is the presence of marijuana in your system.
The court, bound by the law, found him not guilty of driving while impaired but guilty of DUI for having the marijuana in his system.
“This means that if you consume marijuana in a state where it is legal and then come to Pennsylvania, you can be prosecuted for DUI even if your driving was not impaired in the slightest,” Ventrella explained. “It also means that technically, anyone who has a medical marijuana card and uses their prescription legally can never drive in Pennsylvania.”
Ventrella pointed out in his brief to the Superior Court that the law punishes legal behavior and is therefore overbroad and unconstitutional. “The law needs to be rewritten to adjust to the changes that marijuana laws have had on society,” Ventrella says, “but the legislature of Pennsylvania has yet to do what other states have done to remedy the situation.”
The Pennsylvania ACLU joined in with the appeal and filed an amicus brief, emphasizing that the law does not define the word “metabolite” and is therefore vague and unconstitutional.
The Superior Court originally scheduled a hearing on the appeal for April but has cancelled it due to the corona virus shut-down. It is unclear whether it will be rescheduled or if the Court will simply make a decision based on the briefs.
UPDATE: The Superior Court denied the appeal by ignoring pretty much everything we had argued. The case is now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which has not yet decided whether to accept it.
UPDATE 2 (JULY 2021): The Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused to take the case, and did not give a reason. So now my client has to go to jail even though he wasn’t driving impaired and the marijuana in his system was inactive.
So it looks like Joe Biden will be our nominee. Meh.
As I said in a post just a few days ago, I rarely get my first choice when it comes to nominating candidates. And often, that means that the person I thought would have the best chance of winning doesn’t get it, and then we lose in November.
The majority tends to go for the safe and predictable. Often the bland. Poll the majority on their favorite restaurant and you’ll get Olive Garden. 
Ask them their favorite music and it’s Celine Dion or whatever is on some reality TV show about singers. Favorite books are the trashy ones. Favorite movies never win Oscars. Favorite art is dogs playing poker.
Why we suddenly expect different results with politics is beyond me.
Anyway, I thought that Bernie and Biden were two of our weakest candidates this time around. Warren, Harris, Booker or Castro would better stir up the base and get people on our side.
But of the two, Bernie and Biden, I prefer Biden. Not because I agree with him more on the issues. Definitely not — Bernie’s message is what I’ve been fighting for my entire adult life. But Bernie the messenger? That’s a different issue. (Warren had pretty much the same message but she does not have the baggage Bernie would bring.)
There are moderates around the country who hate Trump but could never bring themselves to vote for a “socialist.” Some of that is seen in the primary results.
We can’t pretend that isn’t true just because we don’t want it to be. We need to sweep the smaller races too in places where that’s possible, and if you talk to any political expert in a purple state, that’s what they’ll tell you: Bernie being the candidate would hurt their chances. Could Bernie win the Presidency? Sure, but it’s not just about that. We have to look at the big picture.
It’s just politics, people. I’m not thrilled with what we’re ending up with, but you don’t give up. You don’t whine about losing. You don’t attack the party because a majority of its members have a different view than you. Oh sure, you can debate whether it’s a good idea and you can discuss the ramifications of the decision — this is politics, after all, we’re going to disagree — but these are the cards we’ve been dealt and we have to keep playing with what we’ve got.
Do I wish the vote had gone another way? Of course. Like I do most of the time. But bitching and complaining that you didn’t get your way solves nothing.
ventrellaquest.com 