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VIDEO: Police use of ‘Stun Gun’ for non compliance

Friday, December 21st, 2007

Police use ‘Stun Gun’ on suspect while booking in at police station

CCTV footage with clear audio…. of a man going through booking procedure in a police station on a felony four charge but he gets stunned, not tasered, for what essentially boils down to non compliance of emptying his pockets.

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The U.S. dollar is bouncing off of 30 year lows

Friday, December 21st, 2007

The U.S. dollar index goes all the way back to March of 1973. However this 30 year chart of the index shows how the U.S. dollar is holding up against a basket of currencies. It’s weighted against 6 currencies (Euro, Japanese yen, Great British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc).

Click on the chart below to see an enlarged version of it. You’ll find that the index has bounced off of 30 year lows and is heading higher for once in a very long time. Should the bounce continue, it could go some 1600-2000 pips upward before reaching any multi year resistance. That would be huge. This typically happens within 6-12 months historically. So if history repeats itself, we could be in for quite a surprise.

In the short term, the index has already broken some near term downtrend lines as it has rallied over 200 pips. While it still has some ways to go for sure..it’s the first signs of life the buck has had in quite some time.

In the GBP/USD pairing, it has brought the British pound down by over 1,100 pips. This is huge! It’s also brought the EUR/USD pair down by 600 pips. The buck has also rallied against the Canadian dollar (USD/CAD) by 1,000 pips. Yet no one is mentioning this stuff. It’s like it’s flying under the radar or something!

Now that everyone and their mama is on the short side of the dollar, the smart money (big interbanks and hedge funds) are covering their shorts quietly. They realize that the potential upside may very well outweigh the future downside potential in the index.

It’s much like the emotion at Nasdaq 5000. I couldn’t talk the friends or even fellow stock brokers out of selling their shares then. So I cashed out all of my stocks, stock options and 401k and watched it all fall.

I was able to talk some sense into a few people, but not many. When it’s a mania, you know you’re at or near a turning point.

Well history repeats itself….and we’re at another one of those emotional moments where people get adamant about being short the dollar. It’s at these times when it turns and it is a while before anyone notices.

This doesn’t mean the buck can’t have a pull back here and there or even trade in a wide range for a while…but it does likely mean the downtrend is over.

I’m sure this is one of the few places you’ll hear this from. I don’t try to be popular. For if I did the popular thing, I’d be broke. No, the professional has to think on their own unlike the masses that lose tons in the financial markets.

This bottom will take some time to complete more than likely but look for more upside potential in the buck than the downside potential.

So as Canada’s “Time Magazine” names the Canadian dollar as the “Person of the Year”…and the Economist puts the “falling dollar” on its magazine cover…it’s time for a change. The fall of the dollar has gotten too mainstream and now finally everyone is on board the short. That’s when it turns.

http://crooksblog.sovereignsociety.com/2007/12/the-us-dollar-i.html

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VIDEO: New Orleans Police Attack Protesters

Friday, December 21st, 2007

Protesters are pepper sprayed by police as they protest the demolition of several public housing developments in New Orleans

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Torture, interrogation and intelligence

Friday, December 21st, 2007

Lecture on torture techniques by Dr. Larry Forness of the American Military University (Dec 2005). The document explains the rationale behind torturing prisoners, torture methods, and a justification for ignoring international law. Forness advocates the injection of truth serums, threatening to inject Muslim prisoners with pigs’ blood, and torturing detainees’ friends and family.The American Military University teaches courses primarily to US military and associated personnel. Forness, in his faculty biography states “Dr. Larry Forness is a former United States Marine, with expertise in intelligence and unconventional warfare. He provides consulting services to various units of the U.S. Military. He has also worked with special units of our allies, particularly Israel and South Korea.”.

Although the document was likely intended for Forness’ students, it was subsequently circulated within the US military, where it came to the attention of the Wikileaks whistleblower Peryton, who also disclosed Guantanamo Bay’s main manual Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedure (2004), which was authenticated publicly by Joint Task Force Guantanamo.

What I want you to keep in mind as you read this is that we are to assume the following situation: We have somebody in our custody, who we believe has knowledge of an impending terrorist attack, and we think that attack could be VERY serious, but we have less than five days to find out what this person knows about the impending attack.

In this piece, I’m going to specifically address using drugs known as “truth serums” as the means by which we get the intelligence that we need. Some would call this a form of torture.

I want you to know that I don’t glory torture for its own sake. I accept it as a means to survival.

To digress for a moment, and to add a little humor to it, I don’t get any pleasure inflicting pain on anybody, unless you’re a quarterback. I hate quarterbacks. I was a linebacker. Quarterbacks live a charmed life. Think about it. A quarterback never had zits as a kid. He never sweat. He always got the best looking cheerleader. He or his parents always had the best car. The teachers and coaches would let him get away with murder, and yet call him a saint. He always had his picture on the front cover of the football guide and the game-day program. He was the class valedictorian. He never had to dig ditches in 100-degree heat in the summer to make money. Even during practice, he got to wear a different color jersey from anybody else. He could sit down, kneel down, slide down, fall down, lie down, down the damn ball or throw it away, and if you even breathed on him you got penalized 15 yards for roughing the quarterback. I ask you, when was the last time you ever saw any official at any football game — peewee through the pros — ever throw flag on anybody for roughing the linebacker? I rest my case.

