2/26/2005 12:44:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|AARP Gets Pot-Baited By FRED GARDNER |COUNTERPUNCH Weekend Edition | February 26 / 27, 2005
AARP The Magazine, a bimonthly that reaches some 25 million Americans, is under attack by prohibitionists and rightwing flacks for having commissioned an article on medical marijuana and the elderly. AARP The Magazine has been "holding" the article -not publishing it- for more than six months. The man who wrote it, L.A. Times reporter Eric Bailey, asked AARP The Magazine for a release this week so he could try for publication elsewhere. AARP editor Steve Slon assured Bailey that his piece is still being considered (i.e., no release). Slon denies that he's been holding the piece in response to political pressure or on orders from AARP's CEO, Bill Novelli. AARP the organization is under attack by corporate interests out to privatize Social Security. Chris LaCivita and other p r. strategists who orchestrated the vile "Swift Boat" ad campaign against John Kerry, are now working for an outfit called USA Next, which, according to the New York Times 2/21, "plans to spend as much as $10 million on commercials and other tactics assailing AARP...'They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts,' said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. 'We will be the dynamite that removes them.'"
|W|P|110943993450268487|W|P|Pot Shots by Fred Gardner|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/25/2005 06:50:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|72% of Americans over 45 support people's access to medical marijuana [zombienote: AARP Medical Marijuana, Social Security, The venomous rightwing has it’s media machine cranked on high to lie about all these issues. All these issues actually converge and they are all isuues that the Dems need to take up and fight for. Vehemently. The Rightwing - you know: Team Bush, The “Religious” Right, The GOP – all these people hate marijuana, hate free speech, hate progress, hate change, hate social security. It’s all hate all the time now. And it's required of them to hate it. Jesus must be very proud of them. There is simply too much to deny or report on in this little article, and it is essentially a digression from matter at hand. Click HERE for more evidence. The GOP will never give in on these issues without the most bitter of fights. AARP did a study about medical marijuana and the attitudes about it in people over the age of 45. They found, of course, most people support people’s right to have and use marijuana for medical purposes. But as the following press release makes clear, the Right, via a group calling itself “Accuracy in Media” pressured them to drop the report. I have it linked below. It’s a 16 page analysis of a poll done in November after the election. The election that saw the so-called “red states” apparently send Team Bush a “mandate” of about a 2% margin. In those red states, while they voted for Bush, they also voted – even more – for a variety of cannabis reform legislation. As I am constantly saying these days marijuana won while Democrats lost. There is no “arguing” with this, no “denying it” or minimizing it. It’s just that blunt. People voted to allow others to have marijuana and to start to change the unbelievably ignorant state of cannabis prohibition that is a core element f the GOP/Rightwing agenda, and which Dems adhere to like it is some sort of immovable object, present since the dawn of time. I never fail to be stunned by the utter stupidity of people to not figure this all out. Of course, I am being to harsh on the common person. Many people still believe we actually found “WMD’s “ in Iraq, that Saddam and al Queda conspired to do 9/11 and so forth. All of this has been utterly demolished yet we still see people clinging on desperately to such lies. Myths is more what they are: these lies have almost a religious value to them But they are lies. Completely false and without 1 crumb of redeeming factual basis. Same a marijuana propaganda. Below is a press release for Americans for Safe Access, a high-profile, professional cannabis activist group fighting to get the truth out. The issue, as always is the TV. If it is not on TV in America, it is not real. Conversely if it IS on TV then God has to have said it and blessed it and there is no possible way it could be anything but the Truth. Many people are awakening to the fact we have killed thousands of people for nothing since Bush’s lies about “WMD’s propelled the US into an entirely illegal war but we have the rightwing controlled “media” STILL harping on how this has been good for the Iraqis. This is because they have control of the TV and dissenting opinions are moot, if not openly ridiculed and denigrated in the rightwing echo chamber. Same with cannabis reform. The echo chamber will not allow an actual public debate about cannabis reform because such would genuinely be the end of the reefer madness gravy train the right has been riding since at least Nixon’s day, if not arguably since the 1930’s. (Sure a Democrat named Boggs helped the GOP get the whole mess through Congress, but he was a Texas Democrat, something just like Joe Biden or Zell Miller of Joe Lieberman: Democrat on the name tag, GOP on the inside.) The