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clarklovescarole · 1 year

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July 1937: Clark's Big Hunting Trip

July 8, 1937 – The Philadelphia Inquirer

Chatter in Hollywood (Louella Parsons)

Carole Lombard isn’t going to be lonesome while Clark Gable is away on his hunting trip, because what should her old friend Director Walter Lang do but up and buy a house, and if there is anything in the world Carole loves to do it’s to furnish a house! In fact, she’s made Walter a promise he won’t even buy an ash tray that hasn’t her official sanction. Between scenes out at the Selznick Studio Carole is selecting drapes and carpeting, not to mention pictures and furniture sketches. Maybe Carole’s feminine taste wont’ be exactly the makings of a bachelor’s paradise, but Walter’s going to take it and love it – and besides Fieldsy says it’s okay.

July 9, 1937 – The Courier Journal

Chatter in Hollywood

How do you think Carole Lombard leaves the studio every evening? In a limousine with liveried chauffeur? No indeed. Clark Gable, who is working at MGM only a block away from the Selznick Studios, calls for her usually in a station wagon with guns, tents, and other camping paraphernalia hanging out of the back. But Carole doesn’t mind. Life to her is a lot of laughs anyway. She and Freddie March spend all their free time on the “Nothing Sacred” set practicing with BB guns, so it’s practically worth your life to visit that set.

(Oakland Tribue/July 9, 1937)

July 10, 1937 – The Missoulan

A Screen Celebrity Visits

Missoula is no different from any other place in the country when a screen celebrity stops here, even briefly.

It was close to midnight when Clark Gable swung into the Garden City from Pocatello on his way to the Jennings hunting lodge near Glacier Park, which is to be his headquarters for a foray into the wilds after a big game. But the hour did not prevent his receiving attention when he stepped into a café for a “snack” after retiring.

The Missoulan’s story of his arrival caused a demonstration of Missoula’s feminine population in front of his hotel Friday morning. How accustomed the screen star has become to such sudden descents upon his manly person was shown by the smiling nonchalance with which he hastily scribbled his autograph as books and papers were thrust at him from all directions.

Apparently, this attention from the populace goes with the job. It is part of an actor’s technique always to be ready to face the multitude, to keep smiling, never to give offense and to accept whatever the great public demands without show of resentment.

Gable is a master at this sort of thing, through long experience. As he stepped into the Gable care to be whirled up through the Flathead to Jennings’ place, he was the same smiling, unperturbed personality that he was when he first emerged from the hotel to face the crowd. Ordinary male persons wondered how he kept his poise under such circumstances. Apparently it is all in knowing how and never forgetting that one is an actor.

July 10, 1937 – The Wichita Eagle

CLARK GABLE WILL TACKLE BIG GAME

POCATELLO, IDAHO, July 9 — (AP) Bearded Clark Gable seated himself in an expensive roadster today and rode away for a spell of big game hunting in the Idaho wilds – but not before the autograph chasers got him.

Stopping in this southern Idaho city overnight en route to Montana on a hunting and fishing expedition, the screen star smiled:

“Hunting big game is a real (not reel) thrill. I hope to add a bear skin to my lion trophies. I enjoy ‘roughing it’ in the mountains. It peps me up, gives me renewed vigor.”

Clerks said he called Carole Lombard on the telephone before leaving today for Sun Valley lodge, in the fringe of south-central Idaho’s primitive Sawtooth mountains.

Surrounded by scores of girls, the actor scribbled his name on hotel stationery, blank checks, café menus and dozes of scraps of paper.

Two admirers even slipped into his room last night and carried away two belts and buckles. Clerks recovered them.

July 11, 1937 – Great Falls Tribune

Clark Gable In Park Area To Hunt Bear

GLACIER PARK, July 10 – Clark Gable, top ranking motion picture actor in the hearts of a multitude of female fans, arrived here last night and promptly endeared himself to more women by amiably signing his name for autograph seekers before retreating to the seclusion of the Charles Jennings guest ranch, 14 miles southwest of here, to begin a three-week bear hunting trip.

Jennings went to Great Falls earlier in the week and flew to Pocatello to meet Gable and return in the latter’s auto to Glacier Park.

Locks Up Car

On arrival, Gable went to Glacier Park hotel and made several phone calls, then locked his car in a garage here to prevent its dismantlement by curio seekers. He and Jennings then made the slow trip over mountain roads to the Jennings ranch.

At 10 p.m. Carole Lombard, noted screen actress and reportedly a close companion of Gable, called the actor from Hollywood and it was necessary for a messenger to make a three-hour round trip journey to bring Gable back to the hotel to talk to her. The long delay, it was reported, alarmed the actress and she queried park people excitedly, via the telephone, as to whether an accident had occurred.

Dons Cowboy Clothes

The feminine idol had changed form street clothes to a cowboy suit and after conversing with Miss Lombard went to the Log Cabin inn, where he had lunch. Mrs. B. Connor, proprietor of the inn, showed him a snapshot taken 10 years ago when Gable and her husband were extras appearing in the “Painted Desert.” The actor autographed the photo after recalling how the two of them had played together in short scenes.

Gable and Jennings will leave Sunday for the hunting trip high in the mountains that will be their headquarters on the three-week hunting trip.

Jennings met Gable through the former’s brother, Talbott, who is a Hollywood scenarist. This is Gable’s first visit to the Glacier Park area in Montana.

July 13, 1937 – Democrat and Chronicle

Lombard Awaits Gable Call

Snapshots of Hollywood: Carole Lombard staying home every night until she gets that long distance call from Clark Gable, who’s gone a-hunting.

July 16, 1937 – Shamokin News Dispatch

Big day for Brown Derby celebrity gawkers – Barbara Stanwyck and Bob Taylor arrive just a moment before Clark Gable and Carole Lombard whisk up in his station wagon.

July 18, 1937 – Knoxville Journal

Clark Gable and Carole Lombard’s birthday remembrance to L.B. Mayer a huge cake composed entirely of gardenias.

July 18, 1937 – Evansville Press

Besides the popularity of the people involved, there is a good reason why Hollywood’s NO. 1 romance is between Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck – they don’t mind admitting they’re in love.

Now there are Clark Gable and Carole Lombard: When either is interviewed (by appointment made through the publicity departments) correspondents are cautioned in advance that love is not to be brought into the conversation. Of course sometimes a reporter will blurt out Silly Query No. 37: “Are you and Mr. Gable planning marriage?”