When Israel suffers a terrorist attack, almost invariably they retaliate within 24 hours. The reason that they can do this is that they have the world’s best human intelligence (humint), and they know how to interrogate people. Their intelligence is so good and they keep it so current that they know who has attacked them, and they already have plans in existence for retaliation. Their humint sources are not just Israelis, but actual members of the society on which they are spying. They use humint and supplement it by signal intelligence (sigint). We do it just ass-backwards, because we CAN’T do it the way the Israeli’s do it — we simply do not have enough people on the ground. It takes $500,000-1,000,000 and 3-5 years to train and put in place a good humint source (assume this is an American hired by, say, the CIA, to try and infiltrate some terrorist group). NOTHING that is going on at present can quickly change this equation or situation. Forget the hearings, the posturing, the proposals, the realignments, the debate. It’s all based on the INCORRECT assumption that we already have the tools, they just need to be rearranged. We do NOT have all the tools and no flow chart or organization chart can change that.

The Geneva Convention was not signed by any terrorist group. No terrorist should be provided any protection whatsoever under the Geneva Convention.

We are supposed to be a nation of laws. If you are not a United States citizen, don’t expect protection of our laws.

Therefore, no terrorist — whether running free or in custody — is entitled to any protection under any international law to which we are a signatory or law of the United States.

Most of what follows is what I have learned from Israelis, South Koreans, Russians, as well as Americans.

I want to address several fallacies of interrogation.

Fallacy #1. Torture never works, because a prisoner will tell the interrogators whatever they want to hear just to stop the torture.

That’s based on a faulty assumption. That faulty assumption is that, if you act on the fabricated intelligence provided by the prisoner, and then you find out that it is not correct, that the prisoner does not have to pay a price for lying. Before you ask the prisoner for information, you tell that prisoner that if he or she lies, you will torture the prisoner, the family, the friends, the parakeet, whomever. And then do it.

Fallacy #2. Any prisoner can outwit his or her interrogators.

This doesn’t work with interrogators who are members of a free society, and have very good to excellent intelligence sources to confirm and verify what a prisoner says.

Part of this fallacy was created as a result of what our American POWs told their North Vietnamese interrogators, when those POWs were held in and around Hanoi during the Vietnam War.

North Vietnam was a closed society. That society only heard and saw what their leaders wanted them to hear and see. Our prisoners’ Code of Conduct was changed in response to the brutal torture that our POW’s endured.

Our POWs held out under that torture as long as they could. When they could hold out no longer, they made up something to stop the torture. Incredibly, and to show you how stupid and uninformed the North Vietnamese were, our POWs made up names of superior officers. These names included General Mills (the cereal company), Major Domo, Captain Video, etc. The North Vietnamese interrogators dutifully wrote down this information, smiled smugly, and assumed that they had extracted critical information from their prisoners.

In this sense, yes, the prisoners did outwit the interrogators. In contrast, when our POWs were interrogated by Russians, Cubans, East Germans, and Bulgarians, when they tried to pull the same stunt as they did with the North Vietnamese, our guys were beaten, starved, and tortured unmercifully. Our guys said that you could fool North Vietnamese, but don’t even think about trying it with those other guys.

Fallacy #3. Torture as a means of interrogation is generally not accepted throughout the world.

In point of fact, within the last three years, more than three-quarters of all countries in the world have practiced torture as a means of interrogation. This applies to their own citizens, as well as foreigners, whether combatants or not.

Bleeding hearts just don’t get it. On the one hand, they kept telling us to allow the weapons inspectors in Iraq more and more and more time and more and more and more time to uncover weapons of mass destruction. On the other hand, once the President declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, the bleeding hearts started screeching that the rebuilding and democratization of Iraq wasn’t happening fast enough. On the third hand, they run their hands at how quickly we had placed prisoners into detention facilities. This herky-jerky, stop-and-go, inconsistency is nothing more than political opportunism.

Even the ACLU got involved, not on behalf of Americans, but on behalf of our enemies. If you didn’t know this, read this and burn it in your memory: The ACLU was founded by a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. You should never again wonder why the ACLU is trying to tear apart the moral and legal fiber of this country.

Fallacy #4. These things called “truths serums” don’t really work.

They do work to varying degrees of success.

There are three primary truth serums.

Here they are.

Scopolamine (scopolamine hydrobromide; first word pronounced: skoh-PAW-lah-mean), also known by another name — hyoscine (hyoscine hydrobromide). It is colorless, odorless and tasteless. Its clinical uses are primarily as a sedative, and applied locally (directly) as a mydriatic, which causes the pupil of the eye to dilate. When used as a sedative, the primary uses are to combat vertigo and motion sickness. When used with morphine and pentobarbital, to a woman in labor, it produces a “twilight sleep.” It is also used as a premedication preliminary to surgery anesthesia.

Since scopolamine completely blocks the formation of memories, unlike most date-rape drugs used in the United States and elsewhere, it is usually impossible for victims to ever identify their aggressors (or interrogators, if you were a prisoner).

To use scopolamine most effectively to get a prisoner to tell you what he or she knows, the key is where you inject it, and in what amounts. Normally it is introduced into the body by a transdermal patch or intravenously in the arm. However, if you inject it into the spine (amount classified), it causes absolutely incredible pain, accompanied by violent convulsions and seizures. If injected into the spine in the appropriate amount, more than 95% of all prisoners will tell the truth — not something fabricated to stop the pain — within 24 hours (Source: classified).