real democrat, the one that MUST be an opposition party to the GOP/Rightwing. is a relative weak, disorganized and often incoherent mess that is always to afraid to take this issue up. It’s like they think they have something to lose. They have, at this point, lost almost everything because they have refused to be a real opposition party. They have tried to be “centrists” (losers) and they have tried to be GOP-lite (losers) In November 2004 Marijuana reforms won handily, with relative landslides in some red states like Montana. The numbers need no analysis. More is more and more votes means you won. What is so hard to grasp? The real Democratic party must take up the issue of cannabis reform if it is to have a shred of hope of winning against the juggernaught of the GOP/Rightwing. These freakazoids cannot talk about cannabis reform without betraying their utter ignorance, their dedication to living in a fog of lies, deceit, and slander, and without evidencing how out-of-step and out-of-touch they are with “the American People”. Just as Dems MUST oppose anything to do with eliminating…I mean “reforming Social Security, something that is waking up the masses, Dems must, whether they like it or not, champion the cause of cannabis reform. Medical marijuana should be first because this is something that IS actually supported by some Republicans, particularly Republicans that have had or know somebody close to them with cancer. That sort of seriousness cuts through the refer mad bullshit we have constantly shoved down our throats. But full legalization (read: regulation) of the cannabis plant is inevitable. Cannabis prohibition has not accomplished anything except elimination of all non-drug uses of the plant. Cannabis prohibition props up oil and pharmaceutical profiteering and, as ranted about here, GOP/Rightwing power. AARP is about to face a pack of slimy lies from the “Swift Boat Liars” and they are also facing a lot of pressure from the Rightwing about their stand on medical marijuana. AARP absolutely got screwed by cooperating with the GOP when they sabotaged medicade drug pricing, something now known to be a huge mistake, and just one more thing that the has GOP lied about. In summary, 72% of people over the age of 45 support access to medical marijuana. Those are numbers that win elections. Wise up, Dems. Get a grip, get a clue. There is work to do.] Drug War Zealots Pressure AARP The Magazine to Kill Medical Marijuana Story Latest Censorship Campaign Initiated After AARP-Commissioned Poll Finds 72% of Older Americans Support Medical Marijuana Supporters Rally in Defense of AARP’s Freedom of the Press: “Don’t Give in to Intimidation” At the beginning of February, AARP posted the findings of a poll they had commissioned on medical marijuana on their website. The poll found that 72% of older Americans ( 45 and over) support an adult’s right to use medical marijuana with a physician's recommendation. A December 18th Associated Press article discussing the poll mentioned that AARP The Magazine was scheduled to release an article about medical marijuana in its March/April issue. But when the March/April issue reached subscribers in late January, the article was conspicuously absent. The editors had apparently pulled the article in response to malicious attacks by a "media watchdog" organization, Accuracy in Media, and a pressure campaign by fanatical anti-drug groups with a long history of engaging in malicious and dishonest attacks. “We urge the editors of AARP The Magazine not to cave in to such attacks and to publish the medical marijuana article soon,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Ultimately this issue is not about medical marijuana but whether or not free and open discussion of issues that matter to AARP members will be censored and abandoned in the face of coarse attacks by disreputable forces.” The Drug Policy Alliance is encouraging its supporters (many of whom are also members of AARP), and all believers in freedom of the press, to send letters to AARP urging its leadership to stand firm. Medical Uses of Marijuana: Opinions of U.S. Residents 45+ (.pdf) Statistical Breakdown This study of the opinions of midlife and older Americans regarding the medical uses of marijuana was undertaken on behalf of AARP The Magazine. Of the 1,706 United States residents age 45 and older surveyed Statistically significant differences were found in some responses from people in different regions of the country, and some opinions were divided along gender and generational lines. Telephone interviews were conducted by International Communications Research (ICR) during mid-November 2004. The report was prepared by Jean Kalata of AARP Knowledge Management. (13 pages) [zombienote: For dessert, read this hateful little screed from Accuracy in Media mentioning their revulsion for cannabis reform, in addition to other elements of their topsy-turvy bizarro world: A Socialist at the Washington Post ] Daily Kos Posting with Poll|W|P|110937755651880647|W|P|AARP Medical Marijuana Study Attacked by Rightwing|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/25/2005 07:50:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Doc|W|P|Yup.. If we'd just get it legal - AGAIN - people could do with it waht they want.

