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“Pushing back” the lies

July 30, 2008 by Administrator

The Office of National Drug Control Policy’s claim that today’s marijuana is more potent than in the past is tainted by the fact that the ONDCP routinely lies about marijuana.

Case in point: a recent report by the Office National Drug Control Policy claimed that frequent marijuana ingestion doubles a teen’s risk of depression and anxiety. However, when a reporter questioned Drug Czar John Walters about the ONDCP’s claim that “using marijuana can cause depression and other mental illnesses,” he admitted that there is no proof one leads to another.

Similarly, the claim that “marijuana potency is not the same as it was in the 1970,s” goes “up in smoke” to reveal the fact that researchers at the University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, examined the potency of over 100,000 pot seizures from around the world.

They concluded , that “Claims made in the public domain about a 20 or 30-fold increase in cannabis potency and about the adverse mental health effects of cannabis contamination are not supported currently by the evidence.”

According to their report, “In the USA THC levels of cannabis has risen slightly over the last 25 years, from about 1% to 4%.

Yes, today there is much more potent pot available to consumers who can afford it but — speaking from the perspective of a citizen of “Woodstock Nation” — it was also available “back in the day.” Anyone remember Thai Stick?

The potency myth is the cornerstone of the government’s misbegotten 70-year old war on marijuana. It’s time for a reality check.

Walter F. Wouk for Rabble Rouser

Check out Pushing Back: ONDCP Releases 2008 Marijuana Source Book

And Legislators aim to snuff out penalties for pot use

Posted in Marijuana Prohibition, Police State Update | 2 Comments »

Tales of a Mad Scientist

July 2, 2008 by Administrator

In a recent letter to the Daily Star (Oneonta, NY), Dr. Nicholas A Pace claimed that marijuana use is dangerous. Any discussion regarding the alleged dangers of marijuna must be prefaced by the fact that there isn’t one credible scientific study that proves it is a dangerous herb — not one.

To the contrary, in an analysis contained in a recent European Union report on cannabis, published by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, author Robin Room stated that, “on every comparison of dangerousness we have considered, cannabis is at or near the bottom in comparison with other psychoactive substances.”

It should also be noted that Dr. Pace is a professional associate of Dr. Gabriel Nahas, a notorious, monkey murdering, anti-marijuana zealot whose studies regarding the purported dangers of marijuana were so biased and unscientific that he was fired by the National Institute of Health in 1976 and — under ridicule from his peers — renounced all of his studies in 1983.

Dr. Pace claims that smoking marijuana exposes an individual to twice the number of carcinogens as tobacco, yet he failed to mention that the active ingredient in marijuana cuts tumor growth in common lung cancer in half and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread, according to researchers at Harvard University who tested the chemical in both lab and mouse studies.

Pace stated that “new brain studies on marijuana smokers showed a reduction in the size of both the hippocampus (regulating memory and emotion), and the amygdala (which handles fear and aggression).” However, The results of the study are based on only 15 cases, and are inconsistent with previously published research

Dr. Pace also cited a Food and Drug Administration’s report that, “There are no sound scientific studies” supporting the medical use of marijuana, but he failed to mention that a 1999 study by the National Institute of Medicine concluded that “Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs, primarily THC, for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation.”

The bottom line is: any fool can claim marijuana is dangerous — but there isn’t one who can prove it.

Walter F. Wouk for Rabble Rouser

Posted in Marijuana, Marijuana Prohibition | No Comments »

Word

June 15, 2008 by Administrator

US Marijuana Arrests 1965-2006

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER! consent to a search of you, your car or your residence; especially if you’re not sure if everyone in your car or house doesn’t have something to hide. For example, if a passenger in your vehicle decides to ditch their stash under the seat — and a cop finds it — you’re the one who gets busted.

If a cop asks, it means they have no probable cause for a search. If a cop asks, it means they want to look for a reason to hassle you — JUST SAY NO!

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER! trust a cop. If you do, you’ll become one of the casualties of the government’s war on marijuana.

The FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report reveals that police arrested 829,625 persons for marijuana violations in 2006, or nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States. This amounts to one marijuana-related arrest every 45 seconds. The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Of those charged with marijuana violations, 89 percent were charged with possession only. The remaining 12 percent were charged with “sale/manufacture,” a category that includes cultivation for personal and medical use.

Remember — JUST SAY NO!

