The world’s most wanted drug lord has declared war on the Islamic State, promising the terror group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that his narcotics cartel will wipe them off the planet.
“My men will destroy you,”’ El Chapo huffs to the ISIS leader in an encrypted email that was leaked to a cartel-linked blogger in Mexico. Continue reading
A couple dozen servicemen and women marched to the White House this Veterans Day and dumped a large box of empty pill containers, calling on the president and other federal officials to make medical marijuana accessible to veterans.
“Here’s what the over-medication of our veterans looks like,” they said as they spilled the canisters onto the floor. “We don’t want it.” Continue reading
Psychiatric drugs kill an estimated 500,000 people per year, looking only at people over age 65 living in Western countries, according to an analysis conducted by a world-renowned Danish researcher.
Peter Gotzsche, research director at the Nordic Cochrane Centre, cited the figure in an article published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), in which he argues that psychiatric drugs have only “minimal” benefits but very severe side effects. Most use of these drugs could be halted without doing any harm, he says.
First synthesized by chemist Albert Hofmann in 1938, lysergic acid diethlamide, commonly known as LSD, remains one of the most spectacularly sensationalized and popularly misunderstood drugs.
Capable of inducing intense sensory hallucinations and provoking overpowering (and sometimes unpleasant) reflections about the nature of reality, this powerful drug has only recently won recognition for its potential role in psychotherapy and medicine.
For millennia, our ancestors have enjoyed, and even regarded as sacred, a variety of mind-altering substances. Cultural artifacts, visionary artwork and rituals in many indigenous cultures and past civilizations point to this fact. As Ethan Nadelmann remarked in a recent TED talk, “Our desire to alter our consciousness may be as fundamental as our desires for food, companionship, and sex.” Continue reading
A federal judge in Sacramento, California just heard closing arguments in a case that challenges the constitutionality of the federal government’s Schedule I classification for marijuana. Continue reading
There is no connection between the use of psychedelic drugs and mental health disorders, two recent studies have shown, challenging popular media and political narratives. Instead, certain psychoactive substances can actually help combat the harm of mental illness and prevent suicide attempts. Continue reading
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Thousands of people busted in Connecticut for marijuana possession now have the right to get their convictions erased after the state Supreme Court ruled Monday that the violation had been downgraded to the same legal level as a parking ticket.
The 7-0 ruling came in the case of former Manchester and Bolton resident Nicholas Menditto, who had asked for his convictions to be overturned after the Legislature decriminalized possession of small amounts of pot in 2011. ->
Looking at the lives of those fully invested in the consensus reality of the conventional Western world, there is a consuming grayness, or flatness, that seems to permeate throughout. The socioeconomic and philosophical constructs, or conceptual frameworks, by which adults are ‘educated’ or trained to utilize in the conceptualizing of raw experience are grossly engineered to generate ‘business professional robots’ rather than happy, intelligent and inspired people. Continue reading
The legislative season is in full swing at statehouses around the country, and cannabis is hot. And we’re not even talking about medical marijuana or decriminalization bills, we’re talking about outright legalization bills.
Early this month, the General Social Survey, the “gold standard” of public opinion polls, reported that for the first time, a majority nationwide favor legalization. Other recent opinion polls, including Gallup and Pew, have reported similar results. And all have reported rather dramatic increases in support in recent years, with the trend still continuing upward. Continue reading
DENVER, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Consumers in Colorado bought more than 17 tons of recreational marijuana buds during the first year of the state’s new retail market, but sales of medicinal pot still outstripped that at almost 50 tons, officials said on Friday. Continue reading
I just want to start of by saying, this is normally not the type of story that you will see here at Authentic Enlightenment. But recently I was able to interview a former LAPD detective who was at one time working on two of the most famous murder cases in American history, that of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls (Christopher Wallace). Greg Kading, who is now retired from the Los Angeles Police Department and resides in Southern California with his wife and his two bulldogs, specialized in the fields of gangs, narcotics, and homicide. Greg spent most of his career working on federal task forces to investigate high-profile criminal cases in Los Angeles. He is also decorated with the Medal of Valor for bravery, Police Star for heroic action, and he reached the departments highest ranking as an investigator. Continue reading
Almost as soon as the landslide votes ending the prohibition of adult use of cannabis in two states and the District of Columbia were cast, reform groups across the country began the long paperwork process of getting their legalization initiatives on the 2016 ballot for their respective states. Heartened by the solid victories of every legalization initiative to reach the ballot (a progressive medical measure garnered an impressive 58% of the vote in Florida, falling just short of the 60% needed for passing a constitutional amendment), movement allies around the country are naturally wondering whether their state will be next. Continue reading
In news that is no less stunning for beingtelegraphed, the attorney general of the United States today is declaring America’s drug war-led over-incarceration a moral failure, and announcing new federal rules to deliberately evade mandatory minimum laws for drug offenses. Here’s The New York Times:
In a major shift in criminal justice policy, the Obama administration will move on Monday to ease overcrowding in federal prisons by ordering prosecutors to omit listing quantities of illegal substances in indictments for low-level drug cases, sidestepping federal laws that impose strict mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offenses. Continue reading
(Freedom Outpost) - It seems bizarre, but the fact is the Mexican cartels are offering big money to recruit hit men from the U.S. military. They contract highly trained soldiers to carry out murders and even share their expertise with gangs south of the border, according to law enforcement experts.Fox News reports:
The involvement of three American soldiers in separate incidents, including a 2009 murder that led to last week’s life sentence for a former Army private, underscore a problem the U.S. military has fought hard to address. Continue reading
Whether you are for its legalization or not, you are paying for marijuana to be illegal. According the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 43.3% of all “Arrests for Drug Abuse Violation” are of people who are in possession of marijuana. Six percent of all drug-abuse violation arrests were for the “Sale/Manufacturing” of marijuana. In other words, a whopping 49.5% of all drug-violation arrests are connected to marijuana. Half of the population that is in prison for substance abuse is in prison for marijuana-related crimes. Continue reading
Fire Dog Lake’s Kevin Gosztola notes:
Today US military operations are involved in scores of countries across all the five continents. The US military is the world’s largest landlord, with significant military facilities in nations around the world, and with a significant presence in Bahrain, Djibouti,Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to long-established bases in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and the UK. Some of these are vast, such as the Al Udeid Air Force Base in Qatar, the forward headquarters of the United States Central Command, which has recently been expanded to accommodate up to 10,000 troops and 120 aircraft.
Citing a page at US Central Command’s (CENTCOM) website, they highlight the “areas of responsibility” publicly listed:
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) is active in 20 countries across the Middle Eastern region, and is actively ramping-up military training, counterterrorism programs, logistical support, and funding to the military in various nations. At this point, the US has some kind of military presence in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, U.A.E., Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
US Africa Command (AFRICOM), according to the paper, “supports military-to-military relationships with 54 African nations.”
[Gosztola points out that the U.S. military is also conducting operations of one kind or another in Syrian, Jordan, South Sudan, Kosovo, Libya, Yemen, the Congo, Uganda, Mali, Niger and other countries.]
Altogether, that makes 74 nations where the US is fighting or “helping” some force in some proxy struggle that has been deemed beneficial by the nation’s masters of war.
***
A Congressional Research Service (CRS) provides an accounting of all the publicly acknowledged deployments of US military forces
But those are just the public operations.
Gosztola notes that the covert operations are uncountable:
Beyond that, there are Special Operations forces in countries. Jeremy Scahill in Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, writes, “By mid-2010, the Obama administration had increased the presence of Special Operations forces from sixty countries to seventy-five countries.
***
Scahill also reports, based on his own “well-placed special operations sources”:
…[A]mong the countries where [Joint Special Operations Command] teams had been deployed under the Obama administration were: Iran, Georgia, Ukraine, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Yemen, Pakistan (including in Baluchistan) and the Philippines. These teams also at times deployed in Turkey, Belgium, France and Spain. JSOC was also supporting US Drug Enforcement Agency operations in Colombia and Mexico…
Since President Barack Obama has been willing to give the go ahead to operations that President George W. Bush would not have approved, operations have been much more aggressive and, presumably, JSOC has been able to fan out and work in way more countries than ever expected.
Global assassinations have been embraced by the current administration, opening the door to night raids, drone strikes, missile attacks where cluster bombs are used, etc. Each of these operations, as witnessed or experienced by the civilian populations of countries, potentially inflame and increase the number of areas in the world where there are conflict zones.
***
The world is literally a battlefield with conflicts being waged by the US (or with the “help” of the US). And, no country is off-limits to US military forces.
Of course, JSOC is not accountable to Congress … let alone the public:
JSOC operates outside the confines of the traditional military and even beyond what the CIA is able to do.
