The Truth About the Trump Protests ~ Paul Watson

To be clear, I in no way support the crazy site InfoWars OR Prison Planet. Paul Watson surely holds some views as well that I reject wholeheartedly, and, that if followed to their logical conclusions, disrupt some meaning in his wonderful commentaries.

Blacks, Hispanics and Gays are Sexist, Xenophobic, Homophobic, Racist

CAUTION, STRONG LANGUAGE

Via MEDIA’ITE:

…Throughout the majority of the set, Sykes was able to get some laughs from the crowd and didn’t really face too much anger from the audience. However, near the end, when she said “this is not the first time we’ve elected a racist, sexist, homophobic person,” many in the crowd turned on her.

Sykes, who is a black and gay, lashed back out at those booing her, pointing some out and telling them to “f*ck off.” When she left the stage, she threw up a middle finger….

The only problem with Sykes commentary is that an increased number of blacks, women, Hispanics/Latinos, gays, voted for Trump. In fact, Trump would have lost without these increased minority votes. While the numbers were not coming from election day… polling before the race showed the gay vote steadily increasing for Trump and decreasing for Hillary:

  • “September polling from NBC News showed that 20% of LGBT voters would support Trump in a two-way race. In 2012 Romney had a similar proportion of LGBT voters, according to a Gallup poll” (IJR).

NOT ONLY THAT, but “Of the nearly 700 counties that twice sent Obama to the White House, a stunning one-third flipped to support Trump.” The Washington Post Continues:

Trump also won 194 of the 207 counties that voted for Obama either in 2008 or 2012.

By contrast, of those 2,200 counties that never supported Obama, Clinton was only able to win six. That’s just 0.3 percent crossover to the Democratic side.

Clinton had more opportunities to peel counties from the Republicans. Historically, Democrats rely on few (but very populous) counties to chart a path to victory. Republicans, by contrast, draw support from a wide swath of many more rural and suburban counties.

So DEMOCRATS put Trump into the Electoral College win category.

Take note as well that women voted for Trump. Clinton couldn’t convince the majority of white women, the 3% increase in black women, and the increased Hispanic/Latino women voters that Trump’s actions of talking like a dude was enough to get them not to vote for him.

So in a sense, Wanda Sykes just called people who voted for Obama twice, gays, blacks, and Hispanics: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted (S.I.X.H.I.R.B.)

And REMEMBER, Trump won BECAUSE of these percentage increases. If minorities had voted in the same numbers for Trump that they did for Romney… Trump would have lost.

  • everything-is-racist-spongbob-380…Thirteen percent of Muslims voted for Trump, triple the amount that voted Romney, are they are Islamophobic, bigoted, xenophobic, and racist?
  • Eight percent of blacks voted for Trump, seven percent more than Romney — not to mention the black men and women who didn’t vote for the president at all in a higher percentage. These same men and women previously voted twice for Obama. These persons of color… if I understand my detractors correctly, are racist bigots?
  • A higher percentage (almost 30%) of Hispanics voted for Trump, more in fact than voted for Romney. These Hispanic and Latino men and women, like the others, are xenophobic, bigoted, and racist?
  • One hundred-and-ninety-four counties that voted for Obama once switched to GOP in the 2016 election. And, two-hundred-and-nine counties that voted for Obama twice switched to GOP. Many of these people are union members as well as life-long Democrats. Am I now being told that these Democrats who voted for Obama are: racist. sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted?
  • Am I being told that voter I.D. laws are racist and a way on keeping minorities from voting? But when the Obama administration used tax-payer money to help fund voter I.D. in South Africa and other African nations, he himself is racist and trying to stop the poor and minorities from voting?
  • During Bush’s Presidency, there were bumper stickers all over the place that read, “Dissent is Patriotic,” when Republicans and conservatives dissented from Obama, they were called racists. Will dissent again be “patriotic”? 
  • Bill Clinton noted that Trumps slogan of “Make America Great Again” is a racist statement. Except in 1991 when he himself used it [Bill Clinton that is] at a campaign event in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mr. Clinton declared, “Together, we can make America great again.” It wasn’t racist then apparently. Nor when he used the same phrase again during a speech in 1992 and during a television interview that same year. Nor when he used it in a campaign ad for his wife in 2008, Mr. Clinton said, “It’s time for another comeback, time to make America great again.”
  • More gays voted for Trump than voted for Romney, are they now homophobic bigots as well?
  • Self defined Marxist Van Jones of CNN said there was a “white-lash” that got Trump elected, but more whites voted for Romney than did for Trump. (In other words, Trump was elected by “other-than” the white vote.)
  • When a few people in Texas were head-bobbing breaking away from the Union, this was proof of bigotry and racism.  Now a few people in California are head-faking leaving the Union, and all I hear is how this would work and nothing about bigotry or unseen racism.
  • The KKK have voted since their inception primarily for Democrats. Still they vote in the eighty-percentage areas for Democrats, but only now that a higher percentage voted for Trump (and most likely voting Democrat the rest of the ticket) do Democrats get vocal about the voting habits of the Ku Klux Klan? Why are they never vocal about the almost one-hundred percent of Nation of Islam members, the members of the Nation of Gods and Earths (Five-Percenters), or the Communist Party of America’s voting habits?

Are you seeing a pattern? A convenient narrative surely. Every President on the GOP side have been compared to N.A.Z.I.’s and Hitler since Nixon. DON’T accept the comparison. Take their arguments and return them packaged in a nice little bow.

  • Antonia Okafor, a young, single, black woman, recently discovered that’s she’s a racist, sexist, misogynist. How in the world did this happen? None other than Antonia Okafor explains.

Democrats want to fundamentally change America. I don’t love my wife if I want to fundamentally change her. Black Life Matters protesters teach their children to burn American flags or march down the street chanting “What do we want?!” “Dead Cops!” “When do we want them?!” “NOW!” They argue America was founded on nothing but slavery and greed. Hillary Clinton backed this group even going as far as far as saying (at the NAACP) that “systemic racism” needs to be eliminated. Months later calling Americans all racists: “I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police. I think unfortunately too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other and therefore I think we need all of us to be asked the hard questions ‘why am I feeling this way?’”

Democrats think I am an imperialist white supremacist Christian cisgender capitalist heteropatriarchal male. Apparently however, these many demographic changes across the board [noted above] seem to agree that Trump’s slogan was acceptable, “Make America Great Again.”

Backfiring Bigotry and Gay Voter Turnout for Trump Explained

Something occurred to me. If Donald Trump is such a horribly racist xenophobic misogynist bigot… why did Hillary Clinton sit front row at his wedding in 2005?

We know why Bill was there, *wink-wink*

Just a thought.

GATEWAY PUNDIT  flashes back to a 2000 interview in The Advocate, a gay journal, noting:

What would you do to combat antigay prejudice?

I like the idea of amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation. It would be simple. It would be straightforward. We don’t need to rewrite the laws currently on the books, although I do think we need to address hate-crimes legislation. But amending the Civil Rights Act would grant the same protection to gay people that we give to other Americans — it’s only fair. I actually suggested this first, and now I see [Democratic presidential candidate] Bill Bradley has jumped on the bandwagon and is claiming the idea as his own. [A bill to amend the Civil Rights Act that would have included protections on the basis of sexual orientation was first introduced in the 1970s. — Ed.] Let me tell you something. Bradley is as phony as a $20 Rolex. He says the president ought to have big ideas. His last big idea — the 1986 [Tax Reform Act] — caused a recession and cost thousands of people their jobs. This guy destroyed the real estate industry, and he tanked the S&Ls. It was a disaster. Bradley walked out of the Senate like he was some kind of statesman declaring that “politics is broken.” The truth is, the voters were going to dump him in New Jersey. He walked away. Now he poses as some kind of outsider. What a joke. Bradley was a member of the Senate Finance Committee and a longtime part of Washington establishment. When I was $900 million and my companies were $9 billion in debt, I didn’t walk away. While others were declaring bankruptcy, I clawed my way back. My businesses are now bigger and better than ever.

Of course I would argue against this, but you get the point. Trump is a Blue Dog Democrat. Not a conservative at all.

Some Trump Sized Mantras

Okay, we are a few days AFTER this contentious election for ALL involved… both sides went with horrible choices for their nominee and caused not only contentious attitudes with the opposing nominee but an internal struggle as well. That is, the Democrat base did not like Hillary Clinton, and the Republican base did not like Donald Trump. In fact, in the hopes this will give me some credibility for at least what is to follow, I even started a website to defeat Trump and his rise to be the GOP nominee. Trump is not a conservative? He is a Blue-Dog Democrat.

In conversation with a person I respect highly, he said [partially in jest], that, “You can still love Trump. It’s okay with me….” Not realizing that I do not love Trump and started a site to defeat him. I even made it clear out of the 16-other candidates, Trump was my 18th choice. (Get it?)

…Continuing

So, we are a few days after the election and I read posts like:

  • I’m in mourning, again. I’m sad and disgusted that sexism and racism are still alive and kicking in this country. Color, not qualifications were voted into the White House last night.
  • I could sit here and sob about how devastating and pathetic this is. I’m just too pissed. Disappointed. Shocked. Fucking livid. Years of progress diminished in one night. This is not the country I thought I lived in.
  • Everyone better order their tamales now. There won’t be any by Christmas.
    • another person asked this person: Are you making them?
    • here is the response: Nope. I’m afraid if I do I will be deported.
    • the humorous comeback was: Nobody is getting deported till January 20 2017, Christmas tamales are safe.
  • Another person I know posted the graphic to the right:

These are just a few of examples of raw emotion that should be sympathized with. But like in many-a-Facebook post this idea that if people do not agree with my position, they are one of the SIXHIRBs: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted.

One of the best turnarounds I saw from a family member is this:

  • So in class today I finally cried. This presidential unveiling has caused such a stir of emotions for the past 48 hours and it has all been bottled up until this point. We keep playing the blame game and it’s time to stop. Right now I blame myself because I was ignorant to the rest of the country. I didn’t think that everyone didn’t think like me. I lived in a bubble and now I feel like the different one. Because of this huge division right now the last thing we need to do divide it even further….