Posted in Marijuana, Police State Update | No Comments »

The ultimate invasion of privacy

May 17, 2008 by Administrator

The right to be left alone is, in the words of the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, “The most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” The right to privacy is an implicit guarantee of the Constitution; yet it’s the right most violated by government officials and corporate America, who force millions of Americans to submit to drug testing in order to get or keep a job.

Drug testing presumably innocent individuals as a condition of employment is a repudiation of everything America stands for. Drug testing reverses the presumption of innocence upon which much of our legal system is built.

The Fourth Amendment protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Many courts have ruled that to require a urine sample to be analyzed is a search under the Fourth Amendment.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, more than 90 percent of U.S. companies with more than 1,000 workers require drug tests. WALMART, the nation’s largest corporation, drug tests all of its 1.6 million-plus employees.

Drug tests can reveal the use of contraceptives, pregnancy, medications used for depression, epilepsy, diabetes, insomnia, high blood pressure and heart disease. Employers have found drug testing a simple way to look into an individual’s medical history. They can easily obtain confidential medical information and use it to eliminate job candidates and force employees out of their jobs.

Employers who require individuals to submit to drug testing, as a condition of employment, are demonstrating their contempt for the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and “We the People.”

There is no place in a free country for gratuitous drug testing. It is fundamentally anti-American.

– Walter F. Wouk for Rabble Rouser

ON THE NET
Anti-American Activity
Drug Testing and Employment
Guide to Companies that do not Drug Test
Testing for Tobacco Use

Posted in Marijuana | 1 Comment »

Noteworthy

May 12, 2008 by Administrator

GET THE MARIJUANA MONKEY OFF OF OUR BACKS

“During my 18 years as a Michigan police officer I was dispatched to zero calls generated by the use of marijuana. Whatever the science says about what good or harm it does, it is a horrendous waste of good police time chasing adult users and sellers. We have crimes which have a real victim going unsolved because we spend so much time on pot. Child porn comes to mind. Give marijuana roughly the same regulations and restrictions as alcohol and tobacco. Get this monkey off our backs!”

Officer Howard J. Wooldridge ( retired ) is an Educational Specialist for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition in Washington D.C.

LYING BASTARD UPDATE

A report by the Office National Drug Control Policy said that frequent marijuana ingestion doubles a teen’s risk of depression and anxiety, based on data compiled from published studies.

Pressed at a news conference about the report’s claim that, “Using marijuana can cause depression and other mental illnesses,” Walters demurred and acknowledged there is no proof one leads to another.

According to the Denver Post, John Walters has the most useless job in Washington.

– posted by Walter F. Wouk for Rabble Rouser

Posted in Marijuana | No Comments »

Local Yokels

May 4, 2008 by Administrator

The world is a better place because of George W. Bush’s presidency, Vice President Dick Cheney assured Oklahoma Republicans on Friday evening. “When the history is written, it will be said this is a safer country and more hopeful world because George Bush was president,” Cheney said.

“The world is a better place because of George Bush!” Excuse me while I puke.

Journalist, Dave Lindorff, reports that George Bush’s way of making the world a better place reads like “a laundry list of international crimes, the Crime Against Peace and Conspiracy against Peace in the UN Charter, to Geneva Convention violations such as approval of torture of prisoners, collective punishment of civilians, the killing of children and child soldiers, the failure to protect occupied citizens, the use of banned weapons, etc., etc., and also of domestic crimes, ranging from political use of government employees, conspiracy, treason, lying to federal officials, defrauding Congress, etc.”

Predictably, George Bush’s high crimes and misdemeanors” haven’t offended his Republican base. In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll (taken April 18th through April 20th), 66% of Republicans polled support the policies of the Bush regime — at least they do in private.

There isn’t a Republican official where I live (rural upstate New York) that has “the balls” to praise George Bush in public. They’re running for re-election — and away from their boy, George.

They can read the writing on the wall, and it tells them that 69% of Americans disapprove of George Bush’s policies. So, don’t expect these “local Yokels” to muster up the courage to stand by their man — at least not in public.

– Walter F. Wouk for Rabble Rouser

Posted in Cowards and collaborators | No Comments »

Let’s not facilitate corporate crime - hand count the paper ballots

April 15, 2008 by Administrator

In January of this year, despite all the well intentioned but tardy efforts of the Board of Elections, the US Justice Department seized control of the New York State voting machine selection process.