***
But it goes well beyond the war zones. In concert with the Executive’s new claims on extra-judicial assassinations via drone strikes, even if the target is an American citizen, JSOC goes around the world murdering suspects without the oversight of a judge or, god forbid, granting those unfortunate souls the right to defend themselves in court against secret, evidence-less government decrees about their guilt. As Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh said at a speaking event in 2009:
Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on.
***
There are legal restrictions on what the CIA can do in terms of covert operations. There has to be a finding, the president has to notify at least the “Gang of Eight” [leaders of the intelligence oversight committees] in Congress. JSOC doesn’t have to do any of that. There is very little accountability for their actions. What’s weird is that many in congress who’d be very sensitive to CIA operations almost treat JSOC as an entity that doesn’t have to submit to oversight. It’s almost like this is the president’s private army, we’ll let the president do what he needs to do.
Due to the implementation of the misguided War on Drugs, the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. Victimless “criminals” fill overcrowded jails, leading to the early release of hardcore killers, armed robbers, and rapists. While drug abuse is certainly a serious problem, prohibition has been proven a complete failure when it comes to reducing addiction rates. In fact, the criminalization of drugs itself has caused a variety of new social ills which tear at the fabric of American society.
The Atlantic is reporting on the particularly depressing story of John Horner, the 46-year-old father of the three children depicted in the picture above. An injured friend, who happened to be a police informant, asked to buy some of Horner’s pain pills which were left over from when he lost an eye. He agreed and was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 25 years. His children have now lost their father for their entire childhoods, because someone talked him into selling leftover pain pills one time.
Often, we hear of first offenders getting outrageous, life-long sentences for selling petty amounts of marijuana to the same informant multiple times while owning a gun. Meanwhile, other people will take a gun and shoot a human being with it, fatally, and won’t be sentenced to as much jail time. Fundamentally, this makes no sense. Taxpayers pay for jails because they want dangerous people put in them. Someone with a cleanrecord who commits second-degree murder could in theory get out earlier than John Horner.
Also, taxpayers have to fund Horner’s incarceration, which, as the above-linked Atlantic article notes, will cost upwards of $475,000. In exchange for these funds, citizens will receive the ruination of three children’s lives, Horner will be immersed in a social environment with killers and gang members (increasing his risk of turning to criminality), and an additional cell will be taken up in the prison, leading to more early releases of killers.
John Horner was a fast food employee who had run out of luck and couldn’t find a job. He has children to support. He lost an eye in an accident and still had some pain pills left over. A friend was injured and asked to buy them, and he sold them, just to the one person. It’s probably not his proudest moment in life, but does it mean he should be locked away from society?
He wasn’t running a pill mill. He wasn’t the leader of a violent drug cartel. The only thing he had on his criminal record was another unfair charge — when he was 18, he was convicted of statutory rape for having consensual sex with a high school girlfriend. Most people would find that conviction astonishing as well, as most statutory rape laws have exemptions for consensual scenarios between high school students around the same age who technically are over and under the 18-year line respectively at the time of the incident in question.
John Horner should not be in jail for 25 years. His children do not benefit from being left un-raised, demoralized by the fact that their father is a prison inmate. Will they turn to violent crime and theft in his absence? The War on Drugs is not only a complete failure, but it is becoming an aggressive menace to society, worse than the drugs themselves.
(RT) The 11 largest drug companies have made $711 billion in profits in just a decade, largely due to overcharging Medicare, which does not seek out competitive prices and uses taxpayer funds to support Big Pharma.
Since Medicare is prohibited from purchasing drugs based on their cost, its prescription drug program has been making large payouts to drug companies that have overcharged the program for years, according to an analysis by Health Care for America Now (HCAN).
“There is nothing wrong with a company making profits – that’s what their supposed to do. But the drug industry’s profits are excessive as a result of overcharging American consumers and taxpayers,” writes Ethan Rome, executive director of HCAN, for the Huffington Post. “We pay significantly more than any other country for the exact same drugs.”
Rome notes that per capita drug spending in the US is 40 percent higher than in Canada, 75 percent greater than in Japan, and nearly 300 percent greater than Denmark.
The 11 largest global prescription drug companies have skyrocketed since the MedicarePart D prescription drug program was launched in 2006. The government health program enables seniors and the disabled to buy taxpayer-subsidized coverage for many of the most widely disseminated medicines. But Medicare is prohibited from negotiatingprices with pharmaceutical companies or seeking out more cost-effective drugs, thereby costing seniors, the disabled and American taxpayers billions of dollars more than some argue the drugs are worth.
Some lawmakers have recently urged Congress to consider changing the law, for the sake of cutting unnecessarily high costs. Wisconsin Democratic State Senator Jon Erpenbach told Wisconsin Public Radio that his state could save $1.2 billion over ten years if Congress were to allow Medicare to partake in prescription drug negotiations.
“I understand that pharmaceutical companies are for-profit companies,” he told the station last week. “I understand there’s a lot of research and development that goes into the products that they produce. All of that being said, it shouldn’t cost us more to get that kind of pharmaceuticals we need to have.”
But according to the HCAN analysis, Big Pharma spends very little on research and development. Even though pharmaceuticals cite research as a costly part of its operations, the money spent on this is exaggerated, Rome claims. Drug companies spend 19 times more on marketing than on research and development – another reason why the industry reaps so much in profits each year, he adds.
US President Barack Obama has long promised to repeal the prohibition on Medicarenegotiations with drug companies, but has so far failed to do so. The Veterans Administration currently negotiates drug prices, and manufacturers argue that lettingMedicare take over the negotiations would make no difference to the industry. Supporters of drug manufacturers also continue to emphasize the high costs of research and development.
But the Congressional Budget Office found that if Medicare were to receive the same bulk-purchasing discounts on prescription drugs that state Medicaid programs receive, the federal government would cut its spending by $137 billion over 10 years.
“Our politicians give all kinds of tax breaks and subsidies to big corporations that don’t need them: Big Oil. Wall Street. Companies that ship our jobs overseas,” Rome writes. “Every gift to a special interest, including allowing Big Pharma to overchargeMedicare, is an expenditure of scarce tax dollars. That’s called wasteful spending.”
(WND) -The Obama administration is demanding the nation’s two biggest shipping companies police the contents of Americans’ sealed packages, and a FedEx spokesman is warning that the move “has the potential to threaten the privacy of all customers that send or receive packages.”
FedEx and UPS are in the Justice Department’s cross-hairs for not flagging shipments of illegally prescribed drugs the companies say they had no way of knowing were in their possession.
Criminal charges could be coming against the carriers, even though the government has not alleged any deliberate wrongdoing by the companies.
FedEx spokesman Patrick Fitzgerald said his company has a 40-year history of actively assisting the government crackdown on any criminal conduct, but he told WND this probe was very different from the start.
“What is unusual and really disturbing is it became clear to us along the way that FedEx was being targeted for some level criminal activity as it relates to these medicines that are being shipped from pharmacies, and we find it to be completely absurd because it’s really not our role,” Fitzgerald said. “We have no way of knowing what is legal and not within the packages that we’re picking up and delivering in this situation.”
“At the heart of the investigation are sealed packages that are being sent by, as far as we can tell, licensed pharmacies. These are medicines with legal prescriptions written by licensed physicians. So it’s difficult for us to understand where we would have some role in this. We are a transportation company that picks up and delivers close to 10 million packages every day. They are sealed packages, so we have no way of knowing specifically what’s inside and we have no interest in violating the privacy rights of our customers,” Fitzgerald said.
In addition to the unrealistic expectation that the federal government seems to have for the companies to know what’s in every package, Fitzgerald said protecting the rights of customers is paramount and the issues go hand-in-hand.
“They clearly are attempting to put some responsibility for the legality of the contents of these packages. That’s why for us it goes far beyond even just the online pharmacy situation. This really has a chilling effect. It has the potential to threaten the privacy of all customers that send or receive packages via FedEx because the government is assigning a role on us as law enforcement or taking on their role in a way that is not appropriate,” Fitzgerald said.
FedEx sought to diffuse the standoff by offering to stop doing business with any pharmacies that the government suspected to be involved in illegal activities. The Justice Department declined, citing the potential for the pharmacies to sue over a lack of due process.
“If the government were to come to us and give us the name of a customer that’s engaged in some level of illegal activity, we can immediately stop shipping for that customer. We will not tolerate any illegal activity within our networks,” Fitzgerald said. “What we want here is a solution that will apply for the entire industry and serve the public’s interest. That’s why we find it completely absurd and, to a large degree, stunning that the government is not working with us on that solution as they have with other problems in the past. As long as they’re not doing that, there’s really no solution even if they were to pursue an investigation or criminal charges against a specific company. There needs to be an industry-wide solution that will put a stop to this problem.”
