Whenever I give motivational speeches at Lawton area high schools, I always share three simple rules to live by. They are:
1. Don't knock an illegal drug before trying it. Well, unless that drug is heroin, meth or crack. Then it's okay.
2. Avoid getting your haircut at a chain / or franchise. I wish a motivational speaker would have told me this rule when I was in college and still had thick hair with pigment.
3. Learn how to count to three. Otherwise, you'll find yourself looking like an idiot.
As the photo above shows, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford doesn't seem to care all that much for my advice. Skeletor's red-haired step child doesn't know how to count to three, gets his haircut at Sports Clips, and is now leading an effort to withhold funding to Native American tribes that grow marijuana on the tribal lands.
From NewsOK.com:
Sen. James Lankford proposed Thursday that Indian tribes cultivating or selling marijuana on their lands be stripped of federal funds.
Lankford, R-Oklahoma City, said he introduced his bill after hearing testimony in the Indian Affairs Committee about the toll drugs have taken in Indian Country. His bill was assigned to the committee.
Before we continue, let's give it up to James Lankford for maintaining our state's longstanding tradition of sending Senators to Washington who will make us all look as backwards and idiotic as humanly possible. Way to go, sir! We salute you like a teenager losing his or her virginity at the Falls Creek Church Camp.
So, other than being a conservative moralist who wants to regulate other people's choices and lifestyles that do not affect him, why's he being so hardcore about this?
“The Native American community experiences the highest drug induced death rate in the country," Lankford said.
Ok, that is a problem, but what exactly does marijuana have to do with it? Marijuana is probably the safest drug out there. You can't overdose on it and it has actual medical benefits. Hell, Acetaminophen poisoning sends more Native Americans to the ER than marijuana. Is Lankford also going to push to ban Tylenol?
"It is important for our nation to help address this issue for the sake of the next generation of Native Americans. This legislation is a good step in trying to protect young tribal members and fulfill our trust responsibility to Native Americans."
Listen, I'm sure our Native American population appreciates your concern and sudden interest in their health and well-being, but forgive them if they don't want "protection" from a white, Bible-thumping, Washington D.C. politician. They'd probably just prefer it if you just left them alone and let them do their own thing.
Marijuana cultivation and sale are illegal under federal law. However, the Obama administration has recently given tribes flexibility in how they want to approach enforcement of marijuana laws on their reservations.
That flexibility may even extend to allowing American Indian tribes to legalize marijuana on their land and to tribal governments profiting from the sale. Lankford's bill would prohibit that...
Tribes receive federal funds, including grants, from numerous federal departments and agencies for the array of services they provide.
Question: If marijuana is a killer drug, why hasn't Lankford introduced a bill to strip federal funding from states that have legalized marijuana? The answer probably has something to do with hypocrisy, double standards and Native American tribes being an easy target.
Obviously, James Lankford has no clue what he's doing here. Perhaps he should focus on topics where he's more knowledgable, like pregnancy...
Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma argued on Monday that he had the right to lecture women about whether or not they should get abortions because he had impregnated his wife and “had something to do with the birth.”
“I’m a dad of two daughters,” he said. “I had something to do with the birth as well, and was also there. I was there during the sonograms. My wife and I are extremely close.
Okay, maybe that's a bad idea. Perhaps James Lankford should just do us all a favor and shut up. I know he has an Oklahoma tradition to maintain and everything, but maybe it's time to forge a different path. At the very least, he should stop going to chains to get his haircut.