A far milder form of psychological abuse involves exposing prisoners (intravenously or orally) to sodium pentathol—commonly known as “truth serum.” Sodium pentathol is an ultra-short-acting barbiturate that depresses the central nervous system, slows heart rate, and lowers blood pressure. In the relaxed state produced by the drug, subjects are more susceptible to suggestion and are therefore easier to interrogate. The drug does not actually guarantee that prisoners will tell the truth, however. Often, it makes subjects “gabby” without revealing any important information.

Sodium amythal, also known as a type of “truth serum,” with its clinical application in psychoanalysis, is used primarily to help in memory recovery and dealing with “false” memories. If you can confuse the prisoner as to what is a real memory and what is a false memory, you might be able to crack their resistance to telling the truth. However, if the prisoner is smart, he or she will simply shut up and you’ll get nothing from them.

What is interesting is that a prisoner could have been subjected to a truth serum singularly, or two or three over enough time given the appropriate washout of the prisoner’s system, and flatly state that he or she did not tell his or her interrogators anything. From his or her perspective, he or she is telling the truth — because he or she has no memory of telling interrogators anything. That’s the truth in his or her own mind, but it is not the fact of the situation.

In terms of training individuals to resist the three aforementioned truth serums, it is easiest to train someone to resist the sodium amythal, followed by sodium pentathol. There is no known training that will allow anyone to resist scopolamine, when injected into the spine in the correct amount.

What you don’t want to do is “stack” scopolamine with sodium pentathol and sodium amythal. “Stacking” means adding one drug on top of another before the previous drug(s) has/have washed out of the system. You stack on somebody, you’ll kill them.

When time is not a consideration, and when used in conjunction with skilled interrogators on a prisoner who has not been trained to resist the effects, sodium pentathol and sodium amythal will get you the truth in approximately 10% to one third of the cases. When the truth absolutely positively has to be there within five days, forget them – use scopolamine injected into the spine.
I don’t honestly know if we have used any of these truth serums on Saddam Hussein. Too bad if we didn’t. My clearance doesn’t extend that high. For those of you who don’t know — and to oversimplify it — there are four different levels of security clearances. They are: secret; top-secret; top-secret/code word; beyond top-secret/code word. The words “code word” could be something like UMBRA. So if I had that level, I would be cleared top-secret/UMBRA, which means I would be allowed to see or hear anything that is secret, top-secret, and — separately — anything that a classified under the code word UMBRA.

In 1909, before World War I, there were a number of terrorist attacks on the United States forces in the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, by Muslim extremists. General “Black Jack” Pershing was the appointed military governor of the Moro Province. He captured 50 terrorists and ordered them to be tied to posts for execution. Since all the prisoners were Muslim, he asked his men to bring two pigs and slaughter them in front of the prisoners. He then proceeded by dipping bullets into the pig’s blood.

In the process he executed 49 of the terrorists by firing squad. Then, the soldiers dug a big hole in the ground and dumped in the terrorists’ bodies and covered them in pig’s blood and viscera. The last man was set free. For 42 years there was not a single Muslim attack anywhere in the world.

His rationale was quite simple and effective. Since a radical Muslim is willing to give his life for his religion in a Jihad war, killing him would not make much difference. He would be seen as a martyr (shahada).

But the General knew that all Muslims believe in eternal life after death with 72 virgins waiting for them in paradise. He also knew that those that embrace Jihad usually prepare themselves physically and spiritually in case they die in combat.

Since the pig is considered forbidden food (haram) in Islam, Pershing introduced this variable to thwart their hopes to enter Allah’s kingdom. The pig’s blood automatically nullified any prior purification by contaminating their bodies.

My interrogation technique is quite simple. I follow General Pershing’s example and order a pig to be slaughtered near the prisoner. The blood of the animal run’s freely toward the prisoner’s feet. He will immediately lift his knees to avoid making contact with it. I fill a syringe with the pig’s blood and threaten to inject him in the arm. The prisoner will talk — and quickly.

Fair? Depends on your perspective. Effective? Extremely.

A century ago, General Pershing’s quick thinking installed a great fear in a large sector of the Muslim population in Mindanao putting an end to any type of subversion in an Island that resents the presence of non-Muslims.

Last, here are a few tips in terms of determining if who you have in custody really is a Muslim: Since most of the concentration is on Islamic terrorism, these are a few signs that very few people know about.

A serious Muslim that prays 5 times a day has a small dark discoloration on his forehead.

If he wears jewelry, it has to be silver and not gold — usually a silver ring with a space inside where there is a passage from the Koran.

Another important pointer comes from physical anthropology, and deals with faces and body structures. A real Muslim keeps his left hand away from his food, usually under the table.

Bottom line: there are effective ways to get the truth from a prisoner under interrogation. Some work better than others. When drugs are used, both the person administering the drug, as well as the interrogator, must be expert at their profession. When time is the most important consideration, you’re left with very few options. Whatever the situation, KNOW YOUR ENEMY.

What I say here are my own opinions, based upon fact. They are not to be construed as the policy or official position of APUS. As always, you are free to accept or reject anything I say, and verify it by any means you wish.

