Usa Thread

[Flashermac]

I remember back in the 1980 when the police in Bangkok decided to hold a public burning of all the marijuana and other drugs they had seized that year. It was supervised by firemen, while crowds gathered around to watch. All of them got stoned out of their gourd that day. The next time the burn was private and the firemen had to wear gas masks.

[jitagawn]

Wow over the top. :shakehead

[Steve]

Steve

 

My understanding is that it was Harry J. Anslinger who crimilised pot http://www.csdp.org/...e/anslinger.htm

 

Unfortuntely the race card agan.

 

http://io9.com/anti-marijuana-laws-were-based-on-racism-not-science-1500321449

The truth is that our perceptions of marijuana—and in fact all of our drug laws—are based on early 20th century racism and "science" circa the Jim Crow era. In the early decades of the 20th century, the drug was linked to Mexican immigrants and black jazzmen, who were seen as potentially dangerous.

Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (an early predecessor of the DEA), was one of the driving forces behind pot prohibition. He pushed it for explicitly racist reasons, saying, "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men," and:

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

The main reason to prohibit marijuana, he said was "its effect on the degenerate races." (And god forbid women should sleep with entertainers!)

[Steve]

I was reading an article about the Republican's impeachment voices. The article was saying they know there aren't any impeachable offenses but if they say it enough, where there is smoke strategy because the American people aren't really too smart, etc.

 

Anyway, it got me thinking about prior impeachments and attempts to impeach. I considered the Clinton one totally without merit if we take precedence into account. Impeachments if you really believe them should be a crime/misdemeanor so egregious even a President's allies/own party will bow to it. Party lines voting is usually a sure sign its bullshit. Clinton was charged with lying under oath. Perjury. However, he perjured himself in a civil trial. Impeachment is clear. Its high crimes and misdemeanors from abusing your power as President. There are two people in one in the White House. The President and the private citizen who has the same rights as everyone else. Clinton was not representing the office of the President in that that testimony and there are two precedents for it. One of the articles of impeachment against Nixon was tax evasion. Open and shut but the Republicans sucessfully argued that he lied on his tax return as a private citizen. He was not using his power as President. His tax return was his personal business and one could charge him after his presidency but not as a crime done using his power as president. Second, Aaron Burr, a sitting VP of he US killed Hamilton, the sitting Secty' of the Treasurer in a dual in NJ. Dueling was outlawed in the state. Burr's enemies gave a NJ warrant to the Congress asking for Burr's arrest and extradition to NJ. Congress said, Burr's duel was a matter of personal honor and he was not representing the office of the Vice Presidency so it had no standing before Congress. Clinton's perjured testimony was the SAME. He was acting as William Jefferson Clinton in a civil suit, he was not giving testimony as President.

 

Its also interesting to note that when Goldwater and others went to Nixon and said he didn't have the votes to fight impeachment that only 15 of the 42 Republican senators were willing not to convict, I find that utterly amazing and appalling. Caught on tape, indisputable evidence of a crime using the office and 15 senators were still willing to put party over their sworn duty. I've been trying to google who they were (and give them a stern finger wagging if they are stil alive) but I couldn't find them. Can anyone?

[Flashermac]

Tough to find ... I'll keep looking.

 

<< Of thirty-five attempts at impeachment, only nine have come to trial. Because it cripples Congress with a lengthy trial, impeachment is infrequent. Many officials, seeing the writing on the wall, resign rather than face the ignominy of a public trial.

 

The most famous of these cases is of course that of President Richard Nixon, a Republican. After five men hired by Nixon's reelection committee were caught burglarizing Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate Complex on June 17, 1972, President Nixon's subsequent behavior—his cover-up of the burglary and refusal to turn over evidence—led the House Judiciary Committee to issue three articles of impeachment on July 30, 1974. The document also indicted Nixon for illegal wiretapping, misuse of the CIA, perjury, bribery, obstruction of justice, and other abuses of executive power. "In all of this," the Articles of Impeachment summarize, "Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States." Impeachment appeared inevitable, and Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. The Articles of Impeachment, which can be viewed at http://watergate.info/, leave no doubt that these charges qualify as "high crimes and misdemeanors," justifying impeachment. >>

 

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/impeach.html

[Flashermac]

On Saturday, July 27, the House Judiciary Committee approved its first article of impeachment charging President Nixon with obstruction of justice. Six of the Committee's 17 Republicans joined all 21 Democrats in voting for the article. The following Monday the Committee approved its second article charging Nixon with abuse of power. The next day, the third and final article, contempt of Congress, was approved.

 

Articles of Impeachment:

 

RESOLVED, That Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment to be exhibited to the Senate:

 

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT EXHIBITED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE NAME OF ITSELF AND OF ALL OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AGAINST RICHARD M. NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF ITS IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HIM FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS.

