Hmmm…
(Washington Examiner) While Cheech and Chong were the main attraction at the 15th annual Marijuana Policy Project gala Wednesday, the real buzz in the room was over the slew of employees who have resigned since summer.
Seven of the organization’s 38 employees left because of what four former employees described as inappropriate behavior by Executive Director Robert Kampia after an office happy hour on Aug. 6.
One of the former employees who immediately resigned spoke to Yeas & Nays on condition of anonymity. “It was so egregious that I, and a number of other employees, that even in the most generous telling of the story, made it impossible to work for Rob,” the ex-employee said.
Department heads at the organization unanimously asked Kampia to resign but their request was rebuffed with word from Kampia that Chairman Peter Lewis would no longer fund the organization without Kampia as the head, according to Pearce and a former employee at her level.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/blogs/yeas-and-nays/81590192.html#ixzz0ceQSZckT
I’ve met Rob Kampia. I’ve spoken to him on numerous occasions. I’ve even been a guest in his apartment in Washington, DC. Never once has Rob Kampia ever directed any sexually inappropriate advances toward me.
Just for the record.
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Richardson bows out of cabinet, Israel/Gaza conflict with Saleem Siddiqui from HotConflict.com, compromising with a failed ideology.
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Torture Prosecutor Tops 70,000 Questions for Obama on Change.Gov
A whopping 70,000 questions poured into Change.gov over the past week, in response to the Obama transition team’s call for citizen queries to the President-Elect. After votes from about 100,000 people, the top ranked question asks Obama whether he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture and illegal surveillance by the U.S. government.
The national press corps has not raised this issue with Obama since his victory. (When it surfaced in April, Obama said he would order his attorney general to “immediately review” the potential crimes.) And while the leading question in the last Change.gov forum was dispatched breezily — Will you legalize marijuana? No. — this one is far more challenging, both substantively and politically.
The Times notes that Obama’s team has “not said” whether it will even answer [the torture prosecutions] question, though ignoring the question that came in first out of 74,000 would turn this exercise into a farce. A terse, evasive answer would be similarly unacceptable. After all, there would be little point in this online dialogue if it reiterates things we already know, (Obama is not in N.O.R.M.L.), and refuses to provide new information.
Yeah, let’s see if the call for Patrick Fitzgerald as an special prosecutor investigating allegations of torture gets this eleven-word response:
President-Elect Obama is not in favor of the investigation of torture.
I doubt it. I believe it will get a very thoughtful, reasoned response, much like the other four questions that were answered in the first round. Which just goes further in showing us how marginalized the drug war discussion is in Washington.
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Last year there was a horrible tragedy in Omaha when Robert Hawkins, 19, went to the mall and began shooting innocent people, killing eight and himself. Yesterday, Hawkins’ mother Molly appeared on the Dr. Phil television program so the two of them could “get real” (to mock one of Dr. McGraw’s favorite catchphrases) about what led her son to go on a shooting rampage.
While Dr. Phil did emphasize Robert’s troubled family life, history of depression and psychotic episodes, and easy access to an AK-47 assault rifle in exploring the reasons behind Robert’s suicidal rampage, he also goes to great lengths to emphasize Robert’s use of cannabis. (I hope you enjoy this… Dr. Phil charged me $6 just to get the transcript of the program…)
TRANSCRIPT from JANUARY 07, 2009
McGRAW: Robert Hawkins’ mother says she did not see the warning signs because it was one year ago that her 19-year-old son walked into the Von Maur department store at Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, with an AK-47 and killed eight people. According to the police chief, Robert fired more than 30 rounds, then he took his own life.
… Your questions to me–and I get so many of them–are, `Dr. Phil, why? Why, why does this happen? Who does this? How can we spot it before it happens to protect ourselves or our children?’ Maybe it’s one of your own children acting strange. Maybe it’s one of their friends. Maybe it’s a co-worker or somebody that you’re around. You say, `How can we protect ourselves?’ We’ve seen this all too often. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University, the Utah Trolley Square shooting. There are tragically just too many to name. But could these have been prevented?
… Did you smoke marijuana with this kid?
MOLLY: Yes, I did.
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CNN’s Sanjay Gupta Is Approached for Surgeon General Job – NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN health reporter, is the leading contender to become the next surgeon general, a pick that will give the moribund office a higher profile but one that has received a mixed reaction among public health advocates.
If Dr. Gupta is picked for the post, he would be the nation’s leading medical advocate. His experience in the media would be beneficial in bringing the Surgeon General’s office back to the prominence it held when C. Everett Koop was successfully battling tobacco smoking.
But is Dr. Gupta ready to deliver the Obama Administration’s promised end to the politicization of science and medicine? More specifically, will Dr. Gupta toe the federal line that cannabis is lacking in any medical value, or will he recognize what thirteen US states and the past twelve years of research prove — that cannabis is a beneficial medicine for some people and an intoxicant far less harmful than alcohol for others?