Thank you.

Doc

Retrieved from “https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Torture%2C_interrogation_and_intelligence“

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Holiday Season Hypocrisy

Friday, December 21st, 2007

By Stephen Lendman
RINF Alternative News

Christmas is observed December 25 by Christians and others celebrating the spirit of the season while for those of the Eastern Orthodox faith the holiday falls on January 7. It’s to honor the birth of Jesus Christ even though it’s widely acknowledged not to be his birthday. Along with its religious significance, the season is also for other celebratory events like winter festivals, parties, family get-togethers and Kwanzaa from December 26 - January 1 for Africans Americans to reconnect to their cultural and historical heritage. Jews as well celebrate the season with the Hanukkah Festival of Lights. It’s to commemorate their struggle for survival, but for Jewish children it’s their Christmas with gifts from parents like their Christian friends get.

Christmas is also the time when the national obsession to shop and consume reaches its zenith. It traditionally begins the day after Thanksgiving, runs through Christmas eve, and after the holiday continues into January with plenty of extra buying power from holiday gift cards, year-end bonuses and other resources gotten or borrowed. It’s for everything people never knew they wanted until creative advertising wizardry made their lives incomplete without them.

Perhaps this single dominant trait characterizes American culture more than any other. It’s a variant of the kind of consumerism economist/sociologist Thorstein Veblen called “conspicuous” in his 1899 book “The Theory of the Leisure Class.” F. Scott Fitzgerald explained that “the very rich….are different from you and me.” Veblen wrote about their spending habits and coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption.” Today, it’s called “keeping up with the Joneses” or consumerism, and it’s practiced by status-seeking people obsessed with personal gratification. But not just by the rich. Most people, except the poor, do it and to excess.

The term “consumption” originated hundreds of years ago. Then, it referred to infectious tuberculosis or TB. But its original meaning is relevant in today’s acquisitive society where consuming for essentials is worlds apart from gluttonous consumerism. This variant refers to overindulgent shopping and spending for things people buy irrespective of need but not without consequences for themselves and society.

Untreated TB, or consumption, consumes its victims in a slow, painful death. Consumerism mimics it with it’s similarly harmful fallout: ecological destruction; unhealthy and unsafe consumer products; corporate empowerment; profits pursued over people; militarism and foreign wars; health, education and other essential needs neglected; and democratic decay in a corporatist state disdaining the public interest.

People take pride saying “when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping” - but not without consequences. The personal fallout is over-indebtedness millions can’t handle in the wake of unexpected medical emergencies or loss of employment. The toll: since the early 1980s one in seven families forced into bankruptcy, over 2 million in 2005 alone (30% above 2004), and millions more ahead from unchecked borrow and binge-spending made worse by the subprime crisis.

Overindulgent spending is what clinicians call an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). At its worst, it’s pathologically characterized by obsessive, repetitive thoughts that need compulsive tasks and rituals to relieve. For addicted consumers, it’s an obsession to shop and spend and a compulsion to buy and accumulate. In excess, it’s clinically pathological and destructive when it causes bankruptcy.

In America and the West, tens of millions of otherwise normal people shop excessively for what they never knew they wanted until Madison Avenue mind manipulators convinced them. Economist Paul Baran described the process as making us “want what we don’t need (all unessential consumer goods and services) and not….what we do (good health care, education, clean air and water, safe food, and good government providing essential services).”

Future insolvency is risked, but few consider the possibility until it’s too late. It’s worst at Christmas when it becomes a pathological orgy of frenzied spending dismissively called getting into the holiday spirit. Maybe for merchants, but not when bills come due with growing millions unable to pay them or needing more debt to delay for later what they can’t handle now.

Institutionalized consumerism also plays into social control. It’s empowered when people are focused on bread and circus distractions that include the sights and sounds of the season. Media theorist Neil Postman once called Americans the most over-entertained and under-informed people in the world and wrote about it in books like “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” Attracted to self-gratification and its reinforcing images, they’re diverted from what matters most - challenging wars of aggression, loss of civil liberties and human rights, violations of law, gutted social services, environmental harm, and policies benefitting the privileged at the expense of beneficial social change.

Consumerism also lets corporate power prosper and grow. It feeds unfettered capitalism and out-of-control greed. It helps direct our tax dollars to a militarized state instead of going for essential social needs. It diverts the national wealth to an imperial juggernaut that consumers finance through overindulgence. The more we shop, the stronger it gets and is better able to exploit new markets, resources and cheap labor at the expense of the more expensive kind at home whose future consumption is endangered by today’s self-gratifying excesses.

Adam Smith was capitalism’s ideological godfather who was also concerned about concentrated wealth and wrote about it in “The Wealth of Nations.” He explained an “invisible hand” of unseen forces worked best in a free market with many small businesses competing locally against each other. He contrasted them with concentrated mercantilism and wrote about the “merchants and manufacturers” who used their power to wreak “dreadful misfortunes” and grave injustices on the vast majority of people using the British East India Company as a case study example.

Today’s monopoly capitalism would have been unimaginable in his day, but he’d recognize it. He wrote that throughout history we find the wreckage of the “vile maxim of the masters of mankind….All for ourselves and nothing for other people….unless government takes pains to prevent” this outcome. No invisible hand works in manipulated markets where governments sanction Smith’s “vile maxim,” and the greater good is nowhere in sight. Under neoliberal rules, capital wins, people lose, and consumerism makes things worse. It’s most extreme at Christmas when shopping trumps the holiday’s meaning and seasonal sights and sounds drown out everything else.