That leaves FedEx and UPS with the task of stopping illegal shipments from sources the government will not divulge.
“The comparison that we’ve made is a no-fly list. It’s as if the government were to go to major commercial airlines and accuse them of some level of criminal activity if they were to allow somebody on the no-fly list onto one of their planes without providing them a no-fly list,” Fitzgerald said. “What we want here is the no-fly list for online pharmacies. If they are aware of some level of illegal activity by some number of pharmacies, simply provide us that list and we will stop providing service. It’s a very simple solution.”
Fitzgerald said no other private carriers are being targeted by the Justice Department, and he has no evidence to suggest this probe is designed to boost the financially strapped U.S. Postal Service at the expense of private competitors.
UPS is currently negotiating a settlement with the government, but FedEx is fighting this all the way.
“Settlement is not an option for us when there’s no illegal activity on our part,” Fitzgerald said.
I don’t want to encourage people to do (drugs). I think even marijuana’s a bad thing to do. I think it takes away your incentive to work and show up and do the things that you should be doing. But I also don’t want to put people in jail who make a mistake. There are a lot of young people who do this and then later on in their twenties they grow up and get married, they quit doing things like this.
Paul pointed out that both Barack Obama and George W. Bush admitted using drugs: “Look, the last two presidents could conceivably have been put in jail for their drug use. Look what would have happened. It would have ruined their lives. They got lucky, but a lot of poor kids, particularly in the inner city, don’t get lucky. They don’t have good attorneys. They go to jail for these things, and I think it’s a big mistake.”
(Alt Market) - Washington is laying on the malaise pretty thick lately over automatic budget cuts set to take effect in March, with admonitions and partisan attacks galore. Of course, those of us who are educated in the finer points of our corrupt puppet government are well aware that the public debate between Democrats and Republicans amounts to nothing more than a farcical battle of Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots with only one set of hands behind the controls. The reality is, their decisions are scripted, their votes are purchased, and they knew months ago exactly how America’s fiscal cliff situation would progress. The drama that now ensues on the hill is meant for OUR benefit and distraction, and no one else.
The Obama Administration warns that “sequestration” (austerity) will result in a return to recession for the U.S. News Flash, folks! The country never left the recession that officially began in 2008. Sorry to burst that inflated recovery hopium bubble…
Janet Napolitano warns that cuts will result in a greater risk of terrorist attacks. Apparently, an extra $85 billion per year buys us complete safety from the Muslim boogeyman, though the DHS has been far more concerned with “homegrown extremists” (people like me) than Al-Qaeda lately…
The White House and DHS has warned that funding for border control may be diminished, and the southern border will be left “wide open” to infiltration. Apparently, the White House is not aware that the southern border is ALREADY wide open. If they were truly concerned about the porous border, maybe they would refrain from decisions to release over 10,000 illegal immigrants from holding before cuts have even been finalized, sending a clear message to Mexico that there will be no consequences for anyone sneaking into the U.S. without permission…
The DOD warns that cuts to defense will result in a weakened military posture for America, and yet, our posture has already been greatly weakened by our numerous illegal wars in the Middle East (some overt, some covert). I have yet to see any tangible assessments on how our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan has made our nation safer…
Let’s put all of this into perspective; America’s current annual deficits have exceeded $1 trillion for the past four years. Our official national debt has expanded nearly $7 trillion in the span of five years. Through QE3 (QE infinity), the Federal Reserve is now pumping over $85 billion (that we know about) per month into our financial system. And in March, the federal government is being asked to cut $85 billion over a span of six months?
It sure seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the massive expenditures already taking place. Yet, these moderate cuts are being heralded as a sign of fiscal apocalypse by the White House and others. Why? Because America has reached the point at which any disruption in government liquidity will damage our recovery fantasy, and the establishment is acclimating us to the coming crisis so that we don’t immediately take up our torches and pitchforks. The lie is so tenuous, that the fiat must forever flow, or the illusion crumbles. Not only must spending continue unabated, it must also EXPAND with each passing year in order to handle the growing liabilities of entitlements and interest payments on capital already borrowed. Even the smallest of cuts could indeed send our economy into a tailspin (with a little help from the Federal Reserve and reduced currency creation), because that’s exactly how desperate our circumstances are.
Of course, the establishment plans to make matters worse by applying cuts where they will be most painfully felt by the populace. The fear mongering is reaching fever pitch with threats of wide open borders, weakened military superiority, lost government jobs, unemployed teachers, etc. But let’s imagine, just for one blissful moment, that the government was NOT utterly criminal and subversive; what kind of cuts would an honest government make right now in order to counter the dangers of debt disintegration and dollar devaluation?
…I really don’t know because I’ve never lived under an honest government. I have little personal experience in how one would behave. However, here is what I would cut from the budget…
Unnecessary Foreign Aid
Will some cuts be made to foreign aid after “sequestration”. Yes. But nowhere near enough. The U.S. spends around $50 billion a year on foreign aid, including $3 billion in “direct assistance” to Israel (meaning they get a lot more money and equipment through indirect means), $2 billion to Iraq, $1.7 billion to Pakistan, $1.4 billion to Egypt, $1.2 billion to Haiti (the Hatians are the only people on the list so far that actually need the money), and $1 billion to Kenya (…Kenya?). The list goes on and on. Even Mexico gets around $400 million a year in foreign aid from the U.S.
The establishment has conditioned the general public to consider any suggestion of cutting foreign aid to be taboo. Politicians on both sides of the aisle will wail and scream at the thought of reducing aid to Israel or other Middle East nations. That said, the bottom line is that we cannot afford it. You may believe every dollar to these countries results in the thwarting of evil doers and the filled bellies of orphan children. It doesn’t matter, because we can’t afford it. You may believe the whole of America’s international reputation and diplomatic sway hangs in the balance over foreign aid expenditures, but this is irrelevant, because we can’t afford it.
The most detrimental threats to the U.S. are INTERNAL and financial, not external, and cutting foreign aid would alleviate those detrimental threats by about $50 billion dollars. I’m a little tired of hearing how America is supposed to “export democracy” and keep its fingers in the cookie jars of nations around the world. This is a globalist philosophy that has never borne fruit and never will. It is time to bring the money back home where it might actually do some legitimate good.
Occupation Wars
The Neo-Cons played the American people like a banjo for nearly a decade claiming first that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were necessary in order to defuse Al Qaeda influence. Then, when we realized that the resource rich fields of the Middle East were the true target, rather than the “terrorists”, they changed their tune and claimed that now it would be “irresponsible” to leave the region, regardless of the fallacy of the mission, because if we did innocent people would be left to chaos and ruin.
Ultimately, the Neo-Cons never cared about the innocent citizens of Iraq or Afghanistan, they only cared about manipulating the American public into acquiescing to continued occupation, and that is exactly what they did. Today, the Obama Administration carries on exactly where the Neo-Cons left off, using the same propaganda and the same lies with a new face and a new presentation.
Original cost estimates of the two invasions were around $100 billion for a two year involvement, and the American people were assured that this was all that was needed. Today, over a decade later, the costs have escalated to at least $4 trillion (Obama’s claim of a $1 trillion price tag is an outright fabrication), and still have not abated. If the government truly wanted to save massive amounts of capital and shield the populace from debilitating service and entitlement cuts, they would bring the troops home; ALL OF THEM, and stop flushing money down the toilet in the Middle East.
Instigations Of Foreign Insurgencies
Why is the Obama Administration continually pouring money into the coffers of Middle Eastern insurgencies led by Al Qaeda operatives that supposedly hate the U.S.? They did it in Egypt, they did it in Libya, and now they are doing it in Syria. Is Obama an idiot, or, is there a greater purpose at work? Is the goal to deliberately destabilize the region, or are they doing it out of blind hubris and stupidity? In either case, all the money being showered on these civil wars is a wretched waste, and should be stopped.
TSA Thugs
The Transportation Security Administration is the most hated institution in America. It is reviled across the country and its dubious purpose is questioned by almost everyone. Americans, no matter how uneducated and oblivious, still do not like being molested by blue gloved bureaucratic freaks with preexisting criminal records. We do not like having our small children molested by them either. We do not like being irradiated so that our naked pictures can be stored in a central database. We do not like thugs, brown shirts or blue shirts, ordering us around and looking down their noses at us. Frankly, Americans have a history of shooting those kinds of people…
DHS head Janet Napolitano has already released warnings ahead of budget cut decisions stating that the TSA may be on the chopping block, and that this would put American travelers “at risk”. I highly doubt that this is the plan, though…
The TSA is not meant to protect the citizenry in any way. It is a conditioning machine for the masses, and nothing more. It is designed to inhibit our natural rebellion against personal search and seizure tactics, and make us apathetic to deeper intrusions into our privacy. That is all. I find it highly unlikely that the establishment would dismantle such a useful tool of oppression. But, if Napolitano is sincere, then I say go for it Janey, do your worst! Abolish the whole damned agency, because if you don’t, eventually, we’ll do it for you.