Wow! What a mature statement. THAT made my heart glad. She even went on to state she wished she had expressed this as clearly in an earlier class as she did on her FB. I agreed, hindsight is 20/20 and we all have said stuff that upon further reflection we could have said better.

All of us. (Especially Bush, and now Trump… NIGHTMARE!)

So, how do I explain some positions my friends and family probably think about a man they seem to fear, and I heard one psychotherapist yesterday say that the reaction of many millennials is like that of a loved one dying. In other words, this is deeply emotional to some. And while I love posting videos of people sobbing like the next dude, this gets us nowhere. So I decided to discuss three main points about Trump and this election to get people to think about what they say. Because it can be misunderstood as calling a friend or family one of those SIXHIRB labels, wounding both our Republic (because who would want to learn or discuss political matters with a racist?), as well as causing misunderstandings between friends.

It makes our political life too easy. A healthy Republic should be tough. Those labels are a cop-out for doing heavy liftin’. One very progressive leaning professor makes the same point about how this thinking harms his students:

Here, for example, is my sister noting her election day experience… and take note, she will never make her vote public:

  • In my 32 years as a registered voter, I have never left the polls feeling so disgusted and embarrassed by my choice. Not that my other option would have made me feel ANY different. I need a shower!

The point here is that people are more complicated than these few labels society has chosen to use. Another example (a few years back) of a dear friends mom smearing people like me is in a post discussing Judge Judy. I know, it’s a pop-culture Baby Boomer thing. Here is what she said with my response:

(She said) “Black people and white people weren’t allowed get married years ago eitherif small minded, bigoted people had their way it would still be that way. Gay marriage Is NO different…. religious folks who believe and support same sex marriage ?? They must not be real religious people.”

(I Responded) In other words, a discussion to you is calling me and other readers here “bigots,” and impugning the character of religious gays by creating straw-man arguments of what I (we) say/mean? And when I politely point this out by not pointing out how you name call and use “cards” (sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted ~ S.I.X.H.I.R.B.)….

People need to understand what they are saying. I make mistakes all the time. It’s in our nature. You apologize, grow, learn, and move on trying to keep friendships and family close to you. The friend’s mom unfriended me. So in response to my family member I noted something we all do, and it is this:

This election has brought to mind the now famous quote by elite Manhattanite and New Yorker columnist Pauline Kael after Richard Nixon’s sweeping presidential victory in 1972:

  • “I don’t know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don’t know anybody who voted for him.”

There is a tendency to build sound rooms around one’s belief and where they choose to get their information from. WE ARE ALL susceptible to this.

So, part of our journey is allowing in other sources of information

The conservative has no choice but to encounter leftist ideals. For instance, out of the top twenty most influential sources of news in our country, only two lean right (Fox News and the Washington Times). All the others lean left in their journalism and view of the world. In fact, Rachel Maddow noted her politics are to the left of Mao Zedong. She is more of a commentator though, and the study I am referring to only included straight news sources.

…Continuing.

So if a person is surprised at the outcome, maybe they should engage friends or family and ask questions. The key to doing this is the following, if it is not face-to-face,.and this is something I will at times start out a conversation with:

“By-the-by, for those reading this I will explain what is missing in this type of discussion due to the media used. Genuflecting, care, concern, one being upset (does not entail being “mad”), etcare all not viewable because we are missing each other’s tone, facial expressions, and the like. I afford the other person I am dialoguing with the best of intentions and read his/her comments as if we were out having a talk over a beer at a bar or meeting a friend at Starbucks. (I say this because there seems to be a phenomenon of etiquette thrown out when talking through email or Face Book, lots more public cussing and gratuitous responses.) You will see that often times I USE CAPS — which in www lingo for YELLING. I am not using it this way, I use it to merely emphasize and often times say as much: *not said in yelling tone, but merely to emphasize*. So in all my discussions I afford the best of thought to the other person as I expect he or she would to me even if dealing with tough subjects as the above. I have had more practice at this than most, and with half-hour pizza, one hour photo and email vs. ‘snail mail,’ know that important discussions take time to meditate on, inculcate, and to process. So be prepared for a good thought provoking discussion if you so choose one with me.”

Again, we all put into other people’s typed words our own emotional state at that time. The trick is to step away from this tendency… and this can be hard.

I shared what others wrote on election day, can I share mine? I went and cast my ballot for Trump and wrote this afterwords:beer

I voted. It was really hard to overcome my original emotions of dislike for Trump with reason (mind). But this IS the essence of being humanTo think and reason beyond our emotive states

Again, people are complicated and to label them as sexist or racist without really knowing is a travesty to our Republic.

OKAY… I will now post three responses to items of discussion that my guess is those who are very distraught over Trump’s win and view either him or a large segment of the population who voted for him as racist or bigoted, or mean to disabled persons, is more complicated than these labels. First up is this:


Is Mexico Sending Rapists?


When I ask people to offer me an example of Trump’s “racism,” I get a reference to this example most often:

  • “The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems…. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you…. They’re sending people that have lots of problems…. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” ~ Donald J. Trump

Before I add information that I doubt a millennial has heard because either they or their friends are quick to label Trump as being bigoted or racist for saying this, and moving on without further reflection, I want to note that all Republican politicians said to round up illegals in America would be an impossible task. Trump has evolved on his statement that many understood as rounding up 11-million (actually, there are 30-million). ALSO, every Republican politician noted that the Constitution would not allow for the banning of all Muslims coming to our country. Again, our Constitution forbids this. It allows for banning all persons from a country, but not a religious or sectarian belief. He [Trump] has backed away from this as well, as all of us knew he would. In fact, this was removed from his site. Trump is not a politician, but his team is counseling him well.

…Continuing.

Okay. What of Trump’s statement? It surely sounds bigoted at best.

I will shock the reader.

I think that is the most pro-woman statement in a long time by a politician regarding real — violent — crime against women.

Let me explain.

This is from the HUFFINGTON POST:

As the number of Central American women and girls crossing into the U.S. continues to spike, so is the staggering amount of sexual violence waged against these migrants who are in search of a better life.

According to a stunning Fusion investigation, 80 percent of women and girls crossing into the U.S. by way of Mexico are raped during their journey. That’s up from a previous estimate of 60 percent, according to an Amnesty International report

[….]

Through May, the number of unaccompanied girls younger than 18 caught at the US-Mexico border increased by 77 percent.

But while many of these girls are fleeing their homes because of fears of being sexually assaulted, according to the UNHCR, they are still meeting that same fate on their journey to freedom

For clarity in the sources for the HUFFPO article, for those that are of the impatient and research non-oriented generation:

✦ 60% Amnesty International Report (PDF)
✦ 80% Is rape the price to pay for migrant women chasing the American Dream? (FUSION)

(UPDATED EDITORIAL BY RPT) To be clear, these rapes are happening by residents who live in towns and districts these migrants are passing through. Other rapes are happening by Coyotajes, as well as many by the men making the trip as well. We know that many Honduren gang-members make the trek, and so, a high percentage of these men (criminals) do in fact cross our border into our nation. Where American women of all ethnic background are subjected to assault. Since we know illegals commit crimes at double the rate of native-born rape is also part of these increased stats.

NEW STORY

80% of C. American Illegals Raped on Trip to US, Still Dems Encourage Them to Come

“According to a stunning Fusion investigation, 80 percent of women and girls crossing into the U.S. by way of Mexico are raped during their journey. That’s up from a previous estimate of 60 percent, according to an Amnesty International report,” the well-known news outlet continued….

So, many of the men they travel with are rapping them. Many of the Coyotajes as well take advantage of them. There are what are now being called “rape trees,” which you can learn more about on a previous post of mine, here. Here is how a conversation using this understanding went in the real world:

  • The above exchange was discussed a bit wrong, like Trump, the main idea is lost in the presentation. Gavin McInness made it sound as if the rapes were happening at the border when in actuality they are happening during the entire trip. And the girl thought he meant Coyotes, the real animal. Not Coyotajes. (That was very funny BTW, and why I ended the video like I did.)

What would be the most compassionate step to take? I would say, to control our border. That would help the migrant woman AS WELL AS our own mothers, daughters, and wives. Many from these countries that are experiencing these horrible circumstances are experiencing it because of their government models they have chosen. But this is neither here-nor-there.

The bottom line is that Trump, while not explaining this well at all, was actually making a statement about policy that in the end will protect women. There is this as well dealing with drugs and violence aspect of the comment:

A fresh wave of crime from the infamously violent MS-13 gang in the District of Columbia is being driven by the heavy recruitment of young illegal immigrants.

A surge of minors crossing the U.S. southern border is helping the notorious gang boost their ranks and instigate a new string of violent attacks in the city, reported The Washington Times. Over the past few years a wave of illegal migrant children crossed the U.S. border, and MS-13 appears to be targeting them for recruitment.

“They are certainly susceptible,” Ed Ryan, gang prevention coordinator in Fairfax County, Virginia, told The Washington Times. “They are new, they have very little family, they don’t know the language very well. They are looking for someone who looks like them, talks like them.”

Experts say violence from MS-13, which originally started in California, historically occurs in waves. Currently MS-13, on orders from El Salvador, is ramping up efforts in cities across the U.S. to reestablish their dominance on the streets, reports The Washington Times….

This is just a very short clip of a longer audio (here: ) of John and Ken discussing Mollie Tibbetts and her murderer, Christian Bahena-Rivera. According to the DAILY CALLER, he was employed by a Republican small business owner

  • “He worked on Yarrabee Farms, which is owned by the family of GOP official Craig Lang, who was a former 2018 Republican candidate for state secretary of agriculture, according to reports by the Des Moines Register.”

who may have illegally had him in their employ? However, he was an example of the DACA young so did he have his temporary papers? I have no idea. Nor would I know if he immigrated legally if he would have passed all the checks/balances.

