fuckyeahdrugpolicy:

Obama’s pot promise a pipe dream? | POLITICO

The hopes that Obama would be a kinder, gentler, more tolerant drug warrior have gone up in smoke.

“I’m very disappointed,” Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a longtime supporter of marijuana legalization and medical marijuana, told POLITICO. “They look more like the Bush administration than the Clinton administration.”

The dejected medical marijuana supporters are hardly alone. For many in 2008, candidate Obama was like a political Rorschach test: They projected strong progressive positions about everything from legalizing gay marriage to ending all military involvement onto a candidate who never said he agreed with them — but also never explicitly said he didn’t.

Now they’re looking at four years into the Obama administration and wondering where they went wrong.

“I believed in him,” Montana-based activist and medical cannabis user Sarah Combs said about the president. “I don’t believe a word he says now.”

[…]

Obama sees his history on medical marijuana enforcement differently. The president was again asked about the Justice Department medical marijuana policy at a high-dollar fundraiser at Washington’s St. Regis Hotel filled with liberal mega-donors who paid $35,800 a plate to attend. According to a source with knowledge of the event, which was closed to reporters, Obama reportedly said that the DOJ was raiding purely on a case-by-case basis.

Frank says he got a frustrating response when he buttonholed Obama to complain that this wasn’t true: Obama told the Massachusetts Democrat that, to the best of his knowledge, the 2009 hands-off policy remained in place.

Frank told POLITICO that he’s preparing to send the president press clippings to demonstrate that raids continue across the country.

[…] 

“Obama now lags Pat Robertson in a sensible approach to marijuana,” said Frank, referring to the conservative evangelical leader’s recent criticism of the drug war.

full article

occupyallstreets:

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Obama Covers Up War Crimes And Silences The Journalist Who Exposed Him

On Thursday’s “Democracy Now,” reporter Jeremy Scahill and a member of the Committee to Protect Journalists discussed the ongoing imprisonment of a Yemeni journalist, and his connection with President Obama.

Abdulelah Haider Shaye has been in prison since January of 2011. In a new article for The Nation, Scahill placed the blame for Shaye’s continued imprisonment (which has been condemned by many human rights and press freedom groups) squarely on Obama.

According to Scahill, Obama “expressed concern” about Shaye during a phone call with then-Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had signalled his intent to pardon the journalist and free him. Instead, Shaye remains behind bars, branded as an ally of al Qaeda.

One of Shaye’s biggest scoops was the uncovering of a U.S. missile strike in Yemen. As Scahill wrote:

On December 17, the Yemeni government announced that it had conducted a series of strikes against an al Qaeda training camp in the village of al Majala in Yemen’s southern Abyan province, killing a number of al Qaeda militants. As the story spread across the world, Shaye traveled to al Majala. What he discovered were the remnants of Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs, neither of which are in the Yemeni military’s arsenal. He photographed the missile parts, some of them bearing the label “Made in the USA,” and distributed the photos to international media outlets. He revealed that among the victims of the strike were women, children and the elderly. To be exact, 14 women and 21 children were killed.

Seven months later, Shaye was abducted by Yemeni intelligence agents, who warned him to stop speaking about the strike. Instead, he went on Al Jazeera to say what had happened to him. A month later, he was arrested and sent to prison in a trial that was widely seen as a sham.

“Democracy Now” showed video of Shaye speaking from a caged cell during his trial. It also showed footage that Scahill took during his reporting in Yemen.

Speaking on Thursday, Scahill said that Shaye had become known for his close access to top al Qaeda figures (which he obtained through his wife’s family ties to a radical cleric) but was trusted by Western media outlets.

Read More

(via anarcho-queer)

occupyallstreets:

ATTENTION: Obama Signs National Defense Resource Preparedness

On March 16th Barack Obama signed the NDRP. You can read the executive order here.