The Criminal ATF
The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has a long history of questionable and often illegal activities, usually ending with the murder of civilians with dissenting views. However, the latest snafu involves a much larger conspiracy, culminating in the agency being caught red handed feeding American weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels in an effort to stigmatize gun ownership in the U.S. and to wrongly attribute deaths in the border region to American gun dealers. This debacle is known as “Fast and Furious”.
Eric Holder, Attorney General of the U.S. and a staunch proponent of the ATF, has defended the Fast and Furious agenda to the point of contempt of Congress. Holder is a gun control advocate and key player in the current attacks on the 2nd Amendment, despite his habit of protecting agencies that feed weapons to psychopathic drug lords.
Any agency with this much schizophrenic disregard for the rights and safety of Americans should be wiped from the ass-end of history. It also has an annual budget of $1.2 billion, which could be spent in far better places, to be sure.
Big Brother DHS
What exactly does the Department of Homeland Security do that the FBI and the CIA did not already do before its inception? The great lie spread in the wake of 9/11 was that various alphabet agencies were not “in communication” with each other, and that intelligence gathered was not “reaching the right people”. Of course, Bush had received several warnings pre-9/11 of impending attacks, and the FBI and CIA on more than one occasion had the opportunity to apprehend Osama Bin Laden, but were thwarted by the Administration itself, sending a clear message that the government catches “terrorists” only when it WANTS to catch a terrorist.
The DHS was established as a means to centralize information sharing, but it has become much more. It now encompasses and directs much of the internal law enforcement outfits of the U.S. through so-called fusion centers, and even plays a growing role in external matters. Much of the analytical paperwork coming out of the agency, though, does not deal with foreign enemies like Al Qaeda. Rather, the agency is almost obsessively focused on “domestic threats”, like returning war veterans, Constitutionalists, gun rights champions, Ron Paul supporters, and Liberty Movement activists.
In the end, the DHS is intended to combat a specific opponent, and that opponent is obviously the American people.
The DHS is set to absorb $2.6 billion in cuts if sequestration goes though, causing the organization to spew dire prophecies of doom. Yet, the DHS is projected to have a $9 billion surplus by the end of 2013, and apparently has enough funding to place orders for over 2 billion rounds of combat ammunition (not for training purposes, sorry disinfo-agents). I say cut the head off the beast. Remove DHS, save American liberties, and spend those billions elsewhere.
Gitmo-Style Black Sites
I find it highly distasteful and disturbing that the U.S. government is operating black sites like GITMO where they can torture and murder in obscurity, rather than having to answer to the public, all while instituting these activities in our name. The common argument is that these prisons are necessary to isolate the most volatile of villains, and obtain vital data in the war on terror. Well, despite what you may have seen in the movie ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, torture rarely if ever produces reliable and concurrent intel that can be acted upon to prevent any impending attack, or apprehend any enemy agent. And, after what we saw at Abu Ghraib, the government has proven itself absolutely untrustworthy to handle incarcerated prisoners in any capacity, let alone in places where independent oversight does not exist.
Didn’t Obama make a campaign promise in 2008 to shut down GITMO, by the way? Why not do it now, save the country some cash, and end a disgusting and immoral practice that demeans the whole of our society?
Domestic Drone Programs
Why does the federal government need 30,000 drones in the skies over the heads of American citizens? Why is this being pursued? If the government seeks to make war on the American people, then by all means, admit that this is the goal and at least we will know the rationalization for spreading a spider’s web of remote controlled technotronic death from sea to shining sea. This is the only POSSIBLE purpose that such a fleet of drones could serve. If this is not the reason for the escalation of drone activity, then there is no logical reason, and they should be perfectly willing to end these programs, saving the U.S. millions if not billions of dollars.
Corporate Welfare
Long before the banker bailouts and the “too big to fails”, government has been pouring free money into the coffers of international corporations that were already claiming billions in capital. This welfare has reached epic levels; around $93 billion by some estimates. Why? Maybe because the establishment knew years ago that these companies were headed for debt implosion. Or, maybe because D.C. is a revolving door and corporate vampires like to spend time in the public sector bleeding taxpayers dry. I don’t know. What I do know is that whatever purpose corporate welfare was supposed to serve, it failed. We are in the midst of the most extensive economic crisis of all time, and many of the companies that received welfare for the past couple decades are debt addled failures that provide little in job creation. It’s time to cut our losses…
The Obama Family’s Extravagant Vacations
All this panicked discussion on budget cuts, yet, no one seems to be talking about reducing the most frivolous of expenditures. The Obama family’s four trips to Hawaii alone have cost Americans tax payers at least $20 million (this is a very conservative estimate)! Why is the nation pounding its collective head against the wall over extreme national debt obligations while this joker and his overprivileged family are spending a thousand times more on each of their vacations than any other citizen?
Hey Obama, try a trip to Florida, you money swilling bastard! Maybe you could squeeze it in for under a million? Take a swim in the Everglades perhaps, the water is fine…
One Day Soon, Everything Will Be Cut…
If Americans are frightened of a small budget cut of $85 billion, imagine what they’ll do when they realize this is just the beginning of the avalanche. It will not be long before our foreign creditors turn away from the Dollar and begin using alternative currencies like the IMF’s SDR basket. At that point, the purchasing power of the Greenback will be severely suffocated, and the numerous social services the public enjoys today will be buried as well.
Some people might question why I did not include any entitlement programs or social support in my list of needed budget cuts. I would only point out that such programs are not long for this world anyway, and though most of them shouldn’t exist in the first place, the expenditures listed above are even more peripheral. The feds will keep welfare going for as long as possible, in order to subdue public response and soften collective rage, but there will come a time when the food stamps, medicare, disability payments, and other subsidies will suddenly stop. EU members like Spain are a perfect example, stealing over 90% of social security funds in order to maintain a façade of solvency, while others are raiding retirement funds and employee pensions, all because austerity measures are exhausting entitlement pools. This is where the U.S. is headed, and it cannot be avoided. Not through fiat printing, or any other nonsensical strategy.
My goal was to merely point out that there are plenty of irrelevant federal appendages out there that could be amputated, but probably won’t be, while other more useful programs will come under fire. In the end, the budget cuts are not about saving money; they are about social maneuvering and political gain. They will be used as an excuse for everything, and will produce nothing favorable, not because cuts are not needed, but because the people in charge of them are not trustworthy.
“They explained to me that they had no choice because it’s the law. Well, guess what? I’ve got no choice in the matter, too. We’re going head-to-head now and one of us is going to fall. And if it’s me, somebody else is going to step up.
They’ve come and taken away the medicine that’s been keeping my wife alive for 20 years. I’m not going to let my wife die, and anybody who loves somebody would do the same thing.”
Dave Bristow, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department, insists his deputies did not know the Jordan’s were involved with the bill, saying Sonya Leigh Johnson, a housing inspector, had reported the possible presence of marijuana at the couples home. According to Bristow, Johnson was assessing a vacant home next door when she saw an extension cord running from an open window at the home she was inspecting towards the Jordans’ home. She looked through the backyard fence and saw the plants, took photos and reported it to the sheriff’s department.
Following the raid, Sen. Jeff Clemens introduced SB 1250 on Wednesday. On Thursday, Rep. Katie Edwards introduced the companion bill, HB 1139. Both bills would authorize “a qualifying patient to possess and administer medical cannabis, and possess and use paraphernalia for a specified purpose.”
The bills are about compassion according to Clemens, saying:
“When a patient comes into your office and tells you all the meds that they’re taking don’t work, don’t relieve their suffering, but marijuana does, it’s hard to look at that person in the eye and not do something about it.”
Not everyone is happy about the bill however, with Sharon Kramer, director of the Manatee County Substance Abuse Coalition, telling ABC Action News:
“It is naive to think we won’t pay a heavy price, especially impacts on the health and well-being of our next generation.”
Florida House of Representatives speaker Steve Crisafulli is not pleased with the measure either, saying he does not feel the measure will be something the legislature will focus on.
Clemens insists the introduction of the bill is the right thing to do for those suffering from debilitating illnesses however. He hopes images of a wheelchair bound woman suffering the affects of a fatal disease having her home raided will change opponents minds. He went on to say:
“This is a woman in a wheelchair simply looking to relieve her constant suffering who has tried medications that just don’t work. This is about helping people. It’s about compassion.”