As an side…

Is this man a racist or bigot? He was the co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, and spoke out against the racist organization, La Raza, as well as calling workers who crossed the border “illegal immigrants” and “wetbacks.”

“In the mid 1970s, he conducted the ‘Illegals Campaign’ to identify and report illegal workers, ‘an effort he deemed second in importance only to the boycott’ (of produce from non-unionized farms), according to Pawel. She quotes a memo from Chavez that said, “If we can get the illegals out of California, we will win the strike overnight.”

“Cesar Chavez opposed illegal immigration,” Levin said during a Wednesday appearance on Fox News’ Hannity

After saying that the premise that “compassion is an open border” is a “new idea” that has been pushed in recent times, Levin said that “a nation has a right to secure its border” and its citizens have a right to know who is coming into their country. 

Chavez, who was also against ethnic organizations like La Raza, would tell illegal immigrants to get out of the country, especially because they lowered the wages of American workers. And he was often far from compassionate in handling illegal immigrants….

(NATIONAL REVIEW, BREITBART and the HUFFINGTON POST)


Trump Mocks Disabled Reporter ?


This one I believed for a long time. Here is a common way this is added into a litany of grievances:

  • If I owned a business and someone applied for the job that had a history of denigrating women, mocking a reporter with a disability, targeting people of a certain ethnic or religious affiliation, I would not hire that person. I am surprised to see that some would. Perhaps we have different values.

Firstly, it is not my job to correct EVERY detail a person brings up. Even I have a life. Barely, but it’s there… somewhere. So the denigrating women thing makes no real difference to the Democrat, because assaults, murder, and rape are all too common on the left. JFK raped a 16-year old girl in the White House and brought prostitutes into the same House. Ted Kennedy, the “Lion of the Senate,” a hero to the Left assaulted women even killing one in a drunken night out. Bill Clinton either raped or assaulted over 15-women and had sex with prostitutes, and his wife got a man she knew was guilty of rapping so violently a 12-year old girl that she could never have kids her entire life. She laughed about getting this rapist off. She [Hillary], also covered up her husbands attacks. She got so much flack for this that she removed from he campaign website a section detailing her hard work to protect women.rape-drown

Thank you Bernie fans for being tough on her for this!

— But I Digress —

(and have already answered this more here)

My answer to this requires watching a video/audio I worked on and uploaded to my YouTube… but if you want a condensed version that I responded to a person elsewhere on the WWW:

So, what have we learned so far by exchanging ideas in an open forum. Trump was right about the rapists comment, and the best thing to protect women is to control our border (both for the immigrant women and our mothers and daughters).

And the other things we learned is that Trump mocks everyone with the same motions. Childish? Yes. Not ideal for a President. Sure. He wasn’t my 18th choice out of seventeen. But what is said of him is not [often true].

Here is a time-line of each video of Trump mocking various persons (including himself) with the same mannerisms as the media says he expressly used to mock a man’s disability:

The videos used to make the montage are from CATHOLICS 4 TRUMP’S article entitled, “Even MORE Video Evidence Trump Did Not Mock Reporter’s Disability“. Here is the timeline (maroon is before or during the event in question):

May 2005 – Trump imitates a flustered Trump (decade prior to the “event” in question);
October 2015 – Trump imitates flustered bank president (25-days prior to the “event” in question);
November 25, 2015 – Trump imitates flustered reporter and flustered general (during the same speech given as the “event” in question);
February 2016 – Trump imitates flustered Ted Cruz;
October 2016 — Trump imitates a flustered Donna Brazile.

I include this call because it is more concise than my other uploads:

Did Trump Go Full Retard On That Reporter? (Sep 8, 2016)
Larry Elder Slays Fools | Meryl Streep (Jan 10, 2017)

Again, he did this of himself, Ted Cruz, a general, and more. It is his “quirk.” One I hate, but not aimed at anyone in particular to represent a physical condition. (See a much longer report on all this here.)

Here is my “finisher” to a recent discussion via FB on this topic:

No, he was not mocking his disability. He was mocking his reporting. Like he was mocking the general later in that same speech. Unless, waitBonnie you may have something when Donald J. Trump mocked himself in May 2005, a bank president in October 2015, that general in November 25, 2015, Ted Cruz in February 2016, and Donna Brazile in October 2016…

h-e was r-e-a-l-l-y mocking that reporter that doesn’t have a disability that causes him to make those motions.

In the opening of John Stossle’s video he deals with this:


Racists Support Trump


First, in the broad sense this has to be true… that is… somewhere in this nation I am sure a racist supports Donald J. Trump. Even if we assume the Klan all voted in unison, he would have gotten 8,000 votes at most! Nationwide.

HOWEVER, as you will see, even the above hypothetical is more complicated than most assume it to be. Let’s just clear the air first on this past charge of Trump not disavowing David Duke (a “famous” racist and past KKK leader) during the run-up-to the nomination: Trump clearly disavowed David Duke’s endorsement. As we will see, the truth about David Duke is more complicated than we often hear. Okay, moving on.

After Trump won the election the media and Hollywood types as well as comedians and Democrat Senators and Representatives all started saying there was a backlash of old-racist-white-men that came out in force and voted for Trump. This just isn’t the case. You can see from just a few of the bullet points from my “Blacks, Hispanics and Gays are Sexist, Xenophobic, Homophobic, Racist” post that this attack on American voters is just a maligning of each and everyone of those peoples character:

  • Thirteen percent of Muslims voted for Trump, triple the amount that voted Romney, are they are Islamophobic, bigoted, xenophobic, and racist?
  • Eight percent of blacks voted for Trump, seven percent more than Romney — not to mention the black men and women who didn’t vote for the president at all in a higher percentage. These same men and women previously voted twice for Obama. These persons of color if I understand my detractors correctly, are racist bigots?
  • A higher percentage (almost 30%) of Hispanics voted for Trump, more in fact than voted for Romney. These Hispanic and Latino men and women, like the others, are xenophobic, bigoted, and racist?
  • One hundred-and-ninety-four counties that voted for Obama once switched to GOP in the 2016 election. And, two-hundred-and-nine counties that voted for Obama twice switched to GOP. Many of these people are union members as well as life-long Democrats. Am I now being told that these Democrats who voted for Obama are: racist. sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted?

So you can see from the above and the graphic below that the people who really pushed Trump into the “win” section of the electoral count were minorities and voters who previously voted for Obama either once or both times prior to voting for Trump.

I refer to this with a euphemism from a previous election as

“they were NOT racist before they WERE.”

In other words, according to people I dearly love, these people are now magically racists… but weren’t when they voted for Obama.

Most of these flipped voters were/are Democrats… am I now being told Democrats are racists?

Do you see the dilemma?

Even Michael Moore opined on this:

  • “They’re not racist,” Moore said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, “They twice voted for a man whose middle name is Hussein. That’s the America you live in.”everything-is-racist-spongbob-380

However, let us delve into this even more to dispel commonly held myths.

Got your big-boy-pants on?

I have studied four racist cults in-depth: the Nation of Islam, the Ku Klux KlanChristian Identity, and the Five-Percenters — known also as the Nation of Gods and Earths.

Two of the above four racist cults are both telling their followers to vote for Trump… the KKK and the Nation of Islam. Christian Identity as a cohesive movement is all but dead… and the 5% when they do vote always vote Democrat. IN FACT they all primarily vote Democrat.

A quick history point that is important for the next paragraph:

After the triumph of the civil rights movement and the introduction of a series of civil rights laws, the Klan broke up into various subgroups. Previously these KKK members were Democrats and they continued being so after.

  • virtually every significant racist in American political history was a Democrat.” — Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), ix;
  • not every Democrat was a KKK’er, but every KKK’er was a Democrat.” — Ann Coulter, Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama (New York, NY: Sentinel [Penguin], 2012), 19.

People do not realize why these groups, especially the KKK, vote Democrat. For instance, out of the four leaders in the “white-power” movement (the KKK subculture) with the most followers, three told their peeps to vote Democrat (Actually, then it was them telling their followers to vote for Obama in 2008).

Here you see some higher ups in this white racist movement telling their people (3-of-the-4) to vote Democrat for the election in 2008:

➤ Tom Metzger: Director, White Aryan Resistance; Career Highlights: Was Grand Dragon of Ku Klux Klan in the 70s; won the Democratic primary during his bid for Congress in 1980
➤ Ron Edwards: Imperial Wizard, Imperial Klans of America; Career Highlights: Sued in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center for inciting the brutal beating of a Latino teenager; building the IKA into one of the nation’s largest Klan groups by allowing non-Christians to join.
➤ Erich Gliebe: Chairman, National Alliance; Career Highlights: Turning white-power record label, Resistance Records, into a million-dollar-a-year business juggernaut; an 8-0 record as a professional boxer under the nickname, “The Aryan Barbarian.”
➤ Rocky Suhayda: Chairman, American Nazi Party; Career highlights: Being widely quoted bemoaning in the fact that so few Aryan-Americans had the cojones of the 9/11 hijackers: “If we were one-tenth as serious, we might start getting somewhere.”

Yes, most racist groups — INCLUDING THE KKK — voted for a black nominee.

The next question should be, Why?

Reason One
One reason is that these racist white groups are typically socialists. And socialism is a political system that wants the government to run health-care, business, increase central power, etc. Here is a most basic graph of this concept (see to the right – click the graph to go to my combined post on the matter).

“We are socialists, we are ene­mies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.” — Hitler

John Toland, Adolph Hitler: The Definitive Biography (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1976), 223-225.

Reason Two
Another reason a lot of racist whites vote Democrat is they are very poor and use heavily the social services they support ideologically. This was even evident when less than the typical 80% that vote straight Democrat still voted straight Democrat in their respective states but did not vote for Obama.

The other Black Nationalist cults vote heavier [percentage wise] Democratic.

