Daily Blend: 05/10/13

Fr. Anthony Musaala

Obama administration worsens their crackdown on state-legal marijuana.

Ugandan priest ^[pictured]: “The Catholic Church is still covering up clerical child abuse.” Catholic Church: “You made us look bad! You’re suspended.”
(via Freethought Blogs)

Why do police consult “psychics”? Because people are gullible and prefer false hope to realistic desperation.
(via @radleybalko)

And finally, PZ Myers schools movement skeptics about science and why their mindless dismissal of atheism as “unscientific” is decidedly unskeptical.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Monday, February 18, 2013

Rhonda McGee

Iowa woman ^[pictured] “arrested and charged with intent to manufacture [crystal] meth” after buying cold medicine for her allergies – without even violating legal limits.
(via @radleybalko)

In case you somehow missed it, Phil Plait has breathless coverage of last Friday’s spectacular Russian meteoric fireball, along with a reassurance that no, the Universe is not out to get us lately (any more than usual, that is).

The Heartland Institute: Still a bunch of lyin’ liars about climate change.
(via @BadAstronomer)

And finally, here be morans. (To be fair, the handrail looks like it broke and slid askew rather than got installed that way.)
(via @RichardWiseman; RT: @pzmyers)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

DEA wants to illegally snoop in private medical records

Never content with its current laundry list of privacy violations in its zeal to prevent the next great (imaginary) drug craze, the DEA is now trying to get permission to snoop around in private patient medical records without a warrant. Cue the ACLU:

The Drug Enforcement Administration is trying to access private prescription records of patients in Oregon without a warrant, despite a state law forbidding it from doing so. The ACLU and its Oregon affiliate are challenging this practice in a new case that raises the question of whether the Fourth Amendment allows federal law enforcement agents to obtain confidential prescription records without a judge’s prior approval. It should not.

[…]

In 2009, the Oregon legislature created the Oregon Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), which tracks prescriptions for certain drugs dispensed by Oregon pharmacies […]. The program was intended to help physicians prevent drug overdoses by their patients and more easily recognize signs of drug abuse. Because the medical information revealed by these prescription records is highly sensitive, the legislature created robust privacy and security protections for the PDMP, including a requirement that law enforcement must obtain a warrant before requesting records for use in an investigation. But despite those protections, the DEA has been requesting prescription records from the PDMP using administrative subpoenas which, unlike warrants, do not involve demonstrating probable cause to a neutral judge.

Probable cause? Constitutionally-mandated due process? Never heard of it.

(via @radleybalko)

Daily Blend: Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Stephen Colbert

I think we’ve officially reached the point where the NRA is doing to gun rights what PETA does to animal rights.

New York police get even creepier, now fighting war on prescription painkillers by hiding GPS trackers in fake pill bottles for unsuspecting pain patients druggies.
(via Joe. My. God.)

California judge blocks overbroad law that would destroy sex offenders’ free speech rights to anonymity online.

Good gawd are MRAs/PUAs pathetic. How grimly amusing that these silly little boys presume to call themselves “men”.
(via @jennifurret)

Oh, and Wonkette also has some fun with the sex-obsessed little toad.

And finally, following Jon Stewart’s lead, it’s Stephen Colbert’s ^[pictured] turn to shine on gun control [no time for a transcript, sorry]:

Non-U.S. readers: Click here to learn how to enable Comedy Central videos (Firefox only)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Friday, January 11, 2013

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg

The War on (certain people who use certain kinds of) Drugs gets even worse, thanks to NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s ^[pictured] nanny-statist bullshit. Only politicians have ego to think they can dictate medical policy better than actual doctors.

The fact that he actually said something like, “[S]upposing it is really true so you didn’t get enough painkillers and you did have to suffer a little bit. The other side of the coin is people are dying and there’s nothing perfect,” really tells you all you need to know about the man.
(via @radleybalko)

At least some Republicans still haven’t learned to STFU about rape.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

Salon’s Alex Seitz-Wald effectively destroys the Right’s myth that gun-toting commoners somehow prevent militarized takeovers.
(via RT: @mmfa)

And finally, here’s today’s edition of “I want a dog, dammit”:
(via @MelanieKV; RT: @ggreenwald)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

DEA promises crackdown on pot dispensaries despite new law

John J. Arvanitis

Despite voting in favor of medicinal marijuana last November, it looks like the people of Massachusetts aren’t out of the woods yet as far as the federal government is concerned:

Prospective pot shop owners be warned: New England’s top narcotics cop says federal agents won’t hesitate to come down on dispensaries that pop up next year under the Bay State’s medical marijuana law.

