Questioned about the narcotics, Florence “stated the package wrapped around his penis was not his,” reported Deputy Levi Blake. It appears Florence–who has multiple cocaine convictions–did not identify the purported owner of the drugs wrapped around his penis (or whether that individual consented to their drugs being stored in such a fashion).
6 thoughts on “A Florida Man denied ownership of baggies containing cocaine and methamphetamine that cops found “wrapped around his penis””
Comments are closed.
If we consider, for a moment, the possibility of an authoritarian police state to be fairly applied across its populace, like Singapore, say, as in a benevolent dictatorship operating with a heavy hand, then… That we can see that in some way as being on balance a good thing, perhaps. But I definitely don’t see the war on drugs in that way at all. That’s why I object to anti-democratic tactics more in practice, even, than in principle. Rawls was right, but his litmus test (the golden rule) was not only not new, but it doesn’t go quite far enough.
If anybody wants to continue the conversation on Joe Manchin.
Scoopy wrote:
WV voters believe that Manchin should vote against BBB altogether.
70% of West Virginians of both parties agree with this statement: “Senator Joe Manchin is an independent voice who is willing to oppose national politicians of both parties in order to do what is right for West Virginia.”
I don’t think he’s that concerned about re-election. Furthermore, he’s not up for re-election until 2024, at which time he’ll be 77 years old, looking at another six-year term, so he may well be in his last hurrah right now.
1.Since I’m on school vacation right now, this is a chance to give a lesson here I give in class. In the early 2000s, the British Labour Party government citing polls showing support for an increase in welfare rates and showing support from the public for the government using tax money to lift people out of poverty. The next year, they raised the welfare rates again and were surprised when there was fairly intense public opposition to this move given the polling.
The mistake they made was:
1.To read too much into a general poll about the public supporting lifting people out of poverty.
2.To read polls supporting increases in welfare rates in aggregate, with the notion of an actual (marginal) additional increase in welfare rates.
The purpose of the lesson is to show the difference between aggregate (total) costs and benefits and marginal increases. As economists say something like ‘what happens with the 101st widget?’
In this case, I both disagree that that poll necessary is a reflection of Manchin’s opposition to BBB or that the people of West Virginia agree with Manchin’s opposition, and I certainly disagree that it can be used to indicate that he would easily be reelected. As I said previously, just because Republicans in West Virginia regard Manchin as a ‘temporary hero’ certainly does not mean they’d vote for him against an actual Republican opponent.
In regards to the specifics of Manchin personally, I think it’s safe to say that he is the last, at the Federal level anyway, of the ‘ancestral’ Southern Democrats. He has even said that he wants to remain a Democrat because he’s always been a Democrat, but he is an old style Southern Conservative Democrat. The only odd thing there is that a fair number of old style Southern Conservatives were fairly supportive of a good deal of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal social spending (like Lyndon Johnson) and there is other polling that shows that West Virginians aren’t economic right wingers opposed to raising taxes on the wealthy or opposed to welfare. (However, that could get back to my previous comment about polling.)
In regards to why Manchin didn’t just come right out and oppose BBB, I think it’s pretty clear he couldn’t do that until the Infrastructure package that he supported was decoupled from this first. After that, it seems likely that he was concerned Senate Democrats might ‘couple’ the Defense Appropriations bill that he also supported with BBB.
In opposing this BBB, Manchin among his many different arguments, mentioned that he was concerned that BBB would take money away from the United States ability to deal with future foreign concerns for the next 10 years or so. I don’t know if he made any comment like that prior to the Defense Appropriations bill passing.
You miss the point. It doesn’t matter what you think the polls say. It only matters what Manchin thinks they say. And it seems pretty clear that Manchin feels he’s speaking for West Virginia. It may be possible to change his mind with the sorts of arguments you’re making (although I doubt it), but I don’t see anyone trying to persuade him with that kind of logic. Mostly I just hear people making unsupported emotional appeals or insulting him, which is likely to make him dig in deeper, and in turn scuttle Biden’s hopes to turn his own competency rating around.
Some progressives are actually talking about going for nothing at all rather than trying to pass a compromised version of BBB, and they’re going to organize massive protests in favor of passing the whole enchilada.
Yeah, that’ll work.
In other words, they are determined to lose everything, even though he had (allegedly) agreed to support that $1.8 trillion version. Meanwhile, the GOP senators chuckle menacingly at the whole mess and the good old boys chant “Let’s go, Brandon.”
The first point is a fair point, I agree with the distinction.
However, I don’t know how much he actually does feel that. He was very sensitive to other Democrats writing editorials in West Virginia newspapers or giving interviews on West Virginia television extolling the virtues of BBB.
I think if Manchin is so confident that West Virginians both agree with him on BBB and oppose the ‘outsider’ influence, that he’d have no concern with his fellow Democrats doing this, and wouldn’t be so insistent on ‘cancelling’ them speaking to West Virginians.
That’s certainly one way that I’d take on Manchin. The other is, to the degree possible, for the Biden Administration to look at moving a lot of the Federal Government agencies that are placed in West Virginia due to the outsized influence of Senator Robert Byrd. After all, if Senator Manchin is so concerned about the deficit and doesn’t like wasteful government spending, it’s very unlikely that these agencies can be run the most efficiently being in a small rural state like West Virginia.
I’m both sick of illicit drug laws and stunned by the continued hypocrisy of the Republican Party (and how little they’ve been called out over it) that argues ‘freedom’ (or really freedumb) in regards to Covid but that still even continues to oppose legalizing marijuana yet alone hard drugs.
The stance on drugs that is consistent with freedom, especially ‘my body my choice’ and that is best from a health perspective with all the opioid deaths is to legalize and regulate all drugs. If people, while on drugs, commit illegal acts, then arrest them for the illegal acts, and if the drugs are a major contributor, then it should be possible to order them into rehab.
Despite all the stigma, it would actually be possible for many people even on hard drugs to maintain a normal life and work a regular job, there are many that already do so. The thing by far that makes that hardest to do is that the drugs are illegal. It’s the illegality itself of illicit drugs that causes the most problems.
Back to the Covid and Republicans, I think what is clear is that this hypocrisy is maintained, even though the war on drugs makes the United States into a fairly authoritarian police state, which these Republicans lie that they oppose, is that Covid-19 restrictions effect the Republican voters, whereas the ‘war on drugs’ only effect people who the Republican voters hate. So, for Republicans it’s a case of ‘I want laws that restrict the freedoms of ‘the others’ just don’t you dare restrict my freedom!’