BP Oil & No on Prop 19- The Smoking Gun

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

In my past diaries on Yes on Proposition 19,    Control and Tax Cannabis, aka marijuana decriminalization in California, I’ve shown that right wing conservatives funded by their usual business interests, are behind the continued attempt to let the Federal government waste money on continued harassment of pot users.  I agree with the former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, who says that:

most bad things about marijuana – especially the violence made inevitable by an obscenely profitable black market – are caused by the prohibition, not by the plant.

An “obscenely profitable”  black market cannot exist with out high level cynicism and corruption in our Federal, state, and even sometimes, county governments.  The state of CA has been severely cutting back maintenance, employees, hours, access to public parks and recreational areas and facilities for outdoor sports and recreational users under their self inflicted “budget austerity,” and the Federal government has been socking us with increased, draconian “user fees,” for groups,  yet they continue to have plenty of loot to fight against personal growing of a weedy herb, which would deflate the market for it.  Priorities are misplaced.  The war on pot has been an expensive failure.

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•Placer County CA sheriff’s dept. and other Casino, liquor interests fueling the opposition to stopping asset seizures

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

•Holder’s DOJ setting record marijuana busts

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

•It would also make CA a laughingstock-  Senators using Pentagon budget to earmark marijuana eradication

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

•Senator Feinstein, the Chamber of Commerce, Insurance, Oil, Pharma,  Narco Police squads continue to insist on wasting money on persecuting goofy giggly people by backing no on Prop 19

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

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Today, an image that just sort of sums up the entire ridiculousness:

The Public Safety First, No on Prop 19 PAC forces scheduled a meeting with ARCO/BP Oil  on Sept 28  down in Southern CA Orange County.

And this image, taken from another No on Prop 19 website:

From the No on 19, Nip It In the Bud 2010 website, the 9/11 memorial lights of NYC,  and being told that legalizing marijuana is the equivalent of supporting terrorism by airplane suicide bomber.  Talk about tasteless demagoguery.  

this is their Nip it in the Bud 2010 website. You can see they don’t identify who they are, at all.  ID #1323410

http://www.nipitinthebud2010.o…

I put this identity into the Cal access database search again for donations.  It turned up “Your search did not find any matching records.”   Of course.

From the ballot propositions for the November election, here is their listing:

http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/Ca…

The phone number goes to Los Angeles, CA, http://www.ifbc.us/   the “International Faith Based Coalition”

The lead video at the top of the page is from Fox News and features an interview with an African American pastor, Bishop Ron Allen, a former drug addict (cocaine)  who is against legalizing marijuana.  He says the legalizers are “fear mongering” just to get the vote, the jails are not crowded with pot users and that blacks are not targeted for prosecution.

Yet in text, it quotes this from a NY Times piece:

This month, the Drug Policy Alliance – a New York group that is supporting Proposition 19 – released a study showing that blacks were arrested for possession at far higher rates than whites in California’s 25 largest counties, often two or three times higher. In those 25 counties, blacks make up 7 percent of the population but accounted for 20 percent of the marijuana possession arrests; in Los Angeles County, which accounts for about a quarter of the state’s population, blacks were arrested for marijuana possession at three times the rate of whites.

At the moment, 1,515 people are in California prisons on marijuana charges, 750 of them black, state corrections officials say.

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Rob MacCoun, a professor of law and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied marijuana use in America, said there was little doubt that blacks – particularly black men – bore the brunt of arrests for marijuana.

“The arrest statistics are disproportionate with respect to African-Americans and disproportionate with respect to use,” said Mr. MacCoun. “And that’s very hard to justify in any way.”

There is other news video featuring Ron Allen and his ongoing fight with the head of the CA NAACP, Alice Huffman, on this issue. Since Fox News, Russo Marsh Tea Party Express members,  and right wing think tanks have a recent and sordid history of attacking the NAACP, (think Shirley Sherrod getting fired)  this is significant.

But wait-  where else does this Los Angeles phone number for Nip It In the Bud go to,  213.446.xxxx ?   It goes to High Road Consulting Group LLC, a political campaign consulting group, and Alexandra Datig.   Alexandra Datig, in fact, is Bishop Ron Allen’s media consultant and the creator of that “International Faith Based Coalition website.”  

(High Road Consulting LLC.  More names I can’t make up.)  So who’s Alexandra Datig ?

She has also served as a consultant for retired California State Senator and Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden for the past ten years.  Together, they have taken on issues, local and national, that inform, and ultimately influence, citizens’ thoughts by raising awareness on these issues, including electric cars, environmental pollution, and oil drilling rights and related consumer safety concerns.

Oil drilling rights ?

Nate Holden’s son Chris is a Pasadena City Councilman, and his son Reginald is a Deputy Sheriff in Los Angeles County.  Nate Holden is currently a consultant,  a member of the National Contract Management Association, NAACP, Urban League, United States Commission on Government Procurement and Crenshaw Neighbors.

http://www.nateholden.com/    Crenshaw Neighbors domain is for sale.  I can’t find a U.S. “Commission” on “Government Procurement”  but it’s got to do with international trade agreements.   Please tell me that consultants are not trying to start infighting at the NAACP, just to defeat sending their kids to jail or having a blot on their record for using marijuana ?!