John J. Arvanitis, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New England Division, told the Herald in an exclusive interview that the feds will probe pot pharmacies as they see fit.

“Marijuana is still a controlled substance,” Arvanitis said. “DEA is committed to investigating individuals who are involved in the distribution of marijuana. DEA goes to where the information and evidence take it. If we become aware that individuals are involved in marijuana distribution, we’ll investigate it.”

Come on … no-one really expected the Obama administration to take the will of the people (not to mention scientific research debunking virtually every single anti-pot myth) seriously, did they?

On the other hand, more tension might just bring about a much-belated resolution to the conflict between federal and state drug laws. And with a little luck, the courts will rule in favor of common sense and personal liberty over paranoia-induced prohibition.

(via The Agitator)

Daily Blend: Thursday, December 13, 2012

PZ Myers

If crap like this doesn’t convince you that the U.S. criminal justice system is an absolutely hideous farce, nothing will.
(via @ggreenwald)

I can’t wait for the usual dolts to quote-mine PZ Myers’s ^[pictured] (discomforting but incontrovertible) assertion that “[i]f you’re white, you’re racist”.

Meanwhile, the man must be damn near a saint if harmless, sex-positive jokes are the blackest dirt the anti-Freethought Blogs ilk can dig up on him.

And finally, here’s your amazing wildlife video of the day:
(via @DiscoveryCanada)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Pot raid leads to triple doggycide in Detroit, Michigan

Hump the German Shepherd mix (top) and Tank the pitbull

There is so much goddamned wrong with this story that I truly don’t know where to begin:

”Please don’t harm my dogs,” [James Woods] begged police, who moments earlier had barged into his east-side home looking for marijuana.

Woods was forced into a corner last week when the first shot rang out – a 12-gauge shotgun. Woods’ young pit bull, Tank, who neighbors and witnesses say was confined to a locked fence outside and unable to harm anyone, lay dead in a puddle of blood, shot in the face.

Fearing police would hurt his two other dogs, who were inside the house, Woods cried out: “Please! They won’t hurt you! Stop chasing them! They’re just scared. ”

Witnesses told a consistent story: Police chased the dogs, Hump and Janey, around the house, shooting Woods’ longtime companions as they fled.

“They came in like they were shooting deer,” Woods said.

Janey, a small, older pit bull, dragged a trail of blood around the house until she finally collapsed.

“They shot her four times as she was trying to get away,” Woods said […]”

Neighbors said the three dogs, which included a German shepherd mix, were tame and friendly.

Bloodthirsty cowards. Woods needs to sue their motherfucking asses off. That is all.

(via @radleybalko)

The cost-effectiveness of the War on Drugs in one image

“B-b-but without it, the addiction rate would be even higher!”

(via The Agitator)

Daily Blend: Thursday, October 04, 2012

Bill Donohue

47,000 women die around the world every year from complications due to unsafe abortions. Just another data point to keep in mind for the next time you encounter a so-called “pro-lifer”.

Republican-appointed federal judge in Missouri declares that forcing employers to provide contraception coverage to their employees at no cost of their own doesn’t violate their religious liberty.

There truly is nothing that Christianist wingnuts won’t twist into a dishonest attack on LGBT people.

Chicago court decides that cops aren’t always being entirely truthful when they claim they can smell marijuana as an excuse for a drug search.
(via @BlanksSlate; RT: @radleybalko)

Bill Donohue ^[pictured] is incensed that two Hollywood magazines refuse to air his pearl-clutching indignation about a new TV show, which obviously means that “Hollywood hates Catholics”.

Catholic group: Birth control makes women unattractive and turns men gay. No, really.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Fail Quote: MA Police chief says drug use is “domestic terrorism”

Today’s nugget of Drug War insanity comes from Wilmington, Massachusetts Police Chief Michael Begonis:

“Illicit drug use is a form of domestic terrorism to some extent. It is preying on folks who are more susceptible and who need a better life. And it’s something that we need to deal with head on.”

Following this pronouncement, the Chief presumably returned to his office and later ordered a SWAT team to break into a family home with a battering ram and flashbangs at 3 AM to arrest granny for using marijuana to help soothe her aching arthritis. Household pets may or may not be shot on sight and later declared to have been “threatening” to the submachine-gun-toting paramilitary officers.

Mike Riggs at Reason.com has more.

