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I will used it to make my Facebook images to upload to Facebook email dennis and rain and say now I know why kathy was against your bill to legalize pot and only supported the medical marijuana bill do blog on july NORML & PCC meetings create new site for news articles - well create a model so I can copy this krap there email this out if it's good stuff!!!! its from http://www.freetempe.com/blog?page=2 Matt Papke Moving people from A to B in an efficient way is critical to keeping a big city moving, as workers and students are ferried to their stations the economy happens. But what is the price of this economy? According to Maricopa Association of Governments it costs $1.03 per rider per mile to move a passenger along the light rail. The Cost per mile of development is $60MM and the annual maintenance per mile is $1.2MM. he also points out the people republic of tempe is one of the most expensive governments in the valley http://www.freetempe.com/blog?page=5 get NORML articles of incorporation get Phoenix NORML articles of incorporation order shorts at walmat order shorts at Wal-Mart the lady I talked to today said that I could order my size 30 shorts at wal-mart and have them delivered to the store of my choice the details are: Faded Glory Bermuda Shorts size 32 or maybe 30 $8.88 on wal-mart website which is http://www.walmart.com/ go to Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry mens Faded Glory Men's Denim Carpenter Short their price is $11 not the $8.88 I saw in the store Nope this is what I want Faded Glory Men's Relaxed 5 Pocket Short $8.88

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Murder when done by the government pays very well!!!! "the head of the [execution or murder] team was paid $18,000 in cash — $6,000 for the executions and $6,000 for each of two days of training" http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/07/27/arizona-executions-faq-problems/13235309/ FAQ: Why Arizona executions face scrutiny Michael Kiefer, The Republic | azcentral.com 1:14 a.m. MST July 27, 2014 Even before convicted murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood was strapped to a gurney and the state of Arizona's executioner ran intravenous lines into his arms, the drug used to kill him in an unusually drawn-out execution, midazolam, had proven controversial. A federal judge had termed earlier executions in which it was used as "flawed." From the time the drugs started flowing, it took Wood almost two hours to die. Witnesses watched as he gasped and snored for much of that time. Execution by other lethal-injection drugs usually takes about 10 minutes. But those drugs are no longer available. State officials, from Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan to Gov. Jan Brewer, insist that the execution was not botched. But what happened and why are still under review by Corrections and, separately, by a federal court. Wood's long, slow death drew international attention and condemnation. And it raised anew questions about the viability of lethal injections, about how executions are carried out, and why the state keeps having to change the combination of drugs it uses. Here are answers to some of the common questions that have been asked since Wednesday's execution: Why shouldn't killers suffer the same way their victims did? The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. How are executions usually carried out? In 1992, Arizonans voted to replace the gas chamber with lethal injection as the preferred method of execution. Killers who committed their crimes before 1992 still have the option of being executed in the gas chamber, but only one has chosen that alternative in 22 years. Historically, the condemned person was injected with a short-acting anesthetic or barbiturate, followed by a drug that causes paralysis, and a drug that stops the heart. In recent years, most state departments of corrections in death-penalty states have moved to one-drug protocols, causing death by an overdose of the first drug. Usually the process takes about 10 minutes, though some executions can last 20 or 30 minutes. Wood was the first Arizona inmate put to death using the combination of midazolam, a Valium-like sedative, and hydromorphone, a narcotic painkiller. Who is the executioner and how much is he paid? The identities of executioners are shielded under state law, but the task requires medical training. The Corrections Department's execution protocol calls for at least two people on the IV team; they are chosen by Director Ryan and they must be physicians, nurses, physician's assistants, emergency medical technicians or corpsmen. The protocol does not specify how much they are paid, but depositions during litigation in 2011 revealed that the head of the team was paid $18,000 in cash — $6,000 for the executions and $6,000 for each of two days of training. Why is so much about the execution secret? Under state law, identities are concealed so that the medical personnel will not be harassed or threatened by anti-death-penalty lobbies or punished by their professional organizations; executing people goes against the ethical codes of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. In recent years, Arizona and other states have extended the secrecy to include the people and companies who procure or produce the drugs used in executions. The state and its attorneys argue that anti-death-penalty activists will pressure pharmaceutical firms and compounding pharmacies not to supply drugs to departments of corrections for executions. This has been an ongoing legal battle and was the reason the Wood execution was stayed twice before he was finally put to death. Defense attorneys for years have argued that they need to know the backgrounds of the people carrying out the executions and where the drugs are coming from. Why is there a scarcity of drugs for lethal injection? When lethal injection was introduced in 1977, it depended on a fast-acting anesthetic called thiopental, more commonly used, among other things, to sedate patients to put tubes down their throats or to deliver babies by Caesarean section. But it was an old drug that even predates the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, and it has largely been replaced by newer anesthetics like propofol. The supplies started to run out in 2010; it was no longer being manufactured in the United States. When propofol was taken off the market temporarily after Michael Jackson died from misusing it, doctors turned again to thiopental, and stores were depleted to the point where the Ohio Department of Corrections had trouble finding enough for an execution. Later that year, Arizona obtained thiopental for an October 2010 execution and claimed that the same law that protected executioners' identities protected suppliers when defense attorneys asked where it came from. The Arizona Republic reported that the drug had been obtained in England, and that Arizona's Department of Corrections had bypassed federal drug regulations to bring it into the country. It is illegal in the European Union to assist in executions in any country, so England and Italy shut down exports of thiopental for use in executions. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration later confiscated, in several states, thiopental supplies imported from Europe. Arizona and other states were forced to switch to the barbiturate pentobarbital, but its manufacturersin Europe and the U.S. also cut off access for executions. Several states, including Arizona, switched to the Valium relative, midazolam. Why don't pharmaceutical companies want to provide drugs for executions? The pharmaceutical companies are very close-lipped about their policies, generally referring reporters to official statements on their websites. In litigation, the Arizona Attorney General's Office claimed that publicity and anti-death-penalty activists influence the companies, which may be partly true. But there are other factors. The drugs used in executions by lethal injection all have valid clinical uses. They were invented to save lives and improve health, and the companies object to their use to kill people. Nor is it good marketing to be the company that makes death drugs. The European manufacturers of thiopental and pentobarbital are subject to European Union laws forbidding participation in executions. Why don't they use the same drugs that veterinarians use to euthanize animals? Veterinarians use pentobarbital, and the manufacturers of that drug refuse to sell it for executions. It was last used in Arizona in October 2013, and if there was any left over after two executions that month, it has since passed its expiration date. Why is midazolam controversial? Midazolam is not an anesthetic or a painkiller. It is a sedative and an amnesiac, used as a first drug in many minor medical procedures; you don't remember the unpleasantness of the procedure. Florida and Oklahoma incorporated it into a three-drug protocol. Ohio and Arizona used it in conjunction with the narcotic hydromorphone. But witnesses to an execution in Florida last October noted that it took longer to do its job. The Associated Press reported that the prisoner "remained conscious longer, and made more body movements after losing consciousness than other people executed recently by lethal injection under the old formula." An execution in Ohio in January raised eyebrows because the condemned man fought for breath and took more than 20 minutes to die. And in April, an Oklahoma killer appeared to be sedated and then started writhing in agony and died of an apparent heart attack after more than 40 minutes. An autopsy showed that the executioner had passed the catheter needle all the way through a vein in the man's groin, meaning the drugs were delivered into soft tissue instead of into the bloodstream. What happened in Wednesday's execution? Joseph Wood was very quickly sedated by the injection of midazolam and hydromorphone, but about five minutes into the procedure, he began gasping and snoring, and continued to struggle for breath for an hour and a half. It took nearly two hours for him to die. Corrections Director Ryan said that Wood was brain-dead, but continued to breathe. Assistant Arizona Attorney General Jeffrey Zick told a federal judge that it was an involuntary reaction, like that of a person in a coma taken off life support. He said that the medical team visually determined that Wood was brain-dead; Wood was not attached to an electroencephalogram, which measures brain activity and is commonly used to confirm brain death. What will happen next? Brewer ordered a review of the execution to determine what went wrong and what should happen next. Ryan said that he was already undertaking such a review without being told to do so. A federal judge and the Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that medical samples be taken and preserved, along with other evidence. There will be no executions until the review is completed, the Attorney General's Office said. How Arizona proceeds with executions in the future remains to be seen, though an assistant Arizona attorney general hinted that one option would be to continue to use midazolam as part of a three-drug protocol as in Florida. Why don't they go back to other methods of execution? Pundits and politicians have said that we should return to older methods of execution, like firing squad, hanging or the electric chair. Even the chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in his dissent to the court's refusal to lift a stay of execution, said that execution by lethal injection gives the impression that it is more humane than other forms of killing. "If some states and the federal government wish to continue carrying out the death penalty, they must turn away from this misguided path and return to more primitive — and foolproof — methods of execution," wrote Judge Alex Kozinski. He mused over the guillotine, the electric chair, hanging, the gas chamber and decided that firing squads made the most sense. "Firearms have no purpose other than destroying their targets," he wrote. "... If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by a firing squad, then we shouldn't be carrying out executions at all."