Use it medically, farm it, use for industrial purposes, biofuels, fabrics, feedstocks, etc...

But noooo.... corporate profits gotta be propped up.2/20/2005 10:24:00 AM|W|P|Doc|W|P|My Fellow Americans, and Distinguished Citizens of Planet Earth: For too long now America has been hijacked, kidnapped, car-jacked, robbed, blinded, and generally ruined. The culprits occupy the most powerful positions in this once-great country. The seek to banish our rights, to silence our dissent, to crush our spirits. They have attacked other countries based on pack of nasty lies and made America the most despised country on the planet. This alone is treason! Many Americans share this belief and millions have protested in the cold, have been rounded up en masse, arrested, shot with tear gas, pepper spray, rounded up like cattle in orange netting, sent to jail for nothing, encumbered with frivolous and mean-spirited applications of "the law". Our pleas for justice are ignored. The shoe heard 'round the world The "Send a Shoe to Double-U" movement is a protest movement created out of the pall of despair which hangs over this country like the smoke from a thousand giant fires. The Fascists want and need for as many people as possible to buy into their fear-mongering and their lies and to do this they need for people to remain "serious" and not make fun, not lampoon, nor satirize, nor make fun of them in any way. It is against this dark background that the Shoe, a symbol of tremendous disrespect in the world of our Arab nieghbors, needs to thrown at our so-called leaders. We cannot even get close enough to yell protests slogans but we can mail dirty old shoes to them. Millions of shoes ending up at the White Castle, at Congress, at the Senate, at local Republicans offices across these historically great United States could be a way to "raise the consciousness" of some of them. Seriously, a lot of republicans are as pissed off as we are but are not allowed to dissent like we can, they are not allowed to leave the lockstep of the fascsists who have taken over them too. We shall hold our tongues no more! Our soles should fly free! Get a stinky old shoe and mail it to W. Mail it to Bill Frist , to Dennis Hastert, to Paul Wolfowitz, and to the Abominination, Richard Perle. Mail, mail, mail! And by all means include some little written blurb cursing them. Make it so my friends! "Doc Zombie" (Thanx to Roger Mexico and OleHippieChick @ The Smirking Chimp for their support! And a 1000 thank you's to the Arab world for showing us such a funny insult! It's too appropriate.)|W|P|110891362828026055|W|P|Mail a shoe to Double U!|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/20/2005 11:12:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Rambler Joe Snitty|W|P|I love it. >:)2/17/2005 09:15:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Merck May Consider Selling Vioxx Again Thu Feb 17, 2005 08:27 PM ET
By Susan Heavey and Lisa Richwine WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK.N: Quote, Profile, Research) will consider selling its arthritis pill Vioxx again if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decides the cardiovascular risks are similar to those of related prescription pain relievers, a company official said on Thursday. New information on competing pain drugs presented to a U.S. advisory committee over two days at a public hearing has changed the company's evaluation of Vioxx, Merck Research Labs President Peter Kim told an FDA advisory panel. Merck voluntarily withdrew the drug in September after a study called Approve showed Vioxx doubled heart attack and stroke risk after 18 months of use.
So... proven to cause injury and death, it can even be "sensibly discussed" for a return to the (outrageously lucrative) market, yet we still cannot let people smoke cannabis for very similar reasons. We can't even get a peep of a debate in the so-called "mainstream media".|W|P|110869376874765258|W|P|But what about the profits?|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/16/2005 08:34:00 AM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Plain and simple: US risks anger of drug firms with safety board plan
Speaking at GlaxoSmithKline’s full-year results presentation last week, JP Garnier, the chief executive, opposed any move to hive off responsibility for drug safety from the FDA. He said that the proposals would skew the focus away from drug innovation: “You will have a bias if all you look at is safety,” he said,emphasising that few drugs came to the market without some side effects. Sir Tom McKillop, his opposite number at AstraZeneca, has also given warning that an increasing focus on drug safety and a greater aversion to risk would hold back the development of new medicinces.