Miss Lombard, who can blush at will, will blush and exclaim: “Why, how perfectly absurd! Cl – ah- Mr. Gable and I are merely friends. I don’t know where all this romance talk comes from!”

July 19, 1937 – Fort Worth Star Telegram

Leafing through a 3-year-old fan magazine while I waited in a dentist’s anteroom, I ran across an article in which Clark Gable, with amazing courage, had named the 10 “most beautiful” women in Hollywood. His list included, in the order named: Mrs. Clark Gable (now practically ex), Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Kay Francis, Jean Harlow, Claudette Colbert, Greta Garbo, Grace Moore, Helen Hayes and Lily Pons.

You know, search as I might, I couldn’t find Carole Lombard’s name anywhere in the list.

July 20, 1937 – Spokesman Review

Feud Still On

Joan Crawford and Carole Lombard are still feuding, but Carole is adding more fuel to the quarrel by constantly referring to the days when both were Charleston hoofing champs – an accomplishment Joan would rather forget…

July 20, 1937 – Akron Beacon Journal

Short Notes

Clark Gable joins Carole Lombard each evening to view the rushes of her new picture…

July 22, 1937 – Columbus News

Carole Lombard still has a sleek town car, a limousine and a roadster or two, but she isn’t using them much these days. Every afternoon when she finishes work at the studio, up drives a station wagon all filled with fishing paraphernalia and driven by Clark Gable and off go the two most irrepressible merrymakers of Hollywood. She claims she likes the station wagon better than the limousine and she’d rather go fishing than attend a fashionable party. Clark agrees with her.

July 23, 1937 – Star Tribune

Gable, on Hunting Trip, Calls Carole Twice Daily

By Sheilah Graham

Hollywood, July 22 – Clark Gable telephones Carole Lombard every morning and evening from his hunting retreat in Pocatello, Idaho, but they can’t hear a word they say because every operator from there to here listens lowdown…

July 30, 1937 – South Bend Tribune

Hollywood Is Naïve

In spite of all its pretended sophistication, Hollywood is the most naïve town on earth, and I have never seen the fact more convincingly demonstrated than the other day in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer café. Carole Lombard had come to MGM to pay the boyfriend, Clark Gable, a visit and they entered the café together. Such craning of the necks you have never seen! Everyone in that huge room stopped eating and stared. Until Clark and Carole were seated, you could have heard a pin drop; afterward, for a good five minutes, the place buzzed like a beehive. And the Gable neck was very, very red.

#1937 #clark gable #carole lombard #old hollywood

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wdwqrfawes · 3 years

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thedreamsmith · 4 years

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How (Not) to Seduce a Blueshirt (Chapter 4)

@atc74 @alleiradayne @arrowsandmixtapes @captain-s-rogers for #OC appreciation day 2020

Warnings: Swearing, mild sexual situation

Pairing: Jim Kirk x OFC

Chapter summary: Jim is allergic to first dates.

For some reason, Bones had not been thrilled with his news. In fact, he had let out a stream of particularly foul expletives and pinned Jim with a glare that by all accounts should’ve set his hair on fire.

Even so, Bones had agreed to help him pick out something to wear to dinner. For all his CMO loved to jab him with hypos, he was the perfect Southern gentleman and he had the manners and fashion sense to match.

Once Jim had swallowed his pride and comm’d Bones, the good doctor had strode into his hotel room within ten minutes, taken one look at what he was wearing and ordered him to strip because ‘Good God man, you’re not going on a first date to a nice restaurant with a pretty girl wearing that.’

Personally, Jim had thought what he’d been wearing hadn’t been one of the worst getups he’d tried on before Bones got there, but he deferred to the older man’s judgement anyway.

Between the pair of them they had finally agreed on an outfit and that was how Jim found himself standing in front of the mirror, watching his reflection eye the dark jeans, white shirt and dress shoes that Bones had talked him into. They had compromised on the leather jacket, but only because Jim had threatened to reprogram every computer on the ship (besides Spock - he hadn’t quite figured out to rewire him yet) to address Bones as ‘snugglebunny.’

Mirror-Jim looked as nervous as he felt.

How had he convinced himself he could do this? He was a playboy hick from backwater Idaho. Reyne had a medical degree, no criminal record, standards…

It felt as though a metal band was squeezing his chest; growing tighter and tighter as the chrono ticked closer to when he was supposed to meet Reyne in the plaza.

The room was too bright, the hum of the city outside too loud and his reflection had gone blurry.

‘Lights at fifty percent.’ He managed to choke out, though his throat felt like it was closing over. ‘Bones…’

Jim spun towards his friend, stumbling as he struggled to catch his breath.

‘Think ‘m having an allergic reaction.’

And then Bones’ was gripping his shoulders, hands firm and steady as he pushed him towards the bed. He barely registered as his friend waved the tricorder over him once, twice. The frown lines on Bones’ forehead deepened as he checked the results then flicked his gaze back to Jim and the way his shoulders heaved, trying to draw enough oxygen in to stop the room from spinning.

McCoy drew in a deep breath before he spoke, his medical skills diagnosing the issue even as his knowledge of Jim Kirk insisted that this was highly unlikely.

‘Outta all the things you’re allergic to, I doubt that proper first dates are one of them. You’re havin’ a panic attack, Jim.’

Jim briefly interrupted his breathe in, breathe out, don’t-throw-up cycle to shoot a poisonous glare at his friend.

‘Just breath, Jim. You’ll be alright.’ Bones kept his hands on his shoulders, grounding him. ‘Hell, Ree was chattering about this date with my nurses the other day – had to shoo her from the medbay so they could get anything done.’

Jim raised his head a little, expression hopeful.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. So quit being an idiot and keep your head between your knees. I don’t need you passing out before you’ve left your room. I had enough of carrying you back to your room at the Academy.’

Reyne was already in the plaza when he arrived. She was in conversation with a couple of Enterprise crew members. He recognised the taller, darker of the two men as one of Bones’ best nurses – distinctive for the sleeves of tattoos that disappeared beneath the cuffs of his civvies. The other was fair haired and shorter, also sporting tattoos and the same Scottish earth accent as Scotty and Reyne. As the trio turned to face him, he placed the shorter man as one of Scotty’s crew, a brilliant electrical engineer he’d picked from the Academy himself. Ensign Josh Watt.

Ensign Watt smirked and murmured something to her that made her blush and laugh as she waved them off.