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I wonder, is this a hit piece by someone who has a vested interest in keeping marijuana illegal??? http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/26/pot-seen-as-reason-for-rise-in-denver-homeless/13210497/ Pot seen as reason for rise in Denver homeless AP 11:13 a.m. MST July 26, 2014 DENVER — Officials at some Denver homeless shelters say the legalization of marijuana has contributed to an increase in the number of younger people living on the city's streets. One organization dealing with the increase is Urban Peak, which provides food, shelter and other services to homeless people aged 15 to 24 in Denver and Colorado Springs. "Of the new kids we're seeing, the majority are saying they're here because of the weed," deputy director Kendall Rames told The Denver Post (http://dpo.st/1l1vQER ). "They're traveling through. It is very unfortunate." The Salvation Army's single men's shelter in Denver has been serving more homeless this summer, and officials have noted an increase in the number of 18- to 25-year-olds there. The shelter housed an average of 225 each night last summer, but this summer it's averaging 300 people per night. No breakdown was available by age, but an informal survey found that about a quarter of the increase was related to marijuana, including people who moved hoping to find work in the marijuana industry, said Murray Flagg, divisional social services secretary for the Salvation Army's Intermountain Division. Some of the homeless have felony backgrounds that prevent them from working in pot shops and grow houses, which are regulated by the state, Flagg said. He also thinks others may find work but don't earn enough to pay rent in Denver's expensive housing market. At the St. Francis Center, a daytime homeless shelter, pot is the second most frequently volunteered reason for being in Colorado, after looking for work. St. Francis executive director Tom Leuhrs also sees an economic reason for the increase of the number of homeless young people. They're having difficulty moving from high school and college to the workforce, Leuhrs said. "The economy is not supporting them. There are not enough jobs," he said. Edward Madewell said he was on his way back home to Missouri when he decided to head to Colorado so he could keep smoking the marijuana he uses to control seizures. "I'm not going to stop using something organic. I don't like the pills," he said. Dusty Taylor, 20, said he moved back to Colorado, where he grew up, to avoid legal problems. "I don't want to catch a felony for smoking," he said. ___ Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_26216037/legal-pot-blamed-some-influx-homeless-this-summer Legal pot blamed for some of influx of homeless in Denver this summer By Tom McGhee The Denver Post Posted: 07/25/2014 11:48:18 AM MDT When Edward Madewell's mother asked him to come home after five years of homelessness and drift, he bought a Greyhound bus ticket and headed for Missouri. Halfway there, his mother told him he would have to give up the marijuana he uses to control seizures and switch to prescribed medicine. Madewell changed his plans and headed for Colorado, where recreational weed has been sold legally since Jan. 1. "I'm not going to stop using something organic," he said. "I don't like the pills." Madewell is among the homeless lured to Colorado by legal marijuana who are showing up at shelters and other facilities, stressing a system that has seen an unusually high number of people needing help this summer. Denver homeless and marijuana A young, homeless woman with the street name of "Q" smokes marijuana from a glass pipe handed to her by Dusty Taylor, 20, right, also currently homeless, at the intersection of 21st Ave and Stout St. in downtown Denver Wednesday morning, July 23, 2014. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post) "Of the new kids we're seeing, the majority are saying they're here because of the weed. They're traveling through. It is very unfortunate," said Kendall Rames, deputy director of Urban Peak, a nonprofit that provides food, shelter and other services to young people in Denver and Colorado Springs. Younger visitors to Father Woody's Haven of Hope, which serves people age 18 and older, typically are more demanding and difficult than their elders, director Melinda Paterson said. "Typically, they have an attitude. But we are really strict here. We treat you with respect, ... and if they are not respectful, we ask them to leave," she said. Combined with an increase in those who arrive penniless and seeking jobs in the state's strengthening employment market, the homeless influx is straining a service network already under stress, said Murray Flagg, divisional social services secretary for the Salvation Army's Intermountain Division. Not everyone who works with the homeless singles out marijuana as a contributing factor to their arrival here. "We have had an influx, and the majority of them have been from out of town. I have no idea if the marijuana law has had an impact," Paterson said. But homeless advocates agree that numbers have swollen, sometimes dramatically, over the past year. The number of those who go to Father Woody's normally rises by about 50 people per month during the summer, Paterson said. This year, she said, "we have gotten 923 new homeless over the last three months," more than 300 a month. About two months ago, she added, the shelter began bringing those who eat breakfast and lunch there to the table in shifts to accommodate the increase. "It is worrisome in the sense that how are we going to clothe and feed and find shelter for them?" she said. Between May 1 and July 15, Urban Peak's drop-in center, where homeless people 15 through 24 can get a meal, do laundry, shower or take GED and other classes, saw the number of new visitors jump by 5 percent over the same period last year, Rames said. Last summer, the Salvation Army's single men's Crossroads Shelter in Denver housed an average of 225 men each night. This summer's average is about 300 per night, and when other shelters are full, the organization provides a bed for as many as 350, Flagg said. In the past, the shelter's residents averaged between 35 and 60 years old. "Now we are seeing a much larger number of 18- to 25-year- olds." An informal survey performed at the shelter suggested that about 25 percent of the increase in population was related to marijuana, Flagg said. While many come to smoke without worrying about the law, others "are folks looking to work in the industry, a lot of them have an agricultural background," or other experience they expect will be in demand, he said. They may also have a felony on their record that automatically disqualifies them from getting a job in the highly regulated business. Those who do find jobs in pot shops and grow houses often don't earn enough to pay rent or buy a home in Denver's expensive housing market, Flagg said. They, too, can end up homeless. The shelters don't require anyone to explain why they came to Colorado, but some do volunteer their reasons. On the list of reasons given at St. Francis Center, a daytime shelter, marijuana trails only looking for work, said Tom Leuhrs, the executive director. While marijuana use contributes to the number of homeless, the growth in their numbers indicates that people are having difficulty moving into the workforce from high school and college, Leuhrs said. "The economy is not supporting them. There are not enough jobs," Leuhrs said. He sees an almost even split between those, like Madewell, who say they use pot for medical reasons, and others who crave easy access to a legal high. Dusty Taylor, 20, who was standing in line for breakfast at Urban Peak this week, said he came back to Colorado, where he grew up and had been homeless in the past, after hearing weed had been legalized. "I said, I should go back. It was, like, I don't want to catch a felony for smoking." Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dpmcghee

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When the government investigates itself, about the only thing you can count on is finding that the govenrment bureaucrats involved did nothing wrong and no mistakes were made. Well unless they are investigating someone they don't like. In that case the person being investigated will be thrown on the railroad tracks, guilt or not! http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/25/joseph-rudolph-wood-execution-investigation/13194255/ Sure, THIS will be a thorough investigation Editorial board, The Republic | azcentral.com 4:18 p.m. MST July 26, 2014 Our View: Prisons director says Joseph Rudolph Wood's execution wasn't botched. But he's committed to 'comprehensive review'? Riiiiight. The state prisons director says he's committed to a thorough review of Joseph Rudolph Wood's excruciatingly long execution. But in the same breath, Corrections Director Charles Ryan says the execution was not botched. "The evidence gathered thus far supports the opposite" conclusion, he said in a prepared statement. So, just how thorough and comprehensive will Ryan's review of the execution be? Excuse us if we have no confidence it will be anything more than a whitewash. Let's review. The execution team started pumping drugs into Wood at 1:54 p.m. He did not die for almost two hours, or about 10 times longer than most executions by lethal injection. How is that not a botched execution? He was sedated the whole time, Ryan argues. And an autopsy showed the intravenous lines were "perfectly placed." The drugs went where they were supposed to be, even if they weren't terribly effective. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Wood gulped for air more than 650 times in the 115 minutes after the drugs began coursing through this veins. It took so long his defense attorneys petitioned a judge to stop the execution, learning only then that prison staff had administered a second dose. But nothing was botched, Ryan says. Yes, it was. It should not take two hours for the state to kill a man. And if Ryan denies that basic fact, he and his department have no business investigating themselves. This needs to be handed off to another agency, such as the Department of Public Affairs, that will follow the facts where they lead instead of short-circuiting the review before it begins. Arizona inmates executed since 1992: [Photos follow, not text!!!!]