So, as always, take danerous drugs that reap outrageous profits for a small handful of people (who give millions to the GOP) but do NOT smoke cannabis nor raise it for medicinal use. You are victimizing THEIR reight to ridiculous profiteering.|W|P|110856146829496466|W|P|Drug Safety bad for drug business|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/13/2005 03:45:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Pharma companies on edge By Christopher Bowe and Andrew Jack | February 13 2005 17:34 | FT.com Some of the world's largest drug manufacturers are braced for a tense week as European and US regulators gear up to examine the safety risks associated with a widely used class of anti-inflammatory drugs. The European Medicines Agency reconvenes deliberations behind closed doors on the so-called cox-2 inhibitors, and the US Food and Drug Administration safety panel meets. By the end of the week, both are likely to deliver verdicts that could have a significant impact on the pharmaceuticals industry, for those launching or considering cox-2s, and for others closely watching the evolving attitude of regulators. “The meetings are likely to provide insights on how the FDA will consider drug safety going forward,” said Tony Butler, analyst at Lehman Brothers. He forecast the FDA would be “unlikely” to recommend removing cox-2 inhibitors from the market, but could ask for warnings on labels. But a potentially bigger result, he added, would be how regulators in the US react to current pressure for tougher safety standards. The cox-2 review underlines the debate over how to weigh a drug's relative benefit to many people, over its risks on serious side-effects. The question of what level of risk can be tolerated for a wider benefit to patients nags both regulators and drugmakers alike. Legislators, consumer health watchdogs and other critics have blasted regulators, particularly in the US, for being too cosy with drugmakers. They argue FDA needs to be restructured to improve its safety vigilance. Meanwhile, drugmakers have been criticised for heavily promoting drugs, pushing them on a wider-than-necessary population and exposing them to risks. The drug industry counters that all drugs have some risk, and the very nature of pharmaceuticals is the trade-off between benefits and risk from introducing a chemical into the body. It also argues that the public has become intolerant of any risk. Some experts say the pendulum has probably swung too far in the demonisation of cox-2s, so regulators must balance science with public fears. [SNIP] [zombienote: Think about that sentence for a minute. Vioxx killed tens of thousands of people over 4 years while several people in powerful places knew it contributed to heart attacks. They knew. This is part of the "demonization". Profit was more important than the person and for whatever reason, a lot of people still find that objectionable. It's hardly an irrational fear. Meanwhile the lady in the story right before this one is being threatened with jail for making hot chocolate with cannabis in it for her dibilitating symptoms. Except for within some isolated pockets of reality, cannabis is known to be safe and effective for a range of things, only it has been demonized in a massive effort to spread false information for the protection of those sake corporate profits.]|W|P|110832861461788403|W|P|Vioxx Demonized?|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/13/2005 12:33:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P| By Lincoln Archer | BBC News | Sunday, 13 February, 2005 The woman known as Britain's "cannabis gran" explains why she eats marijuana five times a day - and why she'll keep on doing it despite the threat of a jail term. Patricia Tabram takes a sip of hot chocolate after a long day. She has just delivered a letter to Downing Street telling Tony Blair why she no longer trusts medicines prescribed on the NHS, having spent half the day travelling from near Hexham, Northumberland, to do so. This is not, however, your average hot chocolate. Mrs Tabram, 66, has added a quarter of a teaspoon of cannabis powder. [zombienote: Gasp.] "This will keep me covered from pain for five hours now," she says as she takes another sip. Mrs Tabram began taking cannabis in February last year to combat intense pain in her neck and back, as well as other complaints such as tinnitus. She says the drug had an almost immediate impact. "I had a walking stick, I was in constant pain. Now, through ingesting cannabis in my food five times a day, five times a week - minute amounts - I feel great." She is writing a book about her experiences called Grandma Eats Cannabis, which she hopes to be in print soon. Sentencing Mrs Tabram faces sentencing next month in Newcastle Crown Court Mrs Tabram is currently on bail awaiting sentencing after last month admitting possessing cannabis with intent to supply. Police had earlier found more than 30 cannabis plants in her home, as well as another £850 worth of the drug with self-seal bags used to distribute it to others. She was part of a cookery club, now with more than 100 members, that would add cannabis to their recipes for "medicinal purposes". Among the group's favourite dishes are a chicken and leek pie and a lemon cheesecake, as well as the perhaps more predictable chocolate cake. She says she faces up to four years in prison when she next faces court on 11 March. Yet she remains defiant. "They can put me in prison as long as they like," she says. "I'm not afraid of going to prison. I'll come out and start buying it again. "And then they can put me in prison again and I'll come out and start buying it again." [snip]|W|P|110831656297917193|W|P|'Cannabis gran' remains defiant|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/13/2005 12:07:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|[zombienote: From this Smirkingchimp thread discussing why more people are not or should be calling America's goal "imperialist". As in corporate empire. Nothing "conspiracy theory" about this, but we stil are not calling it what it is.Yet we know many people who scoff or express some sort of outrage for such a suggestion. Zell Miller, for example. The language has been hijacked as well as the right muscularly controls the bulk of the so-called "liberal media" and "frames" much or all of the "debate" in this country.]
