NEW FEDERAL ARRESTS RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT OBAMA MEDICAL MARIJUANA POLICY

Ridgecrest, CA:  A medical marijuana raid by the Naval Criminal Intelligence Service has led to the arrest of five defendants. They have been federally charged for distributing marijuana for the R&C
Collective next to the China Lake Naval Base.
  It should be noted that the NCIS, not the DEA, led the operation  Unlike the NCIS, the DEA operates under the Justice Dept and is supposedly subject to AG Holder's memo to honor state MMJ laws. Other federal agencies that are outside the DOJ do not seem to be bound by the AG's directive. Patients living near the border have reported harassment from Immigration agents, who are under the Dept of Homeland Security, and who claim they have received  no instructions to honor state medical marijuana laws.)
   A summary of federal medical marijuana defendants can be found at  www.canorml.org/news/fedmmjcases.htm The continuing raids point to  glaring weaknesses in the Obama administration's announced policy of DOJ non-enforcement. The time is overdue for real regulatory reforms  to  fix bankrupt federal MJ laws. One of these is rescheduling marijuana for medical use, the object of an eight-year-old petition that is overdue for a response from the DEA. The upcoming confirmation hearings of DEA chief Michele Leonhart present an excellent opportunity for Senators to quiz the administration on its policy.
- California NORML Release - May 1, 2010
- Dale Gieringer, Director (415) 563-5858

Guest Blogger: What if Teabaggers Weren’t White?

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S. Wise has spoken in 48 states, on over 400 college campuses, and to community groups around the nation. Wise has provided anti-racism training to teachers nationwide, and has trained physicians and medical industry professionals on how to combat racial inequities in health care.

Excerpt:

“Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition.

And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic?

What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired.

Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

( read the entire post here)

Parent Alert: Kids' Tylenol, other drugs recalled

Company says more than 40 children's medicines affected

“McNeil Consumer Healthcare issued the voluntary recall late Friday in the United States and 11 other countries after consulting with the FDA. The recall involves children's versions of Tylenol, Tylenol Plus, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl, because they don't meet quality standards.” Photo source

Kent State slayings 40 years later: Special graduations set

This years’ Special Graduation for the Kent State Class of 1970 is about closure.

I wonder when I, and the other Americans who went into Cambodia and sparked this sad incident, will ever get closure?

Who will talk about our experience and disillusionment when we found out that students our age were being shot by the National Guard because they were protesting what we were doing in Cambodia? We were there to end the war. We knew the enemy command center was operating out of Cambodia for years. They’d cross the border and then dash back to Cambodia, knowing our politicians wouldn’t let us chase them down.

Then the decision was made to bring the conflict to an end by killing and capturing the NVA Command structure that was staging attacks in Cambodia. At first, most Americans didn’t even know we were there, let alone what our mission was. When bits and pieces leaked out about our activities the general picture formed by college students, and activists, was that the war was being extended and more people were going to die. They reacted accordingly. What followed was a tragedy.

I wish someday our story would be put into a different context. We thought we were bringing an end to the war, and that we’d be greeted as heroes when we defeated the enemy. Instead people remember what happened to the students and it seems like those of us that went into Cambodia were/are the bad guys in history. Even the men that died fighting there have been given no respect. Their ghosts haunt me, and I guess they always will.

Excerpt:

“Forty years later, Gary Lownsdale is still haunted by what he felt and what he saw in the last days of his senior year.

Shock and outrage over the May 4 National Guard slayings of four Kent State University students, on the other end of Ohio from his University of Cincinnati campus. Then fear and confusion as schools across the state and much of the country saw the demonstrations against the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia swell into angry, combative confrontations.”

Nothing Screams Charity Like Naked Women

The first non-profit that I noticed using naked women as a lure was PETA. Apparently, there are plenty of other organizations (like the two non-profits mentioned in this article) that use the same female hook to bring in the bucks in the name of something.

“Is it the shock value that will get more attention to the project, and hence more money to the cause? Or maybe, just maybe, this is just the closest men can come to paying for sex and both get away with it AND feel good about it?”

It’s been 35 years since the fall of Vietnam –what have we learned?

It’s hard to believe over three decades have passed since I was slogging through rice paddies. My experience there changed my life. All of my world views went out the door as I learned how to survive by whatever means. I had to numb myself against the almost daily horrors there. When I returned to the states I was so lost that I led a homeless life for two years – living out of my old 1964 Chevy Impala.

