Another Herblock Homage

...in which The Kid tries to "bend it like Herblock".


At the instigation of my old BBF and comrade Adam Eidinger at DCMJ, here's a Herblock homage depicting DC's special friends, US Reps. Andy Harris and Jason Chaffetz on the news that 60% of Americans surveyed now support legal marijuana (Gallup, October 2016), on the occasion of the April 24th Capitol Smoke-In.

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Surge!

This week begins WMATA's SafeTrack "surge" of massive, long-overdue repairs and rebuilding on the Metro subway, plagued over the past year or so with a rash of fires, derailings, and other accidents...

Bird-doggin'

"Bird-dogging" at Rep. Andy Harris fundraiser, 02.16.16 from Mike Flugennock on Vimeo.

This past Tuesday, I joined the DCMJ Posse on a trip up the highway to Bel Air, Maryland, in the state's 1st Congressional District, represented by one Andy Harris. Most of you will remember Andy as the Congressman who tried to overturn the results of the DC referendum which enacted Proposition 71, which legalized the private use, possession and growing of marijuana.

Blast From My Past: Summer '78

A few weeks ago my "baby sister" (now 51) finally finished straightening out our late mother's estate and got the house sold. The Sunday after we signed off on the sale, Sis and I met up out at Mom's house to grab a last few things we wanted to save before the Salvation Army guys cleared the place out.

It turns out my sister had found and put aside for me a couple of boxes filled with old reprints of my high school and college newspaper cartoons and old studio class sketchbooks from my senior year of college. Among the sketchbooks was one nearly half full of old comic strips and cartoons I'd done for Outlaws, the old DC Yippie 'zine, the summer after the notorious 1978 White House Smoke-In -- work I thought had been lost forever.

I was surprised at how little I winced as I flipped through the sketchbooks. Granted, the gags are rather obscure and unarguably dated, but technically the work itself still actually holds up rather well.

Valentine's Day 2017?

This past week, the DC City Council voted to create a Task Force to develop recommendations on how the District of Columbia should go forward with social cannabis use. In the roughly 4 months the Task Force has to complete its work, it will study issues such as the health and safety of staff and customers in the clubs, the sale of food and beverages, licensing plans, etc.

Keep it up, everybody who called and emailed the Council. With any luck, we may see scenes like this one at rooftop cafés all over town by next Valentine's Day.

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Stop Digging, Mr. Mendelson!

On January 4 the DC City Council, in a notorious cave-in to Mayor Bowser, quickly reversed its decision to end the ban on the smoking of marijuana in public in public establishments, setting the stage for the emergence of underground "smokeasies" for people unable to smoke in their own homes, such as poor tenants in Section 8 housing, or regular apartment tenants restricted by rental agreements.

DCMJ.org posted on January 5:

The January 4th Legislative Meeting of the DC Council was a rollercoaster. First the DC Council voted to #LetTheBanExpire, then the Mayor called members of the DC Council and told them to have a revote on the ban, and after the second vote the DC Council renewed the ban on social cannabis use…

Sounds like we lost, but we didn’t. Here’s why: the DC Council is going to amend the ban before it becomes permanent law. We believe the amended version will be less broad and carve out exceptions for adult use outside of private residences. In the meantime, nothing changes- the ban from 2015 is in place for at least 90 more days, but we now have the opportunity to fix the law before it becomes permanent, but we need everyone to step up their efforts and lobby the DC Council about the need to #AmendTheBan.

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#DCBlizzard

I rather like the shoveling -- repetitive, relaxing, meditative. Big ol' mug of coffee, smoke a bowl, suit up, stomp on out there and just kinda get into it. Some of my neighbors are out shoveling, too, so everybody's taking a break and hanging out. Round 2 begins soon -- or soonish, seeing as it's 8:30 on Sunday morning as I write this.



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"DC for 15" Poster Art Is Ready To Download!

My poster art series for DC's Raise The Wage campaign is now available for downloads by organizers and activists.

I've made these available as tabloid-size posters and letter-size flyers, with plenty of "clear" space for laying out customized text in the page-layout software of your choice.

Follow the "DC For $15" minimum wage campaign on Twitter.

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Freedom Finger

As you may recall from this past spring, my longtime comrade and BBF (Best Bud Forever) Adam Eidinger, activist extraordinaire, was jailed for basically being disrespectful to a politician at a Congressional DC Oversight Committee hearing chaired by the pompous and pasty Jason Chaffetz.

Adam's recent trial on this bogus charge ended in a mistrial last week, and a retrial has been scheduled for May 2nd.

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Catharsis

Catharsis will be a 3 day vigil featuring a Temple of Essence that will be burned on the night of Saturday, November 21 near the Washington Monument and within eyeshot of the White House.