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Marijuana Is a Welcome Wedding Guest in Colorado and Washington State http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/fashion/marijuana-wedding-guest-colorado-and-washington-state.html?hpw&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well A Toast? How About a Toke? Marijuana Is a Welcome Wedding Guest in Colorado and Washington State By LOIS SMITH BRADY JULY 25, 2014 Earlier this month, when Ellen Epstein arrived at the Devil’s Thumb Ranch in Tabernash, Colo., for the wedding of her friends Lauren Meisels and Bradley Melshenker, she, like the other guests, found a gift bag waiting for her in her hotel room. But rather than a guide to activities in the area or a jar of locally made honey, the canvas bag contained a rolled joint, a lighter and lip balm infused with mango butter and cannabis, along with this note: “We wanted to show you some of the things we love the best.” She knew then that the wedding of her fellow Boulder residents would be just a little different from the ones she had attended in the past. The Meisels and Melshenker nuptials looked as if their inspiration had come not from the pages of Martha Stewart Weddings but from High Times. All of the floral arrangements, including the bride’s bouquet, contained a variety of white flowers mixed with marijuana buds and leaves. Mr. Melshenker and his groomsmen wore boutonnieres crafted out of twine and marijuana buds, and Mr. Melshenker’s three dogs, who were also in attendance, wore collars made of cannabis buds, eucalyptus leaves and pink ribbons. Before going into dinner, the guests were given a baby marijuana plant in a ceramic pot with their name and table assignment written on a card in green ink, in the kind of stylish script you might find on a container of artisanal goat cheese. The tables were named after different strains of marijuana, like Blue Dream, Sour Diesel and Skywalker (the groom’s favorite strain). Ms. Epstein, who was seated at Skywalker, said that everyone at her table, where the ages ranged from 40 to 70, passed around a device similar to an electronic cigarette — except that it contained hash oil instead of nicotine. “It didn’t feel weird or bizarre,” she said. “It kind of becomes a new cocktail.” With the sale of marijuana for recreational use now legal in Colorado and Washington State, pot and its various paraphernalia are becoming visible at weddings in those states — as table favors for guests like miniature vaporizers or group activites like a hookah lounge. Brides and grooms, even ones who say they don’t partake often but want to be hospitable, are giving guests choices that are much different than the standard merlot or chardonnay. Now, the choice could be Tangerine Haze or Grape Ape. Marijuana use at weddings is “out of the closet now,” said Kelli Bielema of Shindig Events in Seattle. “I did a wedding recently where they had a little box, like a trinket box, and it had a bunch of joints in it. They just passed it around, and said, ‘Here, enjoy yourself.’ ” The choice to make pot an integral if not central part of their wedding was almost a no-brainer for Mr. Melshenker, 32, and Ms. Meisels, 34 (who also had an open bar). Cannabis had been a major part of the couple’s relationship from the beginning. Ms. Meisels, who grew up in Manhattan, and Mr. Melshenker, who is from Maryland, met in 2007, when they were both living in Los Angeles. On their first date, they smoked a joint together, and Ms. Meisels, who worked at United Talent Agency at the time, told Mr. Melshenker she had been searching for a boyfriend who smoked pot. “She was like, ‘I’ve been going out partying every night and I need a pothead to slow me down, to cook dinners and watch movies instead of this Hollywood night life,’ ” Mr. Melshenker remembered. Five years ago, they moved together to Boulder, and opened the Greenest Green, a marijuana dispensary and cultivation center, which they recently sold. “Our whole life for the last five years has been cannabis, cannabis, cannabis,” said Mr. Melshenker, who with Ms. Meisels now operates Green Life Consulting, an advisory firm for those who want to start marijuana-based businesses, and 710 Labs, which manufactures concentrates like hash oil. Many pot enthusiasts think of alcohol as an old-fashioned, old-school toxin whose overuse can inflame family tensions and cause people to say horrible things, especially at weddings. In comparison, marijuana, they contend, is more like a tonic that calms people down and makes them like each other more rather than less — perfect for a wedding, they say. Some of those who have attended weddings where joints, bongs, vaporizers, e-pens or hookahs are passed around also say it heightens the community-building mood that is inherent at a wedding. At Get High Getaways, a bed-and-breakfast in Denver, smoking pot is “not only permitted but encouraged,” said Dale Dyke, who runs the place with his wife, Chastity Osborn. Last March, Mr. Dyke and Ms. Osborn hosted a wedding and reception at their inn featuring joints rolled from various strains of marijuana including Critical Mass, Widow Kush and Skunk 1. (The bride and groom said they love smoking marijuana but did not want to be interviewed about it.) “Everybody was blazing the whole time,” said Mr. Dyke, who believes cannabis is a much more romantic substance than alcohol because it represents exploration, rebellion, openness and togetherness. “Marijuana intoxication is full of positive emotion. People feel love and connection. Every single person cried at the wedding.” The rules and regulations about marijuana — particularly regarding where it is legal to use and where it is not — are still being written and constantly changing, like springtime weather in the Rockies. It is legal to imbibe on private property but not in public; however, there is endless debate about what constitutes private versus public. Heather Dwight, who runs Calluna Events in Boulder and organized the Melshenker-Meisels wedding, said it was difficult to find a place that would permit a joint bar or hookah lounge. Even the owners of “private” spaces, such as lofts or large houses, balked. It was possible to openly serve marijuana at the Get High Getaways wedding because B&Bs are considered private property and Mr. Dyke was open to it. Many of the most popular places to hold weddings in Colorado, like the Denver Botanic Gardens, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the top of Aspen Mountain, forbid marijuana, citing the law against consumption in public. Tourists complain that marijuana is simple to buy in Colorado (dispensaries are almost easier to find than Starbucks cafes), but there are very few places where it is clearly legal to consume it. So, for now, Ms. Dwight said, the easiest place to have a weed wedding is in your own backyard. Because they are smokeless, cakes and pies with cannabis baked in are a hard-to-detect way of consuming pot in public. It is also illegal to do so. In Washington State, Alison Draisin, a baker who creates what she calls “medibles” — because she intends them for medicinal use — said, “A restaurant cannot offer medibles on their menu, as it stands now.” Even die-hard marijuana enthusiasts say the high from edibles can be incredibly powerful and long-lasting. Julie Dooley, of Julie & Kate Baked Goods in Denver, makes granola that contains THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and describes the experience of ingesting a pot-infused edible this way: “It’s not like wine or a joint you might pass around for a fun party atmosphere. When you eat an edible, you are committed for four hours and mine can last six to 12 hours. It’s a long experience.” Also, most edibles, which include caramels, lollipops and chocolates, look like regular treats, which makes them especially tempting for children. At a wedding where a tray of pot brownies was served a few weeks ago, the hired planner, Kerri Butler of A Touch of Bliss in Denver, said that the space’s bartenders checked the IDs of guests before handing out the brownies (which had been baked by the mother of the bride). Jake Rosenbarger of Kim & Jake’s Cakes in Boulder said he would not make a cannabis cake if asked. Marijuana ruins the flavor, he said, and it can even ruin a wedding. “It can divide a room as much as pull it together,” he said. “It creates a vibe of, ‘Are you in the cool kids club or not?’ ” Penni Ervin, a wedding planner in Crested Butte, was aghast when asked if she was working on any weddings in which pot was involved. “We’re talking about highly professional people, and I just don’t see C.E.O.s getting stoned,” she said. “It’s a family event with grandma and grandpa,” adding, “and you don’t want them to get shocked.” Before Jennifer Beck, 27, and Chase Beck, 24, were married on May 3, also at the Devil’s Thumb Ranch, they briefly discussed serving THC-infused cupcakes in addition to traditional ones. Mr. and Mrs. Beck, who founded Cannabase.io, a Denver Internet company that connects customers to marijuana-based businesses, ultimately decided not to include the special cupcakes, in part because it was springtime, the season when the rivers are raging with snowmelt and the bears are coming out of hibernation — not the ideal moment for anyone to be stoned in the mountains. However, Mr. Beck had no qualms about sharing some weed — a strain called Space Cheese, to be exact — with his groomsmen after the ceremony at a private cabin he rented nearby. “The Space Cheese itself lent a giggly buzz to everyone while we rehashed the day’s events,” he said. Today, there are “budtenders” (think sommeliers, only they work with cannabis instead of wine) in every dispensary, to help couples who are so inclined find the ideal strains for their weddings. Bec Koop just opened a business, Buds and Blossoms in Alma, Colo., to advise those who want to include marijuana in their centerpieces, dinner salads, bouquets and boutonnieres (or “bud-tonnieres,” as she calls them). When it comes to marijuana, she is like a skier bombing down a steep slope, far more adventurous than cautious. For instance, during a recent conversation, she suggested placing a tincture containing flavored (like peppermint or vanilla) THC-infused liquid next to the wedding cake, for guests who might want to add a few droplets. “Like putting syrup on your pancakes,” she exclaimed. Ms. Koop believes brides and grooms should choose their wedding weed as carefully as they select their music or clothes. Certain strains help shy people get up and actually enjoy dancing in front of a crowd, she said, while others could bring out the carefree, bubbly side of even the most ferocious Bridezillas. “If there are two conflicting families who are not too happy about the wedding,” she said, “you might want to find a strain that will make them a bit more euphoric.” Kristen Tsiatsios, co-owner of Jubilee Event Engineers in Seattle, worked on a wedding last summer that had a jazz-era theme and included a cigar/joint bar set up outside the reception hall. “We just walked around telling people, ‘If you go to the cigar bar, there are joints underneath the table,’ ” said Brandon Wagner, the bridegroom. “Prohibition is over.” As it turned out, the “cigar bar” was like a strong undertow that drew all the guests outside. “Nobody was on the dance floor,” Ms. Tsiatsios said. “Everyone had gone out front to get stoned, and there they stayed the whole night.” It is hard to predict if pot will become more or less popular at weddings in the future. Mark Buddemeyer, a Colorado budtender whose nickname is actually Bud, expressed doubts that marijuana would ever become widely acceptable at weddings. “We’ve got to get to the point where smoking is classier than drinking,” he said. “A bride blowing out a big cloud of smoke is not necessarily attractive.” (Of course, you do not have to inhale to get high anymore. You could drink one of Dixie Elixirs’ THC-infused sparkling beverages that come in trendy flavors like pomegranate or watermelon cream.) Others wonder if it’s really necessary for a bride and groom to heighten, lighten, deepen or in any way alter the experience of getting married. Isn’t promising to spend the rest of your life with someone enough of a high? The Becks made a pact not to get stoned (or tipsy) before their ceremony. “It does change your energy,” Mrs. Beck said. “It does change your ability to engage. For the wedding, you’ve got to be there.” One thing that can be said about weed weddings is they are likely to generate less waste. While many centerpieces, boutonnieres or bouquets are typically thrown out, ones made out of marijuana buds will probably not be discarded. For the wedding at Get High Getaways, Ms. Osborn made the bride’s bouquet, which included several buds of S.A.G.E. Zeta. After the wedding, Mr. Dyke said, the newly married couple hung the bouquet in a closet at home to dry it out, and intend to smoke it on their wedding anniversary next year. Mr. Dyke likened it to the tradition to saving a piece of wedding cake in the freezer and sharing it on the first anniversary. This practice could be a new way to relive the day. As Mr. Dyke put it, “You catch the same buzz you had on your wedding day.” Donna Bryson contributed reporting from Denver, and Stacey Solie from Seattle.

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LAPD patrol car runs over man lying in street, killing him “We’re trying to figure out why he was laying down in the road," LAPD Officer Liliana Preciado said. My question, which the cops will probably ridicule as being a stupid question, is "Why did the cops run over the guy????" Of course I don't have to make up a lame answer to justify this police murder. http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-80925751/ LAPD patrol car runs over man lying in street, killing him By Caitlin Owens July 28, 2014, 8:12 a.m. A Los Angeles police car ran over a man who was lying in the street Sunday night, killing him, officials said. Officer were responding to a call about a naked man running around the neighborhood of Adams Boulevard and Hillcrest Avenue about 10:20 p.m. when they ran over him, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. While driving to the location on eastbound Adams close to Buckingham Road, the officers' car collided with the pedestrian, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. KTLA-TV Channel 5 reported that the man was naked, although police could not immediately confirm that early Monday morning. The man, who police said is in his late 50s or early 60s, was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity was not immediately available. “We’re trying to figure out why he was laying down in the road," LAPD Officer Liliana Preciado said. For breaking news in Los Angeles and the Southland, follow @Caitlin__Owens, or email her at caitlin.owens@latimes.com.

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the NY Times reflected what a majority of Americans have told pollsters: Marijuana should be legal And Andrew Myers, the guy who runs the Arizona Dispensaries Association says that the public only supports the legalization of marijuana for smoking, not growing. Personally I think Andrew Myers is wrong!!!! On the other hand I suspect that Andrew Myers has a financial interest in this issue. The medical marijuana dispensaries in his Arizona Dispensaries Association won't be able to sell the public marijuana at $300+ an ounce rip off prices if the public is allowed to grow marijuana when it is legalized. http://touch.latimes.com/#section/607/article/p2p-80923661/ U.S. sees profound cultural shift on marijuana legalization Matt Pearce, Maria L. La Ganga July 27, 2014, 9:14 p.m. More than a third of adults have smoked it — including the last three presidents. Dozens of songs and movies have been made about it. Marijuana is no longer whispered about, nor hidden in back rooms and basements. It has come into the open in American life despite decades of prohibition and laws treating the drug as more dangerous than meth and cocaine. When the New York Times' editorial board called this weekend for the U.S. government to end its ban on weed — and let states decide how to regulate it — the newspaper reflected what a majority of Americans have told pollsters: Marijuana should be legal. The status quo, according to advocates and even the president, has resulted in the disproportionate arrests of minorities and the poor. "The social costs of the marijuana laws are vast," the editorial said. "There were 658,000 arrests for marijuana possession in 2012, according to FBI figures, compared with 256,000 for cocaine, heroin and their derivatives. Even worse, the result is racist, falling disproportionately on young black men, ruining their lives and creating new generations of career criminals." These are not new arguments. But this time they come from the New York Times, not High Times. Support for marijuana legalization has grown so rapidly within the last decade, and especially within the last two years, that some advocates and pollsters have compared it with the sudden collapse of opposition to same-sex marriage as a culture-redefining event. Gallup has found more popular support for legalizing marijuana than for legalizing same-sex marriage. In Gallup's most recent survey on the issue, in 2013, 58% of respondents said marijuana should be legal — up from 46% a year earlier and 31% in the early 2000s. This spring, 55% said gay and lesbian couples should be able to marry. When Colorado passed a ballot measure in 2012 legalizing recreational marijuana, more residents voted for legal weed than for President Obama (who carried the state). Washington state's legalization effort also passed handily. Yet through a combination of ballot measures, legislative action and judicial action, same-sex marriage has found far more success across the U.S., in a campaign supporters liken to the civil rights movement. For marijuana, a better historical comparison is Prohibition — when alcohol was banned in the early 20th century. Public officials have moved more slowly on pot, in many cases taking incremental steps like decriminalizing possession of small amounts and legalizing the drug for medicinal use. Taboos have slowly faded. Former President Clinton confessed to smoking marijuana but famously claimed that he "didn't inhale." George W. Bush told a friend in a recorded conversation that he didn't want to answer questions about past marijuana use because "I don't want some little kid doing what I tried." Obama was bolder, declaring before he was elected, "Of course I inhaled — that was the point!" In a New Yorker interview published in January, Obama said, "I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol." But he worried legalizing marijuana would create a slippery slope for legalizing more dangerous drugs. The American Medical Assn., while calling for more clinical testing, has expressed skepticism that medicinal marijuana meets federal safety standards for prescriptions. The American Psychiatric Assn.'s most recent policy statement says, "There is no current scientific evidence that marijuana is in any way beneficial for the treatment of any psychiatric disorder." Dissenters also worry that creating a legal marijuana industry would simply be the next Big Tobacco, with legalization bringing higher rates of addiction and mental health problems. "When you look back at Prohibition, what you see is that per-capita use of alcohol during Prohibition dropped more than 50%; as a result of that, alcohol-related deaths dropped considerably as well," says Stuart Gitlow, president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. "Prohibition was an enormous public health success." Even light marijuana use, Gitlow said, can harm brain function. Gitlow added of tobacco: "We've gone over these past 30 to 40 years from about half the population smoking cigarettes to a much smaller