The toll is tragic. Whatever Christmas was, it no longer is, and our behavior corrupts it and the spirit of the man it honors. He spread it in deeds and teachings from his Sermon on the Mount and message to “turn the other cheek,” love thy neighbor, not kill, and do unto others as you’d want them doing to you. The consumerist ethic glorifies receiving, not giving; condoning predatory capitalism and ignoring its harm; neglecting the greater good; sanctifying overindulgence while forgetting those most in need throughout the year. In the spirit of the season, thoughts should be on helping others and giving thanks. In an unfettered marketplace, it’s impossible.

It’s a sad testimony to a society obsessed with greed and gratification at the expense of beneficial social change. At Christmas, it defiles the holiday spirit and forgets the needy. For them, Christmas is “Bah Humbug,” and Santa Scrooge - all take and no give.

New Year’s Day

New Year’s day is one week after Christmas and concludes the long holiday season. It starts after Thanksgiving, reaches a climax around Christmas, ebbs for a day and builds again for a final celebratory new year’s welcome with more overindulgent eating, drinking, partying, and binge-shopping for nonessentials.

The new year is also a traditional time for resolutions that include some with merit like losing weight, quitting smoking and getting fit. Most are forgotten, and those most important never made: working for peace, good will toward others, loving they neighbor, respecting everyone, and treating people as we want to be treated in a society of caring and sharing with equity and justice for all. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful resolution for the new year. Long ago in simpler times before the old world became America, it was that way. It can be again, but wishing won’t make it so.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sj.lendman.blogspot.com and listen each Saturday to the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

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History of Presidential Drug & Alcohol Abuse

Friday, December 21st, 2007

Sobercircle.com

George W. Bush

There has been no shortage of controversy when it comes to the younger years of our current president. Described as irresponsible and a risk-taker, Bush has admitted to an excess of alcohol consumption for much of his early life. He was well known for drinking in excess throughout college, and for being the type of drunk who acted out and lost all inhibitions. From his early twenties until the time he was 30, Bush was arrested for disorderly conduct, was seen acting inappropriately in a number of high class social situations, and was arrested for driving drunk near his family’s home in Maine. He subsequently had his license suspended for two years. Bush claims to have quit drinking after waking up with a hangover on his 40th birthday. While Bush maintains claims of his sobriety, there has been recent press accounting for his drinking, and in June of 2007, a photo was taken showing bush drinking a beer at the G8 Summit in Germany.

http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm#partied
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_substance_abuse_controversy

Bush Drunk Footage

Illegal Drugs:

Bush claims he has not used any illegal drugs since 1974. There have been reports that Bush was arrested for cocaine possession, with the records later being expunged. It has been speculated that Bush’s cessation of flying in 1972, as the result of his refusal to take a physical exam, was the result of his fear of a subsequent drug test which may have found him in violation of drug use policies.
The following is a parody of Bush’s sometimes impaired-sounding cadence of speech.

Bill Clinton

During the Clinton years, there was certain controversy over his possible use of Marijuana. While younger, Clinton admitted to using marijuana, although he famously claimed that he “did not inhale.” This type of double-talk revisited him again during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and Clinton is believed by many to have experimented with not only marijuana but with a number of other illicit substances.
There are unsubstantiated rumors that arose about an incident that took place in the 1980’s while Clinton was still governor of Arkansas. According to Dr. Sam Houston, a well respected doctor in Little Rock (and one-time doctor to Hillary’s father), has made claims regarding an alleged cocaine overdose by Clinton. Apparently the incident is well known in Little Rock medical circles and the incident is well chronicled.
According to Dr. Houston, then Governor Clinton arrived at the hospital with the help a state trooper, followed closely behind by his wife, Hillary. While Bill was being treated, it has been claimed that Hillary made numerous threats to on-call doctors, warning that if word leaked about Clinton’s drug use, she would have their medical licenses revoked. Later on, Dr. Houston was quoted by the “Clinton Chronicles” as saying “Dr. Suen, S-U-E-N, a doctor at the medical center here in Little Rock that’s taken care of Bill Clinton for his sinus problems, which may indeed be drug related to cocaine use, as they destroy the sinus passages (there is a word missing here or something). Governor Bill Clinton was taken into the hospital, I believe it was the medical center, on at least one or two occasions, for cocaine abuse and overdosage, in which he actually had to be cared for at the hospital.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37edb5185038.htm

Richard Nixon

According to a little-publicized report in a recent book chronicling the “secret life” of Richard Nixon, claims were made regarding not only his latent violence and teetering psychosis, but also regarding his use and possible abuse of the drug Dilantin. Dilantin, the brand name of a common antiepileptic known as Phenytoin, slows brain activity. It controls conductivity between brain cells and has been said to have anxiety-controlling and mood-stabilizing effects. Reports from users also claim it produces a strong alcohol-like buzz that can last for days.
Jack Dreyfus, the founder of the Dreyfus Fund, was a major proponent of the use of phenytoin, and was known to have originally prescribed the drug to Nixon himself. Further accounts state that Dreyfus supplied “remarkable amounts” of Phenytoin to Nixon throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Nixon apologetics don’t dispute Nixon’s acceptance of the Dilatin pills, but claim only that he did so as a courtesy to his friend Dreyfus, who had developed a strange obsession with the drug.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/08/28/nixon.book/index.html