In 2002, Dr. Gupta was more than willing to echo the outrageous claims that smoking pot would lead to psychosis, depression, and schizophrenia:
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Rachel Maddow (one of my faves) has a complaint, wondering how could 9 out of 10 marijuana initiatives succeed at the ballot box, while 4 out of 4 anti-gay initiatives succeeded. (Updated with hyperlinks and bumped. — “R”R)
To be fair, I understand Rachel’s point about the anti-gay ballot amendments in California, Arizona, Florida, and Arkansas all passing – it’s despicable that we would treat gays and lesbians any differently under the law than we treat straights. However, that doesn’t mean there is some equivalence between reforming marijuana laws and discrimination against gays.
For one thing, I’d note that the only state that had statewide gay and marijuana initiatives was California, the only state where a marijuana initiative (Prop 5) failed. (Arkansas had anti-gay adoption, but Fayetteville, not the whole state, approved cannabis as lowest priority for law enforcement.) It wouldn’t be fair to say the anti-gay amendment also brought out anti-pot voters in California, would it?
I’ll admit, Rachel, that the results seem ironic and sad, though no more sad that Californians approving humane treatment of chickens at the slaughter while also taking away marriage rights from humans that already have those rights. But your casual dismissal of some very important gains by the cannabis community is not in keeping with your usual inclusive and tolerant beliefs.
In dismissing marijuana initiatives with “whatever, dude” and “Funyuns” comments, you are dismissing the thousands of seriously ill and disabled Michiganders who will no longer fear arrest and incarceration for simply using a plant to alleviate severe pain, nausea, spasticity, seizures, or the wasting that comes with chemotherapy treatments and HIV/AIDS. Rachel, didn’t you begin your career as an activist helping those with HIV/AIDS in prisons? You should know this better than most.
You’re also dismissing residents of Massachusetts who’ve chosen to put their law enforcement resources into crimes more serious than busting a college kid for a baggie of weed. Or are you supportive of criminal penalties for marijuana that endanger students’ financial aid, poor people’s housing, and working people’s jobs and professionals’ careers?
Perhaps we just did a better job of mobilizing our base and convincing the voters of our message. Yes, you had the financial might of the Mormon Church fighting to pass Prop 8 in California, but we’ve had the financial and prosecutorial might of law enforcement fighting us from their bully pulpit using our own tax dollars. And while it is a terrible injustice to deny the rights of gay people to marry or adopt, nobody is arresting 872,000 gay people a year for being gay, nobody is testing gay people’s urine for metabolites of homosexuality and declaring them DUIs, and nobody is incarcerating gay people for their “lifestyle”.
Yes, gay people face revolting acts of violence and discrimination most stoners never face, but we can still be arrested for our “lifestyle”. The government has an entire cabinet bureau dedicated to propagandizing against us, lying about us, defeating our ballot propositions, and arresting and convicting us.
We should be natural allies, Rachel. Our struggles are very different, but also quite similar. We need to come out of the closet, too. We need to educate ignorant people about us. While you may think the big difference is that gay is innate and stoner is a choice, don’t be so sure. We all have an innate desire to alter our consciousness, and for medical users, they really don’t have much of a choice.
Now pass the Funyuns!
I’m starting a new feature here at The Writ. Â Following my show I’m going to post some of my notes and links that I mentioned so you don’t have to take my word for it. Â I’m just the messenger:
Today’s British Slang Introduction of Stevie:
“Our man from across the pond, working the phones in our Nation’s capital, a man who’ll never fanny around before quaffing a pint of Guiness with a Liverpudlian and unafraid to knock up Glaswegian who’s taken a kip in front of the Telly, one of the few immigrant workers who still wants to work for an American Dollar, our own Stevie Webb!”
Sarah Palin made raped women pay for their “rape kit”.
CNN’s Jessica Yellin claimed to have found no evidence in city records that Sarah Palin was aware that sexual assault victims were being billed for forensic testing. However, recently released budget documents show that Sarah Palin directly shifted the cost of the rape kits from the police department to the victims in her budget for fiscal year 2000. If what a former city council member told CNN is true, that “Palin would review each department’s budget line by line,” then she either knew about the funding shift and approved it or was negligent in her role as state executive.
It is a fact that under Sarah Palin’s administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees. Although Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella wrote USA Today that the GOP vice presidential nominee “does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test…To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice,” the evidence from Wasilla’s budget records says otherwise.
Wouldn’t oppose an “evidence-gathering test” is word parsing to say “I’m not against DNA tests to catch rapists, I’m just against giving women pills to abort their rapist’s baby.”
Government won’t test your produce for pesticides anymore.
