Marijuana has been approved by California, many other states and the nation’s capital to treat a range of illnesses, but in a decision announced Friday the federal government ruled that it has no accepted medical use and should remain classified as a dangerous drug like heroin.
The decision comes almost nine years after medical marijuana supporters asked the government to reclassify cannabis to take into account a growing body of worldwide research that shows its effectiveness in treating certain diseases, such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.
Advocates for the medical use of the drug criticized the ruling but were elated that the Obama administration had finally acted, which allows them to appeal to the federal courts, where they believe they can get a fairer hearing. The decision to deny the request was made by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and comes less than two months after advocates asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to force the administration to respond to their petition.
“We have foiled the government’s strategy of delay, and we can now go head-to-head on the merits, that marijuana really does have therapeutic value,” said Joe Elford, the chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access and the lead counsel on the recently filed lawsuit.
Marijuana is a dangerous drug like heroin? Puh-leeze.
Back in 2008 Candidate Obama promised to end federal raids on California cannabis clubs which are legal under state law.
In Iowa, there’s a social conservative pledge called “The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family” that is anti-abortion, anti-same sex marriage, anti-divorce etc etc that GOP candidates are being urged to sign. It’s got some pretty rigid-sounding stuff, but there’s also this extra-special piece:
Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.
Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive. I mean, putting aside the statistics on this, which are likely off-base, I could not be more angry. When will Republicans inquire with actual Black people whether or not we’re ok with invoking slavery to score cheap political points? It has to stop. It is the opposite of persuasive and is another reason Republicans repel us. It’s hard to believe that Michele Bachmann would be foolish enough to sigh this pledge.
But proving Bachmann may be crazier and more hardcore than Sarah Palin, she has.
What do you think? Will this torpedo her primary bid or propel her forward with the GOP base?
Okay, look – there is a statistical fact alleged in there. It’s either true or it’s not. It does not allege that “black children were better off under slavery.”
The truth may be painful or inconvenient, but it is never offensive.
According to the history classes I took, in terms of standard of living blacks were worse off immediately after the Civil War than they were immediately before. This is because even though the were now free they were unemployed and their former masters no longer felt obligated to feed and house them.
Were black children more likely to live in a two-parent home in 1860 than they are today? I don’t know the answer and I’m not going to do the research to find out. But I do know that far too many black kids are being raised in single-parent homes. I do know that far too many teenage black girls are getting pregnant.
These are not problems exclusive to the black community but these problems are hitting the black community harder than any other. We can’t address these problems if people keep engaging in tribal posturing and race-baiting.
We’ve known for some time now that Governor Palin lives rent free in Obama’s head. Whether she is calling him out on his inept response to the Gulf oil spill, incomprehensible energy policies, deficit spending, border security, or the inevitable rationing contained in Obamacare which she brilliantly termed “death panels”, she has a unique ability to get under his decidedly thin skin. As it turns out, his obsession with Governor Palin also extends to her use of Twitter, and yesterday’s “Twitter Town Hall“ was at least partly an attempt to emulate the Governor’s success with the social medium. Via Kenneth R. Bazinet:
President Obama’s decision to hold a Twitter Town Hall was an about-face for the commander-in-chief who only months ago in private conversations with aides would scoff at the 140-character social media format for its lack of depth and sophistication, according to sources with knowledge of those conversations.
In particular, Obama would get miffed at the news media for picking up the Twitter comments made by ex-GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. “He complained that ‘They hang on her every word and report it without even questioning her directly,’” one informed source said this morning, quoting the President.
Obama claims he’s too busy to read newspapers, surf the ‘net or watch television (as he should be) but you know he’s sitting there during his daily briefings, ignoring his aides and flipping channels to see what people are saying about him. Then when he finds some bloviating gasbag saying something he doesn’t like he turns to White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer or Press Secretary Jay Carney and tells them to call and complain.
I can picture his aides saying things like “Don’t let him see today’s Times, Krugman tore him a new one again.” Any member of the press corpse that asks Obama tough questions might as well forget ever getting called on during a presser again and any progressive A-list blogger who criticizes Obama will find themselves removed from the invitation list for future cookies and Koolaid conferences.
If Obama’s skin was any thinner it would be transparent.
Bachmann: ‘I Hope’ Higher Unemployment Will Help My Campaign | Appearing on CNBC this morning, presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was asked about this morning’s dismal jobs report and whether higher unemployment rates might help her chances of winning in 2012. “Does it strike you that as the unemployment rate goes up, your chances of winning office also go up?” host Carl Quintanilla asked. “Well, that could be. Again, I hope so,” Bachmann replied.
This is a classic case of what Bob Somerby calls the “Cult of the offhand comment.”
While what ThinkProgress reports is technically true, it’s obvious if you watch the whole clip that Bachmann wasn’t wishing for a rise in the unemployment rate to help her candidacy. What she was inartfully saying was that if unemployment continues to rise she hopes people will look to her as someone who can fix the problem.
I’m not saying she’s right, in fact I doubt it. I’m just sick of progressive groups and individuals throwing away all their credibility in the name of tribalism. I am really sick of having to defend people I don’t like or support.
