Tag: BP Oil

This is just breaking within the past hour or so.

Below is the press release from the ‘Restore the Gulf.gov’ site along with the initial draft agreement.

Still looking at the news articles just coming online.

( 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.

This must give avowed anti environmentalist and overall science denier, Drill Baby Spill, Tea Party Caucus Congressman Tom McClintock of CA 04 a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling inside, because now the area up around his homey base of right wing zealots, Susanville, is undergoing a wild horse purge with Federal Tax dollars-  for BP and Anadarko Petroleum.   Because he had a staffer rep at the BLM’s planning session per documents at the Dept of the Interior website.

They’re going to take 2000 mustangs off the northern California scrubby ranges and leave a small remnant herd of 500.   The roundup started yesterday, Wed Aug 11th.

There are only about 4000 wild horses in CA.  This removes half our state’s wild horses !   And they’re doing it now during the hot days so it won’t interfere with DEER HUNTING SEASON.

Flat Earth McClintock recently had a hissy fit that the Federal government might transfer some Federal land into a National Park or Monument here up in Northern eastern CA because the government doesn’t “create jobs.”    

The Guardian UK, a British publication, says that they asked to see the 90,000+  wikileaks documents of whistleblower Julian Assange on the Afghanistan War, and has created its own stories on them, and has not paid for this. They say they’ve “crawled through it so you can make sense of it,”  which means that they must have had it for a while.  

As the U.S. Senate strips out $20 billion of domestic funding resources that would have paid for schools, teachers, and college students,  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wouldn’t comment on whether the House will simply approve the Senate measure and send it on to Obama for his signature.

But the pressure to do so is intense, especially after Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned lawmakers this week that unless the measure is enacted into law before Congress leaves for its August recess, the Pentagon could have to furlough thousands of employees.

….     out of yet another war “supplemental” bill above the regular military funding, and is poised to influx another massive amount of deficit cash into yet another surge into a country we’ve now occupied for 9 years, the timing could not be better.

Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: “These files bring to light what’s been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I’ve investigated in recent months where this is still not happening.  

Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way the US and Nato do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians.” The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war.

Most of the material, though classified “secret” at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

The Guardian’s war logs homepage of links is here:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

edit. v2.

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You can tell it’s an election year by the amount of wild horses that suddenly have to be removed off Federal range to “preserve habitat” for mule deer hunters and cattle ranchers who also lease it.   This year, 1200 in our sister state, home to the Senate Majority Leader.

The Obama administration touted that it would use so called “science based” decision making.  After watching the Bush administration decide to humor the National Park’s decision to murder a bunch of introduced, very cute, but non trophy type smaller deer at Pt Reyes National Seashore with helicopter hunting, (think more canned Tule Elk Special Hunts as a result ) under the guise of they weren’t “native,” and the helicopter contract went to a big Republican donor, while the Dems made stupid excuses for this, I was sort of cynical that this was going to happen.

Science does not = rotor cowboys.  

Science does not = Cattoor Livestock.

http://rtfitch.wordpress.com  7/12/2010 BLM – Infamous helicopter contractor returns for illegal tuscarora wild horse roundup.  “It was Cattoor Livestock that stampeded the horses of Pryor Mountain in 95º+ degree heat for miles, and again the Cattoors who were actually credited with running the hooves right off from several foals during the bloodiest of all roundups on record, the Calico Complex debacle.  Due to the deaths in the field, …. documented on video, the Cattoors launched an attack on the First Amendment and instructed their attorneys to issue threat/demand letters to news agencies, major non profits, magazines and blogs that were reporting the news to the public on the deadly Calico roundup.  The letters wanted to “fix” the news…. and insist on public apologies for reporting the facts as witnessed. The mention of company owner David Cattoor’s past indictment for capturing and selling wild horses to slaughter was likewise considered taboo. ”

“In their care, 86 horses have died and 40 mares have aborted their late term foals….”

http://tuesdayshorse.wordpress…

“In late December, government contracted helicopters took to the air, rounding up every horse they could find on the vast 500,000 acre Calico range, an area designated principally for wild horse use since 1971, but grazed by thousands of privately owned, government subsidized cattle. The roundup….. has cost at least $1.3 million…. while causing injury and death to hundreds of wild horses.  ….. over 24 million acres have been withdrawn from wild horse and burro use.  The BLM “welfare ranching” practices continue allowing the land to be leased primarily to corporations at minimum fees of $1.35 per cow/calf pair or per 5 head of sheep per month, along with land leases to extractive and energy industries on Western public lands.