Americans calling things by what they really are would be quite a jump at this time. If nothing else, marketing and particularly TV advertising havs made large segments of the US Population dull, hypnotized, and confused about what is important in life. The parallels well Orwell's NewSpeak concept are unavoidable as crap like "Freedom is on the March" (disasterous illegal occupation) and "blowing off steam" (torture) frame the very way people converse. I argued about this a lot at "another website". Spending time trying to refute a well-laid argument or theory is one thing, but GOP/Rightwing does not actaully build theoretical constructs so much as creates "memes" (or what I call emotional algorythms) that become self-reinforcing circular arguments when fully pursued. Thus the tactic is to dismiss the arguments "they" are making and reply with nothin but one's own assessment and presentation of the issue - NOT responding to the meme, bypassing it totally, or as much as is feasible. These arguments cannot be dealt with "logically" as they are not logic-based to begin with. This is particularly the case with media access as it is difficult for progressive viewpoints to be "heard" and when the oppostunity to make points arises, one should not waste time "refuting" what will ultimately be more emotionalized talking points than anything of paricular substance. Denigrate the viewpoint quickly ("Well, that was a load of crap...here's the way it appears to me....") and launch into one's own knowledgeable position.
|W|P|110831513762387557|W|P|Language Barriers|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/09/2005 09:52:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Popeye the pothead By Dana Larsen, Cannabis Culture | 02 Feb, 2005 Is the world's most famous sailor-man tooting more than just spinach in his pipe?
what evidence is there that Popeye is actually a stoner? The best evidence is that during the 1920's and 1930's, the era when Popeye was created, "spinach" was a very common code word for marijuana. One classic example is The Spinach Song, recorded in 1938 by the popular jazz band Julia Lee and her Boyfriends. Performed for years in clubs thick with cannabis smoke, along with other Julia Lee hits like Sweet Marijuana, the popular song used spinach as an obvious metaphor for pot. Second, anti-marijuana propaganda of the time claimed that marijuana use induced super-strength. Overblown media reports proclaimed that pot smokers became extraordinarily strong, and even immune to bullets. So tying in Popeye's mighty strength with his sucking back some spinach would have seemed like an obvious cannabis connection at the time. Further, as a "sailor-man," Popeye would be expected to be familiar with exotic herbs from distant locales. Indeed, sailors were among the first to introduce marijuana to American culture, bringing the herb back with them from their voyages overseas. Segar did make other, more explicit drug references in his comic strip. One ongoing 1934 plotline had Vanripple's gold mine facing corrupt, thieving workers. Popeye discovers that the mine manager is feeding his men berries from a bush whose roots are soaked in a nasty drug. Consuming the drugged berries removes human conscience, making people more violent and willing to commit crime. Popeye falls under the influence of the laced berries and becomes surly and mean, striking out at his friends and allies. Yet he still manages to get five gallons of "myrtholene," a joy-inducing drug which he pours over the plant's roots. The new berries produce delirious happiness, and as Popeye says it, "when a man's happy he jus' couldn't do nothin' wrong."
Learning something new everyday.|W|P|110800432249210702|W|P|What's In Popeye's Pipe?|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/08/2005 08:13:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|I found this being discussed at the Daily Kos which said:
You'll be hearing a lot more about Stein and his PPT in the coming months and years.
I have seen quite few articles detailing the reactive rise of rightwing Corporate power, synonymous with capitalist republicans and "the other side" of the Culture War. This is part and parcel of how reefer madness became a central plank in the GOP platform. Pot is equated with "hippies" and "librulls" and part of the unrelenting denigration both terms have endurd for 35 + years. The Right-Wing Express Excerpt -
The story of the conservative rise that Stein portrays begins back in the early 1970s, when there was panic among conservatives, especially in corporate boardrooms, that capitalism was under serious attack, and something drastic had to be done about it. The National Chamber of Commerce asked Lewis Powell, a former head of the American Bar Association and member of 11 corporate boards, to write a blueprint of what had to be done. The result, says Stein, is one the most prescient documents of our time. The memo lays out the framework, the goals and the ingredients for the conservative revolution that has gained momentum and power ever since. Two months after penning the memo, then-President Richard M. Nixon appointed Powell, a Democrat, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Powell told the conservatives that they needed to confront liberalism everywhere and needed a "scale of financing only available through a joint effort" focused on an array of principles including less government, lower taxes, deregulation and challenging the left agenda everywhere. The conservative right, starting with seed money from the