August 7, 2009

Crime and Punishment

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Good news, Californians!  Our state may be a shambles, debt-ridden and stuck in an endless political quagmire, but Arnold Schwarzenegger has just signed a bill that makes it safe to organize March Madness pools in your workplace:

The new law changes the penalty for participation in a non-commercial or an office “sports betting pool” from a misdemeanor, punishable by fines up to $1,000, to an infraction, punishable by a fine not to exceed $250.

Since we’re so fond of naming laws after people, I think we should call this one Margaret’s Law, after Margaret Hamblin, the 76-year-old grandmother who was busted in 2006 for running a $50 football pool at an Elks Lodge.  She was fined $130 and had her fingerprints and mug shot taken after she was cited for running a betting pool.

But no longer!  We’re free of the jackbooted tyranny of the office pool gestapo!  Surely marijuana legalization can’t be far behind?

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Our fall fundraising drive is off to a rough start, and we very much need to raise $250,000 in the next couple of weeks. If you value the journalism you get from Mother Jones, please help us do it with a donation today.

As we wrote over the summer, traffic has been down at Mother Jones and a lot of sites with many people thinking news is less important now that Donald Trump is no longer president. But if you're reading this, you're not one of those people, and we're hoping we can rally support from folks like you who really get why our reporting matters right now. And that's how it's always worked: For 45 years now, a relatively small group of readers (compared to everyone we reach) who pitch in from time to time has allowed Mother Jones to do the type of journalism the moment demands and keep it free for everyone else.

Please pitch in with a donation during our fall fundraising drive if you can. We can't afford to come up short, and there's still a long way to go by November 5.

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