figure.... Now the public wants to start that cycle again with a different drug they consider safer [when] the data aren't all in. Why would we want to potentially start that disaster all over again?" Colorado and Washington are de facto laboratories for legalization. In Washington, where marijuana stores opened July 8, officials say it's too early to draw many conclusions. "There was a lot of concern that maybe it would end up being a three-ring circus, and we'd have people abusing it or overdosing on it," Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said. "Those sorts of problems have not manifest themselves in relation to the few stores that are open." Alison Holcomb, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who drafted Initiative 502, which legalized marijuana in the state, said, "Things seem to be going very well in Washington." For one thing, she said, the first 10 days of sales generated $318,000 in new tax revenue. Holcomb added that in 2012, the year that I-502 passed, law enforcement officers made 5,531 marijuana-related arrests statewide. In 2013, that dropped to 120. She said it "would take a while" to evaluate whether full legalization affects use by young people. Seattle City Atty. Pete Holmes was third in line when legal weed sales came to the city. On Sunday, he said the only way to get rid of the black market was for legal stores to succeed and the unregulated medical marijuana system to be folded into the well-regulated recreational system. "Prohibition has failed to keep marijuana out of the hands of children," Holmes said. "It has made criminals wealthy and promoted violence and kept us in the dark about what rational regulation would look like." Colorado, where legal sales began Jan. 1, has had some stumbles. Sheriffs in neighboring states (where pot remains illegal) have complained they are arresting more drivers coming from Colorado with marijuana. Fourth-graders have faced discipline after allegedly selling their grandparents' legally purchased pot to classmates. Some emergency rooms have reported treating children who accidentally ate edible marijuana. And two consumers may have had deadly reactions — including a 19-year-old college student who plunged from a Denver balcony to his death after eating a pot cookie. Also in Denver, a 47-year-old man was accused of shooting his wife to death after taking drugs and eating marijuana-infused candy. "Colorado is proving that legalization in practice is a lot uglier than legalization in theory," said Kevin Sabet, president of the policy group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, who opposes legalization, citing reports of increased calls to poison centers for marijuana overexposure. "I've urged all the governors to go cautiously on this because I think there are risks that we're only just beginning to understand," Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said in June. "But this is going to be one of the great social experiments of the 21st century." matt.pearce@latimes.com maria.laganga@latimes.com Twitter: @mattdpearce @marialaganga

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Drug courts, meant to aid addicts, now a battlefield of pot politics I routinely say that the "Drug War" is a jobs program for cops, prison guards, judges, probation officers and prosecutors. Sell sadly the "War on Drugs" is also a government welfare program for a whole slew of other industries which operate in conjunction with the government "War on Drugs" which jails people for the victimless crimes of using marijuana and other illegal drugs. There is big money to be made by companies such as these that participate in the governments "War on Drugs" and get government money to rehabilitate people who commit the victimless crime of using drugs. Or in many cases where the courts force the people themselves to pay the cost of their rehabilitation. http://touch.latimes.com/#section/607/article/p2p-80916538/ Drug courts, meant to aid addicts, now a battlefield of pot politics By Evan Halper July 26, 2014, 4:15 p.m. Attorney David West can't pinpoint precisely when he started to sour on the rapid expansion of drug courts — but the karate episode stands out. West, a criminal defense lawyer in the Atlanta area, was representing a client busted in a town north of the city for possession of pot. Faced with the prospect of losing his driver's license and being haunted by a criminal record, the client opted for treatment. The intensive, costly therapy was more appropriate for a heroin addict, West said. What he found particularly absurd was the requirement that his client enroll in and pay for three months of martial-arts training. "It is ridiculous," said West, who has since had other clients ordered to take karate. "What does that have to do with marijuana?" Both the White House and prominent Republicans have pushed to expand drug courts — programs that allow drug offenders to choose court-supervised treatment over punishment. And there is little doubt that such programs can sometimes have dramatically positive effects. West and many experts credit them with transforming the lives of addicts. But many longtime supporters of the program have become dismayed by the extent to which the courts now reach into the lives of people whose only infraction was to light up a joint. More Americans are arrested for pot possession than any other drug offense, with more than 650,000 such arrests in 2012. In many areas, those charged with marijuana possession are the single largest group of offenders sent to drug-court treatment programs. Though drug courts have been pitched as a way to divert hard-core addicts from prison and into treatment, strict eligibility rules in many jurisdictions bar chronic abusers of hard drugs. "For serious drug offenders it has been a far better alternative than prison," said John Roman, a senior analyst at the Urban Institute who began studying drug courts 17 years ago, when only a handful existed. "The problem is very few people who have those serious problems get into one of these drug courts. Instead, we take all kinds of people into drug court who don't have serious problems." As a result, the courts, which are controlled locally and now number more than 2,700, have become a battleground of marijuana politics. For example, while Colorado makes pot available for purchase to any adult who will pay the sales tax, some counties in neighboring Kansas send even casual users to treatment for drug abuse. Some pot users who might have simply faced a fine in the regular court system are instead getting moved into the drug-court system for months on end, Roman said. They are often required to pay for expensive treatment programs and risk jail time if they break program rules along the way. "Once you get that deep into the criminal justice system, it can be really hard to get out," Roman said. So many marijuana offenders are being shuffled through drug courts that some counties now have entire courtrooms that deal with just that group. In south Florida's Broward County, a special marijuana drug court processes some 50 to 80 offenders each day, three days a week. The judge who runs it is hardly a crusader against pot. In an interview, Judge John A. Frusciante expressed ambivalence about the nation's shift toward decriminalization. The people who wind up in his court typically have problems that run much deeper than affinity for an occasional bong hit, he said. "If you really have your act together and are using weed, it is probably under controlled circumstances where you are not going to be arrested," Frusciante said. "If you are using it to the point where you are getting arrested, something is wrong there." Frusciante insists those who go through his program be screened for earlier traumas, such as sexual abuse, that can be addressed with targeted therapy. He says offenders are constantly thanking him — and even their arresting officers — for helping them gain a footing in life. His descriptions of the process sometimes sound more like those of a social worker than a judge. "We try to emphasize that each and every individual is worth it," he said. "I don't care if they are homeless, if their mother, their brother, their teacher told them they will never amount to anything. They have value. We try to convince them of that." Frusciante said that few graduates of the program get rearrested, and statistics back him up. According to the National Assn. of Drug Court Professionals, 75% of drug-court graduates are free of any new criminal charges two years after graduating from the program. But critics say a major reason the drug courts can boast such success is because they avoid tackling the hard cases. A group of scholars who recently reviewed data from drug courts concluded the system has done little to reduce prison crowding for that reason. "People want these programs to be successful," said Harold Pollack, a professor of social service administration at the University of Chicago. "They are leery of bringing populations into them that will frighten the public." Broward County's long-time public defender, a former cocaine addict who says drug courts can, indeed, work miracles, called the county's marijuana court "one of the stupidest courts ever created." "Most of the people in drug court now are not like me," said Howard Finkelstein. "They are not addicts." "Everybody who gets arrested with drugs is automatically put in the category of drug addict. Then it is off to the races," Finkelstein added. "Come to court every month. Get treatment here. Get counseling there. It just becomes a justification for the court." In New York, attorneys at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem say they are continually frustrated to see small-time pot offenders get pressured into treatment regimens while addicts they represent are disqualified. "It is not working the way we thought or hoped it would," said Rick Jones, executive director of the nonprofit group. In the spring, a homeless client addicted to cocaine and heroin was accepted into drug court after an arrest for selling drugs. Soon after, though, the court blocked him from entering treatment. Corrections department records said that the defendant had told a jail intake officer during a prior arrest that he had thought about suicide. The treatment center contracted by the state said it was not equipped to handle suicidal patients. So the client was sent to prison. "We dangled the opportunity for treatment and help in front of him, then they said we can't place him in a program," said Teghan DeLane, the attorney on the case. "It was incredibly unfair… I started crying in the courtroom." But nobody was crying for a truck driver in Broward County recently arrested for marijuana possession. He told the court he was not a drug abuser and had no desire for counseling. The court, though, had another plan. "I asked to see his driver's license," said Judge Sharon Zeller, who sometimes presides over the marijuana court. "Then I asked the clerk for a pair of scissors, put the driver's license in the scissors and held it up. I said, 'Do you understand what this will do to your license?' He turned white as a ghost… This man is now going to sign up for drug court." evan.halper@latimes.com