Robert agrees, saying:
“I will replenish my wife’s medicine as soon as possible. It’s more of a crime for me not to
In case you are not up to date on this scenario, it was originally admitted by Burger King that its burgers did contain mystery meat (that at the time was identified as horsemeat) just hours after claiming that their UK burgers were pure. The exact statement confirming the horsemeat in the burgers from the Burger King rep, or what was thought to be horsemeat at this point, was:
“Four samples recently taken from the Silvercrest plant have shown the presence of very small trace levels of equine DNA… we have established that Silvercrest used a small percentage of beef imported from a non-approved supplier in Poland. This is a clear violation of our specifications, and we have terminated our relationship with them.”
As it turns out, the admission means that either Burger King has no idea what’s in it’s own food, or in a more sinister scenario does not care about what consumers think and instead is interested in securing profits without causing a stir (or lawsuits). The report originally appeared in The Guardian, which developed as the night went on.
A new report in The Independent, however, asserts that the meat may in fact be donkey meat — a prospect that I am not entirely sure is more concerning or equally as concerning. This is due to a recent law change in Romania that virtually no one would initially piece together as being responsible for mystery meat inside Burger King Whoppers. As it turns out, though, Romania recently banned a very common form of transportation which included horse-drawn carts. As a result of the ban, struggling citizens therefore sent their horses to be slaughtered for the fraudulent sale of horsemeat that has permeated the European beef market.
But what about the donkeys? Well, it turns out that they also used donkeys to pull their carts as well. According to the vice-president of the European Parliament agriculture committee Jose Bove, it has affected millions of animals — donkeys and horses alike:
“Horses have been banned from Romanian roads and millions of animals have been sent to the slaughterhouse…”
This is where it gets to be an entirely new story. Millions of animals were culled in order to produce meat, which then leaked into the beef supply, and now no one knows what some of the meats produced by some European facilities really are. French officials began to take the issue seriously as well after it started hitting the news, and French consumer minister Benoît Hamon is now going after European meat corporations. In fact, it may escalate to serious legal action if it turns out that these companies are fully aware of the horse and donkey meat that they may be selling off as beef.
Whether or not you find it disturbing that you may be eating horse or donkey in your burger, it also comes down to a matter of knowing what’s in your food. It comes as no surprise to many of us who are aware of just how mysterious fast food is as a whole, but the existence of horse or donkey meat inside Burger King burgers (and other burgers even available in supermarkets) means that consumers really don’t know what they’re putting into their mouths when they purchase these items. This, regardless of what you think about eating these animals, is of serious concern and risk.
According to Consumer Lab, the drugs seized included SlimXtreme, SlimXtreme Gold, SlimPlus, SlimLee, GelSlim, SlimDrops, and Colonew.
Speaking about the action, Howard Sklamberg, director of the Office of Compliance in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, is quoted by UPI as saying: “Companies that distribute products containing undisclosed drugs are not only breaking the law, they are putting consumers at risk. With these kinds of hidden dangers, consumers cannot make informed decisions about the products they are taking.”
The drug in question is Meridia, a weight loss dietary supplement. The drug is usually in the form of the hydrochloride monohydrate salt compressed into a tablet, and is taken as an oral anorexiant. The drug was withdrawn in 2010 because of concerns that consumption of the pills could increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. This was based on a study, reviewed by the FDA, which showed that the drug (under the drug’s generic name Sibutramine) posed a significant risk of an adverse cardiovascular event occurring in patients.
Although the FDA, along with the European Union, banned the drug from sale, in October 2011, the FDA warned that 20 brands of dietary supplements were tainted with sibutramine.
The news of the FDA raid follows other concerns with dietary supplements, pills that are not subject to the same regulations as prescription medicines. In 2012, the Digital Journal reported that a dietary supplement called Reumofan Plus, manufactured in Mexico and sold in the USA, has been found to contain ‘unlisted ingredients’ which are harmful to human health. Also during 2012, three different supplements manufactured in the U.S: Cataplex ACP, Cataplex C, and Pancreatrophin PMG were withdrawn from the market due to suspected contamination with Salmonella bacteria.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/343841#ixzz2LNgyHdx7
(CAV News) - Of course, legalizing marijuana would help the budgets of many states. I’m not sure that’s the only reason you should want to pass such legislation.
Are you advocating for the right of people to make their own choices such as they do with unhealthy food? Or are you advocating passing legislation in order to fix the budget, curb deficits, and even worse, add another industry into the regulatory fold?
Can’t we just pass something without taxing it? Look I understand the argument is more appealing for those who don’t favor passing any Marijuana legislation. Those who oppose it, say, ” wait, did you just say tax?”
Why yes I did you thief, meanwhile, the potheads, and medical patients who use marijuana are happy, because it’s no longer illegal, the taxpayers don’t have to foot more money into the justice system because of silly marijuana laws that incarcerate folks, and everyone wins.
Well do you really win? Haven’t we learned that regulating industry has actually hurt the patients, consumers, and the industry it strived to help ? I think it’s refreshing to get more politicians on board to decriminalize marijuana law, but let’s pass it for the fact of liberty not taxation. Let’s pass it out of personal choice, and not for the fact that many officials couldn’t balance a budget. I know it’s cliché, but more money equals more power. How do you get money when you are a government? You take it.
From Sen. Daylin Leach’s website:
As Gov. Corbett lays the groundwork to privatize Pennsylvania’s liquor stores and fund education this year with the revenue raised, Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery/Delaware) has offered an alternative plan: legalize marijuana and generate a constant revenue source for the state to use for years to come.
“We don’t need to sell our state stores to the highest bidder to bring in money to fund education, especially if the money gained can only be used once,” Leach said. “This plan may help our state in the short term, but is a foolish long term strategy, as it offers no permanent solutions. Why eliminate a constant revenue stream when we could keep it, continue to benefit from it, and add to it by regulating, taxing and selling marijuana under the state store umbrella?”
Corbett’s proposal would relinquish the state’s control over its liquor stores and use the $1 billion raised from licensing fees to fund a four-year state education grant program. Under the plan, schools could only use the block grant funds for school safety purposes, to create individualized learning plans, to improve reading and math skills in early elementary classrooms and for science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs. The plan would aim to resolve a major crisis our public schools faced after Corbett slashed $1 billion in education funding in his first budget.
Leach, who this session will introduce a marijuana legalization bill, said the answer our state is looking for is simple.
“In addition to raising millions of dollars per year from tax revenue, Pennsylvania would save more than $325 million per year by legalizing marijuana. The most conservative estimates say the revenue generated by taxing the sales of marijuana would amount to at least $24 million per year. Legalizing marijuana and taxing its sale could provide a multi-million dollar reoccurring revenue source that our state could tap into for years to come,” Leach said.
Under the terms of Leach’s bill, marijuana would be a regulated product, treated similarly to alcohol. He noted that his bill would not change current laws against driving under the influence of marijuana, selling marijuana to minors and disorderly conduct while publicly intoxicated.
Source: Daylin Reach, Activist Post
(Stop The Drug War) - An Oregon lawmaker has introduced a bill that would make cigarettes a Schedule III controlled substance. That means it would be illegal to possess or distribute cigarettes without a doctor’s prescription.
Other Oregon Schedule III drugs include ketamine, LSD, and anabolic steroids.
Sponsored by Rep. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland), the bill, House Bill 2077, would make violations a Class A misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of up to one year in prison, a $6,250 fine, or both. The same penalty would apply to both possession and distribution.
The bill directs the state Board of Pharmacy to “adopt rules to classify nicotine as a Schedule III controlled substance.” It would also require people involved in tobacco transactions keep records and to “forward the records to the State Police if directed to do so by the department.” Failure to do so would also be a Class A misdemeanor.
The bill had a first reading last week and has been referred to the speaker’s desk for committee assignment. As of Thursday, it had not been assigned to a committee.
(CNS) — A federal appeals court Tuesday rejected a petition to reclassify marijuana from its current federal status as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use.
The appeals court panel denied the bid from three medical marijuana groups, including Americans for Safe Access, and several individuals. In 2011, the Drug Enforcement Administration had rejected a petition by medical marijuana advocates to change the classification.
In his majority opinion Tuesday, Judge Harry T. Edwards wrote that the question wasn’t whether marijuana could have some medical benefits, but rather whether the DEA’s decision was “arbitrary and capricious.” The court concluded that the DEA action survived a review under that standard.