This year is different. You have both Louis Farrakhan telling his followers to vote for Trump, and you have more people in the disjointed KKK telling their people to vote for him. Why this change? I think it is because he has many similar views on issues with Bernie Sanders, as an example,

  • Forty-four percent of Sanders supporters surveyed said they would rather back the presumptive GOP nominee in November, with only 23 percent saying they’d support Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. And 31 percent said would support neither candidate in the likely general election match-up. (THE HILL)

Keep in mind those are voters in the state that put Sander’s into the Senate!

Here is the kicker though regarding the Nation of Islam (NOI). This cult, unlike the KKK, is VERY structured under a single leader. So what Farrakhan says is followed “religiously” by his adherents. Whereas, in the KKK, these leaders are not looked to in the same way Farrakhan is, as some sort of “messianic” figure. So you might have slightly more vote for Trump in the Klan on the recommendation of their leaders. This is different in the structure of the Nation of Islam, the percentages would be almost unanimous in their “lock-step.”

Many will continue to vote straight Democrat the rest of the ticket, in all groups mentioned.

“Racists Vote Republican,” or, “Republican’s Are Old Racist White Men” may be a convenient (actually evil) political narrative to scare a few voters away from the GOP, surely. But the maligning of every Republican nominee since Nixon just is not factually true.

DON’T accept the comparison. Take their arguments and return them packaged in a nice little bow.

Editor’s Aside:

Democrats want to fundamentally change America. I don’t love my wife if I want to fundamentally change her. Black Life Matters protesters teach their children to burn American flags or march down the street CHANTING “What do we want?!” “Dead Cops!” “When do we want them?!” “NOW!” They argue America was founded on nothing but slavery and greed. Hillary Clinton backed this group even going as far as far as saying (at the NAACP) that “systemic racism” needs to be eliminated. Months later calling Americans all racists: “I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police. I think unfortunately too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other and therefore I think we need all of us to be asked the hard questions ‘why am I feeling this way?’”

Democrats think I am an imperialist white supremacist Christian cisgender capitalist heteropatriarchal male. Apparently however, these many demographic changes across the board [noted above] seem to agree that Trump’s slogan was acceptable, “Make America Great Again.”

One reason many of these hate groups (black and white) are voting for Trump is for border control. A) There is an animosity towards illegal aliens for racist reasons, and B) reasons related to economics as well. A great example would be this video “CHICAGO’S INNER-CITY POOR BLACK COMMUNITY ABANDONING OBAMA’S LIBERAL AGENDA

To continue this point, one woman said this:

  • A resident of the Austin community, Jean Ray, says after 40 years of Democratic party control over the black community, the policies “are hurting,” and if there were Republicans willing to do the right job in her community, she would vote for them. (More at BREITBART)

So a good reason that black racist groups would have voted Trump includes practical economic concerns, i.e., jobs. Which is why we saw a 7% jump in blacks voting for the Republican candidate… but most likely even they voted Democrat the rest of the ticket.

Reason Three
They HATE (H-A-T-E) Israel, and this is a reason they tend to support Democrats. For instance, on his YouTube, David Duke endorsed Charles Barron for Congress (video on the left). Another endorsement for Hillary was from a KKK leader here in California (right video).

So attributing racism to the GOP is silly, because as a whole, the almost 8,000 KKK members nation wide vote Democrat. AS DO ALL THE OTHER RACIST CULTS IN AMERICA (*booming megaphone affect in a cave*). NOT TO MENTION where all the hub-bub is when all these hate groups vote for Democrats in years past?

In other words, WHY is it only “newsworthy” when they vote for Republicans and not for Democrats?

I smell something fishy here.

I can continue, but this post is already long enough. On the racial issues, I suggest my page entitled: U.S. RACIAL HISTORY. This page deals with the supposed party switch by racist Democrats to Republicans, slavery, American Indian narratives, some VERY PROUD BLACK HISTORY in our country… and the like.

Recap
Again, let’s recap for clarity some of my reasons white racist/nationalists cults vote Democrat:

  • They are typically socialist in their political views, and thus support the welfare state for personal financial reasons (poor) and ideological reasoning (socialist); or for the reason that it is a way of controlling minorities (racist reasoning). A modern plantation so-to-speak; There is a shared hatred for Israel and supporting of groups wanting to exterminate the Jews (Palestinians for instance).

This is why a majority STILL supported Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. She is a socialist at heart, wants a big welfare state, and does not like Israel as much as Trump, who has kids practicing the Jewish religion. Thee ONLY issue a racist could want to vote for Trump on is his immigration policies… hardly a racist position. It has only now become an issue of bigotry and racism because the Left has moved the goal post in the use of language. Racists no longer means “genetically superior,” rather, it mean you disagree with a Democrat and/or hurt their feelings. Otherwise, these people would be RACISTS!


Afterword


What are some of my suggestions to stop or prepare people for future events like this? Talk to friends or family why they are in a particular political party. I have read and studied the “Left” A LOT! But balance in peoples lives are good. I always make this point to express my thinking on this, and it was mainly based on when my boys were going through high school and their friends would pick my brain. It deals with balance:

I often bump into people that have watched some or most of the following “documentaries” I likewise own and have watched all on the following list (one should take note that some of these are shown in public school classrooms):

• Bowling for Columbine
• Roger and Me
• Fahrenheit 9/11
• Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
• Sicko
• An Inconvenient Truth
• Loose Change
• Zeitgeist
• Religulouse
• The God Who Wasn’t There
• Super-Size Me

But rarely do I meet someone of the opposite persuasion from me that have watched any of the following (I own and have watched):

• Celsius41.11: The Temperature at Which the Brain Dies
• FahrenHYPE 9/11
• Michael & Me
• Michael Moore Hates America
• Bullshit! Fifth SeasonRead More (where they tear apart the Wal-Mart documentary)
• Indoctrinate U
• Mine Your Own Business
• Screw Loose Change
• 3-part response to Zeitgeist
• Fat-Head
• Privileged Planet
• Unlocking the Mystery of Life

I am not saying one should go out and watch all these opposing points of views. I am saying that probably the person reading this has seen one or two of the above, was convinced about it, and now proclaim it as “true” without testing their position with balance. Someone who has changed my views in many areas is Thomas Sowell. I can recommend that if a person is really interested in knowing what much of the base of the opposing Party believes… in this case Republicans, to read only one of Dr. Sowells books, “The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.”

Allow dissent in conversation. Our Republic is suppose to be tough. Enjoy this designed aspect of a healthy country.

Start by listening to the entire chapter entitled “The Real History of Slavery,” by Thomas Sowell (full audio here). Think racist Democrats became Republicans? Read and watch the videos in my post here.

Do not surround yourselves with Mini-Me’s. Bouncing ideas off of a sound board in a studio of all like-minded individuals does not create growth, understanding, and the like. It creates ideological group-think. DO NOT think I am saying this just to my audience. I have to tell myself this all the time. And I often fail. That is what friends and family are for. Grace and love through the hardest of times.

What are my RAW personal thoughts on the matter?

After Democrats elected a President that attended a Nazi-like church of twenty-years and the keynote speaker at the 2012 Democratic National Convention was a racist, for the left to bring up racism is moot.

They, not me, shot themselves in the foot.

It really does make the person who is a staunch Democrat look silly, hypocritical, and VERY careless when bringing up the topic. In other words, to ignore Obama’s family’s close affiliation (past AND PRESENT) with self stated hard-core racists takes away any respect from me for Democrats speaking ill of some okie Ozark livin’ poor white person who is ignorant who may vote Republican once-in-a-while when for decades the Democrats have highlighted and supported the worse of these police killing cults.

The only death threats I get are from black racist nationalists via a video I did about the cult Jay-Z and Beyonce promote.

So don’t talk to me about “racism” and the KKK voting for Donald Trump… I have a list of black nationalist or black nationalists supporting POLITICIANS that recently or are currently in Congress AND in the highest office of the land. The Oval Office. Not to mention the sorted history of the Klan with a particular political Party.

If you are unwilling to learn history, and the religiously racist cultic backgrounds of what is promoted on the left as mainstream, then you are stuck where you are. Making blanket statements that cause others to wag-their-heads.

Like I said, raw.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe Unleashes 200,000 Felons To Vote

US Attorney General Eric Holder recently stated that we must revisit the laws that ban convicted felons from voting. Why? According to a recent study by two professors, Marc Meredith of the University of Pennsylvania and Michael Morse of Stanford, published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, three-fourths of America’s convicted murderers, rapists, and thieves are Democrats. Many states restrict felons from voting; however, there’s a movement afoot to eliminate any restriction on their voting. If successful, we might see Democratic candidates campaigning in prisons, seeking the support of some of America’s worst people.

Walter E. Williams, American Contempt for Liberty (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press, 2015), 124.

7-in-10 felons register as Democrats.

Just so the numbers are known:

Virginia
Popular Vote:
TRUMP
1,731,155 (45.0%)
CLINTON
1,916,845 (49.9%)
TOTAL
185,690

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has granted voting rights to as many as 60,000 convicted felons just in time for them to register to vote, nearly five times more than previously reported and enough to win the state for his long-time friend, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

McAuliffe sought to allow all of Virginia’s estimated 200,000 felons to vote, but state courts said each individual felon’s circumstances must be weighed. To get around that, McAuliffe used a mechanical autopen to rapidly sign thousands of letters, as if he had personally reviewed them, even as his office was saying the total was 13,000.

Now, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned that McAuliffe — who managed Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign — churned out five times as many letters before the registration deadline than publicly claimed.

Virginia’s recent political history has seen multiple races that were decided by tiny margins. The 2014 U.S. Senate race, for example, was decided by only 17,000 votes, while the attorney general’s race came down to a mere 165 votes.

McAuliffe is a close friend of Hillary and former President Bill Clinton, even personally guaranteeing a loan for the purchase of their Chappaqua, New York, mansion in 1999. He also served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee where he was a prodigious fund raiser….