When the State BOE met in the third week of January they were struggling to retain some semblance of their bureaucratic identity while complying with the Federal District Court’s directives. Impeded by an absolute partisan split, Judge Sharpe’s corrupting time schedule, and a limited offering of Ballot Marking Devices to choose from, the board was initially able to approve only one BMD for purchase by the county Boards of Elections.

The January meeting of the NYS BOE was concurrent with the Election Commissioners Association meeting in Saratoga. With practically all counties represented at that venue most NY County Election Commissioners immediately signed on for the one BMD choice, the Sequoia ImageCast offered by Sequoia Voting Systems (SVS Inc.) of Denver, CO.

Despite the success of vendors’ legal challenges which eventually allowed other choices almost ninety percent of NY Counties and all but one upstate county have maintained their selection of the Sequoia machine. The Justice Department has indicated they will not allow any additional changes.

The Sequoia ImageCast is a ballot marking device combined with a ballot scanner that is capable of tabulating votes. It was, at the time of selection, a new assemblage of devices which had not undergone any testing in NY. The scanner portion of this machine is the result of Sequoia’s collaboration with Dominion Voting, Ontario Canada. It is Sequoia’s other interests and obligations which have recently surfaced that are of more serious concern.

Posting on ComputerWorld.com and his own blog Brad Friedman reports that almost simultaneously with Sequoia’s NY success a competitor voting equipment company, Hart InterCivic Inc. of Austin TX, launched a hostile takeover of S.V.S. Inc. And we learn that the takeover is facilitated by Sequoia’s two million dollar obligation to their former parent company, Smartmatic Inc., an offshore consortium with ties to the Venezuelan government. www.bradblog.com/?p=5885

Sequoia claimed to have severed ties with Smartmatic after the Smartmatic CEO was denied entry by Homeland Security and, presumably, to avoid a critical review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). However, it now seems that Hart InterCivic wants to purchase that two million dollar lever as their initial volley in the takeover bid. They may be well on their way to accomplishing that goal by the time you read this.

Mr. Friedman had previously reported, on March 27th, that an unresolved whistle-blower initiated fraud complaint against Hart InterCivic will now be allowed to go forward after being held up for months by the Justice Department. In this litigation Hart is accused of committing fraud by presenting their election software and machines as secure and reliable even though they knew otherwise. www.bradblog.com/?p=5847

Hart InterCivic has a partner company which provides the software side of their package: SOE Software of Tampa FL. A brief visit to their web page www.soesoftware.com reveals that two of their top management team have previous business relationships with Mobil, Sperry Univac, General Dynamic, IBM, Raytheon, AT&T, MCI and Motorola. This does not give me hope for tamper free elections should Hart have any access to our votes.

Regardless of how this corporate war ends it seems obvious that New York State should take another look at their hopeful voting equipment vendors. The BOE and the State Comptrollers Office have to do a new Vendor Responsibility Investigation (at this writing do not know if this investigation was originally done as required). This investigation would rightly be triggered by either the foreign financial interest in Sequoia or the vendor substitution by Hart, especially since both vendors have been untruthful or are now accused of being untruthful. Don’t expect this to happen. Even if the State did do an investigation the Bush Justice Dept. would render it moot.

More importantly, we need to consider what this is all about, and it’s not only about the immediate profit from the sale of voting machines. It’s about power and the possibility of much greater future profits. No one knows better than the machine manufacturers and vendors how efficient computerized vote counting can be for controlling elections.

If you doubt this analysis please consider how much money the presidential candidates are spending on their campaigns. That’s what control of vote counting is worth, again and again, year after year.

So where does this leave the New York State voters?

Most election integrity activists considered the ImageCast BMD/scanner choice a victory in that it practically and fiscally guaranteed we would be voting on paper ballots in 2009. Not having to cast our ballots using a direct recording electronic voting machine and instead having the inherently verifiable paper ballot is a win, but only a partial win. Our remaining problem is reliance on a software controlled scanner and election management computer programs, all susceptible to manipulation by a variety of untrustworthy corporate actors, election insiders and technocrats, to count our votes.

Unable to rely on state bureaucracies, the Justice Department or Federal Courts to protect us from the threats to voting integrity privatization and lack of transparency represents, the task falls to us. As citizens we have to assume responsibility for the vote count. The verifiable paper ballot is of no service to election integrity unless they are counted by the voters themselves. A scanner using open source software and maintained by municipal workers might be used to confirm the count but the official count has to be the one performed by citizens, at the polling place upon closing of the polls.