The ruling came just months after Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana for recreational use. Last month, President Barack Obama said that federal authorities have “bigger fish to fry” than recreational drug users in those states
Edwards, an appointee of Democratic President Jimmy Carter, was joined by Judge Merrick B. Garland, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton. The third judge on the panel, Karen LeCraft Henderson, an appointee of Republican President George H.W. Bush, wrote that none of the petitioners was in a legal position to challenge the government’s stance and that the case should have been dismissed. The other two judges concluded that at least one of the people bringing the suit had standing to challenge the DEA’s action.
In the federal system, marijuana is classified as a controlled substance, categorized as having a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use, together with drugs like heroin, LSD and ecstasy.
The court noted that the DEA denied the petition after the Department of Health and Human Services gave the DEA its evaluation that marijuana lacks a currently accepted medical use in the United States.
“Because the agency’s factual findings in this case are supported by substantial evidence and because those factual findings reasonably support the agency’s final decision not to reschedule marijuana, we must uphold the agency action,” the court ruled.
DEA regulations define “currently accepted medical use” to require, among other things, “adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy.”
Americans for Safe Access cited more than 200 peer-reviewed published studies demonstrating marijuana’s efficacy for various medical uses, including a 1999 study by the respected Institute of Medicine, a government adviser on health issues.
“The IOM report does indeed suggest that marijuana might have medical benefits,” the court conceded. “However, the DEA fairly construed this report as calling for `more and better studies to determine potential medical applications of marijuana’ and not as sufficient proof of medical efficacy itself.”
Contrary to what Americans for Safe Access suggests, “something more than `peer-reviewed’ studies is required to satisfy DEA’s standard, and for good reason,” the court said.
Those challenging the government “have not pointed to `adequate and well-controlled studies’ confirming the efficacy of marijuana for medicinal uses,” the court found.
Joe Elford, chief counsel with Americans for Safe Access, said that his group will likely file a petition for rehearing, and failing that, would seek a rehearing of the full appeals court. If that isn’t successful, he said that the group would probably appeal to the Supreme Court.
Elford said that while he was disappointed by the ruling, he said it “lays the groundwork for future cases.” He pointed to a line at the end of the opinion, which said that “adequate and well-controlled studies are wanting not because they have been foreclosed but because they have not been completed.”
“I kind of take it as, ‘Come back to us when those studies are completed if they actually demonstrate medical efficacy,’ ” Elford said.
The DEA referred questions to the Justice Department, which did not respond.
(Stop The Drug War) -Hawaii House Speaker Joseph Souki (D-8) Friday introduced a bill to legalize the possession of marijuana by adults and create a system of taxed and regulated legal marijuana commerce. The measure, House Bill 150, would allow people 21 and over to possess up to an ounce and grow an as yet unspecified number of plants in a secure location.
The bill passed its first reading Friday, but has yet to be sent to a committee. The 2013 legislative session begins Tuesday.
“Regulating and taxing marijuana similarly to alcohol takes marijuana sales out of the hands of criminals and puts them behind the counter in legitimate businesses that will generate significant new revenue for Hawaii,” said Mason Tvert, director of communications at the Marijuana Policy Project, which is working on passage of the bill. “Law enforcement resources should be focused on preventing and responding to serious crimes rather than enforcing antiquated marijuana prohibition laws.”
In addition to allowing adult possession and cultivation, the bill would also authorize the state to license marijuana retail stores, cultivation facilities, product manufacturing facilities, and testing facilities. Public pot smoking, driving under the influence, and use by individuals under the age of 21 would remain illegal.
The bill introduction comes on the heels of the release earlier this month of a QMark Research Poll that showed support for legalization at 57%. That poll was sponsored by the Drug Policy Action Group, a sister group of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, and the ACLU of Hawaii, suggesting that local as well as national reform groups are pushing the bill.
In the wake of the legalization victories in Colorado and Washington last November, at least a half dozen states are expected to entertain legalization bills. Hawaii is first out the gate; the others are Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
(RT) -The bill that averted the fiscal cliff included a largely unnoticed section that granted world’s largest biotechnology firm a two-year delay in regulations of its drugs – even though the firm has just pleaded guilty in a federal fraud case.
The bill, H.R. 8, was passed with a paragraph that lawmakers included to give the biotechnology firm Amgen two years to sell Sensipar without government price regulations. Sensipar, an expensive prescription drug produced by Amgen and used by kidney dialysis patients, is projected to cost Medicare up to $500 million over the next two-year period, since the legislation delays Medicare price restraints of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) drugs, the New York Times reports.
Section 632 of the bill announces the “two-year delay of implementation of oral-only ESRD-related drugs in the ESRD prospective payment system; monitoring.” Even though the bill does not specify Amgen by name, it mainly affects the sale of Sensipar, costing the government millions while allowing the firm to keep its prices unregulated.
Amgen employs 74 lobbyists in Washington, DC and was the only company to lobby for this delay, Congressional aides told the Times. Most of the delay’s supporters are leaders of the Senate Finance Committee who have benefited from Amgen’s generous political donations. Critics of the measure discovered that Amgen had won a previous two-year delay already and consider the initiatives driven by personal gain.
“That is why we are in the trouble we are in,” Dennis J. Cotter, a health policy researcher, told the Times. “Everybody is carving out their own turf and getting it protected, and we pass the bill on to the taxpayer.”
Legislatives aides who support the delay said it would give providers like Amgen the time they need to determine the details of federal reimbursements for kidney care.
Most individuals who suffer from ESRD are eligible for Medicare, regardless of their age. Medicare spent about $10.1 billion on dialysis care for these patients in 2011. But the US Government Accountability Office published a report last month that showed a 23 percent decrease in use of ESRD drugs from 2007 to 2011. Still, Medicare is forced to pay a bundle rate for the drugs, and has been paying based on the 2007 utilization levels, which was $650 million to $880 million more than it needed.
Amgen has also been charged for illegally marketing one of its anti-anemia drugs, Aranesp. The firm pleaded guilty last month after a federal criminal investigation discovered evidence of its unlawful engagements. The company must now pay a $762 million settlement, which is its largest yet, but makes a small dent in its $15.6 billion annual revenue.
Still, two weeks after pleading guilty, Amgen was granted another break with the fiscal cliff bill’s section that allows the firm to keep its prices high. Lobbyists and Congressional aides told the Times that many of them first discovered the new language when the final bill was publicly posted, just hours before it was voted upon. With little time left to avert the fiscal cliff, lawmakers approved the bill.
(IBITimes) -The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that it will require manufacturers of several insomnia drugs, including the popular Ambien, to lower their recommended doses.
-According to a statement from the federal agency, medications such as Ambien, Edluar and Zolpimist all contain an active ingredient called zolpidem that induces drowsiness in patients. However, the FDA has found that many prescribed users of the drugs still have high amounts of zolpidem in their systems after waking up, making daily activities like driving much more dangerous.
To combat this impairment of activities that require high levels of alertness, the FDA has recommended that any drug using zolpidem as an active ingredient must have lower suggested doses. According to the agency, “Using lower doses of zolpidem means less of the drug will remain in the blood in the morning hours.”
On big issue for the drugmakers, however, is the fact that men and women metabolize zolpidem at different rates. This means that women often have higher residues of zolpidem in their systems the morning after taking Ambien than men do.
To address this, the FDA suggests that suggested dosages of drugs like Ambien be cut in half for women, while men should consult their doctors about a proper dosage for them, though the lower doses are still recommended.
“Patients should also read the medication guides and understand the benefits and risks of these drugs,” Dr. Ellis Unger of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said. “We believe that by lowering these doses, we can decrease the side effects that happen the morning after.”
While the FDA recommends lowering suggested dosages, it also suggests that anyone currently on drugs such as Ambien or Edluar consult their doctors before changing doses on thir own.
“Over the years FDA has received spontaneous adverse event reports of driving impairment and motor vehicle accidents associated with zolpidem, but these reports lacked the information necessary to fully understand whether and how zolpidem affected people’s mental alertness and ability to drive,” said Unger. “Recently, data from clinical trials and other types of studies have become available, which allowed FDA to better characterize the risk of next-morning impairment.”
Vermont Public Radio notes that in 2011, more than 40 million perscriptions were issued for drugs containing zolpidem, making Ambien and similar drugs the most widely used insomia drugs in the country.
(Stop The Drug War) -DEA agents raided three Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensaries Wednesday afternoon, according to a preliminary report from Americans for Safe Access California director Don Duncan. More details were not forthcoming by press time.
According to Duncan, the DEA struck LA Wonderland on West Pico Boulevard, the Downtown Collective on South Hill St. near downtown, and the Iron Works in Venice.
The federal government has unleashed the DEA on dispensaries under both the Bush and the Obama administrations, although there was a respite between 2009 and late 2011, when the Justice Department had a policy of generally leaving them alone. But that policy shifted again in 2011, and both the DEA and federal prosecutors have been busy going after dispensaries since then. One Southern California dispensary operator, Aaron Sandusky, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison just this Monday.