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Can Andrew Thomas get elected???? http://www.azcentral.com/story/laurieroberts/2014/07/28/andrew-thomas-prospects-for-winning-gop/13191933/ Can Andrew Thomas win? Laurie Roberts, columnist | azcentral.com 9:26 a.m. MST July 28, 2014 He is "the one true conservative". A "warrior", taking on the gays and the Mexicans with one hand while fighting off the "liberal elites" with the other as he continues his quest to be Arizona's next governor. The only candidate, we're told, who can save us "before it's too late." Last week, Andrew Thomas unveiled his plan to fight illegal immigration and I must say, he made the red meat being tossed by Christine Jones and Doug Ducey look like so much poultry. (You know, chicken?) Thomas wants to build a fence and if the feds and Native Americans who own the land won't let him build it at the Mexican border, he says he'll build it up to 200 miles north of the border. Instead of the Berlin Wall, we'll have "The Patton Line", as Thomas calls it, and anyone wanting in or out of southern Arizona would go through checkpoints, manned by the Arizona National Guard. Hey, we never liked Tucson that much anyway. Political consultants are rolling their eyes at the outlandish campaign of the former Maricopa County attorney who just two years ago was disbarred for abusing his prosecutorial power. Thomas, they say, is not only disbarred and disgraced but deluded if he thinks he can win the Aug. 26 Republican primary. "He appeals to a very narrow, a very angry segment of the Republican Party and that's it," says Chuck Coughlin, whose firm HighGround is working with Scott Smith. "The story that follows him around, at least, in this media market, is still very consistent: the disbarment, the abuse of power. Even in activist conservative circles, they know he's unhinged." Funny, I remember people telling me that same thing nearly three decades ago when I was a young political reporter and another guy was running for governor. His name was Evan Mecham. Mecham sold Pontiacs and was a perennial candidate, a far-right outlier who also called himself the "true conservative" as he railed against the state's "invisible power structure," including newspaper and downtown fat cats, and vowed to rescind the then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt's executive order creating a state Martin Luther King holiday. The week before the primary election, House Majority Leader Burton Barr held a "comfortable" lead over Mecham in the polls, 35 percent to 20 percent, with 45 percent still undecided. I can still hear the sound of jaws hitting the ground on election night, when Mecham bested Barr with 54 percent of the vote. He went on to become governor, thanks to a three-way race that allowed him to slip in with 40 percent support. Now we have Thomas, running like it's 2010 -- and in a way, it is, with illegal immigration once again THE issue in Republican circles. Thomas, the only candidate in the herd who is also taking on "the homosexual agenda". Thomas, who explains that he was disbarred "by Arizona's courts after he exposed the courts' refusal to enforce state immigration laws." "Vote Andrew Thomas before it's too late," he says his TV ad, as a Mexican flag slowly covers Arizona. Remember that Thomas, while up to his eyeballs in trouble, lost the attorney general's race to Tom Horne by only 900 votes in 2010. Now he's part of a six-way primary and while polls show that he's a mere spec on the gubernatorial horizon, that spec has grown in recent days, with up to 45 percent of likely voters still undecided. "He's moving," one politico told me. "The question is whether he runs out of time." And money. Thomas is a Clean Elections candidate, running with $753,616 in public funding. That is unless Democrats -- salivating over the prospect of another Len Munsil v. Janet Napolitano matchup -- mount a dark-money campaign to help him out. But no, Thomas can't win the primary, I'm reliably told by those who make a living analyzing these things. "The first five answers to that question are no. But the sixth answer is stranger things have happened," said Stan Barnes of Copper State Consulting. "No I don't think he can win. But in a perfect storm of a six-way race where the vote is splattered equally among (candidates) and in the midst of the federal government busing illegal immigrants from other states in Arizona, you can make an explanation of how it could happen… "But all that is fanciful talk because everything else in me says given his disbarment and disgrace publicly, his lack of significant resources, his zealotry, his amateurness, all of that means he cannot win." Funny, they said the same thing about Evan Mecham.

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Why all drugs should be legal. (Yes, even heroin.) This is the Libertarian Party line on drugs - legalize ALL drugs, not just marijuana. >No state has decriminalized, medicalized, >or legalized cocaine, heroin, >or methamphetamine. They are wrong on that!!!! Arizona voters passed a law years back making ALL illegal drugs legal with a doctors prescription. That law included medical heroin, medical LSD. But the goons at the DEA shot the law down by saying that they would revoked the license to prescribe drugs for any doctor that writes a prescription for any illegal drug. The currently Arizona law on medical marijuana requires a doctors RECOMMENDATION, not a doctors prescription. And I think that is true in all the other states that have medical marijuana. http://theweek.com/article/index/265333/why-all-drugs-should-be-legal-yes-even-heroin Why all drugs should be legal. (Yes, even heroin.) Prohibition has huge costs By Jeffrey Miron, The Weekly Wonk | 9:18am ET We've come a long way since Reefer Madness. Over the past two decades, 16 states have de-criminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, and 22 have legalized it for medical purposes. In November 2012, Colorado and Washington went further, legalizing marijuana under state law for recreational purposes. Public attitudes toward marijuana have also changed; in a November 2013 Gallup Poll, 58 percent of Americans supported marijuana legalization. Yet amidst these cultural and political shifts, American attitudes and U.S. policy toward other drugs have remained static. No state has decriminalized, medicalized, or legalized cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. [They are WRONG on that. Arizona passed a law years ago allowing ANY illegal drug to be prescribed with a prescription from a doctor. But the DEA shut the law down.] And a recent poll suggests only about 10 percent of Americans favor legalization of cocaine or heroin. Many who advocate marijuana legalization draw a sharp distinction between marijuana and "hard drugs." That's understandable: Different drugs do carry different risks, and the potential for serious harm from marijuana is less than for cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. Marijuana, for example, appears incapable of causing a lethal overdose, but cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine can kill if taken in excess or under the wrong circumstances. [And so can booze] But if the goal is to minimize harm — to people here and abroad — the right policy is to legalize all drugs, not just marijuana. In fact, many legal goods cause serious harm, including death. In recent years, about 40 people per year have died from skiing or snowboarding accidents; almost 800 from bicycle accidents; several thousand from drowning in swimming pools; more than 20,000 per year from pharmaceuticals; more than 30,000 annually from auto accidents; and at least 38,000 from excessive alcohol use. Few people want to ban these goods, mainly because while harmful when misused, they provide substantial benefit to most people in most circumstances. The same condition holds for hard drugs. Media accounts focus on users who experience bad outcomes, since these are dramatic or newsworthy. Yet millions risk arrest, elevated prices, impurities, and the vagaries of black markets to purchase these goods, suggesting people do derive benefits from use. That means even if prohibition could eliminate drug use, at no cost, it would probably do more harm than good. Numerous moderate and responsible drug users would be worse off, while only a few abusive users would be better off. And prohibition does, in fact, have huge costs, regardless of how harmful drugs might be. First, a few Economics 101 basics: Prohibiting a good does not eliminate the market for that good. Prohibition may shrink the market, by raising costs and therefore price, but even under strongly enforced prohibitions, a