But all thoughts of Reyne’s friends left his head as she stepped around nurse Stephen, towards him. Laughter danced in her eyes, a few shades darker than his own, as she took him in. In a navy, knee length dress, her curves could’ve stopped ships at warp speed.

The artificial lights of Yorktown had been dimmed to mimic sundown, and the lamps overhead illuminated her ivory skin in a warm glow.

‘You look amazing.’ Oh great, Jim. Thirty years old and that’s the best he could do?

‘Not too bad yourself, Captain.’ He glanced up from his own shoes to see that Reyne was smiling, amusement still glimmering in her eyes as she stepped closer.

Bolstered by the knowledge that he hadn’t cocked it up in the first five minutes, Jim let his features slip into a crooked grin. With slowly-returning confidence, he grasped her hand, bringing it up to his mouth and pressing a lingering kiss to her knuckles.

Reyne’s eyebrows shot up but she didn’t pull her hand away.

‘I promised Stephen that I’d let you know that I’m armed.’ She delivered the line with such casual amusement that his heart nearly stopped in his chest with a painful thud. But she tightened his grip on his hand before gracefully looping her arm around his waist. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t intend to use it. I very much want to be here.’

Her grin was warm as she tilted her head to one side, and her height meant that she didn’t need to raise her gaze far to meet his eyes. ‘I want to be here, Jim.’

‘You’re terrible.’ He draped his arm over her shoulders, enjoying the warmth of her body tucked against his side.

Reyne shrugged slightly, the movement shifting his arm. ‘I only own one knife. If you think that’s bad, you should meet Stephen - he always has at least two on his person at any given time. Legal carries, of course. Although there was that Cardassian hunting knife he was looking at last shore leave…’

She trailed off as she registered the expression of disbelief that must’ve shown on his face.

‘My friends are weird.’

‘I think Scotty and Jaylah would take offence to that.’ They passed storefronts and restaurants; lit with strings of jewel-toned lights and orbs that floated above the heads of passers-by.

‘Scotty was exalting the virtues of deep fried mars bars and pickle sandwiches yesterday. I don’t think he gets a say in this.’

‘That seems fair.’ Jim laughed, feeling lighter than he had in a long while. ‘So I have to ask, where are you keeping a knife in that get up?’

Reyne’s gaze slid slowly over to him as a wicked smirk lifted the corners of her mouth.

‘A lady never tells, Captain.’

It was well past midnight by the time they made it back to the hotel that most of the crew were staying in. His face hurt from the grin that he’d had on for most of the evening and his fingers were tangled with hers.

Too soon, they reached her door and the conversation petered out as they both silently acknowledged the choice that lay before them.

‘I really enjoyed tonight.’ It would seem that his sparkling wit had failed him once again tonight. He fumbled for the right words to convey what he felt, a way to secure another night like this and maybe another after that. ‘I just mean, I had expected to, of course, despite the panic attack I had earlier.’

‘Panic attack?’ Concern laced Reyne’s voice, brows kitting together as she searched his face.

Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that. Quick, Jim, think.

‘Right, here goes nothing.’ He forced himself to hold her gaze, to watch for her reaction. ‘For most of my life, I’ve never tried particularly hard when it comes to dating. Usually all it takes is an introduction and my reputation does the rest but with you, that doesn’t work cause you just don’t care. You’ve never fallen at my feet and you want more from me than a quick fuck and some pretty words. And that terrifies me. I panicked ‘cause I don’t believe I deserve someone like you, Reyne.’

‘You’re right – I don’t care about any of those things. I said yes because you’re also the Jim Kirk who regularly attempts to sacrifice himself for his friends; who actually died to save a ship full of people he barely knew. I said yes because underneath the charisma and the recklessness and the batshit crazy, even without knowing you all that well, I’ve seen and heard glimpses of a heart of gold and an intellect to rival Commander Spock’s. My point is, you’re multifaceted, Jim; and are much more than you think you are. Plus, the package it’s all wrapped up in doesn’t hurt.’ A smirk lifted the corner of her mouth. ‘I’m aware you don’t have the best track record when it comes to long-term partners; but if you’re willing to try, then I’ll happily boldly go where no one else has before.’

Well, if that wasn’t an invitation then he didn’t know what was…

The sound of the Captain’s Oath falling from that mouth was downright obscene, but it was all Jim could do to lean forward, a silent answer to a question she hadn’t asked out loud. He closed his eyes, held his breath until he felt the warmth of her mouth against his. Reyne pressed slow kisses to his lower lip, lingering too long for it to be called chaste, but far too reverent to be lewd.

Jim found that it was nice to share a first kiss that didn’t taste of alcohol – that wasn’t fast and hard and needy. Not to say that there was no lust there, just that he was perfectly content to lean against the door of her room and continue this slow exploration of lips and tongues and teeth.

A whine escaped him as she pulled away; spots of colour high on her cheeks, lips ever-so-slightly swollen from the kiss.

‘You’re terrible for my self-control.’

‘Who needs self-control anyway?’ Certainly not James T Kirk. His grin was twelve kinds of filthy as he gazed at her with heavy-lidded eyes. ‘I might not be Uhura with her fancy xenolinguistics degree, but I’ve been told that I have excellent oral sensitivity.’

A beat of silence followed, before Reyne’s face crumpled and she doubled over with laughter, the sound rich and sweet and deeper than he had expected. Jim decided right there that Reyne’s laughter was his favourite sound in the entire galaxy and he would gladly make a fool out of himself just to hear it every day of their 5-year mission.

Dark eyebrows knitted together as she fought for breath, and she could already feel herself flushing to the tips of her ears. She thought back to the one time she had seen Jim shirtless in the medbay after an away mission – the man had a body made for pleasure and sin and even then, she had decided that no one should be allowed to be so goddamn beautiful.

‘And not just oral sensitivity,’ Jim pushed his advantage, never one to miss an opportunity. ‘Let’s not forget dexterity, flexibility, stamina-‘

The Many Virtues of Jim Kirk were cut short as Reyne grabbed the lapels of his jacket and yanked him down for another kiss – this one decidedly more heated. Her clever tongue flicked along the seam of lips before gently tugging his lower lip between her teeth, earning a low groan from Jim.

Jim tangled his fingers in her thick, dark locks, tugging hard enough to elicit a gasp from the doctor.

