DAVID DOWNS: We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.

Cannabis bans were fueled by racism and politics, not science. Still true in 2025. RT to call out this tired playbook!

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with… pic.twitter.com/a50C3OrOQY

— Marc Landers (@marclanders) July 4, 2025

Cannabis bans were fueled by racism and politics, not science. Still true in 2025. RT to call out this tired playbook!

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Ah, good ol' tricky Dick,

Marijuana was placed in Schedule I in 1971 provisionally, until the science could be assessed. But Pres. Richard Nixon saw pot prohibition as a way to destroy the antiwar left, according to clandestine recordings made by Nixon in the White House as well as statements from his staff to the press. Nixon convened The National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse (what became known as the Shafer Commission) to engineer scientific support for cannabis’s Schedule I placement. “I want a goddamn strong statement on marijuana,” Nixon said in tapes from 1971. “Can I get that out of this sonofabitching, uh, domestic council? … I mean one on marijuana that just tears the ass out of them.” 

"The Science Behind the DEA's Long War on Marijuana," David Downs, April 19, 2016.

RICHARD NIXON ON BOHEMIAN GROVE

“Bohemian Grove, which I’ve been to from time to time, is the most Faggy god6amn thing you could ever imagine.”

-Richard Nixon pic.twitter.com/j2HFjIjrsW

— Uncommon Sense (@Uncommonsince76) November 22, 2024

BOVARD: Ford’s expansive use of the pardon helped pave the way for George H.W. Bush’s Iran-Contra pardons which largely demolished the investigation of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh. On Christmas Eve 1992, Bush pardoned six Reagan administration officials for their roles in Iran-Contra,

Nixon resigned because he knew that he would be demolished in a Senate trial. But President Gerald Ford compounded the damage from Nixon’s presidency when he issued a sweeping pardon of his predecessor that practically condemned future generations of Americans to being governed by lawless presidents.  --Jim Bovard

Nixon’s Resignation and America’s Impunity Democracy https://t.co/gSyjpO0W3B via @libertarianinst

— St. Michael, the Archangel (@aveng_angel) August 13, 2024

August 8 was the fiftieth anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Unfortunately, that anniversary spurred little reflections or lamentations on how lawless the federal government has become in the subsequent half-century.

Aside from his Watergate abuses, Nixon was guilty of illegally invading a foreign country (Cambodia), perpetuating the war in Vietnam for political purposes and his 1972 reelection campaign, violating the rights of tens of thousands of Americans with the illegal FBI COINTELPRO program, sanctioning CIA violence and subversion around the globe, and many other offenses. Nixon also created Amtrak. 

Nixon resigned because he knew that he would be demolished in a Senate trial. But President Gerald Ford compounded the damage from Nixon’s presidency when he issued a sweeping pardon of his predecessor that practically condemned future generations of Americans to being governed by lawless presidents.

Ford’s rationale for the pardon deserves a place in the pantheon of American political bullshit. In his televised announcement of the pardon, Ford declared that, if Nixon were put on trial, “the credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad.” Ford also claimed that prosecuting Nixon would banish “the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks” after Nixon resigned. But Ford’s action made it easier for subsequent presidents to disturb “tranquility” and practically everything else.

Many people assume that President Ford pardoned Nixon only for Watergate. In reality, Ford’s pardon was so sweeping—forgiving Nixon for any and every possible crime he may have committed—that it would have exempted Nixon even from charges of genocide, 

“Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.”

Continue reading this excellent piece by James Bovard.

Find more by Bovard on Nixon here.

Find Bovard's books here.

Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty https://t.co/yBWhGdSQQH via @amazon

— St. Michael, the Archangel (@aveng_angel) August 13, 2024

"AUGUST 15, 1971: President Richard Nixon took the US dollar "temporarily" off of the gold standard to stop other countries from exchanging US dollars for gold. This was need[ed] to fund the Vietnam war and the massive increase in social spending for President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society."

On this day 52 years ago, August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon took the US dollar "temporarily" off of the gold standard to stop other countries from exchanging US dollars for gold.

This move to remove the connection between gold and the US dollar enabled the USA to begin… pic.twitter.com/M3inSHHxi0

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) August 15, 2023