Coors Brewing family and Richard Mellon Scaife's publishing enterprise, moved forward to implement virtually every element of the Powell memo. It is a story of how the conservatives – in spite of political differences, ego, and competing priorities – were able to cooperate and develop a methodology that drives their issues and values relentlessly. Starting with just a handful or groups, including the Heritage Foundation, in the early '70s, the conservatives built a new generation of organizations – think tanks, media monitors, legal groups, networking organizations, all driven by the same over-arching values of free enterprise, individual freedoms and limited government. Stein describes how the message machine works. If Rush Limbaugh wants something on vouchers – it's immediately in his hands; if Fox News' Bill O'Reilly needs a guest to talk about the "death tax," he's got him from one of the think tanks. Stein estimates that 36,000 conservatives have been trained on values, issues, leadership, use of media and agenda development. These are not the elected officials, but rather the cadre of the conservative network. Stein figures that the core leaders of the Big 80 groups he studied are about 2,000 people who make between $75,000 and $200,000 and have all been trained in the Leadership Institute.
And we see with the Nixon-appointed Democrat that often there really is no diference between the parties. With this Powell character, Zell Miller, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, there is no differncebetween REpublicans and Democrats. This is...AGAIN.. why real Democrats must be a party of opposition and why they MUST take up the issue of relegalization. I say they have absolutely no choice. It strikes at the core of the GOP, who can only talk like blithering reefer mad idiots about marijuana, while the rest of the nation CLEARLY is ready to move on. Republicans are greedy, mean-spirited, they cheat, they lie they steal. Dems are pathetic spineless suck-ups who let them get away with it. It's easy to see why so many people like to say there is not a "dimes' worth of difference". Cannabis relegalization is one future of the Democratic Party - if they are to have any future at all. More on the Powell Memo: [1 | 2]|W|P|110791266290585962|W|P|The Evolution of the Conservative Juggernaught|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/06/2005 01:55:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Hey, Dems and Progressives! Tired of losing elections? Bored with logic and common sense approachs to things? Why suffer the disappointment of voting your conscience? Become a Republican. Flash Player needed Note the appearence of marijuana symbols in a few frames - leaves and a bong. Cannabis prohibition is so central to the GOP political strategy,but try convincing people of this. The animators here got it right. Now...if dems could be half as smart as cartoonists.|W|P|110771462760528654|W|P|Become a republican!|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/04/2005 07:05:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P||W|P|110756201083493359|W|P|Says it all|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/04/2005 06:59:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Friday, February 4, 2005 by the New York Times
In an important decision on Monday, a federal judge in Washington ruled that the Bush administration cannot be allowed to defy the Constitution and an order of the Supreme Court in its treatment of the hundreds of prisoners it is holding at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The judge, Joyce Hens Green, said the administration must permit the detainees it is holding as "enemy combatants" to challenge their detention in federal courts. The administration has tried mightily to establish its right to treat anyone who it determines is an "enemy combatant" any way it chooses. It has argued that it can hold such detainees for a lifetime - without charging them, without giving them access to lawyers, without showing them the evidence against them and without allowing them to challenge their detention. Administration officials are adamant on this matter, and yesterday they were granted a stay of Judge Green's decision, pending an appeal. The Supreme Court ruled last June that the administration was acting illegally in depriving the detainees of their liberty without allowing them to challenge the cases against them. The administration responded bizarrely. Its lawyers argued, with "Alice in Wonderland" logic, that, yes, in accordance with the Supreme Court's ruling, the detainees can challenge their detention. But since (in the administration's view) they don't actually possess any rights to support the challenges, the courts must necessarily reject the challenges. The administration is fighting for nothing less than the death of due process for anyone it rounds up, no matter how arbitrarily, in its enemy combatant sweeps. Such tyrannical powers should offend anyone who cares about such old-fashioned notions as the rule of law, checks and balances, and constitutional guarantees. Under the procedures set up by the administration for dealing with the detainees, we have no way of distinguishing between a terrorist committed to mass murder and someone who is completely innocent.
|W|P|110756181795002089|W|P|Our Battered Constitution |W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com2/04/2005 09:53:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Liberal Democratic Party USA|W|P|Join the revolution for progressive legislation