The policy has not been limited to California. While hundreds of California dispensaries have been forced out of business by raids, asset forfeiture threats and/or prosecutions, so have dozens of dispensaries in Colorado, and a series of statewide raids in Montana in the spring of 2011 virtually wiped out that state’s dispensary scene.
The LA DEA raids come as the city grapples over what to do about dispensaries. An effort by the city council to shut them all down was blocked by popular opposition. Now, the council, and perhaps city voters, will have to consider two different municipal initiatives, one of which would limit the number of dispensaries in the city to about 100, the other of which would allow most existing dispensaries to stay open.
(NaturalNews) If you have children, you are more than likely already aware of the official U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “Immunization Schedules,” which today recommend an astounding 29 vaccines be given between birth and six years of age, including yearly flu shots, as well as another five to 16 vaccines between ages seven and 18 (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/). But a recent investigative report compiled by Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic, Ph.D., uncovers more than 30 years of hidden government documents exposing these vaccine schedules as a complete hoax, not to mention the fraud of the vaccines themselves to provide any real protection against disease.
Though her paper focuses primarily on the British health system’s elaborate cover-up of the dirty truth about its own national vaccination program, the tenets of the study’s findings still apply to vaccination schedules in general, which are typically designed for the purpose of serving corporate interests rather than public health. Government authorities, it turns out, in an ongoing bid to satisfy the private goals of the vaccine industry, have deliberately covered up pertinent information about the dangers and ineffectiveness of vaccines from parents in order to maintain a high rate of vaccination compliance. And in the process, they have put countless millions of children at risk of serious side effects and death.
You can access Dr. Tomljenovic’s full paper here:
http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf
Through several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, Dr. Tomljenovic was able to obtain transcripts of private meetings that were held between the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI), a so-called “independent expert advisory committee” that makes recommendations to the government about vaccine policy, and various British health ministers over the years. And after poring through this plethora of information, which had previously been veiled from public view, Dr. Tomljenovic made some disturbing discoveries.
“[T]he JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization) made continuous efforts to withhold critical data on severe adverse reactions and contraindications to vaccinations to both parents and health practitioners in order to reach overall vaccination rates which they deemed were necessary for ‘herd immunity,’ a concept which … does not rest on solid scientific evidence,” explains Dr. Tomljenovic in the introduction to her paper.
“Official documents obtained from the U.K. Department of Health (DH) and the JCVI reveal that the British health authorities have been engaging in such practice for the last 30 years, apparently for the sole purpose of protecting the national vaccination program.”
These are some strong accusations, but the information Dr. Tomljenovic gathered speaks for itself. Not only did the JCVI routinely ignore questions of safety as they came up with regards to the ever-expanding vaccination schedule, but the group actively censored unfavorable data that shed a “negative” light on vaccines in order to maintain the illusion that vaccines are safe and effective. Beyond this, the JCVI regularly lied to both the public and government authorities about vaccine safety in order to ensure that people continued to vaccinate their kids.
You can access Dr. Tomljenovic’s full paper here:
http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf
Beginning on page three of her report, Dr. Tomljenovic begins outlining the sordid details of meetings held as early as 1981 where the JCVI clearly engaged in fraud, cover-up, and lies about vaccines to protect the vaccine industry, not children, from harm. Minutes from these meetings reveal that the JCVI actively tried to cover up severe side effects associated with common vaccines like measles and whooping cough (pertussis), both of which were clearly linked at the time to causing severe brain damage in a substantial percentage of the children that received them.
Of particular concern was how the JCVI handled unfavorable data on the controversial MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella. 10 years before Dr. Andrew Wakefield published his study on MMR in The Lancet, JCVI was already fully aware that the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) had identified a clear link between MMR and vaccine-induced meningitis and encephalitis. But rather than come forward with this information and call for further safety assessments on the vaccine, the JCVI instead censored this critical information from the public, and blatantly lied about the safety of MMR for years.
“The extent of the JCVI’s concerns with the implications of scientific assessment of vaccine safety on vaccine policy explains why they were opposed to any long-term surveillance for severe neurological disorders following vaccination,” writes Dr. Tomljenovic. “[I]nstead of re-evaluating the vaccination policy, at least until safety concerns were fully evaluated, the JCVI chose to support the existing policy based on incomplete evidence that was available at that time.”
In other words, the JCVI was more concerned with protecting the reputation of the dangerous MMR vaccine, as well as many other questionable vaccines, than with protecting children from sustaining serious injuries as a result of getting the jabs. As far as the MMR vaccine is concerned, this critical piece of information not only reinforces the legitimacy of Dr. Wakefield’s findings from 10 years later, which were illegitimately declared to be fraudulent by the establishment, but also illustrates just how painfully long this scam has been taking place.
If this is not bad enough, Dr. Tomljenovic also drudged up copious amounts of information on the JCVI’s longtime habit of encouraging vaccine companies to deliberately alter their data sheets in order to make dangerous and ineffective vaccines appear safe and effective, in accordance with their recommendations. When the JCVI’s guidance contraindications for MMR, for instance, did not match those of the vaccine’s manufacturer, JCVI apparently instructed the manufacturer to alter its data sheets to avoid “legal problems.”
Similarly, the JCVI’s official policy was to cherry-pick unreliable studies to support its own opinions on vaccines rather than rely on independent, scientifically-sound studies to make vaccine policy recommendations. Once again, the JCVI’s position on the safety and effectiveness of MMR is an excellent example of this, as the group flat out ignored legitimate MMR studies in favor of industry-backed junk studies like the infamous 2005 Cochrane Review, which technically proves nothing about the alleged safety of MMR because the 31 studies it evaluated did not even meet the group’s basic methodological criteria.
“Over the years, the JCVI has consistently promoted the MMR vaccine as safe, based on studies that have been proven to be either irrelevant, inconclusive, or methodologically questionable,” explains Dr. Tomljenovic, adding that the JCVI routinely chose to rely on flawed epidemiological studies that only identified “association” rather than “causation,” a rather ironic inaccuracy in light of how scrutinizing the establishment typically is of studies that contradict its own positions.
The eye-opening, 45-page paper goes on to explain how vaccine schedules were established through the calculated downplaying of vaccine safety concerns and the over-inflating of vaccine benefits; the promotion of dangerous new vaccines into the pediatric schedule through deception; the discouraging of vaccine safety follow-up studies; and the widespread brainwashing of the public through manipulation and scientific sleight-of-hand tricks.
Be sure to check out the complete study for yourself:
http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf
(SHTFPlan) -What we are hearing from bloviating gun control advocates in America is nothing short of emotionally driven irrationality.
According to statistics assembled from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Center for Disease Control and the Federal Government, firearms related homicides are minuscule in comparison to other the other “big killers” in the United States.
If we look at homicide statistics in the United States it’s clear that more murders are committed with knives, bats, hammers and poisons than with firearms. As Kurt Nimmo recently noted, “ the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outpaces the number of murders committed with a rifle.”
The facts, not the drivel being spewed by the anti-gun propaganda machine, leave us wondering why some State and Federal lawmakers are so adamant about restricting the sale and ownership of handguns and rifles, especially since the majority of gun owners – close to 99% – have never committed a violent crime in their lives, let alone used a gun to do so.
Here is the chart they never want you to see:
The chart above proves that politicians and those who would disarm Americans by going so far as to call for a repeal of the 2nd Amendment have ulterior motives – or they’re completely ignorant of the facts.
Perhaps their goal is to trigger a revolution in an effort to implement a total police state over the American people.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a government has tried something like this.
(NaturalNews) Bedaquiline, a drug developed by Johnson & Johnson for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, relies on a new mechanism of action that blocks an energy-carrying enzyme necessary for the growth of TB bacteria. Unfortunately, this medicine comes with some worrying side effects.
Although the drug is effective according to preliminary tests, it carries an unusually high risk of liver toxicity, heart problems and even death. According to FDA advisers, patients who took Bedaquiline showed increased levels of liver enzymes consistent with liver toxicity, and long QT levels, which are evidence of a rare heart condition characterized by abnormal heartbeat. Long QT Syndrome can cause palpitations, fainting and sudden death.
Although the patients who took Bedaquiline were more likely to die than the patients who followed other treatments, Chrispin Kambili, the doctor in charge of Bedaquiline for J&J’s Janssen Therapeutics unit, said that his company was unable to find a common pattern to explain the high death rates and that the FDA advisers did not offer any “unifying findings”.