Job growth came to nearly to a halt in June, the federal government said Friday in surprisingly grim new data — an alarming challenge to predictions that the economy would bounce back later this year.
Employers added 18,000 jobs last month, a trivial number in a country with 150 million workers, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent from 9.1 percent. It was a far worse result than expected–economists had forecast 105,000 new jobs.
I first discovered the blogosphere in 2005 but I didn’t start blogging until March or April of 2008. By that time the Obama internet astroturf operation was well under way. I first became aware of this massive propaganda effort during the first six months of that year.
I began noticing similar (sometimes identical) comments being posted by people using different aliases. Sometimes at the same blog, sometimes they were posted at different blogs almost simultaneously. This was most notable during Obama speeches and debates between Dick and Hillary.
During Obama’s Greatestest Speech on Race EVAH! two different commenters at Buffoon Juice both claimed (just minutes apart) to have been moved to tears just from reading a transcript. As we all know, even the live version wasn’t that good.
The ABC debate was held on April 16, 2008. It started at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. I was switching between three different blogs watching the reactions. At about 7:45 p.m. I saw comments similar to this one on all three blogs:
Un-fucking-believable. This debate has gone on for nearly 45 minutes, and the moderators haven’t asked a SINGLE POLICY QUESTION. NOT ONE. Nothing about health care, nothing about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, or about how the Bush adminstration TORTURES PEOPLE. Noo, we want to ask questions about Bittergate, and flag pins! Oh, and then there’s Reverend Wright – that’s obviously more important than the country going down the shitter! I can’t fucking believe this! No wonder Bush got re-elected – he had simpletons like Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos helping to keep the American electorate in the fucking dark.
I think it was Joseph Cannon who first noted that many of the troll comments he was receiving at Cannonfire came from the same IP address located in a suburb of Chicago. Vastleft at Corrente noted that different trolls seemed to be working in shifts. Right about the top of the hour each day one troll would disappear and another would show up.
After the creation of PUMA we used to see Obot trolls at The Confluence who would use similar phrases. One of those phrases was “help me understand.” I saw it so many times it was a dead giveaway the person was an Obot. I even did a post about it:
Kevin Dujan of Hillbuzz and some of his regular readers determined that someone with the same name as the founder of the troll-blog Rumproast was an employee at a PR firm that did unspecified work for the Obama campaign.
When you put these pieces together it becomes obvious that there was an organized effort to manipulate public opinion on behalf of Barack Obama.
I’m not trying to suggest that every online supporter of Barack Obama was a paid shill, but not long after he was elected 99% of the trolls disappeared. Most of the ones that remained (like ABG) were too insipid and moronic to be part of any professional operation.
But now the Obama reelection campaign has started and the trolls are back. Here is one using the alias “Montana” that visited here recently:
All hail to Astroturf TeaBparty Queen (ATQ), Michele Bachmann. Isn’t she the one that who rails against the Federal Government while every year she benefits from Federal Medicaid Payments for her Clinic, Federal farm subsidies (talk about a Corporate Welfare Queen), and adopts kids to work them on same farm. Oh yeah she is also a self-proclaimed historian on the US Founding Fathers and US history. The sad truth she will lie to get her way, what honor is there in that? But if you manipulate our US history and double down when you are found out, well don’t go crying to Fake News when you lose. Kind of like the Former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (Most recent quitter of her Bus Tour to restore America). We remember what happen when after “W” manipulate Florida (w/ the help of brother Jebb) to win the presidency and his failure to win any of the two wars he started that devastated our treasury and ruined our economy for the next 50 years. If the GOP thinks that Michele Bachmann is the answer, good luck with that. After her “John Wayne” mishap and Tom Petty, calling her a thief, well you know, same old Bachmann, you have a winner GOP.
How do we know this person is a troll? Our friend Dario used teh google:
They aren’t coming here to try to convince us to support Obama. I’m pretty sure by now they have figured out we don’t like Obama and never will. So their goal is to discourage us from supporting any other candidate and to convince us opposing Obama is hopeless (“resistance is futile.”).
Learned helplessness is a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has learned to believe that it is helpless in a particular situation. It has come to believe that it has no control over its situation and that whatever it does is futile. As a result, the human being or the animal will stay passive in the face of an unpleasant, harmful or damaging situation, even when it does actually have the power to change its circumstances. Learned helplessness theory is the view that depression results from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation, or situations (Seligman, 1975). Examples can be found in schools, mental institutions, orphanages, or long-term care facilities where the patients have failed or been stripped of agency for long enough to cause their feelings of inadequacy to persist.
The fact that you’re here and not at Cheetoville or some other Koolaid blog shows that you are resistant to peer pressure and psychological manipulation. Not only that but knowledge is power – when you know what they are trying to do it loses it’s effectiveness.
The people behind this are experts at propaganda and psychological manipulation. But we’ve been there and done that. This time around we need to focus on exposing them and showing our friends and family members what these people are up to.
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” – John 8:32