‘Is this your way of telling me to shut up? Cause if it is, you can tell me to shut up anytime.’ And Jim found that he was entirely open to this kind of positive reinforcement, especially when it involved a hotter than Hell medical officer and her unholy way of finding that spot on his neck that – fuck.

Reyne bit down and his hips jerked involuntarily. Her thigh was a solid presence between his legs, the seam of her jeans enough to produce a maddening amount of friction against him and dammit he was the captain of Starfleet’s flagship, not some overeager teenager getting to second base with a girl for the first time.

Her smile took on a distinctly naughty cast and he’d be damned if it didn’t go straight to his dick – like he needed any help in that department. A pleasant daydream of an unruly science officer in need of punishment, pulled up in front of her captain for insubordination filled his brain.

‘I don’t put out on the first date, Jim.’ Her voice was soft, a gentle reminder. ‘It’s late, I’ll see you tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, see you tomorrow.’

With one last smile and a quick peck on the cheek, Reyne tapped in her room code and disappeared into the darkened room, leaving Jim to sag against the wall.

She had him wrapped around her finger already.

He was in so much shit.

#oc's are people too #oc appreciation day 2020 #star trek #jim kirk #jim kirk x oc #bones #ofc #fanfic #ocs

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blackfreethinkers · 4 years

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Two kindergartners in Utah told a Latino boy that President Trump would send him back to Mexico, and teenagers in Maine sneered "Ban Muslims" at a classmate wearing a hijab. In Tennessee, a group of middle-schoolers linked arms, imitating the president's proposed border wall as they refused to let nonwhite students pass. In Ohio, another group of middle-schoolers surrounded a mixed-race sixth-grader and, as she confided to her mother, told the girl: "This is Trump country."

Since Trump's rise to the nation’s highest office, his inflammatory language — often condemned as racist and xenophobic — has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.

Trump’s words, those chanted by his followers at campaign rallies and even his last name have been wielded by students and school staff members to harass children more than 300 times since the start of 2016, a Washington Post review of 28,000 news stories found. At least three-quarters of the attacks were directed at kids who are Hispanic, black or Muslim, according to the analysis. Students have also been victimized because they support the president — more than 45 times during the same period.

Although many hateful episodes garnered coverage just after the election, The Post found that Trump-connected persecution of children has never stopped. Even without the huge total from November 2016, an average of nearly two incidents per school week have been publicly reported over the past four years. Still, because so much of the bullying never appears in the news, The Post’s figure represents a small fraction of the actual total. It also doesn’t include the thousands of slurs, swastikas and racial epithets that aren’t directly linked to Trump but that the president’s detractors argue his behavior has exacerbated.

“It’s gotten way worse since Trump got elected,” said Ashanty Bonilla, 17, a Mexican American high school junior in Idaho who faced so much ridicule from classmates last year that she transferred. “They hear it. They think it’s okay. The president says it. . . . Why can’t they?”

Asked about Trump’s effect on student behavior, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham noted that first lady Melania Trump — whose “Be Best” campaign denounces online harassment — had encouraged kids worldwide to treat one another with respect.

First lady Melania Trump speaks at the White House in May 2018 about her “Be Best” campaign, which denounces online harassment. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

“She knows that bullying is a universal problem for children that will be difficult to stop in its entirety,” Grisham wrote in an email, “but Mrs. Trump will continue her work on behalf of the next generation despite the media’s appetite to blame her for actions and situations outside of her control.”

Most schools don’t track the Trump bullying phenomenon, and researchers didn’t ask about it in a federal survey of 6,100 students in 2017, the most recent year with available data. One in five of those children, ages 12 to 18, reported being bullied at school, a rate unchanged since the previous count in 2015.

However, a 2016 online survey of over 10,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade educators by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that more than 2,500 “described specific incidents of bigotry and harassment that can be directly traced to election rhetoric,” although the overwhelming majority never made the news. In 476 cases, offenders used the phrase “build the wall.” In 672, they mentioned deportation.

Withrow University High School

Someone sprayed hateful graffiti across campus, declaring "F- - - N-words and Faggots" and "Trump." The graffiti also threatened gay and black students and featured multiple swastikas -- the latter often painted alongside the president's last name.

Lewiston High School

After Ashanty Bonilla, 17, tweeted criticism of Trump supporters who visit Mexico, a classmate posted her message on Snapchat alongside a racist response and a Confederate flag. The next day, classmates heckled the teen with racist jeers, tied a rope to the back of her car and wrote "Republican Trump 2020" on the back window.

Amon Carter-Riverside High School

Georgia Clark, an English teacher in Fort Worth, tweeted at President Trump asking him to remove undocumented immigrants from her high school. She mistakenly believed her messages were private.

For Cielo Castor, who is Mexican American, the experience at Kamiakin High in Kennewick, Wash., was searing. The day after the election, a friend told Cielo, then a sophomore, that he was glad Trump won because Mexicans were stealing American jobs. A year later, when the president was mentioned during her American literature course, she said she didn't support him and a classmate who did refused to sit next to her. “‘I don’t want to be around her,’ ” Cielo recalled him announcing as he opted for the floor instead. Then, on “America night” at a football game in October 2018 during Cielo’s senior year, schoolmates in the student section unfurled a “Make America Great Again” flag. Led by the boy who wouldn’t sit beside Cielo, the teenagers began to chant: “Build — the — wall!” Horrified, she confronted the instigator. “You can’t be doing that,” Cielo told him. He ignored her, she recalled, and the teenagers around him booed her. A cheerleading coach was the lone adult who tried to make them stop. “I felt like I was personally attacked. And it wasn’t like they were attacking my character. They were attacking my ethnicity, and it’s not like I can do anything about that.”

— Cielo Castor

After a photo of the teenagers with the flag appeared on social media, news about what had happened infuriated many of the school’s Latinos, who made up about a quarter of the 1,700-member student body. Cielo, then 17, hoped school officials would address the tension. When they didn’t, she attended that Wednesday’s school board meeting. “I don’t feel cared for,” she told the members, crying. A day later, the superintendent consoled her and the principal asked how he could help, recalled Cielo, now a college freshman. Afterward, school staff members addressed every class, but Hispanic students were still so angry that they organized a walkout. Some students heckled the protesters, waving MAGA caps at them. At the end of the day, Cielo left the school with a white friend who’d attended the protest; they passed an underclassman she didn’t know. “Look,” the boy said, “it’s one of those f---ing Mexicans.” She heard that school administrators — who declined to be interviewed for this article — suspended the teenager who had led the chant, but she doubts he has changed. Reached on Instagram, the teenager refused to talk about what happened, writing in a message that he didn’t want to discuss the incident “because it is in the past and everyone has moved on from it.” At the end, he added a sign-off: “Trump 2020.”