Consequently, the FDA approved the drug on Monday, right before New Year’s Eve, with financial analysts estimating that Bedaquiline will register annual sales of $300, a relatively modest amount according to industry standards.
CDC reports show that 1.4 million people died from TB in 2011 alone, with 9 million people have been infected. Other sources show that a new TB infection occurs every second, although the number of world infections has been steadily decreasing since 2006. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis affects about 650,000 people each year.
Tuberculosis can kill very quickly, and while most people prefer to use conventional medical treatments, there are holistic, natural health remedies available for those who seek alternatives. Since tuberculosis is caused by bacteria, natural treatments focus primarily on strengthening immunity and secondly on relieving the symptoms of infection.
According to the International Journal of Health research, consuming a handful of barberry berries each day can help alleviate TB symptoms thanks to a compound called berberine, which is a powerful bactericide. The same editorial mentions that diets low in specific nutrients, like vitamin B12, vitamin C and vitamin D, can weaken the body in its struggle with TB.
Getting plenty of sunlight (also known as heliotherapy) is crucial in boosting immunity. Before the development of modern drugs, sunbathing was one of the most widespread treatments against non-pulmonary TB, for two main reasons: UV light and hot temperatures can kill bacteria, and the natural production of vitamin D supports immunity.
Horsetail has also been found effective against TB. Since TB causes a decrease in silica levels, which is needed in small amounts for strong bones and joints, wound healing, and immunity, horsetail can help replenish silica and speed up the healing of pulmonary damage.
“It’s a huge shift,” Principal Greg Harkness said Thursday. It’s an unprecedented step among Kansas City area schools.
“But it’s one we need to do,” he said.
Not because the private Jesuit school has any extraordinary drug and alcohol abuse problems, Harkness said.
But because the school wants to help its students take a stand against illegal substances, and aid those at risk of abuse.
The new policy, announced Thursday, came after two years of research and discussion and retriggered an ongoing debate on the roles schools can and should play to influence their students’ lives.
Many members of Rockhurst’s junior class in the all-male school were involved in the conversations between school staff, trustees and parents as the policy was shaped.
Students in those meetings, like 17-year-old Matthew Brocato, anticipated some of the concerned reactions among students hearing the news for the first time, because he went through the same emotional swirl.
“When you hear ‘drug testing,’ you think cops,” Brocato said. “At first you’re taken aback. Is it for the better?”
But the purpose isn’t to punish students, he said. The school wants to help.
The first time a student tests positive, there will be no disciplinary consequences, but a confidential meeting will be held with a school counselor and the student’s parents.
A second positive test would go to the dean of students for possible discipline.
What students are learning through the process is that, while the pressure to use drugs or alcohol may sometimes be high, the actual amount of use among Rockhurst teens is not as high as many students think.
A testing policy will make it easier for students to turn down offers for drugs or beer.
“It’s helping the students out,” 16-year-old Dante Pennipede said. “I’ve seen kids succumb to peer pressure. This gives another reason not to.”
Rockhurst officials aren’t aware of any other Kansas City area schools that test all of their students. The nearest model they found was Christian Brothers College High School in St. Louis, an all-male religious private school that has been testing its students for six years.
Public schools’ drug-testing policies are restricted by the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures. Supreme Court decisions have upheld public school policies that administer drug tests in limited ways, such as on students participating in extracurricular activities and students who drive themselves to school.
Several area public schools have limited testing policies.
Private schools, however, can test all students, just as private businesses can test prospective or current employees.
Organizations that oppose random drug testing of students argue that some research shows such policies do little to deter drug use.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Drug Policy Alliance’s 2006 report argued that drug testing is not worth the cost.
Schools risk false-positive drug tests, they say. The tests take dollars away from other prevention programs. They can undermine trust and drive away students who might otherwise have gotten help in other school programming.
“Nothing prohibits it,” said Doug Bonney, the legal director for the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri. “But it is a colossal waste of money.”
Like Rockhurst, Christian Brothers College High School weighed many of these concerns when it opted to test its students six years ago, said the school’s president, Mike England.
“In our mind, it was a student health issue,” he said. “It would be in the best interest of our students to give them a reason to say ‘no.’”
The St. Louis school has used the testing company Rockhurst will use, Psychemedics, to take hair samples from students to detect drug use and evidence of binge drinking.
Families pay an annual fee of $60 per student to cover the program’s costs, England said. As with Rockhurst’s plan, Christian Brothers does not discipline students if they test positive for drugs or alcohol once, but tries to provide support.
Students who test positive a second time are asked to withdraw, England said, which he estimated happens three to five times a year.
The school saw a dip in enrollment from about 1,000 students to 930 after it started the program in the 2007-2008 school year, he said. Some of the decline might have been a reaction to the policy, but the declining economy also probably hurt enrollment.
But support for the policy overall has been strong, he said, and the drug testing is continuing. More than 99 percent of the tests this year were negative, he said.
Harkness said Rockhurst’s costs will be similar to Christian Brothers’ and that the fees can be covered under the existing fee structure for families.
The school’s leaders determined the testing would be a valuable aid in helping students in a world that is much different than when Harkness was a 1981 Rockhurst graduate, he said.
Family life is different. Both parents more often are working. Students’ lives are more programmed with after-school commitments. Students are coping with more intense competition for college while managing 700 Facebook friends.
“It’s profoundly different,” Harkness said. “A lot is riding on them.”
(Ron Paul) -As I prepare to retire from Congress, I’d like to suggest a few New Year’s resolutions for my colleagues to consider. For the sake of liberty, peace, and prosperity I certainly hope more members of Congress consider the strict libertarian constitutional approach to government in 2013.
In just a few days, Congress will solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. They should reread Article 1 Section 8 and the Bill of Rights before taking such a serious oath. Most legislation violates key provisions of the Constitution in very basic ways, and if members can’t bring themselves to say no in the face of pressure from special interests, they have broken trust with their constituents and violated their oaths. Congress does not exist to serve special interests, it exists to protect the rule of law.
I also urge my colleagues to end unconstitutional wars overseas. Stop the drone strikes; stop the covert activities and meddling in the internal affairs of other nations. Strive to observe “good faith and justice towards all Nations” as George Washington admonished. We are only making more enemies, wasting lives, and bankrupting ourselves with the neoconservative, interventionist mindset that endorses pre-emptive war that now dominates both parties.
All foreign aid should end because it is blatantly unconstitutional. While it may be a relatively small part of our federal budget, for many countries it is a large part of theirs–and it creates perverse incentives for both our friends and enemies. There is no way members of Congress can know or understand the political, economic, legal, and social realities in the many nations to which they send taxpayer dollars.
Congress needs to stop accumulating more debt. US debt, monetized by the Federal Reserve, is the true threat to our national security. Revisiting the parameters of Article 1 Section 8 would be a good start.
Congress should resolve to respect personal liberty and free markets. Learn more about the free market and how it regulates commerce and produces greater prosperity better than any legislation or regulation. Understand that economic freedom IS freedom. Resolve not to get in the way of voluntary contracts between consenting adults. Stop bailing out failed yet politically connected companies and industries. Stop forcing people to engage in commerce when they don’t want to, and stop prohibiting them from buying and selling when they do want to. Stop trying to legislate your ideas of fairness. Protect property rights. Protect the individual. That is enough.
There are many more resolutions I would like to see my colleagues in Congress adopt, but respect for the Constitution and the oath of office should be at the core of everything members of Congress do in 2013.
(Natural Society) -It’s no surprise that Adam Lanza was on heavy-duty pharmaceuticals, as was Aurora shooter James Holmes, the Columbine shooters, Ted Kaczinski the Unambomber, and many more. Many of the drugs handed out to troubled individuals have troubled histories in Food and Drug Administration testing themselves, and come with a list of side effects including hostility, aggression, confusional states, and impulse-control disorders.
There is nothing about these drugs that should make them so easily prescribed by doctors whose pockets are being lined by the likes of GlaxoSmithKline, which was recently fined for faking research and for 14 infant deaths in illegal vaccine testing. To decry their use in toto, however, might be irresponsible, since violent behavior is linked to these drugs. But perhaps partially so because those using it were prone to violence, anyway, and perhaps not due to the drugs themselves. In example, someone with a history of violent behavior addicted to opiod medications like Oxycontin may turn to violence to sustain their addiction, or a schizophrenic already leaning toward violent tendencies may, regardless of the drug’s intended consequences, be violent anyway.
Most of us, however, are better off without the aid of bank-breaking, mind-crushing pharmaceuticals and are better off addressing emotional issues and even some neurochemical imbalances with nutrition, sunlight, exercise, sleep, a little help from those around us, and stress management. This list of drugs, published in the journal PLoS One and based on the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System, shows which are most linked to violent behavior.