(DAILY CALLER)

California Proposition Outcomes With Some Commentary

California Props passed and not passed with short commentary on why some passages are bad. Here is a quick reference of my recommends (left column) and what passed (right column):

My Guide

Proposition 51: NO
Proposition 52: YES
Proposition 53: YES
Proposition 54: YES
Proposition 55: NO
Proposition 56: NO
Proposition 57: NO
Proposition 58: NO
Proposition 59: NO
Proposition 60: NO
Proposition 61: NO
Proposition 62: NO
Proposition 63: NO
Proposition 64: NO
Proposition 65: NO
Proposition 66: YES
Proposition 67: NO

State Voters

Proposition 51: YES
Proposition 52: YES
Proposition 53: NO
Proposition 54: YES
Proposition 55: YES
Proposition 56: YES
Proposition 57: YES
Proposition 58: YES
Proposition 59: YES
Proposition 60: NO
Proposition 61: NO
Proposition 62: NO
Proposition 63: YES
Proposition 64: YES
Proposition 65: NO
Proposition 66: YES
Proposition 67: YES

MAROON Yeses or Noes indicate opposite of my voting guide, GREEN matches up with it. (I will included the original recommendations by the three people in my post):

PROP 51 – YES

This will be more money borrowed (with interest) even though our state is dead broke. Spending money on schools does not fix any problems, in fact, the schools districts that spend the most money per pupil in the nation get the lowest returns in education being passed on to them.

  • (J&K) Let’s stop spending money we don’t have huh? How about we try that for once? NO
  • (GOP) $9 Billion general obligation bond to fund school construction projects. The Measure is sponsored by the Building Industry Association and supported by the California Republican Party. This will not result in a tax increase. YES
  • (Prager) Schools Bonds – NO. More money (borrowed, with interest) won’t fix the problem.

PROP 52 – YES

  • (J&K) It looks like a tax money shell game involving Medi-Cal, but there are federal matching funds involved so let’s keep it. YES
  • (GOP) Uses existing hospital fees paid to the state to fund Medi-Cal, uninsured patients and children health care. Saves State from spending for this purpose. YES
  • (Prager) Medi-Cal Fee Program – YES. Very complicated, but yes vote will ensure Feds continue to share in cost of medical care for illegal immigrants (which they allow in) and other non-payers who overtax our health care facilities.

PROP 53 – NO

This was a simple reroute to the California legislature spending tax-payer monies on useless projects. It returned some control to the voters when our state legislature wanted to spend 2-billion in bonds.

  • (J&K) This gives back the power to the people to approve state-revenue bond measures. California voters would get to vote on any large scale project that costed more than $2 billion (High Speed Fail anyone?) YES
  • (GOP) Requires statewide voter approval on any state revenue bond projects exceeding $2 Billion. Only involves State bond issues, not local governments. YES
  • (Prager) Voter approval for large bond offerings – YES. Sacramento needs as much supervision as possible.

PROP 54 – YES

  • (J&K) Again, time to keep the crooks in Sacramento responsible! Vote yes to make any bill that the legislature wants to pass, available online for the public to review for at least 72 hours before the Legislature can pass it. The Legislature would also be required to ensure that its public meetings are recorded and make those videos available on the internet. YES
  • (GOP) Requires any bill to be printed and published online for 72 hours before the legislature can vote on it. Requires legislature to record and post video of all legislative proceedings other than closed session proceedings. YES
  • (Prager) Legislation Transparency – YES. Contrary to Nancy Pelosi’s recommendation on ObamaCare, give the people a chance to find out what is in bills the legislature wants to pass before our lawmakers vote.

PROP 55 – YES

Simply put, a temporary tax should be just that… temporary. You give money to politicians and they hate-hate-hate having their source of laissez faire incomes taken away.

  • (J&K) A no vote on this would allow the ‘temporary’ income tax increase passed in 2012 to expire in 2018 as it was designed to. Let’s make sure that ‘temporary’ still means something in Sacramento. NO, NO, NO!
  • (GOP) Extends the temporary personal income tax imposed by Proposition 30 in 2012 by an additional 12 years. Money to be used for K-12 schools and for healthcare programs. NO
  • (Prager) Tax Extension – NO. More money for politicians to waste.

PROP 56 – YES

This will bring the total state tax on cigarettes to $2.87 per pack of cigarettes. Federal income tax is $1.01, bringing per pack total taxes to 3.88 per pack. This will increase the black market sales from other states. Remember, Eric Garner was choked to death for selling loosies, single cigerettes, that were sold at a lower cost to the consumer brought in from New Jersey which had lower tax rates. (Actually, Garner suffered a heart-attack… but assuming the liberal narrative, you are increasing the chances of more “Eric Garner’s” in California.)

  • (J&K) A no vote on this would allow the ‘temporary’ income tax increase passed in 2012 to expire in 2018 as it was designed to. Let’s make sure that ‘temporary’ still means something in Sacramento. NO, NO, NO!
  • (GOP) Would increase the cigarette tax by $2.00 per pack. Funding goes to healthcare and tobacco use prevention programs. Supported by Tom Steyer. Benefits insurance companies and special interests. NO
  • (Prager) Tax Extension – NO. More money for politicians to waste.

PROP 57 – YES

This is a horrible, horrible proposition for the voters of California to pass. In reality, the policies that catch and release person’s onto our streets led directly to the deaths of Placer County Deputy Michael David Davis Jr. and Sacramento County Deputy Danny Oliver – died at the hands of President Barack Obama and California Governor Jerry Brown. And a local Sheriff was shot and killed due to Gov. Brown’s first realignment bill 47, which this double downs on:

Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris was interviewed by Los Angeles radio station KNX-AM before a memorial service for his friend, Sgt. Steven Owen, who was shot while answering a burglary call on Oct. 5. Trenton Trevon Lovell, on parole for an armed robbery conviction, has been charged with murder.

[….]

Brown signed the realignment bill in 2011 in response to federal judges’ orders to thin overcrowded state prisons. It was aimed at reducing the number of lower-level offenders and parole violators who cycled through state prisons by instead having county officials handle their punishment.

Westrup noted Lovell’s armed robbery conviction in 2009 came before Brown signed the bill, which stipulated no inmates currently in state prison would be released early, and all felons convicted of serious or violent offenses would continue going to state prison.

Lovell has been on parole since 2014, when he was freed from prison after serving roughly five years of a six-year sentence for robbing a university community safety officer at gunpoint.

Prior to realignment, Lovell could have gone back to prison as a parole violator after pleading no contest to driving under the influence earlier this year. Instead he served 13 days in jail and was placed on three years’ probation….

(FREE REPUBLIC)

Californians are idiots!

  • (J&K) We’ve already seen the fallout from prison realignment and proposition 47, this is just Jerry Brown doubling down on that. 57 would allow early release for violent criminals, including those who rape unconscious victims. NO, NO, NO!
  • (GOP) Gives prisoners convicted of nonviolent felonies to be given early release. Sponsored by Gov. Brown. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) Criminal Sentences and Parole – NO. Not interested in coddling criminals or releasing them from prison early.

PROP 58 – YES

Really? Progressive Democrats are all about “E Pluribus Pluribus,” not “E Pluribus Unum.” English is an important step for other cultures to assimilate. But by creating two languages and all the vitriol of American ideals taught in tax payer funded education, we will become less-and-less a melting pot. The conservative ideal. The liberal ideal is segregation. But this makes people “feel good” deep down.

  • (J&K) Prop 58 wouldn’t do much to modernize how we teach English to students. It would be pointless to try and change it. Immigrant kids are learning English faster than ever and record numbers of immigrant students are being admitted to California universities. NO
  • (GOP) In 1998 California voters approved an initiative requiring that children be taught English in our schools unless parents disagreed. This measure would modify that initiative and allow children to be taught in other languages. This measure from 1998 has resulted in children learning English at a much faster rate than in a bilingual environment. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) Multilingual Education – NO. Terrible idea. We voted this failed practice out in the ‘90s with Prop. 227. This would put it back in place.

PROP 59 – YES

Citizens United was about freedom of speech. Californians, as we see, hate this concept. The concept is simple, and these four short videos by Libertarians and Conservatives explain well the issue. And it makes clear that Californian’s want to band books and movies:

  • (J&K)  They’re trying to overturn Citizen’s United at the state level, the problem is, they can’t! The proposition even says this for Yes voters. All the measure says is that voters are asking elected officials to seek increased regulation of campaign spending and contributions. No specifics are offered. No suggestions on how they could effectively limit spending. It does nothing at all. NO
  • (GOP) Asks voters to decide if there should be a federal Constitutional Amendment to overturn the ruling in Citizens United vs. FEC. This Proposition has no real effect other than sending a message to Congress. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) Political Spending – NO. It’s called free speech.

PROP 60 – NO

  • (J&K) Do you want to see the adult film industry chased out of California? Do you really care if there are condoms in adult films? NO
  • (GOP) Requires the use of condoms for adult films. This proposition is opposed by both the Democrat Party and the Republican Party. It is proposed by a special interest group. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) Condoms for Adult Movie “Actors” – NO. They’re adults, and they have chosen to work in an adult industry where they know their risks. Let them make their own decisions.

PROP 61 – NO

Just a “quick” note on this even though my guide agreed with the outcome. In all areas where price controls are injected, whether in minimum wage, medicines, rent, or the like…. costs go up and services diminish. Here is Thomas Sowell explaining the situation:

…The same misconception of costs runs through the much more serious issue of the prices of medicine and government regulation of those prices. When a pill whose ingredients cost a quarter is sold for two dollars, that is an open invitation to demagogues to begin loudly denouncing the pharmaceutical drug company’s “obscene” and “unconscionable” profits at the expense of the sick. But the people who are doing this are counting only the five minutes and ignoring the 20 years.

The physical ingredients of the medicine are its cheapest ingredients. The ingredient that costs millions of dollars — sometimes hundreds of millions — is the knowledge gained from years of research, and trial and error, which finally results in the creation of a new medicine. That is what the price of the pills has to cover, if we expect investors to continue to pour vast sums of money into drug companies that are trying to discover new cures for such diseases as cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer’s.