So what has our country learned about the futility that was the Vietnam War? In my opinion, our government hasn’t learned a damn thing. The lesson didn’t soak through to the Pentagon Hawks who steered us into TWO WARS (better than one!). Afghanistan, in particular, is a mirror of the Nam. How could people not see this?

Then again, some people knew all about history, but ignored it for the cause of greed. Greed, you say? Let me explain; we know that Iraq was an “oil war,” but are you aware that Afghanistan is one too? That’s right. Testimony before the US Congress is circulating on the internet. It pertains to a proposed oil pipeline through Central Asia that is applicable to the current war in Afghanistan.

See “Is pipeline behind the War?

I think we have the answer as for learning our lesson in Vietnam. We didn’t, and the Hawks in the Pentagon continue to sacrifice our troops in the name of greed. What really pisses me off is when we try to take the high ground and claim we just want to free the Afghanistan people from tyranny. What a hypocritical lie that is!  

35 Years after the Fall of Saigon in pictures and story.

Excerpt:

“By the time American forces withdrew in 1975 and Saigon fell to Ho Chi Minh's Communists, 58,000 Americans and between 1 million and 2 million Vietnamese had died. It was the longest war in U.S. history and the most unpopular American war of the 20th century. In this 1965 photo, paratroopers cross a river in the rain near Ben Cat, in the south.”

They only want to help the little guys…right?

Image Source

Why Obama should not have checked 'black' on his census form

Here’s a good opinion piece by Elizabeth Chang,  on why President Obama should have acknowledged both his black and white backrounds when he filled out the census form this year.

She also correctly pointed out it was important to recognize all of one’s heritage. Not just one side. There’s no stigma to being biracial these days, and I agree with the author – Obama blew it.

“I have always considered Barack Obama to be biracial, and I had hoped that his election would help our country move beyond the tired concept of race. Unfortunately, the president is not getting with my program.

Although I knew Obama self-identifies as African American, I was disappointed when I read that that's what he checked on his census form. The federal government, finally heeding the desires of multiracial people to be able to accurately define themselves, had changed the rules in 2000, so he could have also checked white. Or he could have checked "some other race." Instead, Obama went with black alone.” Go here to read the rest.

Folk art on four wheels

Whether you consider them to be transportable treasures or just a bump in the road of modern-day car culture, it's impossible to ignore art cars when they come into view.You'll know them when you see them — they're those wacky vehicles that artists transform from anonymous look-a-like automobiles into one-off works of art using paint, glue, magnets, lights and a wide variety of attached materials and objects. Go here to read this article.

VAT’s All the Fuss About?

Have you heard about the value-added tax (VAT), a horrible new tariff Americans will soon have to shoulder?

The alarm is sounding on the conservative Web site Townhall.com, in the editorials of The Wall Street Journal, and on the opinion pages of The Washington Post (as well as in the pages of NEWSWEEK): consumers can expect to soon see the feared VAT sneaked into price tags nationwide.

How an unlikely tax became right-wing pundits' latest fascination                                           

 image source

Where are the Tea Partiers when you need them?

Activists for Latino and immigrant rights -- and supporters of sane governance -- held weekend rallies denouncing the new immigration law in Arizona and vowed to do everything they could to overturn it.

You know who I was looking for?

 The Tea Partiers. Why shouldn’t I have looked for these patriots who believe that an overreaching government poses a serious threat to individual freedom? It seems to me that a law allowing individuals to be detained and interrogated on a whim -- and requiring legal residents to carry identification documents, as in a police state -- would send the Tea Partiers into a frenzy.

But there were no “Don’t Tread on Me” flags waving. There were no men and women wearing colonial clothing and passing out copies of the Constitution. I looked for the placards calling for the good old days – We Want Our Country Back! But there were none. Several weeks ago I wrote a column Tea Party Utopia: no taxes, no government that generated a lot of reader input on the T-S chat forum. The following observation enraged some people and they called me a racist. 

“I've yet to see persons of a minority race at a political tea party. I'm not sure why that is. It would be nice to see the mainstream media showing tea party rallies that include people of different races calling to “get their country back.” I don't think that's happened yet. I could be wrong.”

So I ask again, why weren’t the Tea Partiers out there supporting the American Hispanics who would be adversely affected by this new immigration law? What about their rights? What about that talk of Big Brother waiting to take away the common Americans rights? 

 Or is there some kind of exception if the people whose freedoms are being taken away happen to have brown skin and might speak Spanish? You tell me.

Photo Source