President Trump’s rhetoric has been condemned as racist and xenophobic since his candidacy began in 2015. Here is what he’s said. (The Washington Post)

Just as the president has repeatedly targeted Latinos, so, too, have school bullies. Of the incidents The Post tallied, half targeted Hispanics.

In one of the most extreme cases of abuse, a 13-year-old in New Jersey told a Mexican American schoolmate, who was 12, that “all Mexicans should go back behind the wall.” A day later, on June 19, 2019, the 13-year-old assaulted the boy and his mother, Beronica Ruiz, punching him and beating her unconscious, said the family’s attorney, Daniel Santiago. He wonders to what extent Trump’s repeated vilification of certain minorities played a role.

More than 300 Trump-inspired harassment incidents reported by news outlets from 2016-2019

Anti-Hispanic: 45%

Anti-black: 23%

Anti-Semitic: 7%

Anti-Muslim: 8%

Anti-LGBT: 4%

Anti-Trump: 14%

Note: Some incidents targeted multiple groups and, in other cases, the ethnicity/gender/religion of the intended target was unclear. Figures may not precisely add up because of rounding.

“When the president goes on TV and is saying things like Mexicans are rapists, Mexicans are criminals — these children don’t have the cognitive ability to say, ‘He’s just playing the role of a politician,’ ” Santiago argued. “The language that he’s using matters.” Ruiz’s son, who is now seeing a therapist, continues to endure nightmares from an experience that may take years to overcome. But experts say that discriminatory language can, on its own, harm children, especially those of color who may already feel marginalized. “It causes grave damage, as much physical as psychological,” said Elsa Barajas, who has counseled more than 1,000 children in her job at the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health. As a result, she has seen Hispanic students suffer from sleeplessness, lose interest in school, and experience inexplicable stomach pain and headaches.

For Ashanty Bonilla, the damage began with the response to a single tweet she shared 10 months ago. “Unpopular opinion,” Ashanty, then 16 and a sophomore at Lewiston High School in rural Idaho, wrote on April 9. “People who support Trump and go to Mexico for vacation really piss me off. Sorry not sorry.” Some of Ashanty Bonilla’s classmates at Lewiston High in rural Idaho harassed her last April after she tweeted a comment critical of Trump supporters. (Rajah Bose/For The Washington Post) A schoolmate, who is white, took a screen shot of her tweet and posted it to Snapchat, along with a Confederate flag. “Unpopular opinion but: people that are from Mexico and come in to America illegally or at all really piss me off,” he added in a message that spread rapidly among students. The next morning, as Ashanty arrived at school, half a dozen boys, including the one who had written the message, stood nearby. “You’re illegal. Go back to Mexico,” she heard one of them say. “F--- Mexicans.” Ashanty, shaken but silent, walked past as a friend yelled at the boys to shut up. In a 33,000-person town that is 94 percent white, Ashanty, whose father is half-black and whose mother is Mexican American, had always worked to fit in. She attended every football game and won a school spirit award as a freshman. She straightened her hair and dyed it blond, hoping to look more like her friends. “It’s gotten way worse since Trump got elected. They hear it. They think it’s okay. The president says it. . . . Why can’t they?”

— Ashanty Bonilla

She had known those boys who’d heckled her since they were little. For her 15th birthday the year before, some had danced at her quinceañera. A friend drove her off campus for lunch, but when they pulled back into the parking lot, Ashanty spotted people standing around her car. A rope had been tied from the back of the Honda Pilot to a pickup truck. “Republican Trump 2020,” someone had written in the dust on her back window. Hands trembling, Ashanty tried to untie the rope but couldn’t. She heard the laughing, sensed the cellphone cameras pointed at her. She began to weep. Lewiston’s principal, Kevin Driskill, said he and his staff met with the boys they knew were involved, making clear that “we have zero tolerance for any kind of actions like that.” The incidents, he suspected, stemmed mostly from ignorance. “Our lack of diversity probably comes with a lack of understanding,” Driskill said, but he added that he’s encouraged by the school district’s recent creation of a community group — following racist incidents on other campuses — meant to address those issues. That effort came too late for Ashanty. Some friends supported her, but others told her the boys were just joking. Don’t ruin their lives. She seldom attended classes the last month of school. That summer, she started having migraines and panic attacks. In August, amid her spiraling despair, Ashanty swallowed 27 pills from a bottle of antidepressants. A helicopter rushed her to a hospital in Spokane, Wash., 100 miles away. After that, she began seeing a therapist and, along with the friend who defended her, transferred to another school. Sometimes, she imagines how different life might be had she never written that tweet, but Ashanty tries not to blame herself and has learned to take more pride in her heritage. She just wishes the president understood the harm his words inflict. Even Trump’s last name has become something of a slur to many children of color, whether they’ve heard it shouted at them in hallways or, in her case, seen it written on the back window of a car. “It means,” she said, “you don’t belong.”

Georgia Clark taught English at Amon Carter-Riverside High School in Fort Worth, where a student accused her of racism. (Allison V. Smith/For The Washington Post) Three weeks into the 2018-19 school year, Miracle Slover's English teacher, she alleges, ordered black and Hispanic students to sit in the back of the classroom at their Fort Worth high school. At the time, Miracle was a junior. Georgia Clark, her teacher at Amon Carter-Riverside, often brought up Trump, Miracle said. He was a good person, she told the class, because he wanted to build a wall. “Every day was something new with immigration,” said Miracle, now 18, who has a black mother and a mixed-race father. “That Trump needs to take [immigrants] away. They do drugs, they bring drugs over here. They cause violence.” Some students tried to film Clark, and others complained to administrators, but none of it made a difference, Miracle said. Clark, an employee of the Fort Worth system since 1998, kept talking. Clark, who denies the teenager’s allegations, is one of more than 30 educators across the country accused of using the president’s name or rhetoric to harass students since he announced his candidacy, the Post analysis found. In Clark’s class, Miracle stayed quiet until late spring 2019. That day, she walked in wearing her hair “puffy,” split into two high buns. Clark, she said, told her it looked “nappy, like Marge off ‘The Simpsons.’ ” Unable to smother an angry reply, Miracle landed in the principal’s office. An administrator asked her to write a witness statement, and in it, she finally let go, scrawling her frustration across seven pages. “I just got tired of it,” she said. “I wrote a ton.” Still, Miracle said, school officials took no action until six weeks later, when Clark, 69, tweeted at Trump — in what she thought were private messages — requesting help deporting undocumented immigrants in Fort Worth schools. The posts went viral, drawing national condemnation. Clark was fired. “Every day was something new with immigration. That Trump needs to take [immigrants] away. They do drugs, they bring drugs over here. They cause violence.”

