Post by Anja Nieser on Sept 14, 2006 11:37:20 GMT -5
Kinky Friedman calls for legalization of marijuana
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 %
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."
(source: Associated Press)
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 %
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."
(source: Associated Press)