It appears the PACT Act is just about dead. I cannot get the link below to work as HTML, so just paste it into your browser. Courtesy of sagedil at snuson.com http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/06/us/06seneca.html?hp
Some Democrat Senators are actually considering their constituents. What is the world coming to? Of course, the Republicans look like they about to shoot themselves in the foot (again) on this issue by ignoring a substantial proportion of the electorate.
snuffgrinder, that’s not fair. They always consider their constituents…as long as the believe exactly what they do or they think it’s what it takes to get re-elected.
Well, that’s good news. I don’t like the how and why its good news part, but the article is completely speculatory anyway. Who’s to say the letters of reason and rational thinking that we wrote didn’t have an effect? Tom, Dave and Mike et. al. will probably sleep better tonight though.
Reason and rational thinking having an effect on any members of this Congress?
Reason and rational thinking? Not on your life. The Democrats do not want to take the blame for PACT – and that was spelled out to Obama when he hosted the Tribal Nations Conference last November. The Dems need the support of the Indian Nations, and they will lose it if it is perceived that PACT goes through under their Congressional majority auspices. The last thing Obama wants on his desk right now is PACT. This is a nice reprieve, but I fear that it is merely temporary. Now that the Supreme Court has cleared the way for unlimited corporate campaign spending, let’s see how much money Altria (Philip Morris USA) and R.J. Reynolds will shell out for the next Congressional session. They can outspend the Seneca Nation a million times over in one fell swoop. Currently, the mood of US voters is too volatile right now, and both parties are running scared at the moment. I seriously doubt that the current Congress wants to touch something that is going to piss off a whole hell of a lot of people (like PACT) during this session. The recent threads on PACT at snuson are a good barometer. What is sad is that many of those people apparently didn’t give a damn about illegal wars, the Patriot Act, Guatanamo, or the crumbling economy – yet they are mad as hell over the PACT Act. I am against PACT as well, but it’s pathetic that only something like this gets people into an uproar.
At least that NYT article made mention of the cigar exception. It’s about time the mainstream media points out in no uncertain terms the hypocritical bullshit that is the PACT proposal. Of course they should have gone further and spelled out that PACT was written by Philip Morris USA, and its sole purpose is to protect their monopoly. Oh, well. You can’t have everything.
@kjoerup, Most people, maybe all, don’t get up in arms unless it’s something that directly affects them or they perceive it affects them.
I’m still going to keep my stock of PACT survival tobacco built up, just in case. Those sneaky b******ds in Washington can’t be trusted.
well, I’ve always thought that the idea of inducing nicotine withdrawals in an (already) angry society that can still (for now anyway) carry firearms was just maybe not the very brightest idea our government ever had. @Nachman, yep, I also plan to continue to try to get and keep as much of a massive stocks of my snus, snuff and e-cig supplies as much as I am able. (that very pressured ‘any minute now’ sense of things has gone a long way towards my making repeatedly outragiously huge orders and trying to rush to test out and hone in on what I need so I can *really* start stocking).
@kjoerup “Of course they should have gone further and spelled out that PACT was written by Philip Morris USA, and its sole purpose is to protect their monopoly” Can’t one of your guys on that side of the pond start a facebook group, get the word out ?
So what about what I just AMASSED? …all put to good use! big phew, my goodness.
Good news, I’m really pleased for you folks. Now, if the UK government doesn’t ban e-cig juice, which it looks like it’ll be doing in June, it’ll be a good year for us little guys. By the way, UK snuffers, please sign the on-line petitions. Links can be found on the E-cig Forum. Thanks.
This abomination will return, in some form, I’m sure, but for now we can rest easier.
Ahhhhh. Well, folks, speaking as a moderate fellow who leans to the left (even if only to fart), one bright point about a Congress that’s even more vilified than the “Do-Nothing Congress” of the late 1940s, is they’ll do about anything right now to avoid raising anyone’s hackles. Now that’s a cheap and sad motive, especially since the livelihood of the Seneca Nation teetered on this legislation, to say nothing of the ire of thousands of constituents who wanted a little more from their tobacco than the dry shredded wheat that the likes of Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds would have us overpay for. However, with the Teabaggers screaming from one direction and the rising Coffee Party coming up from the other, Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann about ready to square off in a celebrity deathmatch, and our esteemed President (calmly, and with much more grace and aplomb, to be sure) serenely allowing the status quo to play itself out, speaking as one man who indeed loves his country but ALWAYS questions authority, I’ll take a pinch of Scotch and a cup of coffee and call it a win.
@JamesS… well they better, else it’ll be TOBACCO RIOTS IN THE STREETS! PS, does anybody know what type of cigarettes Obama smokes? (Wouldn’t it be funny if it was something fancy – and imported?)
Phew!
maybe we should hip him to snuff. That would be interesting.
@Kjoerup: +1.
Obama has been pictured with Marlboro Reds or Lights.