John F. Kennedy

Although it is not widely discussed, Kennedy was not a healthy man for much of his life. In fact, he was read his last rites two times before his assassination, and was known for having spent much of his life and presidency covering up his significant illnesses. The most severe of which was Addison’s disease, which required him to take constant doses of testosterone. This dosing is well accounted for, and while it was never at the status of abuse, it was believed by some to be the catalyst behind some of his more infamous infidelities and his significant and difficult-to-control libido.
One of Kennedy’s supposed mistresses (in fact, his supposed favorite mistress), Mary Pinchot Meyer, was known to have described a number of Kennedy’s illegal misgivings, including his use of marijuana and LSD. According to Meyer, as described by James Truitt, she was having a prolonged affair with Kennedy, and had admitted to smoking marijuana with the president. Furthermore, she was later quoted as telling Timothy Leary (LSD advocate), about her experiences on LSD with Kennedy, and a small circle of some of the most powerful men in Washington. The day after the Kennedy assassination, Meyer called Leary desperately sobbing, claiming that “they” could no longer “control him.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Pinchot_Meyer

Presidential Hopefuls:

Al Gore

While he may currently have achieved a sparkly and glowing aura in the eyes of the nation, Al Gore is rumored by many to have had a somewhat shady past. Including in this haze is his supposed use of drugs during and after his stint in Vietnam and for a period of time after his return from the war. While Gore has publically admitted to smoking pot, he has made claims it was only a “few times.” Former college friends and acquaintances, have a different story to tell, however. According to them, Gore was a significant user of marijuana, and spent a great deal of his time in college smoking pot in his dorm room and watching TV. Friends of Gore, such as John Warnecke, say that Gore got high upwards of three to four times per week. He claimed that Gore liked to get high while listening to the Grateful Dead, and talked about grandiose things like what he would do if he were president. Gore was described by his friends as the sort of stoner who was a mix of melancholy, paranoia and expansiveness.

http://www.realchange.org/gore.htm#drugs

Dan Quayle

Dan Quayle was known to have experimented with a number of illicit drugs during his college years. In his college yearbook at DePauw University, there is one image with a caption “The Trip’ is a colorful psychedelic journey into the wild sights and sounds produced by LSD.” Later on in his career, a convicted drug dealer by the name of Brett Kimberlin told a New York radio station that he had been Quayle’s pot dealer through college. Apparently Quayle bought small quantities of marijuana from the man every month for a period of nearly two years. When he and his wife got married, his dealer gave him a present of some Afghanistan hashish known as “Acapulco Gold.”

http://www.realchange.org/quayle.htm#pot

John Kerry

John Kerry has, in the past, voiced some support for the decriminalization of marijuana and has been quoted as saying “I’ve met plenty of people in my lifetime who’ve used marijuana and who I would not qualify as serious addicts – who use about the same amount as some people drink beer or wine or have a cocktail. I don’t get too excited by any of that.” When asked during a live debate in November 2003 on CNN, Kerry was asked if he had ever smoked marijuana. Honestly, Kerry responded that he had.

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=5900

Barack Obama

Recently there has been some controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s admission regarding his drug use during his youth. While he maintains that he has not touched any illegal drugs in at least 20 years, his own biography reveals that he tried a number of illicit substances as a young man. He wrote “I had learned not to care; I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though.” Obama wrote additionally “Junkie, Pothead, That’s where I’d been headed; the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man.” Eventually, Obama claims, drug use came to hold no appeal, and seemed only a roadblock to his eventual happiness. He writes that he prefers to keep his life as a literal open book, and explains that his drug use, by the time he was 20, was no more than a memory.

http://www.mapinc.org/newsnorml/v03/n1786/a06.html

Alcoholic Presidents:

http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez - Based on the book “The Health of the Presidents.”

Ulysses Grant
While some may argue that Ulysses Grant was not by classical terms an “alcoholic,” there is certainly evidence to suggest that he had a problem with drinking. During his military career, he was known for his heavy drinking, but it typically did not interfere with his performance. At one point, however, after his distinguished service during the Mexican war, Grant was stationed in an isolated outpost in Oregon. His loneliness drove him to excessive drinking, which eventually led to his resignation and relief of duties. During his presidency, Grant continued to drink, and was known to have been drunk at his inauguration. Additionally, the President died of throat cancer, which can certainly be attributed at least partially to his heavy alcohol consumption.

Grover Cleveland
Alcohol use has been somewhat of a constant for a number of U.S. presidents. One of the less offending, though still arguably alcoholic presidents, was Grover Cleveland. He was well known to “enjoy beer,” but according to many, he had some trouble controlling his appetite for it. According to one friend, Lyman K. Bass, he drank as many as four to eight beers daily and was well known for his prodigious beer belly.

Martin Van Buren
While not widely considered an alcoholic, Martin Van Buren was certainly a man known for his ability to drink. Like a number of other presidents, Van Buren was able to drink large quantities of alcohol from a young age without seeming drunk. He eventually gained the nickname “Blue Whiskey Van” and it was believed that his heavy drinking lasted well into his time in the White House.