— Miracle Slover, referring to Georgia Clark, her former English teacher

Not always, though, are offenders removed from the classroom. The day after the 2016 election, Donnie Jones Jr.’s daughter was walking down a hallway at her Florida high school when, she says, a teacher warned her and two friends — all sophomores, all black — that Trump would “send you back to Africa.” The district suspended the teacher for three days and transferred him to another school. Just a few days later in California, a physical education teacher told a student that he would be deported under Trump. Two years ago in Maine, a substitute teacher referenced the president’s wall and promised a Lebanese American student, “You’re getting kicked out of my country.” More than a year later in Texas, a school employee flashed a coin bearing the word “ICE” at a Hispanic student. “Trump,” he said, “is working on a law where he can deport you.” Sometimes, Jones said, he doesn’t recognize America. “People now will say stuff that a couple of years ago they would not dare say,” Jones argued. He fears what his two youngest children, ages 11 and 9, might hear in their school hallways, especially if Trump is reelected. Now a senior, Miracle doesn’t regret what she wrote about Clark. Although the furor that followed forced Miracle to switch schools and quit her beloved dance team, she would do it again, she said. Clark’s punishment, her public disgrace, was worth it. About a week before Miracle’s 18th birthday, her mother checked Facebook to find a flurry of notifications. Friends were messaging to say that Clark had appealed her firing, and that the Texas education commissioner had intervened. Reluctant to spoil the birthday, Jowona Powell waited several days to tell her daughter, who doesn’t use social media. Citing a minor misstep in the school board’s firing process, the commissioner had ordered Carter-Riverside to pay Clark one year’s salary — or give the former teacher her job back.

A snapshot of the harassment in 2019

In the three months after the president tweeted on July 14, 2019, that four minority congresswomen should "go back” to the countries they came from, more than a dozen incidents of Trump-related school bullying — including several that used his exact language — were reported in the press.

Mahtomedi High School & Como Park Senior High School

During a soccer game, students taunted a majority Asian-American team (which also included at least one Hispanic player) by telling them to go back to their countries and calling them "Asian food names."

Baldwin High School & Piper High School

During a volleyball game, students told black players on the court to go back to where they came from and made monkey noises at them.

Barack and Michelle Obama Ninth Grade Center

After a 14-year-old failed to address a staffer with "Yes, sir," the man showed the student a coin with "ICE" written on it and said, "Even though you are a citizen, Trump is working on a law where he can deport you, too, because of your mom’s status." The man later lost his job.

Everett Alvarez High School

Frontier High School

Students waving "Make America Great Again" flags disrupted a meeting of the school's Gay Straight Alliance, breaking up the gathering by shouting slurs before following the group's members to the parking lot.

Edward Little High School

Students yelled "Build the wall!" and "Ban Muslims!" as a 16-year-old Muslim girl walked through the hallways.

A 16-year-old student was arrested after posting on social media -- shortly after the deadly mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso — a photo of a pickup displaying a Trump flag, a Confederate flag and several guns. He captioned the post, "west harrison ain't ready for round 2."

Fans told one Hispanic player on the opposing team to “go back to your country” and called others “f---ing beaner” and "wetback" during a soccer game.

During a game in which a student was accused of using a racial slur againt a black player, fans also waved a Trump sign and chanted "America" when their team scored.

Cheerleaders from a largely white school held up a sign that read "Make America Great Again" and "Trump the Leopards" before a football game against a much more diverse school.

Before a football game, players ran through a banner reading "Make America Great Again Trump Those Patriots," triggering a backlash.

At least two minority students were bullied — in separate incidents — because the district allowed students to display a Trump banner at a high school football game, according to parents and school board members.

After students painted the school rock with rainbows to celebrate National Coming Out Day, someone painted over it with "Trump 2020," "MAGA 2020," "NRA" and an expletive. Later, two students — one black, one white — got into a fight about the issue.

During a volleyball game, students told black players on the court to go back to where they came from and made monkey noises at them.

In an apparent prank against a schoolmate, students created a fake Twitter account — which praised Adolf Hitler and Trump in its bio — and tweeted out racist remarks against a black high school coach. Jordyn Covington stood when she heard the jeers. “Monkeys!” “You don’t belong here.” “Go back to where you came from!” From atop the bleachers that day in October, Jordyn, 15, could see her Piper High School volleyball teammates on the court in tears. The sobbing varsity players were all black, all from Kansas City, Kan., like her. Who was yelling? Jordyn wondered. She peered at the students in the opposing section. Most of them were white. “It was just sad,” said Jordyn, who plays for Piper’s junior varsity team. “And why? Why did it have to happen to us? We weren’t doing anything. We were simply playing volleyball.” Go back? To where? Jordyn, her friends and Piper’s nine black players were all born in the United States. “Just like everyone else,” Jordyn said. “Just like white people.” “It was just sad. And why? Why did it have to happen to us? We weren’t doing anything. We were simply playing volleyball.” The game, played at an overwhelmingly white rural high school, came three months after Trump tweeted that four minority congresswomen should “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” It was Jordyn’s first experience with racism, she said. But it was not the first time that fans at a school sports game had used the president to target students of color.

The Post found that players, parents or fans have used his name or words in at least 48 publicly reported cases, hurling hateful slogans at students competing in elementary, middle and high school games in 26 states. The venom has been shouted on football gridirons and soccer fields, on basketball and volleyball courts. Nearly 90 percent of incidents identified by The Post targeted players and fans of color, or teams fielded by schools with large minority populations. More than half focused on Hispanics.