I do like to end on a positive note with an action suggestion. We should slaughter the golden goose and disappoint all the wolves that are circling us. We can ban the scanners and decide to hand count the paper ballots. If we did that the wolves would quickly lose interest. Then we will need only to concern ourselves with dealing with each other instead of the corporations.
– Wayne Stintson for Rabble Rouser

Posted in Election 2008, Homeland Insecurity | No Comments »

It’s only words

April 13, 2008 by yova46

As the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary nears last week the Hillary Clinton Hell Hath No Fury Campaign released tax returns indicating her and Bill earned over $100 million dollars from 2000 through 2006 begging the question: just how does she appeal to blue collar workers without bullshitting them that she feels their pain. In response the Obama campaign kept the high moral ground by not pouncing on the glaring chasm between the Clintons rhetoric of empty empathy and the reality of the Clinton wealth.

In an attempt to explain his trouble appealing to the working class Sen. Obama recently said that there are a lot of people in small towns who are angry and bitter because they feel left behind and “It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

With nonchalant ease and without a trace of shame Senator Clinton appeared comfortable in the slop and spin of the political gutter as she accused Sen. Obama of being “…elitist and out of touch” and “…not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans”.

This from a candidate so “out of touch” with reality that she cannot mathematically win the Democratic nomination for president without being divisive because her campaign was poorly managed from day one being ill equipped to deal with life after the first Super Tuesday that they resorted to daily redefining reality by repeating the mantra mirror, mirror on the wall what favors Hillary above all others.

How ironic that the person who wants to become the first woman president, indeed even feels entitled to the position, accuses her Democratic opponent of the elitism which is no different from the label of elitism that Republicans have for decades used to describe, to define and to demonize Democrats.

In fact today John McCain did precisely that. In response to Sen. Obama’s speech that has Sen. Clinton performing like a drama queen, Sen. McCain claimed that Sen. Obama was out of touch with the public. Can you imagine that - two months ago during a Republican debate the straight talkin’ media created loveable old maverick, John McCain, said we were better off now than we were seven years ago - now that’s out of touch with reality when just the other day a poll found that 78 percent of Americans thought we were worse off. So who is really out of touch with the American people?

One can hardly resist the urge to suggest that Hillary Clinton is Joe Lieberman with tits as a clever way of describing a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Ironically the only real Republican at that debate and the only real straight talker said we were not better off. That was Ron Paul the real maverick that the press ignored while covering their own creation who was squatting and grunting more often than not when George Bush commanded him to shit and support nonsense like the surge is working and he’s on top of the economy.

Although Hillary is fond of saying when Obama speaks “it’s only words” apparently Obama’s observation is a convenient Clinton family exception to the rule as well as a disingenuous attempt to obscure and conceal her own elitism found in her words like “I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies,” she said. “Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it’s a matter of personal faith.

Who the hell is Hillary Clinton to define the values and beliefs of Americans and claim they exist for society at large? How presumptuous, how pompous, how elitist for her to believe that she has those distinctive attributes which qualify her views on any matter to be taken more seriously?

We weren’t all raised in the Midwest, as such most Americans weren’t raised with Midwestern values, just what those Midwestern values are that Sen. Clinton claims she was raised on no one in the press even bothered to ask? And not all Americans acted like good Germans who shared her “unshakable faith in America and its policies” certainly not as they were applied abroad to Vietnam, South America, Central America and the drug war that further eroded our constitutional liberties here at home.

Indeed, Sen. Clinton’s elitist world view even excluded many Americans who believe the Second Amendment applies to a well regulated militia and not individual citizens as well as excluding the many Americans who believe in the separation of church and state.

Sen. Clinton’s hysterical response to Sen. Obama’s observation is only the words spoken by the self appointed Queen of the Democratic Party: mirror, mirror on the wall who’s the most electable of all? But this isn’t a fairy tale that can come true, there is no voice coming from the mirror, there is only the reflection of a bitter divisive woman scorned.

– John Pagoda for Rabble Rouser

Posted in Election 2008, Hillary Clinton | No Comments »

The Commander-in-Chief Test

March 30, 2008 by Administrator

Gotta tell you I’ve always been interested in politics indeed even studied political science in college and consider myself somewhat above average in my knowledge about the American political system but I’ve never heard about nor read anything about the commander-in-chief test that Hillary Clinton claims only she and John McCain have passed? Is it multiple choices, essay, open book, oral test, is it a take home exam? In fact just what qualifications does either Hillary Clinton or John McCain possess to be commander-in-chief that Barak Obama apparently does not, according to the junior Senator from New York?