Other companies, manufacturing generic equivalents, pay only the costs of the physical ingredients, having copied the enormously expensive formula free of charge — legitimately after the patent has expired and not so legitimately in other countries, where patent laws are not taken as seriously as in the United States. The company that simply uses someone else’s formula free of charge can sell the same pill for 35 cents and still make a profit.

Somebody has to pay the high costs of discovery or the development of new drugs will be slower and therefore more people will needlessly suffer and die. While allowing patent laws to be over-ridden by politicians allows some people to buy the drug at low prices, based on the low current costs of manufacturing the medicine, that just leaves the far greater overhead costs of creating these medicines to be paid by others.

Worst of all, it leaves the even higher costs of needless pain, suffering and premature death to be paid by those whose relief is delayed by policies like these, which slow down the development of new medicines to cure their afflictions.

The United States has been one of the few countries resisting political pressures to impose price controls on pharmaceutical drugs, or to water down the patent laws which allow the original discoverer of new drugs to have a monopoly for a fixed number of years, so as to recover the costs of discovery before other companies get to use their formula free of charge.

The United States also produces a wholly disproportionate share of all the new life-saving drugs in the world. But politicians ignore this connection. Other countries have scientists capable of developing new medicines, but the economics and politics of the situation discourage companies in those countries from making the huge investments made by American pharmaceutical companies under American patent law….

(TOWNHALL)

Here is an excerpt as well from a post of mine geared at FOOD INC:

R & D Costs for “Big Pharma”

This comes via ChEMBL-og:

Came across a link on Google+ to a post to a Forbes article (via Greg Landrum) and thought I would post a link here. It’s a simple economic analysis of the costs of Large Pharma drug discovery. Very simple, money in vs. drugs out. There is however a lot of complexity behind the numbers, for example – quite a few of the drugs will have been licensed in, the transaction costs for these in-licensing events have probably been factored in, but what about all the other burnt capital in the biotech companies that supplied the in-licensed compounds – this will inflate the numbers further. Of course the majority of these costs are incurred on the failed projects, the wrong targets, the wrong compounds, or the wrong trials.

To put the AstraZeneca number of $11.8 billion per drug in some national context (equivalent to £7.5 billion) – this is almost 17 years of the entire BBRSC budget (£445 million in 2011), or only two drugs from the entire investment portfolio of the mighty assets of the Wellcome Trust (~£14 billion in 2011) – that’s right, not two drugs from their annual research budget, but two drugs by shutting down the investment fund and putting it all into drug discovery and development (at Astra Zeneca ROI levels).

Scary numbers, eh? Are public funding agencies up to the task? Do we really know what to do differently? There’s also a post on the same Forbes article on the In The Pipeline blog.

(An updated Forbes article is HERE)

  • (J&K) It’s a limited price control attempt on some drug purchases.  It could lead many other drug costs to increase. NO
  • (GOP) Establishes pricing standards for state prescription drug purchases. The proposition would increase drug costs to veterans, would result in a new bureaucracy costing taxpayers millions. Was written by an individual who stands to benefit financially if it passes. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) Pricing on Prescription Drugs – NO. More government meddling will only raise costs.

Proposition 62 – NO

  • (J&K) This gets a bit confusing as there are two death penalty initiatives on the ballot this year. This one wants to repeal the the death penalty entirely. The Death Penalty might not be used that often in California, but we shouldn’t get rid of it. Repealing the Death Penalty means allowing brutal killers to live the rest of their lives on the taxpayer’s dime. NO, NO, NO!
  • (GOP) Repeals the death penalty and replaces it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Applies retroactively to prisoners already sentenced to the death penalty. Opposed by most law enforcement agencies. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) Repeal Death Penalty – NO. We should strengthen the death penalty.

Proposition 63 – YES

  • (J&K) A Gavin Newsom special.  If we can’t stop the guns, let’s stop the bullets. Crazy. NO
  • (GOP) Requires a background check to purchase ammunition and bans large-capacity ammunition magazines. Requires ammunition purchases be reported to the Department of Justice. This proposition is opposed by the law enforcement community. Sponsored by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) Register and Undergo a Background Check to Buy Ammo – NO. We don’t need more gun control. All this measure will do is make ammunition sales/purchases hard and more costly for lawful dealers/gun owners while creating a black market in ammo for those who can’t pass a background check. It won’t stop a single criminal from getting bullets.

PROP 64 – YES

Here are some reasons why this is bad. Remember, the governor of Colorado recommended California wait a bit to do this right. Of course the children in our state that wants gratification NOW could not.

(IF YOU WISH YOU CAN SKIP TO THE NEXT MEASURE)

This is an excerpt from the article Prager was reading from, entitled, “THE BRAVE NEW WEED.”

…One problem is that legalization and celebrity glamorization have removed any social stigma from pot and it is now ubiquitous. Minors can get pot as easily a six pack. Since 2011 marijuana consumption among youth rose by 9.5% in Colorado and 3.2% in Washington even as it dropped 2.2% nationwide. The Denver Post reports that a “disproportionate share” of marijuana businesses are in low-income and minority communities. Many resemble candy stores with lollipops, gummy bears and brownies loaded with marijuana’s active ingredient known as THC.

The science of how THC affects young minds is still evolving. However, studies have shown that pot use during adolescence can shave off several IQ points and increase the risk for schizophrenic breaks. One in six kids who try the drug will become addicted, a higher rate than for alcohol. Pot today is six times more potent than 30 years ago, so it’s easier to get hooked and high.

Employers have also reported having a harder time finding workers who pass drug tests. Positive workplace drug tests for marijuana have increased 178% nationwide since 2012. The construction company GE Johnson says it is recruiting construction workers from other states because it can’t find enough in Colorado to pass a drug test.

Honest legalizers admitted that these social costs might increase but said they’d be offset by fewer arrests and lower law enforcement costs. Yet arrests of black and Hispanic youth in Colorado for pot-related offenses have soared 58% and 29%, respectively, while falling 8% for whites.

The share of pot-related traffic deaths has roughly doubled in Washington and increased by a third in Colorado since legalization, and in the Centennial State pot is now involved in more than one of five traffic fatalities. Calls to poison control for overdoses have jumped 108% in Colorado and 68% in Washington since 2012.

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman has said that “criminals are still selling on the black market,” in part because state taxes make legal marijuana pricier than on the street. Drug cartels have moved to grow marijuana in the states or have switched to trafficking in more profitable drugs like heroin.

One irony is that a Big Pot industry is developing even as tobacco smokers are increasingly ostracized. The Arcview Group projects that the pot market could triple over four years to $22 billion. Pot retailers aren’t supposed to market specifically to kids, though they can still advertise on the radio or TV during, say, a college football game. Tobacco companies have been prohibited from advertising on TV since 1971.

The legalization movement is backed by the likes of George Soros and Napster co-founder Sean Parker, and this year they are vastly outspending opponents. No wonder U.S. support for legalizing marijuana has increased to 57% from 32% a decade ago, according to the Pew Research Center….

Here is some more information from a post of mine detailing the changes to the brain marijuana has even within moderate use. Mind you, this next section is long, but if one takes their time… you will see that the typical arguments that it is safer than alcohol fall to the wayside of the evidence:


LOTS OF INFO!


  • (Above) Michael Medved touched on Lady Gaga’s (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) astute and candid admissions about her addiction to marijuana. In this revealing discussion, she weaves a tale that has led her to a sober (more sober?) life. I give her props and pray she is not part of “Club Twenty-Seven.” More importantly, I hope she finds the Life Medved mentions (as I wish for Michael as well).

…Both subtle and acute changes in emotional and intellectual de­velopment occur in young marijuana users because the arc of their brain’s structural development becomes recalibrated by marijuana use. Brain researchers documented in 2008 how chronic marijuana use starting in adolescence significantly decreases the size of two brain areas thick in cannabinoid receptors—the amygdala by 7 per­cent and the hippocampus by 12 percent….

….The study found that using marijua­na regularly before age eighteen resulted in an average IQ of six to eight fewer points at age thirty-eight relative to those who did not use marijuana before age eighteen. This astounding finding was still true for those teens who used marijuana regularly but stopped us­ing the drug after the age of eighteen…..

For ex­ample, a 2007 review in Lancet compared results from thirty-five studies evaluating the impact of marijuana use on the later develop­ment of psychosis, which was defined as delusions, hallucinations, or thought disorders….

(Kevin Sabet — see below)

See my previous large post in which this accentuates: “Even Casual Marijuana Use Shows Significant Brain Change

In “Reefer Sanity“, Dr. Kevin Sabet considers the consequences of marijuana legalization. He uses a plethora of research — drawn from his almost two decades of work and policymaking in this area — to argue that the United States should not legalize marijuana with all of its attendant social costs, nor damage the future of marijuana smokers by prosecuting and jailing them. Rather, he contends we should shift our emphasis to education about the newly revealed health dangers of marijuana use, as well as focus on intervention and treatment. In short, he argues for trying these evidence-based reforms first.


(Via The Foundry) Marijuana legalization poses a significant health risk to America’s youth—and many parents have no clue about the consequences, says a former Obama administration drug policy adviser.

“Today’s marijuana is not the marijuana of the ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s. It’s five to 15 times stronger,” Kevin Sabet said in an exclusive interview with The Foundry. “I think a lot of Baby Boomers’ experience with pot—a couple of times in the dorm room—they don’t correspond to what kids are experiencing today.”

Sabet, a former senior adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, wrote the book “Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana” to shed light on the marijuana legalization movement.

He pointed to Colorado, which has operated with de-facto legalization for five years, as a case study. By 2011, Denver had more medical marijuana shops than Starbucks or McDonalds.

The state has more kids using marijuana, he said, resulting in more kids in treatment and higher rate of car crashes. There have even been two deaths tied to marijuana use, including one involving domestic violence.

“Legalization in practice is a lot scarier than legalization in theory,” Sabet said. “It means a pot shop in your backyard, mass advertising and commercialization and greater health harms.”