 

Article 1: Obstruction of Justice.

 

In his conduct of the office of the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that: On June 17, 1972, and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence. Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his subordinates and agents in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede and obstruct investigations of such unlawful entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities. The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan have included one or more of the following:

 

(1) Making or causing to be made false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employes of the United States.

 

(2) Withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employes of the United States.

 

(3) Approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counseling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employes of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings.

 

(4) Interfering or endeavoring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force and congressional committees.

 

(5) Approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payments of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities.

 

(6) Endeavoring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States.

 

(7) Disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employes of the United States for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability.

 

(8) Making false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation has been conducted with respect to allegation of misconduct on the part of personnel of the Executive Branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct; or

 

(9) Endeavoring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favored treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.

 

In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

 

Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

 

(Approved by a vote of 27-11 by the House Judiciary Committee on Saturday, July 27, 1974.)

 

[More articles follow]

 

 

...

 

Richard Nixon had served a total of 2,026 days as the 37th President of the United States. He left office with 2 1/2 years of his second term remaining. A total of 25 officials from his administration, including four cabinet members, were eventually convicted and imprisoned for various crimes.

 

"...I think that the Watergate tragedy is the greatest tragedy this country has ever suffered. I used to think that the Civil War was our country's greatest tragedy, but I do remember that there were some redeeming features in the Civil War in that there was some spirit of sacrifice and heroism displayed on both sides. I see no redeeming features in Watergate." -- Senator Sam Ervin.

 

 

http://www.historypl...ments/nixon.htm

[Flashermac]

Aha! But this is about the House. Good analysis of what it took for Republicans to vote in favour of impeachment though.

 

...

 

In the spring of 1974, allegations filled the airwaves that Nixon had misused the CIA and FBI and had spied on Democratic opponents. A summer of contentious televised deliberations, conducted by the House Judiciary Committee, resulted in a vote in favor of three articles of impeachment. After thoroughly examining the evidence, a handful of Republicans decided to break ranks with the party and vote with the majority. They were joined by two Democrats from conservative Southern districts who ignored pressure and even threats of violence from their Nixon-supporting constituencies to vote the way the facts demanded. (The release of an audiotape directly implicating Nixon in the Watergate burglary led to his resignation on Aug. 9, before the full House could vote on the impeachment.)

 

At the outset of the deliberations, Rep. Peter Rodino of New Jersey, the Democratic chairman of the 38-member committee, stated that “the law must deal fairly with everyone.â€

 

But particularly for the Republicans from conservative districts, voting for impeachment meant not only going against their party, but also potentially angering their constituents and sacrificing their political career.

 

One them was M. Caldwell Butler of Virginia. In Nixon’s 1972 landslide reelection, Butler’s district had voted 73 percent in Nixon’s favor. In an interview given for a 1984 PBS documentary titled “Summer of Judgment: The Impeachment Hearings,†Butler said that when the Judiciary Committee began its deliberations, he was “still very defensive of the president.†Yet, by the end of that summer, he became one of the decisive Republican votes that sealed Nixon’s fate.

 

Behind his large, Coke-bottle glasses, Butler gave a rousing and emphatic speech to the committee that today seems both resonant and remote:

 

"If we fail to impeach, we have condoned and left unpunished a course of conduct totally inconsistent with the reasonable expectations of the American people. We will have condoned a presidential course of conduct designed to interfere with and obstruct the very process he has sworn to uphold. We will have condoned and left unpunished an abuse of power totally without justification. In short, a power appears to have corrupted. It is a sad period in American history, but I cannot condone what I have heard, I cannot excuse it and I cannot and will not stand still for it."

 

Now 82, Butler told Salon in a recent interview that impeachment was “warranted because of the president’s conduct.†From his perspective, the impeachment was never a partisan issue. “I didn’t have any problem separating the Republican problem,†he said. “It was my first term in Congress, and I wasn’t all that crazy about the job anyway … I think it would have been a terrible thing if we had decided to vote strictly along party lines in the committee.â€

 

However, Butler did feel pressure from his constituency to vote against impeachment. “Everyone one of us Republicans and Southern Democrats were from areas that had strong Nixon support in the previous election, so we all felt in jeopardy.â€

 

Other Republicans who voted for articles of impeachment were Tom Railsback of Illinois, William Cohen of Maine, Harold Froehlich of Wisconsin, Lawrence Hogan of Maryland, Robert McClory of Illinois and Hamilton Fish of New York.

 

Railsback, now 75 and living in California, said in an interview that voting for impeachment was especially difficult for him because he considered Nixon a friend. But Railsback emphasized that despite this relationship, and despite his being a Republican, he made an independent decision.

