Tag: Tony Hayward

( If you needed proof that the current “Democratic” administration is throwing support behind getting more Republicans elected this November instead of Democrats, here’s more.)  

The Obama administration’s Attorney General Eric Holder, fresh off his decision to appeal of Judge Virginia Phillip’s injunction against enforcing DADT because of its unConstitutionality, has written a shocking letter to the former chiefs of the DEA on Oct 13th.   And why did he write them a letter ?  Because they want the Attorney General to sue California if Proposition 19 passes, which would decriminalize marijuana at the state level.  

Holder just sent them a letter in agreement.  

“We will vigorously enforce the CSA (Controlled Substances Act) against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law,” Holder wrote.  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Control and tax ? Quit wasting money and resources ? More like Drone and Arrest as usual.

The Department of Justice under Holder has not decreased the number of arrests and prosecutions for marijuana possession compared to the previous Bush administration, in spite of  assurances that medical marijuana users in the state of California would not be targeted. https://www.docudharma.com/diar…  Over a quarter million Californians were arrested last year for drug offenses, with 52% of them being for pot, that’s over 115,000 people getting arrested in CA in 2008 just for possession, per statistics from the FBI.  Make no mistake about it, this is a big cash incentive the Feds are waving at the state when they declare your local LE can only get money this way.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, co chair of the “Public Safety No On 19” committee along with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein,  also said at a news conference that Federal law would over rule state law and therefore any new law would be unenforceable, and that public use of the drug would continue to be targeted, as usual,  whether or not Prop 19 passes.

The “Yes on 19” committee’s former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara issued a response today, saying that:

“Passing Proposition 19 in California will undoubtedly kick start a national conversation about changing our country’s obviously failed marijuana prohibition policies,” he added. “If the federal government wants to keep fighting the nation’s failed ‘war on marijuana’  while we’re in the midst of a sagging economic recovery and two wars, it just proves that the establishment politicians’ priorities are wrongly focused on maintaining the status quo.”

McNamara, now a research fellow in drug policy at Stanford University, has argued that the 60 percent of the cash that supports violent drug cartels comes from the sale of illegal marijuana.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

I’ve written about the Indian Casinos, the beer and wine industry, and the Oil companies backing this continued idiocy. Now let’s talk about the Pharmaceutical companies.

The last time the Obama administration made a drug deal with Big Pharma, er, PhRMA,  before a law was passed was back in March of 2009 when the President met secretly with PhRMA drug lobbyist Billy Tauzin, Pfizer’s Jeff Kindler, AHIP’s Karen Ignani, the Chamber of Commerce’s Tom Donohue and the RW Johnson Foundation’s Risa Lavizzo-Mourey.

http://blog.sunlightfoundation…

Five months later,in August,  Billy Tauzin admitted that the WH had forsworn Medicare drug price bargaining and given up on importing cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe in the deal to get the health care reform bill passed.  By February of 2010, Tauzin took another golden parachute. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes…

This time, Baca and Feinstein’s committee “Public Safety First No on 19” is getting money from the following Pharmaceutical Companies, thru CalBusPac (California Business PAC) thru PHARMA IEC PAC, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Independent Expenditure Committee. They know how to time the donations so it’s less obvious.   And please remember these drug companies aren’t all based in America.  So this is from some foreign money sources.

Baca – DiFi No on 19  list of donors, see CalBusPac

http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/Ca…

California Business Pac (CalBusPac) scroll down to the 5/7/09 filing to see the donation from PHARMA IEC

http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/Ca…

PHARMA IEC pac’s donations for this campaign cycle  – Drug Companies against decriminalization of Marijuana

http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/Ca…

Pharma For HomeLand Security Money to Fight Against Legalized Pot List, October 2010

Bristol Myers Squibb  gave Barack Obama $43,385 in 2008 http://www.opensecrets.org/org…

Abbott Laboratories  spent a million on candidates in 2008, and has given money to Tauzin’s old Phrma Pac, http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

Endo Pharmaceuticals

Hoffman La Roche (Switzerland) http://www.whorunsgov.com/Prof… Rick C Wade, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Commerce Dept under Gary Locke, was a senior government affairs advisor for Hoffman La Roche Inc, and also has on his resume state director of S. Carolina Dept of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services,  besides being a director of Business development at Palmetto GBA/Blue Cross Blue Shield of S. Carolina.  Oh, and the senior advisor to the Presidential transition team.  Hoffman La Roche makes Boniva, an osteoporosis treatment drug (bisphosphonate class ) marketed to post menopausal women which has been causing osteonecrosis of the jaw bone and which double the risk of esophageal cancer. http://www.360reports.com/p/bo…

Sigma Tau

Takeda

Amgen  http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

http://www.campaignmoney.com/p…  on track to match the $1.4 million they gave to candidates in the last cycle

Johnson & Johnson  just lost a lawsuit and owes Louisiana $258 million for misleading doctors about the harmful effects of the anti psychotic drug Risperdal  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10…   spent $3.5 million lobbying this year so far http://www.opensecrets.org/lob…