The phone number of High Road Consulting LLC and Alexandra Datig also shows up on the electronic filing for the Committee listing filing with the State of CA, as  http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/PD…  pdf download

Opposition to the California Marijuana Legalization Initiative 2010

(no street address)

Marina Del Rey, CA  90292

The name of the treasurer is one  Armen D Ross, no street address, Los Angeles, CA 90036 phone 323.712. xxxx

Now, Armen D Ross has put down the phone # for this company, The Ross Group dba Grumpy Old Men, which are real estate consultants in Torrance, CA  http://trggrumpyoldmen.com/    

But he’s listed as a Consultant for this one, The Katherman Company  http://katherco.com/id17.html

“management, political, and public affairs consultant” specializing in governmental relations and environmental analysis. “TKC helps clients frame public policy discussion.”    Grumpy Old Men is the affiliate consulting company.

And British Petroleum just happens to be one of their clients.  

A consultant for BP is the treasurer for Nip It In the Bud, one of No on 19 anti – pot legalization PACs.

The second filing, in August, for Nip it In the Bud, shows a single contribution of $100 and a single expenditure of $167.  

Now, BP is supposed to be hard at work, spending lots of money to clean up the world’s largest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

But they’ve still got enough money leftover to donate to candidates for the CA state legislature.  When they aren’t astroturfing other issues.  Here they are, giving $11,750 to conservative, anti environmental CA state legislative candidates, in their latest Oct filing.  pdf download, BP Corporation North America Inc PAC,    http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/PD…

I cross checked these candidates against environmental issues voter guides, and most are very low rated.

Perez, LaMalfa, Fletcher, Galgiani, Cabellero, Knight, Torres, Fuller, Katcho, Bill Berryhill, Silva, Smyth, Miller, Conway, Hall, Garrick,   The Hall of Shame of Campaign Recipients, 2010.

This isn’t all the money BP is lavishing on the CA state legislature, more here, at least $19,000 to date THIS year, at least 29 donations.  But because of how the regular filings are scheduled, you have to look for the 2009 donations on the actual list.  Donors can time it to make it appear that they didn’t give to them during a campaign cycle, by giving in the off year.  There’s lots more, about $22,250 in BP money donations to bring it to  $41,250.   A thousand here, a thousand there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.  In 2009, BP spent $16 million in lobbying.  Federal candidates nationwide, from Jan 2009 to June 2010, got just $79,000, by comparison.  http://www.opensecrets.org/new…         Obviously, CA is considered an important BP target because of the effort to overturn the state’s landmark green energy law with another proposition, 23.  

http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/Ca…

Several of these candidates that took BP Oil donations are in districts that overlap Placer County, in Northern CA,  where the Placer County Sheriff’s Deputies made a donation to the No on Prop 19,  such as Republican Ted Gaines, who is running simultaneously for the state assembly and the state senate (don’t ask, somebody passed away, nature abhors a vacuum) and Republican Doug La Malfa.

Three of them, Allan Mansoor, Norma Torres, and Isadore Hall, did NOT cash at least one contribution check, Torres took $500 in 2009 and Hall took an earlier one in May for $1000.

On BP’s donation list for the 2009 -2010 donation campaign cycle so far:

Martin Garrick

Isadore Hall

Pete Parra

Michael Rubio (Kern County supervisor. Democrat. Listed in wiki as against Prop 19, as “bad public policy,” allegedly spending his own money on ads against it.  Intense scrutiny should be applied to this claim. )

Anna Caballero

Cathleen Galgiani

Manuel Perez

Katcho (uses his first name, it’s Katcho Achadjian for assembly)

Sam Blakeslee

Cameron Smyth

Tony Mendoza (Democrat)

Felipe Fuentes

Nathan Fletcher

Jeff Denham

Gloria Negrette McLeod

Jean Fuller

Jeff Gorell

Jim Silva

Lou Correa

Alex Padilla

Ron Calderon

Jose Solorio ,  Democrat for assembly, Anaheim (curiously, just backed out of deal that would have had him being the only Dem to try to vote to sell the Orange County Fairgrounds to potential developers aka the City of Costa Mesa. “Remember, the price of your Fairgrounds is eternal vigilance !” )

Allan Mansoor

Jerry Amante for assembly, lost the primary

Horton for Board of Equalization

Nora Campos

Rod Wright

Connie Conway

Dave Cogdill

Tom Berryhill*

Bob Dutton

Anna Caballero

Bill Berryhill*  (*2 brothers in adjacent districts)

Cathleen Galgiani

Diane Harkey

Wilmer Amina Carter

Nancy Skinner

Norma Torres

Joel Anderson 2010  (this state candidate’s account was recently investigated by the CFPPC for passing money thru the Placer County Republicans in Northern CA, then recycling it back after a cut was taken out )

Jim Nielson

Ted Gaines (now running for both assembly and senate simultaneously)

______________________  Just took August 2010 BP donations, below

Bill Berryhill*   (*there are two Berryhills running, Bill in the 26th, Tom in 25th )

Cameron Smyth

Connie Conway

Fletcher  assembly  

Jeff Miller

Isadore Hall

Jean Fuller

Jim Silva

Steve Knight

Doug La Malfa

Norma Torres

Where else are we going to find hidden Oil money oozing into the cracks of our democracy ?  

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edited to add link to another diary on topic I left out