 Is the mainstream media turning on Vice President Kamala Harris? In a new op-ed, the Washington Post Kathleen Parker made the case that Harris has failed as Vice President and should step aside. Parker writes, the Democratic Party's indulgence of identity politics has proved successful in building a diverse organization, but its strategy of courting and pandering to minority voters is the road to ruin. Meanwhile, Harris, who previously prosecuted drug crimes as California's attorney general, sang a different tune when announcing the Biden administration's recommendations to reclassify marijuana on the federal drug schedule. Third, we have directed the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to reassess how marijuana is classified under the federal drug schedule. And I cannot emphasize enough that they need to get to it as quickly as possible, and we need to have a resolution based on their findings and their assessment. But this issue is stark when one considers the fact that on the schedule currently marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin, marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin, and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd not to mention patently unfair. It's absurd. It's absurd. Indeed. All right, let's start with Kamala Harris's position as Vice President before we argue about the reclassification of marijuana. Look, I think it's pretty obvious that Kamala Harris hasn't done the Biden ticket really a lot of good ever. She has for the most part been less popular than Joe Biden when you poll people about her. Now Joe Biden is so unpopular. I think they might be about the same or she might even be more popular. But she hasn't brought a lot to the ticket now. No, I mean she was put in charge of the root causes of the border crisis and it took her what like six months to even go to the border. Then she was put in charge of the Democrats massive federal overhaul of elections, which obviously didn't get anywhere. And I think they've given her like a few other small tasks since then, but have largely kept her out of the spotlight because of how uniquely terrible she is at both policy and public speaking. But this Washington Post article is sort of an interesting admission from someone of sensibly on the left or pro-Biden obviously anti-Trump that Kamala is not the obvious successor to the current president. And this is problematic for them because you now have California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer sort of saying like, hey, we're not trying to angle for the president's job. We're not trying to replace him on the ticket before November. That leaves Kamala and that's starting to terrify Biden supporters. Yeah, I'm somewhat skeptical that Gavin Newsom would end up being more popular. And as a former resident of Michigan, where I grew up, I'm deeply skeptical that Gretchen Whitmer would prove to be more popular. A lot of COVID criticism of her, a lot of the whole remember her whole kidnapping sort of thing. Yeah, the fake kidnapping. January 6th is actually an inside job, was very provably arranged by the FBI and paid off by FBI informants. But without getting into that, yes, I think the unpopularity of Kamala is like something that argues against Joe Biden actually being replaced or the idea that they replace Joe Biden is always ridiculous because Joe Biden is the head of the party. He has to decide not to run. And if he had a very popular, obvious successor, maybe there'd be more pressure on him to do that. But she has not proven, you know, she was, that op-ed refers to the identity politics issue of it. She was positioned as someone who would be attractive to women and to black voters. But there was actually not a lot of evidence of that to begin with, that just because she checks those boxes, she speaks to those voters in some way. And frankly, she had a kind of harsher on criminal justice background that maybe, if you'd like, asked those voters wasn't even attractive to them in the first place. I don't know. I think you have an indictment of the identity politics approach, I think. Yeah. Well, definitely that. And it's interesting to hear, again, a Washington Post columnist admit to that because that kind of criticism of Kamala Harris just like two years ago would get you branded a racist. And now they're just putting it in the pages of the Washington Post, which is incredible. But yes, she has a problem with the progressive base of the Democratic Party on her time as Attorney General and DA in California, which is obviously problematic as Biden is trying to reintegrate the progressive base on the Israel-Palestine issue. So he kind of needs a number two who is able to bring those voters back in. And Kamala already lost so much ground with them because of Tulsi Gabbard's absolute epic takedown of her during one of the Democratic primary. You are pandering to our libertarian viewers. Yeah. It was a bloodbath. Can I say that? Cancel. Okay. Let's get into the marijuana policy aspect of this. So I absolutely think that it should be, I mean, I want to decriminalize, I support drugs being decriminalized broadly. We can argue about how to do that. I think it totally makes sense to not treat marijuana as just as dangerous or more dangerous as heroin and fentanyl. A lot of people use it responsibly. And I think I'm a libertarian, so I want that to happen. It kind of goes with, I mean, Biden is in charge of drug policy, right? We appointed the people who make this kind of classification like, it's always weird to hear government officials saying, oh, we don't want this to change. Well, you're the one in charge. Can't you change it? Can we expedite this process? No. We need to have another commission or another review before we do something that, sorry, everybody's using marijuana. We live in a city where people are using marijuana safely and recreationally and it's fine. And to have the federal government under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris who sound amenable to this, still criminalizing or still considering so dangerous something, everybody in the city around us is using safely, I