Crystal Mason voted in the 2016 presidential election. Unfortunately for her, she was a convict on parole and ineligible to vote. She did not know she was ineligible to vote. Crystal’s vote, naturally, was rejected. Since her name was not on the voting rolls at the precinct where she voted, she was given a provisional ballot which is what a person is given if there are questions about their vote. If you vote with this method, your eligibility will be checked before your vote counts. In Texas where Mason cast her ballot, 40,000 other provisional ballots were rejected in that same election. In the same county where she voted, since 2014, seven out of eight provisional ballots have been rejected. Out of all these people who cast rejected votes, Crystal Mason was the only one to be charged with illegal voting. Oh, yeah. Crystal Mason is black. Now it makes total sense.

Crystal Mason wasn’t a violent offender the first time she went to prison. She was a tax preparer who inflated returns, not for herself, but for her clients. She served a year in prison for this crime. For voter fraud, she was sentenced to five years. Both of these sentences are longer than the one Paul Hodgkins got. Who dat? We’ll get to dat.

In 2016 in Texas, Terri Lynn Rote voted for Donald Trump…twice. Bruce Bartman voted on his dead mother’s ballot. Justice of the Peace, Russ Casey, forged signatures to get on a ballot. None of them received prison sentences. Guess what. They’re all white. Also, it was in Texas.

Tommy Chong was sentenced to nine months in federal prison, fined $20,000, and forfeited over $103,000 in property for selling bongs. And these were empty bongs. There was no marijuana in these bongs. Yet, nine months for Tommy. The prosecution even argued that a member of Cheech and Chong used his name and reputation to sell drug paraphernalia. Using your name to sell shit in America? The nerve.

What Tommy Chong should have done was sell fake educations from a fake university with his name on it. The last guy to do that is playing golf right now in Florida.

Patricia Spottedcrow was sentenced to 12 years for selling $31 worth of marijuana in Oklahoma in 2011. Even after she was released, the Native American/African American mom, was sent back to prison for unpaid court fees.

Also in 2011, 75-year-old disabled veteran Carroll Brooker was given life in prison for growing three dozen cannabis plants in Alabama. All put together with the unusable parts like stalks and vines, the total weight of the weed that sent Brooker to prison for life was 2.8 pounds. Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Dakota have mandatory life sentences for growing weed.

I would argue that a greater crime than a person on probation voting illegally, smoking weed, or growing weed, would be trying to prevent people from voting. I believe all these Republican lawmakers should be given mandatory prison sentences for making it harder for minorities to exercise their constitutional rights.

You can argue that by voting illegally, someone is violating democracy and trying to install a president through illicit means, even though we’ve never had enough voter fraud to overturn a presidential election in any state…ever. What Paul Hodgkins did was try to install a fascist dictator through a white nationalist coup attempt. What Paul Hodgkins did is the very definition of terrorism. Yesterday, Hodgkins was the first white nationalist Trump terrorist to receive a sentence. He got eight months. Hell, he should have been given extra time just for being from Florida.

Hodgkins pleaded to a single count of obstructing an official proceeding, which was Congress certifying the election, which is a constitutionally-mandated procedure. On January 6, while carrying a Trump 2020 flag, this goon marched from the Trump hater rally to the Capitol building and barged his way onto the floor of the United States Senate.

Hodgkins told the judge, “Let me go. I’m white.” No, that was obvious. What he did say was he’s “truly remorseful and regretful.” He’s also super-duper sorry for hurting the country he loves and he had no idea there would be an insurrection attempt. He said, “This was a foolish decision on my part that I take full responsibility for. I do not nor will not make any excuse.” He then made the excuse that he got caught up in the passion and the next thing you know, he’s on the floor of the Unite States Senate holding a Trump flag.

He entered the Capitol with people attacking cops and screaming, “Hang Mike Pence.” Someone even brought a noose. It’s kinda like that Trump argument about “very fine people” marching with tiki-torch Nazis chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” Yeah, fine people don’t march with Nazis. Also, fine people don’t barge into capitol buildings with other people brandishing nooses while chanting to hang somebody and overturn an election.

The judge said, “I do not believe that Mr. Hodgkins, other than having made some very bad decisions that day … that he is a threat.” And then he let him go home, trusting he will turn himself into prison authorities eventually.

Sure, he’s not a threat. He only hangs around with people waving nooses and attacking cops.

This is our justice system. It’s not fair. The Justice Department recommended 18 months. Hodgkins should have received 18 months, at the very least. And now, he won’t even serve eight months. What would his sentence have been if he was waving a flag with Antifa’s logo on the Senate floor? What would his sentence be if was black and wearing a BLM hoodie? To be fair, if he was black and had been wearing a BLM hoodie on the floor of the Senate, he wouldn’t have received a sentence because he’d be dead.

This sentence is just like how the government responded to Trump terrorists compared to how they responded to black demonstrators. The military was called and tear-gassed a park and hid the president (sic) in a bunker when black people were outside the White House protesting. For a gathering of white terrorists, the military wasn’t called until AFTER they had stormed the Capitol. And even then, they took their time about it. I bet this same judge would have given more than eight months to an Antifa person for breaking into a Starbucks and stealing half a dozen vanilla bean scones.

And while I argue we should legalize marijuana, decriminalize it, and release everyone currently in prison serving marijuana-related sentences, Trump supporters will tell you their terrorists shouldn’t be punished at all and that they didn’t do anything wrong.

Their ridiculous arguments range from them being just tourists who remained behind roped-off sections to the Capitol being paid for by taxpayers so it’s OK to break in through busted windows and steal the Speaker’s podium.

Based upon the logic that it’s OK to break into government buildings and steal shit, then I should have been able to let myself into Donald Trump’s Oval Office with a brick, and rummage dthrough the Resolute Desk for big-ass Sharpies and Tic-Tacs. I should be able to break into the Smithsonian and take the Hope Diamond. Or better yet, I should be able to break down the fence of the National Zoo and steal a panda. They still eat bamboo, right? Just being hypothetical, where would one find a shit ton of bamboo?

If I did any of that, I’d probably get a lesser sentence than a black guy would for selling pot. Why? I’m white. I’ll just tell the judge I never intended to steal a panda, I just got caught up in the pandamonium. Or I’ll just say it followed me home. Animals like me. I could even argue that I’m not a panda thief but a panda protester.

Animals like me more than Trump supporters do. And quite frankly, animals are better people than Trump supporters. Because even the Trump supporters who are not terrorists are terrorist supporters. They support white nationalism. They support overturning elections. They support destroying democracy. They support conspiracy theories. They have tried to destroy this nation by politicizing a pandemic and with their anti-vaxxer bullshit. At the very least, the ones who do commit terrorist attacks in trying to overturn an election to install a fascist dictator should receive harsher prison sentences than people who smoke a little weed.

Terrorists should receive harsher sentences than pot smokers. Justice should be fair and not dependent on whether the defendant is black or white…or a white conservative Trump supporter.

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