This ceremonial vigil is dedicated to collectively healing from the war on drugs, and is the first of its kind on the National Mall. The vigil is needed because often American society doesn’t mark a transition from a destructive and harmful policy to more compassionate one. As more voices call for an end to the war on drug users and their inhumane imprisonment, its crucial like-minded artists, activists and the community play a public role in healing and transforming to compassionate harm reduction policies.

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Are you ready for some chaos?

According to the fearmongers at the Washington Post, chaos will ensue when DC's Initiative 71 takes effect without provisions for commercial sales. If being able to smoke, grow and share without fear of arrest constitutes chaos, then bring it on.

This art was based on my new logos and icons for the DC Free Cannabis Seed Share and the DC Cannabis Coalition. 

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#F26

On February 26, the possession, use, sharing and growing of marijuana officially becomes legal in the District Of Columbia.

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Ye Olde Colonial Constituents Day

Congratulations, DC! Your new plantation overseer -- that is, the new chairman of the House Oversight Committee -- is a Mormon with an injection-molded face, one Jason Chaffetz of Utah.

Seeing as how part of his job is getting in the way of the people of Washington, DC when they try and govern themselves, then perhaps he might be interested in such issues as traffic, parking, trash pickup, Metro subway fires, and that goddamn' streetcar project that keeps falling behind schedule.

Join us as we take these and other grievances to our new colonial governor at his office in the Rayburn Building on March 17... won't you?

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Blood In The Water

So, I was hanging around the Prop 71 office the other day, working on sketches and listening to Our Exalted Leader Adam Eidinger giving an interview to Cannabis Radio News over at Marijuana Public Media, and in the course of his discussion of the growing pushback against GOP meddlers regarding DC's Initiative 71, Adam threw down the phrase "blood in the water"...

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So, Sue Me

Long story short: DC Mayor Bowser and the City Council plan to defy Congress and honor the will of the voters and implement Initiative 71. A gaggle of GOP clowns in the House are threatening litigation to prevent it. The response of Mayor Bowser and the Council is, in so many words, "so, sue me."

DC Marijuana Initiative Transmitted To Congress, Roll Call, 01.13.15 

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Remember, Remember...

 
Remember this day, DC!

Here's my best bud, DC Cannabis Campaign Chairman Adam Eidinger, on election night last Tuesday:

   

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This Time, Next Year?

Last week, I was over at a friend's house when he pulled out this lid of something really fresh, pulled out this big stinky bud, handed it to me and invited me to take a good smell -- and man, was that some stanky-ass stuff.

So, anyway, my buddy asked me to guess where it was from; I ran down the standard guesses -- Humboldt, Maui -- but you could've knocked me over with a feather when he told me that sticky, smelly bud was grown right here in DC, in Ward 8.

All I could think of is how things could possibly be, this time next year, if Prop 71 goes through, allowing three mature plants. It also reminded me that DC has a state fair now. Can't wait to see next year's Blue Ribbon Ward 8 Skunk Bud.

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Congressional Oversight

Those of you who've been following the recent decriminalization of marijuana in DC -- and the current Initiative 71 legalization campaign -- have had a little taste of how badly Congress jerks us around in terms of self-government and self-determination.

We've had meddling Congressmen trying to scuttle our gun control laws, prevent us from funding abortions and, most recently, the notorious Maryland Rep. Andy Harris trying to stop us from implementing marijuana decriminalization -- and probably one of the biggest fears right now is that Congress will try to interfere in the upcoming election here, where we'll be electing a new Mayor, and voting on whether or not to legalize marijuana.

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These Hands Have Been Touched By God!

As most of you in DC will recall, the City Council voted to decriminalize marijuana some months back. Predictably -- and unlike any other city in the United States -- this law passed by a local government is being interfered with by the Congress of the United States, in the form of an amendment to an appropriations bill prohibiting Federal and city money to administer the new law, introduced by a no-name clown from Maryland named Andy Harris.

The prevailing opinion among legalization and home rule advocates in DC is that if Rep. Harris wants to help govern the city of Washington, DC, he should become an official resident and run for City Council. 

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DC Pot Legalization Initiative Celebrates Successful Petition Drive

 Prop 71 celebrates successful petition campaign, 07.01.14 from Mike Flugennock on Vimeo.

DC Marijuana Legalization Initiative Petitioners "Git 'er done"!
 
 

The staff and volunteers for Initiative 71 celebrate the end of a successful petition campaign to put the legalization of marijuana on the November ballot in Washington DC. Petitioners gathered over 55,000 signatures, more than twice the required amount.

Now, on to November! 

Total running time: 05:35