For those who don’t read law let me explain what this means:

PART II  -  PRIORITIES AND ALLOCATIONS

Sec.201. Priorities and Allocations Authorities.  (a)  The authority of the President conferred by section 101 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071, to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders, and to allocate materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense, is delegated to the following agency heads:

(1)  the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer;

(2)  the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy;

(3)  the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources;

(4)  the Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation;

(5)  the Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and

(6)  the Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials.

That means in case of an emergency, for example the Iran attacks the U.S. or widespread riots occur (anything that threaten nation security), all water supplies, food supplies, health supplies and services, construction material and civilian transportation will be ran by the president and the ‘The Defense Production Act Committee’.

The Defense Production Act Committee consist of the following persons and groups:

Sec. 701.  The Defense Production Act Committee.  (a)  The Defense Production Act Committee (Committee) shall be composed of the following members, in accordance with section 722(b) of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2171(b):

(1)   The Secretary of State;

(2)   The Secretary of the Treasury;

(3)   The Secretary of Defense;

(4)   The Attorney General;

(5)   The Secretary of the Interior;

(6)   The Secretary of Agriculture;

(7)   The Secretary of Commerce;

(8)   The Secretary of Labor;

(9)   The Secretary of Health and Human Services;

(10)  The Secretary of Transportation;

(11)  The Secretary of Energy;

(12)  The Secretary of Homeland Security; 

(13)  The Director of National Intelligence;

(14)  The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency;

(15)  The Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers;

(16)  The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and

(17)  The Administrator of General Services.

I urge my followers to read the executive order and post anything you find interesting or concerning. There is A LOT more to the order than what I posted above. I’ll continue to post updates if I come across any information.

(via italianinsomniac)

fuckyeahdrugpolicy:

YouTube Ignores Cop’s First Place Marijuana Legalization Video Question for Obama | Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Today YouTube ignored a question advocating marijuana legalization from a retired LAPD deputy chief of police that won twice as many votes as any other video question in the White House’s “Your Interview with the President” competition on the Google-owned site. They did, however, find the time to get the president on record about late night snacking, singing and dancing, celebrating wedding anniversaries and playing tennis.  

 Stephen Downing, the retired LAPD police officer and a board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), had this to say about the site ignoring his question: “It’s worse than silly that YouTube and Google would waste the time of the president and of the American people discussing things like midnight snacks and playing tennis when there is a much more pressing question on the minds of the people who took the time to participate in voting on submissions. A majority of Americans now support legalizing marijuana to de-fund cartels and gangs, lower incarceration and arrest rates and save scarce public resources, all while generating new much-needed tax revenue. The time to discuss this issue is now. We’re tired of this serious public policy crisis being pushed aside or laughed off.”

The top-voted video question from Downing is as follows: “Mr. President, my name is Stephen Downing, and I’m a retired deputy chief of police from the Los Angeles Police Department. From my 20 years of experience I have come to see our country’s drug policies as a failure and a complete waste of criminal justice resources. According to the Gallup Poll, the number of Americans who support legalizing and regulating marijuana now outnumbers those who support continuing prohibition. What do you say to this growing voter constituency that wants more changes to drug policy than you have delivered in your first term?” The question can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0IpiATxdR4.

Downing’s question came in first place for video questions and ranked second out of all questions (with the overall top spot going to a text question about copyright infringement). Many of the other top-ranking questions were about marijuana policy or the failed “war on drugs,” as has been the case every other time the White House has invited citizens to submit and vote on questions via the web. +

(via mctranscendent)

gonzodave:

 Obama is dancing. And saying nothing.

~g

wishididntknowthat:

(RCP) — George Stephanopoulos, ABC News: “And a lot of anger out there. There’s so many people who simply don’t think they’re better off than they were four years ago. How do you convince them that they are?”

President Obama: “Well, I don’t think they’re better off than they were four years ago. They’re not better off than they were before Lehman’s collapse, before the financial crisis, before this extraordinary recession that we’re going through. I think that what we’ve seen is that we’ve been able to make steady progress to stabilize the economy, but the unemployment rate is still way too high. And that’s why it’s so critical for us to make sure that we are taking every action we can take to put people back to work.”

SEE VIDEO HERE

Original Article