substantial black market emerges in which production and use continue. And black markets generate numerous unwanted side effects. Black markets increase violence because buyers and sellers can't resolve disputes with courts, lawyers, or arbitration, so they turn to guns instead. Black markets generate corruption, too, since participants have a greater incentive to bribe police, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards. They also inhibit quality control, which causes more accidental poisonings and overdoses. What's more, prohibition creates health risks that wouldn't exist in a legal market. Because prohibition raises heroin prices, users have a greater incentive to inject because this offers a bigger bang for the buck. Plus, prohibition generates restrictions on the sale of clean needles (because this might "send the wrong message"). Many users therefore share contaminated needles, which transmit HIV, Hepatitis C, and other blood-borne diseases. In 2010, 8 percent of new HIV cases in the United States were attributed to IV drug use. Prohibition enforcement also encourages infringements on civil liberties, such as no-knock warrants (which have killed dozens of innocent bystanders) and racial profiling (which generates much higher arrest rates for blacks than whites despite similar drug use rates). It also costs a lot to enforce prohibition, and it means we can't collect taxes on drugs; my estimates suggest U.S. governments could improve their budgets by at least $85 billion annually by legalizing — and taxing — all drugs. U.S. insistence that source countries outlaw drugs means increased violence and corruption there as well (think Columbia, Mexico, or Afghanistan). The bottom line: Even if hard drugs carry greater health risks than marijuana, rationally, we can't ban them without comparing the harm from prohibition against the harms from drugs themselves. In a society that legalizes drugs, users face only the negatives of use. Under prohibition, they also risk arrest, fines, loss of professional licenses, and more. So prohibition unambiguously harms those who use despite prohibition. It's also critical to analyze whether prohibition actually reduces drug use; if the effects are small, then prohibition is virtually all cost and no benefit. On that question, available evidence is far from ideal, but none of it suggests that prohibition has a substantial impact on drug use. States and countries that decriminalize or medicalize see little or no increase in drug use. And differences in enforcement across time or place bear little correlation with uses. This evidence does not bear directly on what would occur under full legalization, since that might allow advertising and more efficient, large-scale production. But data on cirrhosis from repeal of U.S. Alcohol Prohibition suggest only a modest increase in alcohol consumption. To the extent prohibition does reduce use drug use, the effect is likely smaller for hard drugs than for marijuana. That's because the demands for cocaine and heroin appear less responsive to price. From this perspective, the case is even stronger for legalizing cocaine or heroin than marijuana; for hard drugs, prohibition mainly raises the price, which increases the resources devoted to the black market while having minimal impact on use. But perhaps the best reason to legalize hard drugs is that people who wish to consume them have the same liberty to determine their own well-being as those who consume alcohol, or marijuana, or anything else. In a free society, the presumption must always be that individuals, not government, get to decide what is in their own best interest.

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Anybody else use a pressure cooker to cook stuff??? Don't answer that question, the cops may arrest you for being a terrorist. As we know from the FBI and Homeland Security goons, only terrorists have pressure cookers. I have used pressure cookers and they are really fantastic tools to cook stuff with. One website says you they cook stuff in a third of the time it takes in a normal oven. And from my experience that sounds about right. Basically you put the food and water in the pressure cooker and seal it. The hot pressurized water vapor cooks the food much faster then it cooks in a conventional oven or stove. In the old days I put a pressure cooker on a stove burner to cook it. Now I have a pressure cooker that you can put inside a microwave oven, which I like because I can use the microwave instead of a stove. I think I got it at Target for $20. I guess from that admission I will now be receiving a visit from the FBI and Homeland Security. Jesus, don't those jerks have any real criminals to hunt down????? http://thefreethoughtproject.com/nypd-detained-men-planning-prepare-rice/ NYPD Detained Men for Planning to ‘Prepare Rice’ July 27, 2014 Police detained two men at a Midtown hotel late Friday after a doorman reported they possessed a pair of pressure cookers like those used to make the Boston Marathon bombs. But the men say it was a misunderstanding: They plan to use the pressure cookers back home to prepare rice, chicken and meat. Mohammad Alotaibi, 20, and Ayoub Alawadhi, 21, pulled up to the InterContinental Hotel on East 48th Street on Friday evening with the pressure cookers in their car trunk, said law enforcement sources. A doorman called Crimestoppers, and NYPD counterterrorism and intelligence officers arrived to question the men. http://nypost.com/2014/07/26/nypd-detains-men-who-had-pressure-cookers-to-prepare-rice/ NYPD detained men who had pressure cookers to ‘prepare rice’ By Jamie Schram, Kevin Fasick and Natasha Velez July 26, 2014 | 12:00pm NYPD detained men who had pressure cookers to ‘prepare rice’ Two vacationing Kuwaitis were still simmering Saturday after cops questioned them for hours about a pair of pressure cookers spotted in the trunk of their car at a fancy Midtown hotel. The men were not arrested, but police sources said they remain under investigation. The questioning was “disgusting” and “weird,” said Ayoub Alawadhi — who insisted that he and his pal, Mohammad Alotaibi, will use the cookers to prepare rice, chicken and meat. Alawadhi said he had no idea why he was being questioned until a cop told him pressure cookers were used in the Boston Marathon bombing. “They said, ‘You haven’t heard about Boston?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And they told me about Boston.” Alotaibi, 20, and Alawadhi, 21, who are studying mechanical engineering at Boise State University in Idaho, drove up to the InterContinental Hotel on East 48th Street on Friday evening. When they popped the trunk, a doorman spotted the two pressure cookers. The doorman called Crime Stoppers, and NYPD counterterrorism and intelligence officers soon arrived to question the men. More than a dozen cops responded, Alotaibi and a hotel worker said. “The police questioned us for three hours. It was a little scary,” said Alawadhi. It took awhile to figure out why the cops were interrogating them, Alawadhi said. “They said they found the pressure cookers. I said, ‘Yes, what’s wrong with that?’ ” he recounted. Alawadhi said he and Alotaibi just completed summer classes at a Michigan university. They said they bought the pressure cookers at an Arab supermarket in Dearborn, Mich., since similar pressure cookers aren’t available in Boise. “They only have them in Arabian supermarkets,” he said. Alawadhi said they put the cookers in the back of their car and drove to Manhattan for a few days of sightseeing fun. Then they planned to drive back to Idaho. “I am leaving New York because of this,” he said. “We were supposed to stay until Tuesday, but we are leaving Sunday because of this.” Seven timed pressure-cooker bombs were used in a 2006 attack on trains in Mumbai that killed more than 200 people. Pressure cookers were also used in a failed bombing in Times Square in 2010 and another failed attack in British Columbia in 2013. Additional reporting by Bill Sanderson

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Former Phoenix officer faces sex abuse allegation Remember, a badge and a gun means you can have sex with any woman you want. Well at least that's how cops seem to feel!!!! http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/07/29/phoenix-officer-sexual-frisk-abrk/13285691/ Former Phoenix officer faces sex abuse allegation Megan Cassidy, The Republic | azcentral.com 12:18 a.m. MST July 29, 2014 A former Phoenix officer may be stripped of his certification and face a criminal charge after a woman said he used an on-duty courtesy ride as opportunity to sexually abuse her. Officer Peter E. Boyle resigned from Phoenix shortly after the alleged January 2013 incident, and the City of Phoenix paid the accuser $100,000 to settle a civil claim in February. Boyle has denied any sexual misconduct, but GPS data, witness statements from other officers and Boyle's own inconsistencies raise questions about various portions of his account, according to a Buckeye police investigation and documents from the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. Buckeye police have submitted a charge of sexual abuse to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office related to the case. Prosecutors are continuing to review the matter, according to a spokesman. In the early morning hours of Jan. 26, 2013, Boyle responded a DUI-related car accident in which the driver was subsequently arrested, according to police reports. The passenger of the vehicle, a woman in her 20s, was unable to secure a ride home and Boyle offered to give her a lift. The woman would later tell investigators that Boyle was overtly flirtatious during the trip, telling her she was beautiful and inquiring about what "big favor" she would give to repay him for the ride. Boyle stopped at a gas station somewhat out of the way of the woman's west Valley home, he said, to allow the woman to buy a drink and cigarettes, according