would argue seems crazy to me. I hate it here in D.C. It stinks. But besides that, I mean, I would agree with your point that it is such an indictment of the entrenched bureaucracy we have in the federal government now that you have voters elect somebody who is promised to do something and they basically have to take years to get around all of this red tape just to be able to do it. I think it's actually ridiculous. But I will say I support the reclassification of marijuana. I don't support the declassification and decriminalization for a couple of reasons. I think on a base level, most people would agree that we need more research on it because the studies that we've had coming out the past few years have shown a link between psychosis and marijuana use, especially among young people. And so that's something that really concerns me. I have people in my life who have had marijuana-induced psychosis. And I think to sort of tout it as like this harmless plant is not in keeping with the facts. Well, I mean, I'm sure using it or excessive use of it can be bad for some people, just like excessive use of any number of legal things like alcohol or gambling can be bad. I just, and maybe this is a philosophical disagreement between us, I would leave that to individual people, or in the case of young people, that young people shouldn't be using it or their families shouldn't let them, or that's something for them to work out, not the government. Would you support letting the states decide at the very least, rather than having a federal approach to it? Yeah, I think I'd be open to that. But I would also just push back on the idea that right now it's just an individual decision because the reality is that people are not getting the information that they need to make those decisions for themselves. And that's part of the reason why I think just decriminalizing it kind of misses the point is because we have this like huge narrative about it's just a plant man, like, what's up? There's smoke, some weed, it's all cool and safe and fun. And there's actually a lot of really negative consequences. It's especially troublesome for people who have preexisting mental health conditions because they're even more likely to develop not only psychosis, but also bipolar disorder. You can actually see in some of these charts of some of the research that's been done on this, where young people who start smoking marijuana, particularly before their brains are finished developing, are far more likely to develop these psychotic mental health conditions. Well, but I wouldn't take alcohol or cigarette, I wouldn't criminalize drinking, I wouldn't criminalize smoking, I wouldn't criminalize any of these things that the current research shows are much more lethal for people in terms of cancer rates with smoking or, you know, just like car crashes and other things associated with excessive drinking. You know, I still leave this choice to people to figure out and I encourage people to do their own research. And I think too much of any substance can generally be harmful, but, you know, that's got to ultimately be your choice or at the very least the voters at a more local level to decide to experiment with something instead of having one policy ordered down by the federal government that actually ends up being inconsistent with a bunch of policies arrived at locally. Are you pro-de-criminalizing all drugs or is it just marijuana? Oh, yeah, absolutely everything, totally everything, but, you know, that's because I think it should ultimately be your choice, but especially marijuana because I think it is much less harmful, even if there are some harms associated with it or it's harmful for some people, less harmful than things that are already legal. And I definitely don't want to, you know, re-do prohibition and make those things illegal. Although I see, I will say I have tried, I've tried Zinn, and I did not have a good experience with that, but it should be legal for everyone. I am just personally making it illegal for myself. Yeah, Zinn makes a lot of, or helps a lot of people stop smoking, actually. So it's kind of insane to see Chuck Schumer try to ban Zinn. I wonder how much money he's getting from Philip Morris or whatever from tobacco companies that are trying to get him to ban Zinn. But I think, my problem with a lot of these drugs that you're talking about is that I think there's also sort of the perception that they're victimless crimes, right? Because people are just consuming drugs and they're having a good time or doing whatever if they overdose, that's their choice. But the reality is that a lot of these, and maybe marijuana is an exclusion from this, they do cause people to behave erratically and perhaps violently and they also end up stealing from their family members or getting behind the wheel of a car. And that's true for alcohol too, but... Yeah, I would criminalize all those things. Yeah, but... From violence, I would, you know... But I mean, I think that when you have a city like D.C., for example, where you're walking to Union Station and you have some guy on the street who is hopped up on heroin harassing people, it's like, okay, obviously these drugs are contributing to a decay of society. At what level do we say it's not your decision anymore because you're now ingesting something that causes you to behave in a way that you normally wouldn't behave that is detrimental to the people and the places around you? Well, I would say in the same way with gun rights that, you know, some people misuse firearms for really appalling situations, but I'm not gonna dearm or take away the rights of the rest of the citizenry because some people abuse them. I'm going... Now, I am for, you know, taking action against those people, but I guess this is the project of government trying to find a way to make sure the people who abuse their rights don't ruin it for the rest of us. And maybe we can talk about more strategies for that. At a later junction, thanks for joining us for our first edition of Free Media TV. We'll be back next week to bring you more of media's biggest misses and our hottest takes. See you later.