James Buchanan
James Buchanan was known by many as a man with sophisticated taste, who was celebrated by some for his serious drinking abilities. He was known to have complained about the size of champagne bottles in the white house, and was amused when guests mistook his ten-gallon cask of Jacob Baer Whiskey to be his own special blend. He was known to have consumed as many as two or three bottles of cognac and old rye a week, and was known by the press for his ability to resist the effects of alcohol in high doses- an obvious hallmark of alcoholic tolerance.

Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was perhaps the presidency’s greatest drunk, consuming great quantities of alcohol while in office, and appearing drunk in a number of instances. Shortly before he was inaugurated, the president and his wife were involved in a train accident where their only son was nearly decapitated before their eyes. As a result of the traumatic incident (which his wife attributed to God’s intervention in an attempt to remove distractions from his presidential bid), Pierce became significantly depressed and saw the accident as punishment for his sins. Pierce was described as “an alcoholic” by everyone who was close to him. At the end of his presidential term, when asked what was next for him, Pierce was known to have responded by saying “There is nothing left…but to get drunk.”

While not widely considered alcoholics, a number of other presidents were known for their fondness of drink. The following are thought to be some of their favorite cocktails.

Gin and tonic (Gerald Ford)
Martini (Herbert Hoover)
Rum and coke; dry martini (Richard Nixon)
Scotch or brandy (Franklin Roosevelt)
Bourbon (Harry Truman)
Scotch and soda (Lyndon Johnson)

Use of Cannabis in Early Presidencies

While it is certainly debated, there seems to be significant evidence for the use of cannabis by many of our founding fathers. It is unclear just how prevalent smoking of cannabis was during the colonial era, but it is fact that a number of men, including George Washington, were aware of the effects of the drug and likely used it themselves. President George Washington was known to have written a letter with a veiled reference to hashish. He said, “The artificial preparation of hemp, from Silesia, is a real curiosity.” He went on to discuss the dissemination of hemp seeds and the separation of male and female hemp plants in an effort to increase the potency of smoked cannabis. He, along with Thomas Jefferson farmed hemp at one point in their life. Jefferson and Ben Franklin, additionally, were ambassadors to France during the period of time that hashish was in vogue, and they likely partook in these new experiences. According to a researcher at the American Historical Reference Society and consultant for the Smithsonian, Dr. Burke, there is plenty of evidence to suggest a number of our presidents smoked cannabis. According to him, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Taylor and Pierce all took pleasure from smoking hemp during their presidency. Pierce was even quoted as saying that smoking cannabis was the only positive thing about the Mexican War.

Have Your Say: History of Presidential Drug & Alcohol Abuse
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Congress begins reversing secrecy

Friday, December 21st, 2007

Although the current Democratic-led session of Congress began its end-of-year recess with only a mediocre list of accomplishments, it did start to reverse the slide of the Bush administration into greater government secrecy.Both the House and Senate handily approved legislation this week that strengthens the federal Freedom of Information Act and reaffirms that citizens have the right to know what their government is up to.

It’s the first major revamping of the FOIA in 10 years and, most important, begins to reestablish the fact that open government is intrinsic to the operations of a successful democracy, an ideal that President Bush and his cohorts dampened in the past seven years.

Foremost in the reforms is an indirect reversal of former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s order in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, in which he instructed federal agencies to lean against releasing information if they were uncertain about how its being made public would impact national security.

We’ve seen too often since then how the Ashcroft order was abused to essentially block citizens and the media from gaining requested information.

The new legislation sets up more responsive guidelines for agencies responding to FOI requests. Most important, it restores the presumption that government information to be released unless there is a specific finding that disclosure would cause harm. Penalties on federal agencies that do not comply with the new rules have been substantially increased.

In addition, the legislation brings nonproprietary information held by government contractors under the FOIA.

Majority Democrats had planned a more expansive rolling back of the Bush secrecy initiatives. However, the party’s slim majorities in both chambers required more compromise with minority Republicans. Still, this strengthening of the FOIA provides a good start to letting the sunshine in which can be built upon in 2008.

http://www.connpost.com/opinion/ci_7774070

Have Your Say: Congress begins reversing secrecy
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Giuliani Secrecy

Friday, December 21st, 2007

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has long described his City Hall as an open book. But at least one First Amendment authority is finding reason to disagree.

Attorney Floyd Abrams says Giuliani “ran a government as closed as he could make it.”

An Associated Press review of public record suggests Giuliani’s City Hall had a reputation of resistance toward open government.

In his time in office, advocacy and oversight groups were required to file freedom of information requests for documents — a process that could take months and rack up legal costs. A judge in one such case wrote, “The law provides for maximum access, not maximum withholding.”

More than two dozen lawsuits were filed during Giuliani’s reign accusing his administration of stifling free speech or blocking access to public records.

A former deputy mayor disagrees with the characterization, saying Giuliani “ran an open and transparent administration.”

http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=7527938&nav=menu45_2_6

Have Your Say: Giuliani Secrecy
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Watchdog to report on Menezes killing

Friday, December 21st, 2007

PA News

The police watchdog is expected to announce that no officers will face disciplinary action over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) will reveal its decision despite demands from the innocent Brazilian’s family for a delay until after the coroner’s inquest.