Eli Lilly – maker of PROZAC anti depressant , spent $3.8 million on lobbying this year with 248 lobbyists, gave $62,782 to Barack Obama in 2008  http://www.opensecrets.org/org…

Novartis(Switzerland) maker of Ritalin for ADD, and antipsychotic med Clozapine http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…  another bisphosphonate manufacturer, drug may be linked to broken leg femur bones in the elderly

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/…

Merck, maker of biological immune system suppressants ATNF drugs such as Remicade,  gave money to Blanche “there will be no public option” Lincoln in 2008 and 2010

http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…  Just lost price fixing trial on generics

http://www.businessweek.com/ne…

Glaxosmithkline – 3rd largest pharma co worldwide, United Kingdom, makers of Paxel, (paroxetine)  the antidepressant which is known for difficult withdrawals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P…

http://www.opensecrets.org/org…  spent $3.4 million in lobbying in 2010

Glaxosmithkline gave Obama $51,909 in 2008

Astellas

Pfizer Inc Ranked #1 in World Sales per Wiki, they make statin cholesterol drugs, neurontin, the antidepressant Zoloft,  and VIAGRA, pled guilty in 2009 to fraud, will spend $25 million in lobbying this year  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P…

Obama received $155,183 from Pfizer in 2008 http://www.opensecrets.org/org…

Perdue Pharma LP of Roseville  don’t know why this is listed as Roseville when Perdue Pharma is in Canada.  Perdue makes Oxycontin, Dilaudid, and codeine contin.  http://www.purdue.ca/en/produc…

Prozac. Paxel. Risperdal. Ritalin. Oxycontin ?!

I hope you enjoyed the knowledge that you just gained, that indeed our nation’s Attorney General is willing to leave over 51 million Americans without health insurance, while acting as an enforcer for a price fixing pharmaceutical monopoly – including expensive, addictive, and mood altering drugs –  even narcotics –   and intends to keep people from growing a herbal weed that science and research has shown to be NOT a narcotic and not as addictive as many of the drugs listed above.

More “Change” You Cannot Believe In.  So They Say.

image of President and Drug Czar, from the “Nip It In the Bud No On Prop 19” Website

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previously in this series:

BP Oil and No on Prop 19, The Smoking Gun

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

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Saturday morning update:  FDL shows that one of the ex DEA letter writers to AG Holder, Robert Bonner, has a company which made nearly a half million $$ in Federal Homeland Security “consulting” Contracts concerning the US/ Mexico border.  And he’s been appointed co chair to the Southwest Border Task Force by Janet Napolitano.  

http://justsaynow.firedoglake….

Nice work if you can get it.  

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.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

Note:

Due to the unusually high number of editorial cartoons published over the past week or so (I literally have another 300+ cartoons saved), I’m going to try and post another edition of this diary by Friday, August 6th.  It something I’ve never done before.

Now for a little exercise in News Spin Cycles, vs the Scientific Process …

When the Facts, finally come in, IS Anyone even still Paying Attention?

“What we have learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is,” said chemical oceanographer David Hollander, one of three USF researchers credited with the matching samples of oil taken from the water with samples from the BP well. “It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe.”

[…]

Together, the two studies confirm what in the early days of the spill was denied by BP and viewed skeptically by NOAA’s chief – that much of the crude that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon well stayed beneath the surface of the water.

[link to follow]

BP buys up Gulf scientists for legal defense, roiling academic community

Ben Raines, Press-Register — July 16, 2010

More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers. At eight hours a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year.

[…]

The contract makes it clear that BP is seeking to add scientists to the legal team that will fight the Natural Resources Damage Assessment lawsuit that the federal government will bring as a result of the Gulf oil spill.

Is it their Scientific Expertise, that they want —

Or their Scientific Silence?

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

Jeeves and Wooster

Mike Luckovich, Comics.com (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Yoda: I am wondering, why are you here?

Luke: I’m looking for someone.

Yoda: Looking? Found someone, you have, I would say, hmmm?

Luke: Right…

Yoda: Help you I can. Yes, mmmm.

Luke: I don’t think so. I’m looking for a great warrior.

Yoda: Ohhh. Great warrior.  [Yoda laughs and shakes his head]

Yoda: Wars — NOT — make one great.

Not even wars, for control and mining of strategically important geo-politcal Natural Resources — that may or may not, determine the course of the world’s future …

Honestly, I am absolutely sick of commercial air travel these days. Just dealing with security is bad enough, but then there’s the airlines, and…hey, all you really need to know here is that there has to be a pretty good reason for me to fly cross-country.

Well, I had one Saturday night, which is how I came to be in the Colonnade Room of the Fairmount Hotel, Washington DC with about 250 of my closest friends, in a classic shawl-collar tuxedo, attending one of the most exclusive “passing of the torch” ceremonies in recent Washington memory.

And when it was all over, Douglas Feith was a happy man.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

Taylor Jones, Politicalcartoons.com, Buy this cartoon