Eighteen states all over the physical and political map, including California, Arizona, Virginia, Michigan, Montana, Illinois, Oregon, Nevada, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York, now permit the recreational use of cannabis, opting to regulate and collect taxes from adult use of the substance rather than continue to treat it as a problem to be contained through cops, courts, jails and prisons. Thirty-seven states have made medical marijuana legal. Yet the federal government still lists the weed as a Schedule I narcotic “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” classifying it among the most dangerous substances in America.

Last week, President Joe Biden sent Congress his proposed defense budget for the next fiscal year: an $813 billion wish list, almost $60 billion more than he requested a year ago — more military spending than any president, including Donald Trump, has requested since World War II.

It’s hard to read the reports emerging from Bucha and other Kyiv suburbs, and nearly impossible to look at the images. Retreating Russian soldiers have left evidence of unthinkable brutality. Ordinary men and women lie dead on the street, in the dark mud and dirt, many shot, some with hands tied behind their back. People were found still clutching shopping bags, one splayed next to a tangled bicycle. There are mass graves, and there’s evidence of torture. Ukrainian authorities say the bodies of 410 civilians have been recovered from towns around the capital.