In the book, Sabet takes on the myth that marijuana isn’t addictive. He said one in six kids who try marijuana will become addicted—the same as alcohol. That’s because young people are vulnerable than adults.

“There are more kids in treatment for marijuana today than all other drugs, including alcohol, combined,” Sabet said.


This is an excerpt from Kevin Sabat’s book, Reefer Sanity — I excluded his references to the studies, I suggest purchasing the book as it is very readable (especially if you are parents):

THE “DUMBING DOWN” DRUG GROWS STRONGER

How marijuana became such a public health concern starts with the economic pressures felt by the drug’s growers to increase the potency of marijuana in order to raise prices—and therefore prof-its—from its sale. By constantly experimenting with breeding prac­tices and cultivation techniques over several decades, producers and growers steadily made progress in greatly elevating the levels of THC (the psychoactive ingredient) found in the oily resin of the marijuana plant’s leaves and flowers.

At the University of Mississippi, a potency-monitoring project has been under way for the past few decades, measuring the con­centration of THC in thousands of marijuana samples randomly se­lected from law-enforcement seizures. Since 1983, when THC con­centrations averaged below 4 percent, potency has intensified until it now exceeds an average of 10 percent. Many marijuana samples are in the 10-20 percent range. Some marijuana samples show THC concentrations exceeding 30 percent. If we were talking about alco­hol, this increase in intoxication potential would be like going from drinking a “lite” beer a day to consuming a dozen shots of vodka.

One obvious direct result of this intensified marijuana potency has been an even greater corresponding escalation in emergency room admissions for marijuana-related reactions. The nationwide total went from an estimated 16,251 emergency room visits in the United States related to marijuana use in 1991, to exceeding 374,000 emergency room admissions in 2008—a nearly twenty-five-fold increase in just seventeen years.

Sabet graph 1

Interestingly, the num­ber of users of marijuana stayed about the same during this period—suggesting that the increase in ER visits did not have to do simply with increased numbers of users. These reactions ranged from anxiety and panic attacks, paranoia, and psychotic symptoms, to respiratory and cardiovascular distress. An analysis of two large national surveys of marijuana addiction found that “more adults in the United States had a marijuana use disorder in 2001-2002 than in 1991-1992,” with the highest rates among young black men and women, and young Hispanic men, even though use rates were the same for the two ranges of years studied.

Today’s typical marijuana sample contains up to five-hundred chemical constituents. About seventy of these chemicals are known as cannabinoids, and one of them—THC—is psychoactive.

Human brains contain a system of cannabinoid receptors, sort of like a bleacher full of open baseball mitts available to receive pitched baseballs in the form of cannabinoid molecules. The highest concentration of these receptors is in those parts of the brain that affect thinking, memory, concentration, sensory and time percep­tion, and the coordination of body movements.

Once these brain receptors have been triggered by marijuana’s cannabinoids, which effectively begin to mimic and then hijack some brain neurotransmitters, the resulting intoxication distorts the brain’s natural chemical balance and produces distortions in thinking, problem-solving, memory, and learning, along with im­paired coordination and perceptual abilities.

[….]

MORE SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES FOR KIDS

As children’s brain development is disrupted by chronic marijuana use, their risk for dependency accelerates. And given the ever-in­creasing potency, marijuana becomes an expensive public health hazard with long-lasting effects.

We can measure the impact on life development from mari­juana use and its alterations of brain function in several different ways. Research shows that adolescents who smoke marijuana ev­ery weekend over a two-year period are nearly six times more like­ly to drop out of school than nonsmokers, more than three times less likely to enter college than nonsmokers, and more than four times less likely to earn a college degree. We don’t know whether marijuana causes adolescents to drop out of school or not, but given marijuana’s effect on learning and motivation, it is safe to say that marijuana use very likely has something to do with it.

Stunted emotional development is also strongly associated with adolescent marijuana use. Females show a greater vulnerability than males to this heightened risk of anxiety attacks and depression.

A 2002 study in the British Medical Journal, for instance, de­scribed how researchers in Australia studied 1,601 students aged fourteen to fifteen over a seven-year period; 60 percent had used marijuana by twenty years of age. The conclusions reached by the authors should give all parents cause for concern. They wrote: “Dai­ly use in young women was associated with an over fivefold increase in the odds of reporting a state of depression and anxiety…weekly or more frequent cannabis use in teenagers predicted an approxi­mately twofold increase in risk for later depression and anxiety.”

In order to assess a young person’s ability to perceive, un­derstand, and manage their emotions while under the influence of marijuana, a team of researchers in 2006 used a sophisticated mood-testing scale to measure emotional responses in 133 college students (114 women and 19 men) with an average age of twenty-one years. Those who had started consuming marijuana at earlier ages were found to have an impaired ability to experience normal emotional responses.

Both subtle and acute changes in emotional and intellectual de­velopment occur in young marijuana users because the arc of their brain’s structural development becomes recalibrated by marijuana use. Brain researchers documented in 2008 how chronic marijuana use starting in adolescence significantly decreases the size of two brain areas thick in cannabinoid receptors—the amygdala by 7 per­cent and the hippocampus by 12 percent. One result was that young chronic marijuana users performed much worse than nonusers on verbal learning tests. Heavy marijuana use “exerts harmful effects on brain tissue and mental health,” the authors concluded in the Ar­chives of General Psychiatry in 2008.

Memory impairment poses a serious consequence of chronic or long-term use of marijuana, and these effects can be experienced long after marijuana use is suspended. Three studies in particular make a compelling case that the “dumbing down” effect of marijua­na use extends to memory skills.

Difficulties in verbal story memory, along with impairments in learning and working memory for up to six weeks after cessation of marijuana use, were found in a review of studies published in Current Drug Abuse Reviews in 2008. These studies were of both adolescent humans and animals. Though adolescents were more adversely affected by heavy use than adults, adults who began using marijuana in adolescence “showed greater [memory] dysfunction than those who began use later.”

Another 2008 review of the medical literature determined that the evidence points overwhelmingly to “impaired encoding, stor­age, manipulation, and retrieval mechanisms [in the brains] of long­term or heavy cannabis users.”

One of the pioneering studies on marijuana use and memory appeared in a 2002 issue of The Journal of the American Medical As­sociation and helped to set in motion a series of subsequent stud­ies. Nine Australian researchers compared the attention, memory, problem-solving, and verbal-reasoning skills among four groups of individuals: 102 near-daily marijuana users, 51 long-term marijua­na users, 51 short-term users, and 33 nonusers who made up the control group. The conclusion: “Long-term heavy cannabis users show impairments in memory and attention that endure beyond the period of intoxication and worsen with increasing years of regu­lar cannabis use.”

But the granddaddy of marijuana and learning studies came out in 2012. and astounded even the most cautious researchers. Scien­tists, controlling for factors like years of education, schizophrenia, and the use of alcohol or other drugs, followed a cohort of over one thousand people for more than twenty-five years to investigate the effect of cannabis use on IQ. The study found that using marijua­na regularly before age eighteen resulted in an average IQ of six to eight fewer points at age thirty-eight relative to those who did not use marijuana before age eighteen. This astounding finding was still true for those teens who used marijuana regularly but stopped us­ing the drug after the age of eighteen. “Our hypothesis is that we see this IQ decline in adolescence because the adolescent brain is still developing, and if you introduce cannabis, it might interrupt these critical developmental processes,” said lead author Madeline Meier, a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University.

“I think this is the cleanest study I’ve ever read” exploring the long-term effects of marijuana use, Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), an arm of the National Institutes of Health, told the Associated Press.

The study was criticized in a paper by economist Dr. Ole Rogeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research. Dr. Rogeberg criti­cized Meier and her team for failing to control for socio-economic status (SES). The paper received wide media coverage. Policy ana­lyst Wayne Hall said that the “Rogeberg study has been presented as though it was a fairly definitive refutation of the Dunedin study [but] his hypothesis has not been confirmed and that’s been lost in the media coverage.”

When Meier and her colleagues had a chance to reexamine their results, their original conclusion was unchanged. They noted that:

“Dr. Rogeberg’s ideas are interesting, but his challenge is based on simulations. We used actual data on 1,037 people to carry out the analyses he suggested. His ideas are not supported by our data….By restricting our analysis to only include children from middle-class homes, our findings of IQ decline in adolescent-onset cannabis users remain unaltered, thereby suggesting that the decline in IQ cannot be attributed to socioeconomic factors alone….Moreover, we note that our results suggesting that adolescent-onset but not adult-on­set cannabis users showing IQ decline is consistent with findings in rats, and rats have no schooling or SES.”

A MENTAL ILLNESS LINK

About fifteen years ago, the floodgates started to open on medi­cal research establishing a connection between marijuana use and mental illness. A lot of this research comes from countries outside the United States, such as Sweden, Britain, and New Zealand.

The first strong suggestion that marijuana use can trigger men­tal problems came in a 1987 study from Sweden published in the British medical journal. Lancet. Researchers did a fifteen-year ex­amination of 45,570 military conscripts and found that those who had used marijuana on more than fifty occasions had a much higher risk—six times higher—of developing schizophrenia relative to nonusers. “Persistence of the association after allowance for other psychiatric illness and social background indicated that cannabis is an independent risk factor for schizophrenia,” concluded the four medical researchers.

Subsequently, evidence from a wide array of studies began to pile up, showing that the more chronic the marijuana use and the earlier in life that marijuana use begins, the greater one’s chances are of developing psychosis typified by delusional thinking and of experiencing the onset of schizophrenia, characterized by a break­down in thought processes.

To assess the overall findings of these mental health studies from around the world, several systematic reviews of this literature have been performed to weigh the sum total of evidence. For ex­ample, a 2007 review in Lancet compared results from thirty-five studies evaluating the impact of marijuana use on the later develop­ment of psychosis, which was defined as delusions, hallucinations, or thought disorders. They concluded that marijuana use signifi­cantly increased the likelihood of developing psychotic symptoms. There was also a dose-response effect, meaning that the more fre­quently marijuana was consumed, the more dramatically the risk of developing psychotic symptoms escalated (up to 200 percent for the most frequent users relative to nonusers). The survey authors concluded: “The evidence is consistent with the view that cannabis increases [the] risk of psychotic outcomes.”