 

“I was never pressured directly by any of the White House people or the president or [White House chief of staff] Al Haig or John Mitchell or anybody else, nor was I pressured by the leadership of the Republican side of the House or Senate,†Railsback said. “I did talk to George Herbert Walker Bush. [bush was then chair of the Republican National Committee.] He and I are good friends, and he was interested in my opinion. I didn’t tell him how I was going to vote or anything like that, but I let him know that I had some concerns.â€

 

Railsback says that his party affiliation only made him more resolute in seeking the truth. “Because I was a Republican, I felt an additional responsibility to get what I thought was an accurate view of the facts and the evidence,†he said. “I just couldn’t worry about [voting against a Republican president]. I felt that the best thing we could do was what we thought was right.â€

 

Like Butler, Railsback received considerable pressure from his conservative constituency to vote against impeachment. “There were some people in my district who were upset and we also had — this was not in my district — but we also had some bomb threats by mail that were being examined by the Postal Service prior to delivery,†he said. “I think for us, particularly the Republicans, [the impeachment] wasn’t something we were very happy about or wanted to celebrate,†he added. “Looking back, I think all of us on the committee knew that what we were doing would likely be the most important legislative work that we would ever be required to do.â€

 

Democrats from conservative districts, James Mann of South Carolina and Walter Flowers of Alabama, also took a risky stand. Mann, whose district had voted 78 percent in favor of Nixon in 1974, became the most outspoken and influential of the Southern Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. During the committee proceedings, Mann addressed his colleagues in his distinct Southern drawl: “Are we so morally bankrupt that we would decide that the system that we have is incapable of sustaining a system of law because we are imperfect?†Mann worried about the precedent the committee would set if it ignored Nixon’s assaults on the Constitution — future presidents might use Nixon’s example as justification for their own transgression of the law.

 

Mann developed Alzheimer’s in 2000 and was unable to be interviewed for this article. But his son, James Mann Jr., who helped his father write the first and second articles of impeachment in 1974, recently explained his father’s reasons for voting for Nixon’s ouster. “He would not have gone against his convictions to get reelected, of that I’m certain, and everybody that knows him would say the same,†said Mann Jr. “He felt strongly that the evidence was there.†Mann Jr. explained that his father became convinced of Nixon’s guilt only after plowing his way through volumes of evidence provided by John Doar, special counsel to the Judiciary Committee, who had conducted the committee’s investigation. His father had not gone into the hearings already convinced of Nixon’s guilt.

 

However, Rep. Mann’s decision was a fraught one. “He heard from hundreds of people, including his own mother, that you just can’t do this,†said Mann Jr. During the televised Watergate hearings, he said, two U.S. marshals were stationed outside the Mann household in South Carolina at all times. His father received numerous death threats once it became clear that he was going to vote in favor of impeachment. “My mother stayed in the kitchen in the back of the house to watch TV, where she normally would have watched in the front of the house. And she tried to stay out of the view of the windows,†he said. But his father “did not waver once he made his decision.â€

 

It should not seem far-fetched for a politician to put conscience before party loyalty or political prospects. As Butler and Railsback put it, and as Mann Jr. said about his father, they and the other lawmakers who held Nixon accountable were only doing their job. But it is hard not to label their efforts as heroic in light of today’s inaction on Capitol Hill.

 

Near the close of the Watergate committee’s proceedings, James Mann Sr. issued a prophetic statement. He said, “If there be no accountability, another president will feel free to do as he chooses, but the next time, there may be no watchmen in the night.â€

 

 

http://www.salon.com/2007/11/26/gop74/

[King Kung]

American politicians today don't have a conscious. This is why votes in Congress fit more closely to party lines than throughout history. Once committed to a stance, you are stuck to that commitment. It's often useful to avoid commitments and become president on nothing more than a few magic beans, some hope and a little change. And the correct amount of melanin in your skin.

[unit731]

I like the "orange juice" at the Nana Hotel buffet breakfast.

Very tasty.

 

 

 

"NEW YORK—U.S. orange-juice retail sales fell to the lowest level on record as consumers continue to turn away from the beverage, once a staple of the American breakfast.

 

U.S. consumers bought 36.11 million gallons of orange juice in the four weeks ended July 5, down 8.3% from a similar period a year ago, according to Nielsen data published Monday by the Florida Department of Citrus. It was the lowest level of total sales since the four weeks ended Jan. 19, 2002, the oldest data available."

 

LINK

[unit731]

Ohio considers ban on microbeads found in toothpastes, beauty products

 

 

"Lawmakers at the federal level and in at least three states, including Ohio, have begun efforts to ban microplastics, the tiny particles that give toothpastes, body washes and facial scrubs their abrasive qualities, but may kill birds and fish."

 

LINK