(via @radleybalko)

Tags: Michael Begonis • domestic terrorism • Wilmington Police Department • drug use • drug users

Doggycide in Walworth, New York

Duke the pitbull

In which the morale of this story appears to be that it’s never too late to learn about the incompetent thuggery of drug warriors:

On August 15, 2012 Wayne County Sheriff's deputies, along with Macedon, NY Police broke into 75 year old Phyllis Loquasto's Plank Road home in the town of Walworth, NY, forced her at gunpoint to lay on her bathroom floor, screamed at her to close her eyes and stay down, then executed her dog "Duke."

Minutes earlier, Loquasto, who has had three strokes and a knee replacement, was on her computer when she heard loud smashing sounds, then saw what she described as several men dressed in black with masks on.

As she was laying on her bathroom floor Loquasto could hear the men talking in loud voices.

"The dog hadn't even barked, yet I heard one of them say, he's aggressive, shoot him! I'll never forget the sound of that gunshot and the blood flying everywhere. They did all this while forcing me to lay on the bathroom floor, screaming at me to stay down, and holding me at gunpoint. I couldn't get up if I wanted to. I'm 75 years old, had three strokes and knee replacement, and can hardly walk. There was nothing I could do to help my pet."

Unfortunately, Duke died a slow death.

"They shot him with a shotgun in such a manner that he ran around in pain and bled all over the house and suffered a slow, cruel death. There was no reason for this kind of treatment, they killed my dog for no reason. This was the sweetest and most gentle animal anyone could want, I would trust him with a baby."

It’s only after Loquasto was made to wait for an hour in an overheated police car that she was informed the black-clad storm troopers were actually police officers serving a search warrant.

But, hey, don’t worry about it all being for nothing; a subsequent phone interview with the local drug task force commander revealed that drugs were found in Loquasto’s home – in the form of her grandson’s marijuana plants. Which means it was all for a good cause and there’s nothing to see here, so move along, now.

Isn’t it curious how many of these increasingly militarized police raids result in innocent civilians and animals alike ending up as blood-drenched statistics in the ongoing War on (certain kinds of people who use certain kinds of) Drugs?

Daily Blend: Thursday, August 30, 2012

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

That’ll teach ’em illegals to have Spanish-like names!
(via @radleybalko)

Woman learns the hard truth about the U.S.’s broken sex offender system when a spiteful ex’s false accusations lands her husband in the registry, ruining his life.

You know your Republican candidate ^[pictured] is particularly full of shit when even a Fox News commentator describes his diatribe as “an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech”.
(via Joe. My. God.)

Today’s reminder that bigoted Freudian slips happen to politicians of both parties.

Surveillance State joins Drug War to protect Orlando, FL’s streets from an evil pot smoker.
(via @radleybalko)

And finally, the only time I shall ever write about Jersey Shore on this blog is to inform y’all that it’s finally been axed.
(via Joe. My. God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Maricopa County, AZ • Briseria Torres • immigrants • undocumented immigrants • sex offender registry • Paul Ryan • Fox News • Republican National Committee • Sally Kohn • Republicans • Republican Party • Ben Akselrod • Democrats • Democratic Party • racism • racists • Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn • Orlando, FL • Joe Haywood • marijuana • cannabis • pot • IRIS • Innovative Response to Improve Safety • Jersey Shore • MTV

Doggycide in St. Paul, Minnesota

In which a paramilitary drug raid, wrong address, police brutality, child abuse and pet-murder, complete with subsequent courtroom confusion, all converge into the perfect police incompetence clusterfuck:

A St. Paul, Minnesota family claims in a lawsuit that police officers who conducted a wrong-door raid on their home shot their dog, and then forced their three handcuffed children to sit near the dead pet while officers ransacked the home. The lawsuit, which names Ramsey County, the Dakota County Drug Task Force, and the DEA, and asks for $30 million in civil rights violations and punitive damages after a wrong-door raid, also claims that the officers kicked the children and deprived one of them of her diabetes medication.

That’s just the CliffsNotes version; the always-invaluable Courthouse News Service has all the sordid details, including this little tidbit:

     Lead plaintiff Roberto Franco claims the task force raided the wrong house: that they should have gone next door.
     Franco claims that Task Force Officer Shawn Scovill, who orchestrated the raid, "provided false information to a Minnesota District Court judge in order to obtain a search warrant. […]
     The complaint adds: The search warrant specifically named Rafael Ybarra as the intended target suspect. Plaintiff Roberto Franco was not named in the search warrant, nor was any person who lived in the raided house named in the search warrant.

Looks like this Ybarra fellow should count himself lucky. That’s one hell of a botched raid he missed out on.

(via @radleybalko)

---

[full size (514×625)]

Doggycide Bingo Index

Confirmed hits:

Dead dog

Cops shot first

No apology given

Rest of family threatened and brutalized

Falsified warrant leads to wrong address

Shooting near children (who are forced to sit next to bloody corpse)

Cops barged in illegally (with falsified warrant)

Total: 7/25
No bingo.