In one of the earliest examples, students at a Wisconsin high school soccer game in April 2016 chanted “Trump, build a wall!” at black and Hispanic players. A few months later, students at a high school basketball game in Missouri turned their backs and hoisted a Trump/Pence campaign sign as the majority-black opposing team walked onto the court. In 2017, two high school girls in Alabama showed up at a football game pep rally with a sign reading “Put the Panic back in Hispanic” and a “Trump Make America Great Again” banner. In late 2017, two radio hosts announcing a high school basketball game in Iowa were caught on a hot mic describing Hispanic players as “español people.” “As Trump would say,” one broadcaster suggested, “go back where they came from.” Both announcers were fired. After the volleyball incident in Kansas, though, the fallout was more muted. The opposing school district, Baldwin City, commissioned an investigation and subsequently asserted that there was “no evidence” of racist jeers. Administrators from Piper’s school system dismissed that claim and countered with a statement supporting their students. An hour after the game, Jordyn fought to keep her eyes dry as she boarded the team bus home. When white players insisted that everything would be okay, she slipped in ear buds and selected “my mood playlist,” a collection of somber nighttime songs. She wiped her cheeks. Jordyn had long ago concluded that Trump didn’t want her — or “anyone who is just not white” — in the United States. But hearing other students shout it was different. Days later, her English teacher assigned an essay asking about “what’s right and what’s wrong.” At first, Jordyn thought she might write about the challenges transgender people face. Then she had another idea. “The students were making fun of us because we were different, like our hair and skin tone,” Jordyn wrote. “How are you gonna be mad at me and my friends for being black. . . . I love myself and so should all of you.” She read it aloud to the class. She finished, then looked up. Everyone began to applaud.

It's not just young Trump supporters who torment classmates because of who they are or what they believe. As one boy in North Carolina has come to understand, kids who oppose the president — kids like him — can be just as vicious. By Gavin Trump’s estimation, nearly everyone at his middle school in Chapel Hill comes from a Democratic family. So when the kids insist on calling him by his last name — even after he demands that they stop — the 13-year-old knows they want to provoke him, by trying to link the boy to the president they despise. In fifth grade, classmates would ask if he was related to the president, knowing he wasn’t. They would insinuate that Gavin agreed with the president on immigration and other polarizing issues. “They saw my last name as Trump, and we all hate Trump, so it was like, ‘We all hate you,’ ” he said. “I was like, ‘Why are you teasing me? I have no relationship to Trump at all. We just ended up with the same last name.’ ” Beyond kids like Gavin, the Post analysis also identified dozens of children across the country who were bullied, or even assaulted, because of their allegiance to the president. School staff members in at least 18 states, from Washington to West Virginia, have picked on students for wearing Trump gear or voicing support for him. Among teenagers, the confrontations have at times turned physical. A high school student in Northern California said that after she celebrated the 2016 election results on social media, a classmate accused her of hating Mexicans and attacked her, leaving the girl with a bloodied nose. Last February, a teenager at an Oklahoma high school was caught on video ripping a Trump sign out of a student’s hands and knocking a red MAGA cap off his head. And in the nation’s capital — where only 4 percent of voters cast ballots for Trump in 2016 — an outspoken conservative teenager said she had to leave her prestigious public school because she felt threatened. In a YouTube video, Jayne Zirkle, a high school senior, said that the trouble started when classmates at the School Without Walls discovered an online photo of her campaigning for Trump. She said students circulated the photo, harassed her online and called her a white supremacist. A D.C. school system official said they investigated the allegations and allowed Jayne to study from home to ensure she felt safe. “A lot of people who I thought were my best friends just all of a sudden totally turned their backs on me,” Jayne said. “People wouldn’t even look at me or talk to me.” For Gavin, the teasing began in fourth grade, soon after Trump announced his candidacy. After more than a year of schoolyard taunts, Gavin decided to go by his mother’s last name, Mather, when he started middle school. The teenager has been proactive, requesting that teachers call him by the new name, but it gets trickier, and more stressful, when substitutes fill in. He didn’t legally change his last name, so “Trump” still appears on the roster. The teasing has subsided, but the switch wasn’t easy. Gavin likes his real last name and feared that changing it would hurt his father’s feelings. His dad understood, but for Gavin, the guilt remains. “This is my name,” he said. “And I am abandoning my name.”

Maritza Avalos knows what's coming. It's 2020. The next presidential election is nine months away. She remembers what happened during the last one, when she was just 11. “Pack your bags,” kids told her. “You get a free trip to Mexico.” She’s now a freshman at Kamiakin High, the same Washington state school where her older sister, Cielo, confronted the teenagers who chanted “Build the wall” at a football game in late 2018. Maritza, 14, assumes the taunts that accompanied Trump’s last campaign will intensify with this one, too. “I try not to think about it,” she said, but for educators nationwide, the ongoing threat of politically charged harassment has been impossible to ignore. In response, schools have canceled mock elections, banned political gear, trained teachers, increased security, formed student-led mediation groups and created committees to develop anti-discrimination policies.

In California, the staff at Riverside Polytechnic High School has been preparing for this year’s presidential election since the day after the last one. On Nov. 9, 2016, counselors held a workshop in the library for students to share their feelings. Trump supporters feared they would be singled out for their beliefs, while girls who had heard the president brag about sexually assaulting women worried that boys would be emboldened to do the same to them. “We treated it almost like a crisis,” said Yuri Nava, a counselor who has since helped expand a student club devoted to improving the school’s culture and climate. Riverside, which is 60 percent Hispanic, also offers three courses — African American, Chicano and ethnic studies — meant to help students better understand one another, Nava said. And instead of punishing students when they use race or politics to bully, counselors first try to bring them together with their victims to talk through what happened. Often, they leave as friends.

In Gambrills, Md., Arundel High School has taken a similar approach. Even before a student was caught scribbling the n-word in his notebook in early 2017, Gina Davenport, the principal, worried about the effect of the election’s rhetoric. At the school, where about half of the 2,200 students are minorities, she heard their concerns every day. But the racist slur, discovered the same month as Trump’s inauguration, led to a concrete response. A “Global Community Citizenship” class, now mandatory for all freshmen in the district, pushes students to explore their differences. A recent lesson delved into Trump’s use of Twitter. “The focus wasn’t Donald Trump, the focus was listening: How do we convey our ideas in order for someone to listen?” Davenport said. “We teach that we can disagree with each other without walking away being enemies — which we don’t see play out in the press, or in today’s political debates.”