The press has already repeated the John McCain story ad nauseam to sufficiently convince the public that he is in fact a war hero for spending 5 years in a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam and not giving up any secrets while not daring to ask what he was doing over there in the first place.

Indeed there is no indication that history will ever record that the Vietnam War was an honorable cause and a just war. Nonetheless I know I would not have had whatever it takes to give nothing more than name, rank or serial number – I wouldn’t hesitate to tell any interrogator that “the quy you’re looking for, the one who is responsible for perpetuating this war resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and his co-conspirators from both sides of the aisle are not far away”.

But seriously, 5 years in a POW camp and now he’s qualified to be the commander-in-chief. Just last week the 72 year old McCain claimed that it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran” displaying an absolute ignorance that Iran is a Shiite country and al-Qaeda is a Sunni dominated organization and the Shiite and the Sunni hate each other. He had to be corrected by that Independent Republican co-author of the Kyle-Lieberman Amendment which cited Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization providing a loop hole for the commander-in-chief and incumbent war criminal to invade Iran should he choose to or be influenced to do so. This same bill was supported by the only other candidate capable of passing the commander-in-chief test, Hillary Clinton.

Indeed what experience does Hillary Clinton have to be the commander-in-chief that Nancy Reagan and Laura Bush don’t have – they were all first ladies for 8 years nothing more, nothing less and therefore just as qualified to claim they can pass the commander-in-chief test by answering the phone at 3 a.m.?

When Sen. Clinton claimed to be involved in securing a peaceful solution to Northern Ireland those who were involved stated that for her to claim that was a “wee bit silly”. Truth is there is no commander-in-chief test. Hillary Clinton made that up much like ducking sniper fire on her trip to Bosnia to create a self fulfilling illusion that only she and John McCain were qualified to be commander-in-chief. The same spineless press that sold us the Iraq War enjoys subjecting Sen. Clinton to ridicule and derision for misspeaking about her trip to Bosnia but has yet to hold the only other so-called qualified presidential candidate, John McCain, accountable for his delusional statements from the past that Iraq was an imminent threat to our security to the equally disturbing statements of present day in which John McCain is so divorced from reality that he claims the surge is working as proven by the increase in violence in Iraq while the press gives such nonsense another free pass - so much for these two meeting some non-existent commander-in-chief threshold.

– John Pagoda for Rabble Rouser

Posted in Election 2008, Hillary Clinton | No Comments »

Counting All the Votes - Then and Now

March 30, 2008 by Administrator

hypocrites.gifThe most probable outcome to the Democratic primaries will be that Obama will have the most pledged delegates which according the DNC rules is the primary factor which determines who will be the Democratic standard bearer for the 08 contest, Obama will have the most states, Obama may or may not have the most popular vote but in a general election it’s all about electoral not popular votes as in the 2000 election thus popular vote is of secondary importance to pledged delegates and if the super delegates override Obama’s victory which is already mathematically proven the Democratic Party will rupture beyond repair. One certainly hopes that the super delegates would fully understand the consequences of their actions. Michigan and Florida? They violated the rules of the Democratic National Committee which both Sens. Clinton and Obama agreed to. Changing the rules well after the contest started is not an option if justice means anything unless both parties agree to subsequent changes. For Sen. Clinton to suggest that Sen. Obama doe not believe every vote should count and thereby imply that his nomination would be illegitimate is the kind of animus that needs to cease if the Democrats really want to win the presidency and possess the right to pursue a path that produces liberty and justice for all and not just those who can afford it.

As for Sen. Clinton’s concern that every vote counts part of her experience as an elected public servant began on January 3, of 2001 and the content of her character was tested within her first two weeks of public office when the Black Caucus in the House of Representatives challenged the legitimacy of the 2000 election and all it took for democracy to exist was for one senator from either party to support that challenge however Senator Clinton was part of the unanimous silence as was that loveable old maverick McCain. They both participated in legitimizing George Bush as our 43rd President accepted and as such are responsible for their silence when they had an opportunity to be patriotic.

– John Pagoda for Rabble Rouser

Posted in Election 2008 | No Comments »

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