WASHINGTON—The Bush administration has abruptly halted a government program that tests the levels of pesticides in fruits, vegetables and field crops, arguing that the $8 million-a-year program is too expensive—a decision critics say could make it harder to protect consumers from toxins in their food.
Data from the 18-year-old Agricultural Chemical Usage Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture were collected until this year, and the Environmental Protection Agency used the data to set safe levels of pesticides in food.
The program was launched in 1990 to answer congressional concerns over the use of the chemical daminozide, or Alar, on apples. But now USDA contends the program is too expensive.
It would cost about one thousandth of one percent of the Wall Street bailout bill we just passed in order to test our food crops for dangerous pesticides… and that’s too expensive.
Arkansas City, KS Mayor “Smellishus Poon” defends drag blackface skit... then apologizes:
Arkansas City Mayor Mel Kuhn won the weekend fundraiser, in which he appeared in dark makeup and used a vulgar reference to female genitalia as his character name. The fundraiser was for Court Appointed Special Advocates, which supports foster children.
Kuhn told the [Arkansas City Traveler]Â newspaper that his makeup didn’t constitute blackface and that he did not really manage to carry out the character as a black woman; he said it ended up being more like a gypsy.
“I can’t do a black accent,” he said.
Oh, well, in that case it wasn’t offensive at all! Â Everybody knows it’s OK to denigrate the Roma people (they love it when you call them “Gypsies”).
Liberal Media Bias against Palin/McCain:
The multinational corporations that run the mainstream media — GE (NBC), Time Warner (CNN), Walt Disney (ABC), News Corporation (FOX), and Viacom (CBS) — stand to benefit hugely under a McCain presidency. The centerpiece of Sen. McCain’s economic plan — actually, the whole plan— is large tax cuts for corporations. It would deliver $1.44 billion in tax cuts to the five largest media companies, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
You don’t get to be the mainstream media without drinking deeply from the main stream of GOP deregulation and irresponsible tax slashing.
Marijuana Minute: Most people think War on Drugs is a failure, and texting or drinking drivers are worse drivers than cannabis smokers.
Zogby International
Three in four likely voters (76%) believe the U.S. war on drugs is failing, a sentiment that cuts across the political spectrum – including the vast majority of Democrats (86%), political independents (81%), and most Republicans (61%). There is also a strong belief that the anti-drug effort is failing among those who intend to vote for Barack Obama (89%) for president, as well as most supporters of John McCain (61%).
When asked what they believe is the single best way to combat international drug trafficking and illicit use, 27% of likely voters said legalizing some drugs would be the best approach — 34% of Obama supporters and 20% of McCain backers agreed.
Texting drivers more dangerous than drunks: study
Sending text messages from your mobile phone while driving is more dangerous than climbing behind the wheel under the influence of drink or drugs, a study by Britain’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has found.
The reaction times of people texting as they drove fell by 35 percent, while those who had consumed the legal limit of alcohol, or taken cannabis, fell by 21 percent and 12 percent respectively, according to the study.
As the blogger/podcaster for NORML, I have been covering the Rachel Hoffman story since May. Here is a link to all of my previous stories.
I am currently in contact with Rachel’s friend who was interviewed on 20/20, and I am hoping she’ll come on the show to tell us a little more detail. Wait until you hear more about the behavior of the cops in this incident…
As my local fans know, I am very involved in the signature drive for OCTA – The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act. We’re proposing to the State of Oregon to tax and regulate the production and sales of cannabis to adults 21 and over through state liquor dispensaries. It’s been all over our local news and I got quoted extensively in the local weekly, Willamette Week.
I went out to Saturday Market on my way to an errand, just to spend 90 minutes gathering signatures. I only got 27. I had my notebook with the big OCTA logo held out for all to see, plus my seven-second “Tax Marijuana to fund the State – sign my petition” announcement to any who I approached. Most people either eagerly signed, weren’t from Oregon, or politely refused. I had only one aggressively-opposed person, and it was a guy I didn’t even approach.
I’m sitting on the MAX, with my OCTA logo visible (and my Oregon NORML hat), minding my own biz (I won’t solicit on the train, I think it’s rude and I think it may be against their rules), when this older dude with severely f’ed-up teeth approached me, saying something. I couldn’t make it out, because I was transfixed on the massive overbite of his bottom jaw and its eight millimeter gap. Seriously, this guy had gargoyle teeth. Oh, and a huge distended alcoholic seven-days-from-cirrhosis-death belly, disheveled white hair, and dirty clothes.
“We don’t need to have marijuana killing more people in Oregon!” I finally deciphered he was saying.
Now, before I can go into full-blown encyclopedic “Radical” Russ mode, a handsome young twenty-something dude sitting across from me say, “Man, marijuana’s never killed anyone in history!”
I asked the toothy one, “Do you really believe marijuana is killing people?”
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