Tags: St. Paul, Minnesota • drug raids • no-knock raids • police brutality • James Franco • Shawn Scovill • Dakota County Drug Task Force • Drug Enforcement Administration • DEA

Daily Blend: Saturday, June 30, 2012

DEA Freedom of Information Act ^[pictured] request rejections have increased by 114% since President Obama took office. Transparency!
(via The Agitator)

Virginia Judge decides a police drug-sniffing dog’s track record of 74% false alerts is good enough for probable cause. First one to make a wisecrack about the dog’s name gets yelled at.
(via @radleybalko)

YouTube is reportedly developing tools to help deal with its “racist, cruel, idiotic, nonsensical, and barely literate” commenters. Maybe IMDb could be next.
(via @ebertchicago)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Barack Obama • Obama administration • Drug Enforcement Administration • DEA • FOIA • Freedom of Information Act • Bono the police dog • Herbert Green • dogs • police dogs • Glen Conrad • YouTube • Google • Internet comments

Study: The relative (actual) harm of drugs

It’s obvious that the heavily politicized and increasingly militarized anti-drug effort in the U.S. (and to a lesser extent, elsewhere) has very little to do with the actual threat to individuals and society presented by the illicit substances, themselves. But for all the fear-mongering propaganda, it’s nonetheless evident that some drugs are more dangerous than others. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some sort of side-by-side comparison to see how different types of mind-altering chemicals rank in terms of the actual dangers they pose?

Well, a team of researchers and Britain’s Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs did just that, publishing a new study that summarizes their findings thus:

[full size (944×786)]

And here, the effects of society’s irrational approach to different drugs becomes clear. Some of the most dangerous and destructive substances (alcohol, cigarettes) are some of the most widely accepted and commercially available products sold over-the-counter practically on every street corner, whereas some of the more genuinely innocuous drugs with little or no actual harm (marijuana, LSD, even ’shrooms) will get you thrown behind bars for years merely for using them on your own time and dime. It all brings a new level of evidentiary support to the idea that were alcohol introduced just today, it would be universally decried as the greatest danger to society since the Commies – yet because it’s been such an integral part of human history, watch them rage (not that they shouldn’t) if anyone ever tried to take it away from them.

DEA chief refuses to admit heroin is worse than marijuana

Michele Leonhart

I’m not sure which warps brains more, being on drugs or being put in charge of overseeing the ever-ongoing (and worsening) Drug War. Just look at poor Michele Leonhart, the DEA chief best known for declaring that mounting drug violence leading to scores of children being murdered is a sure sign that prohibitionists are approaching victory over the cartels. And now, here she is, unable (or unwilling) to admit that there are worse drugs in existence than mere weed:

During a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Drug Enforcement Administrator Michele Leonhart repeatedly refused to admit that anything was more addictive or harmful than marijuana.

Democratic Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado pressed Leonhart on whether illegal drugs like methamphetamine and crack, as well as legal prescription drugs, caused greater harm to public health compared to marijuana. But within a three minute time-span, Leonhart dodged his questions eleven times.

“Is crack worse for a person than marijuana?” Polis, who has called for an end to marijuana prohibition, asked.

“I believe all illegal drugs are bad,” Leonhart responded.

“Is methamphetamine worse for somebody’s health than marijuana?” Polis continued. “Is heroin worse for somebody’s health than marijuana?”

“Again, all drugs,” Leonhart began to say, only to be cut off by Polis.

“Yes, no, or I don’t know?” Polis said. “If you don’t know this, you can look this up. As the chief administrator for the Drug Enforcement Agency, I’m asking a very straightforward question.”

Be sure to watch the video of the exchange, which really brings home just how clueless she sounds:

Daily Blend: Monday, June 18, 2012

Charles Carreon

Attorney General Eric Holder lies baldfaced lies to Congress about the Obama administration’s crackdown on medicinal marijuana dispensaries.
(via The Agitator)

In which hack lawyer Charles Carreon ^[pictured] sues wildlife and cancer charities, officially turns his name into the latest Internet meme. The ever-thorough TechDirt has more.