Since the class debuted in fall 2017, disciplinary referrals for disruption and disrespect have decreased by 25 percent each school year, Davenport said. Membership in the school’s speech and debate team has doubled. The course has eased Davenport’s anxiety heading into the next election. She doesn’t expect an uptick in racist bullying. “Civil conversation,” she said. “The kids know what that means now.” Many schools haven’t made such progress, and on those campuses, students are bracing for more abuse. Maritza’s sister, Cielo, told her to stand up for herself if classmates use Trump’s words to harass her, but Maritza is quieter than her sibling. The freshman doesn’t like confrontation. She knows, though, that eventually someone will say something — about the wall, maybe, or about how kids who look like her don’t belong in this country — and when that day comes, the girl hopes that she’ll be strong.

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Is Legalizing Pot a Great Benefit for states?

Is Legalizing Pot a Great Benefit for states? Everyone remembers Cheech and Chong and their movie up in smoke. That was too many years ago to admit. So much has since then. Yet it hasn’t. 80-year-old farmers are still smoking and so are the kids on pretty much every college campus across America.

11 states in the US have legalized pot or recreational marijuana, 33 states if you include medical marijuana legalization. However, there are some states out there still, like Georgia, where the smallest amount can land you in jail and your property seized.

Then we have Bernie Saunders, who said that he believes pot should be legalized in every state, charges should be dropped and those serving time for marijuana released and their records expunged! I am sure that will get him more than a few votes, but he has a point.

Saunders stated that the US has the highest number of inmates than any other country! Yes, you heard that right! The land of the free, has 2.5 million people in its prison system, the highest incarceration rate of ANY OTHER COUNTRY! Nearly 700,000 of those, marijuana law violations.

Oregon One of the First States to Legalize Marijuana

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Oregon. One of the first states to legalize marijuana. Oregon in 2019 is estimated to have sold $752 million dollars of legalized marijuana products and an additional $45 Billion of medical marijuana products. The State Tax Revenue off those sales? 70.3 Million! I would say the richest states in America are those that have legalized marijuana. Not only are they profiting greatly from legal sales, they are not filling up their county jails and prisons. That is saving them quite a bit of money too!

Legalizing Cannabis is absolutely a great benefit for states. It is a win-win for them, so let’s talk about the benefits of cannabis, the consumer and the growers.

Medicinal Benefits of Legalizing Marijuana~

I sat down with three people in Southern Oregon who rely on cannabis for their medical issues and will swear by it. I will share their stories but first, let’s talk about the growers.

Southern Oregon is one of the most absolutely gorgeous places you will ever visit. Nestled in the Cascade Mountains is the Siskiyou’s that run along the Rouge River down I-5 not far from the California border. There, you will find Jim Belushi and his 93-acre farm. Most of you will recognize the name but you probably did not know that Jim is on a mission.

A mission of the heart. You see, Jim truly believes that his brother John would still be here today had marijuana been legalized. He knows that the past is the past but has made it his personal mission to create exit doors on our nation’s opiate crisis. Jim is the FIRST to establish an opiates-for-cannabis trade-in program. Opiates claimed forty thousand lives last year, marijuana claimed zero.

Belushi loves Oregon and finds a real spirituality in growing ‘the girls’ on his farm. Last year he yielded 400lbs of the American Weed which a strain has been lovingly named Blues Brothers after his late brother John. Now four hundred pounds sounds like a lot, and it is but there is a problem.

“The Oregon market is a very tough market because it is so over-saturated and I consider myself being successful if and when I break even.” ~ Jim Belushi

Whoa!?!? WHAT? four hundred pounds of weed yielded last year and not breaking even? HOW COULD THAT BE?

THAT IS THE PROBLEM PEOPLE! Remember when I mentioned the Revenue the State of Oregon made last year on marijuana sales? That is part of the problem. The State is regulating prices. Not specifically, but when you factor in the black-market sales, we will get to that in a minute. The cost of growing legally:

laboratory costs to identify the exact percentage of the levels, legal storefronts, employee costs to grow and trim- legalization means no paying anyone under the table.

State taxes

State licensing fees

Ect., etc, etc

The only one who is really raking in the profits here in the State. So now let’s talk about the black-market sales. These are the guys who are not applying for, or who have been denied OLLC licenses to sell to the medical or recreational customer in Oregon. Even farms like Belushi’s can still ONLY sell within the state of Oregon. There is no Interstate commerce for marijuana yet.

This is also a problem because the price of an ounce of weed in Washington, Oregon, California, and Colorado can vary as much as forty dollars. The other problem of not having interstate commerce it when states like Oregon become so saturated with product, and the supply is not anywhere near the demand, many legal growers will turn towards the black market. They would rather take the risk than see their product go unsold.

Why is Demand so Low?

Well, let me ask you this. IF you wanted an apple, and it cost you $25 at the local market, but the guy at the corner had just as good of an apple for $15, which apple would you buy? I think most of us would go for the just as good but cheaper apple. The States are really making it hard for the guys trying to follow the laws and do the right thing. Most of them are not breaking even although the States are doing great!

Why are these growers taking this risk? Working so hard and barely getting by? I asked Jim. This is what he said.

“I saw a guy awhile back. He was in Afghanistan and saw things that he said no man should ever see. He told me that he suffers from severe PTSD, he cannot sleep most of the time. He said that he even finds it difficult to talk to friends, family, or even read his kids a book. He let me know that MY PRODUCT, has given him his life back, that because of cannabis he can sleep at night, he can read to his kids.”

I also met a woman who had suffered a brain tumor several years ago, who has severe migraines at least 20 days a month. She told me that since she began taking THC oils in a pill form, she has her life back.

There are so many stories just like that. Stories where people choose cannabis and its natural healing properties over opiates and drugs that have severe side effects and damage organs when taken long term. Stand outside a dispensary one day and ask some questions. And if you believe that marijuana is a ‘drug’ that should be illegal, I absolutely promise you that after hearing some of these stories you will change your mind.

There is so much that needs to be improved when it comes to legalizing cannabis. It is of many opinions, that is should be legal in all 50 states, resolving the interstate commerce issue. States should take their hands out of the money pot, or at least back off a little so the growers are not going in the hole trying to grow. We have already lost many of our Farmers in the western states because of this same exact problem!

Did we not learn anything when in one county in Idaho last year had over 170 homestead sales because our farmers could not grow their crops for anywhere neat price they could sell them – resulting in so many bankruptcies. That is another story, but not too far off from the possible future of the growers of marijuana just trying to do the right thing.

The thing about marijuana is the lines are drawn, your either for it or against it. But are you really getting the full picture? The benefits? What are your thoughts?