http://www.boycott-republicans.com

Write this url on your one, five and ten dollar bills.



Call Eckerd Pharmacy Corporate Headquarters at 800 325 3737, Call CVS Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 888 607 4287 and Call Walgreens Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 800 289 2273 and tell them we will not purchase any products from their drug stores until they get the Republican congress to repeal the faulty prescription drug benefit and replace it with a simple 80 percent coverage benefit under Medicare Part B. Then sign the petition.

Call Walmart at 800 WALMART and tell them you will not buy from them until they get the Republican congress to stop social security privatization, increase the minimum wage to TEN dollars an hour, and extend unemployment insurance for people who lost jobs and sought work for more than 6 months. then sign the petition.

Sign the petition to stop social security privatization, increase the minimum wage,and repeal the faulty Republican prescription drug benefit and replace it with a simple 80 percent coverage of medication under Medicare Part B.


http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/progressive



Sign the petition to stop the War and Occupation in Iraq

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stopthewar




Also visit these fine websites

www.Buyblue.org

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www.imblue.net2/06/2005 01:32:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Doc|W|P|Thank you for visiting and providing such good info.

I have ditched Wal Mart for about 2 years now.I will starve and go without things I need before I shop there.2/02/2005 04:11:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|First, look at The Call to Kill Democracy as presented on the Hoffmania Blog. Those NAZI's at the "Weekly Standard" hate you and your freedoms more than ANYBODY in the so-called "Middle East"....more than ANY "Islamic Militant". And why? Because the power of democracy to keep the GOP from rolling unchallenged through their agenda to destroy this country.
Senate Democrats have enough votes to block major Bush initiatives like Social Security reform and to reject Bush appointees, including Supreme Court nominees. They may be suicidal, but they could undermine the president's entire second term agenda. At his news conference last week, Bush reacted calmly to their vitriolic attacks, suggesting only a few Democrats are involved. Stronger countermeasures will be needed, including an unequivocal White House response to obstructionism, curbs on filibusters, and a clear delineation of what's permissible and what's out of bounds in dissent on Iraq. Too much is at stake to wait for another Democratic defeat in 2006.
Now, look at these two threads at the Smirking Chimp, based on articles available in the past 3 days on the net:
New Republic Calls for Death and Torture of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff and The neocon Weakly Standard warns conservative Dems on rising Daily Kos power.
With the years of Rush Limbaughs and FAUX News flailing denigration of the term "liberal", moulding it into a dirty word - just like "insurgent" or "terrorist" - there is most definately a movement afoot to visit violence on those of us who "dare" use our First Amendment Rights to speech and assembly. In his pack of lies SOTU speech tonight Bush will outline GOP agenda to marginalize Democrats and this could be the beginning of an aggressive new effort to restrict the freedoms by which America has defined it's self. These freedoms are a huge threat to the GOP/Team Bush hijacking of America. We are definately in more danger from these fuckheads than most people grasp. A vicious wave of violent oppression is about to unfurl.|W|P|110737930019716852|W|P|The Call to Kill Democracy|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com