worth it. is the war on drugs over or ending? i think so when the drug war was launched, whether you date it to nixon or reagan, at that period of time, there hadn t been lifetime s worth of experience with any drug. cocaine, speed, heroin, were popular in the late 19th century, but they virtually disappeared. when they came back in the 70s, there wasn t this knowledge of what drugs were actually like. we re getting to the point now, where almost everyone alive has had marijuana as a major part of the culture for their entire lives which makes the government propaganda against it much more difficult to sink in and the same is true with a lot of psychedelics now. it s not the same with marijuana, but it s closer. you can t sensationalize them in the way that you used to be able to. that s why you see the aging out here. vanessa, it seems like the technology is ahead of the law here, right? at some point you ve got to
imagine amendments favored by gun rights advocates than amendments on things like renewing the assault weapons ban or limiting or outright banning high-capacity magazines. even if the senate imagines to emerge from the debacle with a solid bill, the bill must still pass in the house. surprising exactly no one, speaker john boehner didn t seem exactly eager to take up the legislation. i fully expect that the house will act. in some way, shape or form. but to make a blanket commitment without knowing what, what the underlying bill is, i think would be irresponsible on my part. joining me today, washington bureau chief at the the huffington post, ryan grimm, vanessa is a contributor at new york magazine, and bob herbert at dimos and ben smith from buzz feed is here.
atrophying of intransigence, are we just in a different place? or are they going to kind of come back and try to gum up the works through this amendment process? i think the thing is that this, the bill even in the best case scenario for democrats to pass is the lowest-hanging fruit, the most modest of the, of various things that obama has proposed that gun control advocates have proposed. but it s also the way these things change, is not in one session of congress. it s over the long-term. you see pat toomey sticking his head out a little like what s going to happen when he s up for re-election in pennsylvania. over the next few years that some of the republicans who have been a little soft for the gun lobby here, who are going to get challenged from the right. who are going to take flack from the right. but who are also going to run in general elections and use this to their advantage. this is that image that you guys have up of pat toomey and mansion is going to be his re-election
the dmz and our south korean allies, the first 24 hours would be brutal and that s when their 800,000-man army would with tactical nuclear weapons and other weapons, would go through the dmz like butter and reach the other side and you know, seoul is only 35 miles away. and it is a very developed, brilliant economy here all the way up to the dmz. practically all the way to the dmz, frankly, alex when i first came here in 1984 with ronald reagan, it was barren mountains between the dmz and this city. now it s transformed. this is one of the world s global leading economies. and that is the contrast that kerry is trying to stress. if he can get through to the people of north korea. but of course he can t, they are hermetically sealed. andrea, before we let you go, because you re there and because of the grave threat and imminent threat in some ways, to the people of seoul, to the people of south korea, what is the mood on the ground there? we re getting reports in north korea of celebr
table to try to you know, make some fixes here. i do think that the most important thing that s going on now is the media attention that s being paid to gun violence in the country. because that is a way to begin to shift the culture. i have absolutely no confidence, though, in congress. as it s presently constituted to do anything significant about gun violence. the other thing we haven t talked about, ryan, is if it does pass the senate, if you have some background checks intact. you still have beacons of reason. michele bachmann, steve stockman, who invited ted nugent to the state of the union. paul brown who has called evolution a lie straight from the pit of hil. these are people who are trying to say you can t even bring this to the floor of the house, a majority of republicans have to support it. how strong is john boehner going to be in the face of the tide of crazy? i think he might actually