Eleven of the 15 officers scrutinised by the IPCC have already been told they are in the clear.

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Bush stonewalls on CIA interrogation tapes

Friday, December 21st, 2007

U.S. President George W. Bush insisted on Thursday he did not learn until recently that the CIA destroyed videotapes of harsh interrogations, and said he would not speak any more in public about the issue currently under investigation by the administration and Congress.At a White House news conference, Mr. Bush expressed confidence in congressional investigations, which his Justice Department had balked at last week, saying he thought all the various inquiries underway would eventually get to the truth.

“Until these inquiries are complete, until the oversights’ finished, I will be rendering no opinion from the podium,” Mr. Bush said. Defending his administration’s aggressive pursuit of terrorism suspects, the president said his critics were ignoring reality.

“There’s isolationist tendencies in this world. People would rather stay at home, people would rather not aggressively pursue people overseas, and aggressively pursue freedom,” he said.

The CIA earlier this month disclosed that it had destroyed in 2005 hundreds of hours of tapes from the interrogations of two al Qaeda suspects, prompting an outcry from Democrats, human rights activists and some legal experts.

The interrogations, which took place in 2002, were believed to have included a form of simulated drowning known as waterboarding, condemned internationally as torture.

A federal judge is to hold a hearing on Friday into whether the CIA violated a court order by destroying the tapes.

Mr. Bush has said he did not recall being told of the tapes until CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden briefed him this month. Asked at the news conference why he could not make a more definitive statement, he said, “It sounds pretty clear to me when I say the first recollection is when Mike came and briefed me. That’s pretty clear.”

The New York Times reported this week that senior White House officials knew the tapes existed and took part in discussions on whether they should be destroyed.

In a sign that an impasse with Congress over the pace of lawmakers’ investigations of the videotapes had eased, a senior intelligence official said the House of Representatives Intelligence committee on Thursday was to begin reviewing CIA documents it had requested.

The official said the agency also intended to cooperate with the committee’s request for witnesses to testify.

Last week, the Justice Department warned that the committee’s probe could undermine its own joint investigation with the CIA, and the House committee threatened on Wednesday to issue subpoenas to force cooperation.

“I am confident that the preliminary inquiry conducted by the (administration) coupled with oversight provided by the Congress will end up enabling us all to find out what exactly happened,” Mr. Bush said.

However, the Justice Department declined to send a representative to a separate House committee hearing on the issue on Thursday, drawing a denunciation from the commitee’s chairman.

A department official said the decision was in keeping with a policy it had reiterated to Congress last week of not sending Justice Department officials to Congress to testify on pending investigations, and of avoiding political influence on law enforcement matters.

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Bush administration faces court hearing Friday

Friday, December 21st, 2007

Bush administration faces court hearing Friday in CIA tape-destruction dispute

The Bush administration has made its position clear in legal filings and now gets a chance to say it to a judge in open court: hold off on inquiring about the destruction of CIA videotapes that showed suspected terrorists being interrogated.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy ordered the hearing Friday over the objection of the Justice Department after lawyers raised questions about the possibility that other evidence also might have been destroyed.

Kennedy is considering whether to delve into the matter and, if so, how deeply.

The hearing marks the first time administration lawyers were to speak in public and under oath about the matter since the CIA disclosed this month it destroyed the tapes of officers using tough interrogation methods while questioning two al-Qaida suspects.

Kennedy is presiding over a lawsuit by Guantanamo Bay prisoners who are challenging their detention. The judge had ordered the government not to destroy any evidence of mistreatment or abuse at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

Because the suspects — Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — were being held overseas in secret CIA prisons, however, the government contends they are not covered by the order.

The tapes could be covered by a more general rule that prohibits the destruction of any evidence that could be relevant to a case. For example, if the tapes showed Zubaydah discussing any of the detainees in Kennedy’s case, their destruction could have been prohibited.

Lawyers for both sides have filed classified documents regarding the tapes. That means there is a good chance Kennedy already knows whether the videos are relevant to his case.

If the judge believes the CIA destroyed the tapes to keep them from being used in court, he could side with the detainees’ lawyers and order the government to disclose all the evidence it has collected, including any other evidence in addition to the tapes that has been destroyed.

He could order government officials to testify in court about the tapes, which were created in 2002 and destroyed in 2005.

The government has strongly urged against this move on the ground that it would disrupt a joint Justice Department-CIA investigation into the tapes. In court documents, acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey S. Bucholtz worried that Kennedy might order testimony that “could potentially complicate the ongoing efforts to arrive at a full factual understanding of the matter.”

A congressional investigation is under way, too. The CIA invited investigators from the House of Representatives intelligence committee to the agency’s headquarters just outside Washington on Thursday to begin reviewing documents and records relating to the videotapes.

Kennedy could side with the Justice Department and agree that no usable evidence exists the government acted improperly and, therefore, no reason to order anything else. He could say he lacks the authority to act because the videotapes were not related to his case.

Kennedy was a federal prosecutor in the early 1970s during the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, both Republicans, until he was named a federal magistrate judge in 1976. Democratic President Jimmy Carter appointed him to be a judge in the District of Columbia’s courts, and former President Bill Clinton, another Democrat, named him to the federal bench.

The Associated Press

Have Your Say: Bush administration faces court hearing Friday
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