Vox Day @ WorldNetDaily: Pixar’s decision to feature a valiant female lead in new film Brave is “cultural propaganda” to brainwash women into ignoring tradition and something or other.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Eric Holder • Obama administration • medicinal marijuana • medical marijuana • The Oatmeal • Charles Carreon • lawyers • Matthew Inman • IndieGoGo • National Wildlife Federation • American Cancer Society • Vox Day • Theodore Beale • Pixar • Disney • Brave • Merinda • misogyny

Mexicans disagree that drug war violence is sign of victory

Oddly enough, contrary to U.S. drug warriors’ attempts to spin endless, mounting violence as a sign of impending victory in the War on Drugs, people who actually live in regions where cartel brutality reigns are singing a decidedly different tune:

The crackdown demanded by a U.S. government intent on stopping Americans from getting the psychoactive substances they want has had no discernible impact on drug consumption here, but it has destabilized the black market, leading to an entirely predictable increase in violence:

The focus on arresting top traffickers and extraditing them to the United States has weakened several organizations, the Mexican and American authorities have insisted, but the bloodshed caused by newly emergent and splintering groups has overwhelmed the local and state authorities and left the impression that the antidrug forces are losing ground.

"They can get some of the guys at the top, but now you've got all these other guys running around doing whatever they want, and the state and local police can't handle it," said an American official who requested anonymity because of the political sensitivities.

Not surprisingly, Mexicans resent the idea that they should accept mass murder and mayhem in their country as the price of a vain crusade to protect American drug users from themselves, and the presidential candidates recognize that political reality. Enrique Peña Nieto, the nominee of the Instititutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), says "the task of the state, what should be its priority from my point of view, and what I have called for in this campaign, is to reduce the levels of violence." Josefina Vázquez Mota, the nominee of Calderón's National Action Party, says "results will be measured not by how many criminals are captured, but by how stable and secure the communities are." Democratic Revolution Party candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador—whose slogan is "abrazos, no balazos" ("hugs, not bullets")—joins Peña Nieto and Vázquez Mota in promising to stop using the Mexican Army for drug law enforcement. A foreign policy analyst at the Mexican think tank CIDE tells the Times, "You go ask the majority of people about a drug lab in the city, they are going to say, 'As long as they don’t kill or rob me, it doesn't matter.'"

You mean rising piles of butchered police and civilian cadavers aren’t being taken as an encouraging sign by local residents? How inexplicable.

As a sidenote, “hugs, not bullets” should totally be the slogan for everything.

(via The Agitator)

Tags: War on Drugs • Mexico • drug cartels • drug violence • drug warriors • United States • Mexicans • Enrique Nieto • Institutional Revolutionary Party • PRI • Josefina Mota • National Action Party • Felipe Calderón • Democratic Revolution Party • Andrés Obrador • CIDE

How to turn away pain patients: the game

Dr. McCarthy (r) testing “drug abuse detection” videogame

As if policies regarding prescription painkillers weren’t draconian enough already, there’s a new educational videogame on the way that would purportedly teach physicians how to recognize drug abusers posing as pain patients and turn them away, presumably with no risk whatsoever of actual pain sufferers being labeled as junkies and denied their medication:

As Dr. Danielle McCarthy listens to a man beg for a prescription for painkillers, she weighs her possible responses.

A 31-year-old emergency room physician, she listens patiently as the man tells her that “every morning I wake up in pain,” describing the agony he continues to endure, three years after being injured in a car wreck.

He has tried physical therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic treatment, he says. Nothing works except pills, he insists, as his voice grows louder and more demanding.

Their exchange is similar to conversations that take place on almost every shift at Northwestern Memorial Hospital here, Dr. McCarthy said. But it is fiction — part of an interactive video game designed to train doctors to identify deceptive behavior by people likely to abuse prescription painkillers. The patient is an actor whose statements and responses are generated by the program.

The video game was designed based on research by Dr. Michael F. Fleming at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and draws on technology used by the F.B.I. to train agents in interrogation tactics. It teaches doctors to look for warning signs of drug abuse, like a history of family problems, and to observe nonverbal signs of nervousness, like breaking eye contact, fidgeting and finger-tapping.

The game, which is in its final phase of testing, is aimed at primary care and family doctors, who often feel uncomfortable and unqualified assessing their patients in this regard.

Anyone who can’t immediately identify about two hundred problems with just about every aspect of this idea is categorically unfit to debate drug policy, much less craft it. Though, to be fair, I suppose the only option left for drug warriors who wanted to make the whole situation even more ridiculous and restrictive was to literally make a game of it.

The government seriously needs to get the hell out of the relationship between doctors and their patients. The only thing resulting from threatening medical workers with harassment and prosecution for doing their jobs is more and more victims of injury and malady being denied access to medicine. Chalk it up to yet more casualties in the blindly ideological and transparently futile war on human nature itself.

(via @jacobsullum)

Tags: Danielle McCarthy • Michael Fleming • drug abuse • drug abusers • pain patients • doctors