An even larger systematic review of studies—called a meta-analysis—was conducted by Australian researchers in 2011, for the Archives of General Psychiatry, using eighty-three studies to assess the impact of marijuana use on the early onset of psychotic illness. The findings were clear and consistent: “The results of meta-anal­ysis provide evidence for a relationship between cannabis use and earlier onset of psychotic illness…. [The] results suggest the need for renewed warnings about the potentially harmful effects of can­nabis.”

Another link between marijuana and psychotic symptoms sur­faced in research published by a team of eight psychiatrists and researchers in Psychological Medicine in 2010. They discovered that “childhood trauma is associated with both substance [cannabis] misuse and risk for psychosis.” These early childhood traumatizing events can range from physical abuse and sexual molestation, to ne­glect and abandonment. Psychiatric interviews were initiated with 211 adolescents between the ages of twelve and fifteen to identify both their levels of pot use and any early traumatic events in their lives. The researchers concluded that “the presence of both child­hood trauma and early cannabis use significantly increased the risk for psychotic symptoms beyond the risk posed by either risk factor alone, indicating that there was a greater than additive interaction between childhood trauma and cannabis use.”

Still another factor potentially impacting the marijuana and psychosis link is genetic. Several Canadian physicians writing in a 2012 article for Psychiatric Times analyzed the role of certain genes, such as the COMT (Catechol-O-methyltransferase) gene, which have been the subject of numerous studies of psychosis. This particular gene is involved with the metabolism of dopamine in the brain. A variant of this gene slows the breakdown of dopamine which may increase the risk of developing psychosis. Add to this gene variant the use of marijuana, and an even greater risk of psychotic symp­toms is observed.

Even if adolescents or teenagers using marijuana don’t become dependent—and the majority don’t—their brains are still modified by the use of marijuana. It’s this modification of brain structure and function that is at the root of mental health problems later in life. As the California Society of Addiction Medicine aptly puts it on their website: “The overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence provides adequate rationale for public policies that deter, delay and detect child and adolescent marijuana use.”

Kevin A. Sabet, Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana (New York, NY: Beaufort Books, 2013), 34-36, 39-46.

Here is an older update to the post dated 11-11-2014 ~ via The Blaze ~ (I know, ironic):

…The study compared 48 people who used marijuana an average of three times a day and 62 non-users. The researchers found a lower IQ in those who smoked the drug as well as a smaller orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain associated with addiction and decision making.

They did see more brain connectivity in those who smoked weed, but it wasn’t necessarily a positive thing.

“The results suggest increases in connectivity, both structural and functional that may be compensating for gray matter losses. Eventually, however, the structural connectivity or ‘wiring’ of the brain starts degrading with prolonged marijuana use,” Dr. Sina Aslan, founder and president of the company Advance MRI and a professor at the university, said.

This increased connectivity for a short period of time might be why smokers “seem to be doing fine,” while another part of their brain was reduced, Filbey said.

Filbey acknowledged that this study doesn’t “conclusively address whether any or all of the brain changes are a direct consequence of marijuana use,” but she said “these effects do suggest that these changes are related to age of onset and duration of use.”

Watch this report about the study:

“Medical” Abuse:

…Since 1996, 20 states and the District of Columbia have approved “medical marijuana” laws, whereby people who obtain a prescription from a doctor can legally use or purchase marijuana. As in Colorado, many of these supposed medical regimes are degenerating into legalization by another name. Oregon, for example: At the end of 2012, it was home to 56,531 medical-marijuana patients. The majority of these 56,000-plus permissions were approved by only nine doctors. One doctor—an 80-year-old retired heart surgeon in Yakima—approved 4,180 medical-marijuana applications in a span of 12 months. Only 4 percent of Oregon’s medical-marijuana patients, as of the end of 2012, suffered from cancer. Only 1 percent were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. The large majority, 57 percent, cited unspecified “pain” as the ailment for which treatment was sought. Yet none of the nine doctors who wrote the majority of the marijuana prescriptions was a pain specialist.

Fewer than 2 percent of California card holders have HIV, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, or cancer: One survey found that the typical California medical-marijuana patient was a healthy 32-year-old man with a history of drug and alcohol abuse. Here, too, some doctors are signing thousands of recommendations after only the scantiest examination—or none at all. An NBC news investigator in Los Angeles visited one dispensary, was examined by a man who later proved to be an acupuncturist and massage therapist, and then received a prescription signed by a doctor who lived 67 miles away….

(Commentary Magazine)

UPDATE via The Daily Mail:

20-Year Study

The terrible truth about cannabis: British expert’s devastating 20-year study finally demolishes claims that smoking pot is harmless

  • One in six teenagers who regularly smoke the drug become dependent
  • It doubles risk of developing psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia
  • Heavy use in adolescence appears to impair intellectual development
  • Driving after smoking cannabis doubles risk of having a car crash
  • Study’s author said: ‘If cannabis is not addictive then neither is heroin’
  • Cannabis users do worse at school. Heavy use in adolescence appears to impair intellectual development
  • One in ten adults who regularly smoke the drug become dependent on it and those who use it are more likely to go on to use harder drugs
  • Smoking it while pregnant reduces the baby’s birth weight.

A definitive 20-year study into the effects of long-term cannabis use has demolished the argument that the drug is safe.

Cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and opens the door to hard drugs, the study found.

Last night Professor Hall, a professor of addiction policy at King’s College London, dismissed the views of those who say that cannabis is harmless.

‘If cannabis is not addictive then neither is heroin or alcohol,’ he said.

‘It is often harder to get people who are dependent on cannabis through withdrawal than for heroin – we just don’t know how to do it.’ 

Those who try to stop taking cannabis often suffer anxiety, insomnia, appetite disturbance and depression, he found. Even after treatment, less than half can stay off the drug for six months.

The paper states that teenagers and young adults are now as likely to take cannabis as they are to smoke cigarettes.

Professor Hall writes that it is impossible to take a fatal overdose of cannabis, making it less dangerous at first glance than heroin or cocaine. He also states that taking the drug while pregnant can reduce the weight of a baby, and long-term use raises the risk of cancer, bronchitis and heart attack.

But his main finding is that regular use, especially among teenagers, leads to long-term mental health problems and addiction.

‘The important point I am trying to make is that people can get into difficulties with cannabis use, particularly if they get into daily use over a longer period,’ he said. ‘There is no doubt that heavy users experience a withdrawal syndrome as with alcohol and heroin.

‘Rates of recovery from cannabis dependence among those seeking treatment are similar to those for alcohol.’

Mark Winstanley, of the charity Rethink Mental Illness, said: ‘Too often cannabis is wrongly seen as a safe drug, but as this review shows, there is a clear link with psychosis and schizophrenia, especially for teenagers.

‘The common view that smoking cannabis is nothing to get worked up about needs to be challenged more effectively. Instead of classifying and re-classifying, government time and money would be much better spent on educating young people about how smoking cannabis is essentially playing a very real game of Russian roulette with your mental health.’

 …read more…


For a 150+ studies showing brain damage and other serious health links caused by marijuana use, see Popular Technology Net


Just some more of my posts on or related to the matter — for the curious:

  • (J&K) It’s inevitable. People want to smoke weed legally? Fine. Whatever. Don’t bother us with the smoke and we’re all good. It’s about time to legalize it anyway, and California may as well get all that sweet sweet revenue from taxing the devil’s lettuce. So vote yes and toke up Cheech! YES
  • (GOP) Legalizes marijuana. Imposes a 15% excise tax on retail sales of marijuana. A marijuana legalization initiative was on the ballot in 2010 but was defeated by voters. Would allow marijuana ads on TV. This proposition is designed to benefit special interests in the marijuana business. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) Legalize Marijuana – NO. Dangerous in every respect. States like Colorado and Oregon where recreational use has been made legal are seeing big problems.

PROP 65 – NO

  • (J&K) So the money either goes to the grocery companies or to the state for vague environmental projects.  Just vote NO on Prop 67 and kill the whole thing. NO
  • (GOP) Redirects money collected by grocery and other retail stores for carry-out bags to a special fund managed by the Wildlife Conservation Board to support environmental projects. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) 65 — Proceeds from Grocery Bag Sales – This is very confusing, but here’s how it seems to work out best: NO on 65 65 hands those fees over to environmental groups. We don’t want that. We want to keep the money out of the hands of leftist environmentalists.

PROP 66 – YES

  • (J&K) The second of two initiatives on the death penalty, A Yes vote on this measure would reform the death penalty appeal system. Nowadays, an inmate sentenced to death could spend years wading through appeals. Proposition 66 would speed this up, and help bring closure to victims’ families and justice to brutal murderers. No brainer here. YES, YES, YES!
  • (GOP) Shortens the time for legal appeals to a death penalty conviction. Requires habeas corpus petitions be held in trial courts instead of the State Supreme Court. YES
  • (Dennis Prager) Shorten time for Death Penalty Appeals Process – YES. Long overdue.

PROP 67 – YES

(From REASON FOUNDATION) Opponents of Prop 67 argue that it is a $300 million per year hidden tax increase on California consumers. They will be forced to pay at least 10 cents for every single use bag they get at checkout at stores, and none of that money goes to the state or the environment. Instead Prop 67 allows the stores to keep that money in their profits. A plastic bag ban should not be used as an excuse to profit from charging consumers for bags they used to get without charge.

  • (J&K) Bag litter is minimal, kill the bag ban! NO, NO, NO!
  • (GOP) A referendum to overturn the plastic bag ban passed by the Legislature. The language here is tricky. If you want to overturn the ban on plastic bags, vote No. A yes vote retains the ban on plastic bags. A No vote would allow stores to once again provide single-purpose plastic carry-out bags. NO
  • (Dennis Prager) YES on 67.  67 leaves paper bag fees with retailers who are forced to buy them.