to reports. As Boyle drove the woman home, she said the two engaged in a conversation about whether it was illegal to bring a flask into a bar. The woman said Boyle asked if she was currently carrying a flask and asked if he was going to have to frisk her. About one minute after the conversation, she said, Boyle pulled over to the shoulder of an unlit road and turned off his headlights. The two exited the vehicle Boyle directed her to bend over, place her hands on the patrol car and to spread her legs, according to the woman. The woman obliged, and she said Boyle sexually abused her, turned her around, pulled down the top of her dress and molested her again, according a Buckeye police report. The woman would later tell investigators she did not tell Boyle to stop because she was in shock and at a loss for words. When he was finished, she said, the two reentered the vehicle and Boyle proceeded to drive her home. The woman said Boyle walked her to her front door and gave her a hug. The woman said she vomited when she went inside and had her boyfriend drive her to her parents' house. The woman reported the incident to Buckeye Police later that day, according to police records, and Buckeye investigators interviewed Boyle the following month. The Phoenix Police Professional Standards Bureau additionally conducted an administrative interview with Boyle regarding the allegations. Boyle told investigators he never groped her, never conducted a pat-down or had any physical contact with her in a sexual nature, a Buckeye report states. Boyle said it was the woman who initiated the hug when Boyle walked her to her door. Investigators found discrepancies in the details of his statements, however, ranging from relatively innocuous to incriminating. It is because of these alleged lies that the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, or AZPOST, is reviewing the case. AZPOST has the power to revoke an officer's certification to ever serve as a peace officer in the state. According to the AZPOST allegations, Boyle lied about when the woman started sitting in the front seat of his patrol car — he claimed she was sitting in the front seat when they left the accident scene, but two other Phoenix officers at the scene reported the woman was in the backseat when they left. Boyle denied stopping at a certain location near Jackrabbit Trail and West Indian School Road, but the GPS system in Boyle's patrol care reportedly recorded a two-minute stop in that area, according to the report. "When investigators presented this information to Officer Boyle he replied the GPS data was wrong," according to AZPOST documents. Boyle explained another one-minute stop as the victim looking for her debit card. Boyle additionally denied conducting a pat-down, but in a different statement he explained that he frisked her because she had pepper spray on her. Boyle resigned from his position May 16, 2013. His reason for resignation was not immediately available. Buckeye police spokesman Sgt. Jason Weeks said detectives turned over the investigation to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in December, recommending a charge of sexual abuse. Maricopa County Attorney spokesman Jerry Cobb said prosecutors are continuing to weigh the allegations and said the case remains under review. Cobb said there is no set timeline or deadline for charging decision. The accuser and her attorney declined to comment for this article. Attempts to reach Boyle were unsuccessful.

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Phoenix police shot a 31-year-old woman in the parking lot of a Tempe apartment complex Wonder what REALLY happened in this case???? I suspect the woman thought the cops were criminals who were going to rob or rape her. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/07/29/phoenix-police-officer-involved-shooting-tempe/13306505/ Official: Phoenix police involved in shooting in Tempe Phoenix police shot a 31-year-old woman in the parking lot of a Tempe apartment complex after she allegedly flashed a weapon at them, an official said. Katie Bieri, The Republic | azcentral.com 7:25 a.m. MST July 29, 2014 Phoenix police shot a 31-year-old woman in the parking lot of a Tempe apartment complex after she allegedly flashed a weapon at them, an official said. The woman, who police say had a warrant for a probation violation, was taken to a hospital in unknown condition Monday night. No officers were harmed, according to Lt. Mike Pooley, a Tempe Police Department spokesman. Pooley said Phoenix police were following the woman in unmarked vehicles as she drove from 44th Street and Thomas Road to the Gateway at Tempe apartments near University and McClintock drives. He said the woman had been driving erratically. When police tried to pin the woman's car in with their vehicles, she reportedly flashed a weapon at them but did not fire, Pooley said. Witnesses reported hearing between four and seven gunshots at about 8:30 p.m. Gateway resident Jake Zeudell, 19, said he was about to leave for the gym when he saw helicopters and caution tape. Zeudell said police were being vague with residents, most of whom are Arizona State University students, about what happened there. Cody Meyers was inside his apartment when he heard tires screeching. He walked out to see a white car being tailed by four unmarked vehicles. Meyers said it scared him a little bit. "I've never heard gunshots that close or in uncontrolled environment," he said.

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Are you a racist that hates Mexicans??? Then disbarred prosecutor Andrew Thomas is your choice for Arizona governor. I suspect Andrew Thomas hates pot smokers just as much as he hates Mexicans. I suspect former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas a a perfect example of the folks that use H. L. Mencken quote of: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" You know you could change the race from Mexicans to Jews, and the name from Andrew Thomas to Adolph Hitler and we would be back in the 1930's in Nazi Germany. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/07/29/thomas-issues-tied-immigration/13306329/ Thomas: All issues tied to immigration Mark Olalde, The Republicazcentral.com 9:20 p.m. MST July 28, 2014 A group of children shrieked with laughter in the park's fountains, providing a carefree backdrop to an Andrew Thomas news conference last week. As the former county attorney and Republican candidate for governor outlined his border-security plans for the assembled media, a young Hispanic boy slipped into the crowd of supporters, mostly older and White, arrayed behind Thomas. The supporters appeared unsure how to respond. One man put his arms around the boy's shoulders to pose with him, then, when another supporter realized the youngster was mugging for the camera, he pushed him out of the frame. Find all of the candidate information you need! Need help getting started? Register to vote here. Thomas' message that day and every day during this campaign has been to rail against illegal immigration, an issue the disbarred prosecutor is hoping to ride to political redemption. He also rails against his liberal foes — real or imagined — in the judiciary, in the media and in elected office. After stepping down from five tempestuous years as Maricopa County attorney, he was disbarred in 2012 for attempting to prosecute judges, county officials and others without probable cause. The U.S. Department of Justice investigated him for years but closed the case without charging him. For some of Thomas' supporters, his troubles are more proof of the forces aligned against him. "I really believe that a lot of the people, even in my own party, have said that he has baggage," said Barbara Medal. "And I have to agree that, yes, baggage was given to him by the liberal Bar association." Thomas is relying on public funding for his campaign and has qualified for about $750,000. The front-runners for the Republican nomination, Doug Ducey and Christine Jones, have each raised or loaned themselves more than twice that amount. But Thomas has been able to get his message out, spending on mailers that call him "the Conservative Warrior We Need" and to air a TV ad, which shows Thomas pointing at a map of the Arizona-Mexico border and discussing his proposed "Patton Line" to thwart illegal immigration. Thomas has been relentlessly on message. When asked about the economy, education, health care or job creation, he brings all of Arizona's woes back to immigration — legal and illegal. He recently said during a candidate forum that every net gain in U.S. jobs since 2000 had been claimed by an immigrant. During other recent forums, he has accused undocumented immigrants of causing traffic jams, spreading diseases and threatening the American way of life. At last week's news conference, he unveiled his border-security plan, which includes a double-layered fence across the entire border with Mexico to the tune of $50 million and deploying 3,000 National Guardsmen for $60 million a year. He pointed to a poster board where army figures stood along Arizona's southern border. Thomas acknowledged the border is the federal government's jurisdiction, so he had a workaround: build the border fence on state land, 200 miles north of the actual border in places. The fence would circumvent to the Tohono O'odham Reservation, physically cutting it off from the rest of the United States. "Frankly, it will be their fault," Thomas said. To finance his plans, he says he will try to cap the length of time people can be on Medicaid, the health-insurance plan for poorer Arizonans, at five years; ensure all able-bodied recipients work; and force recipients to complete community service. Thomas claimed this would shed 141,000 Arizonans from Medicaid rolls and save $150 million each year. Thomas has also gone after the undefined "gay lobby" during his campaign, touting his support of Senate Bill 1062, which would have offered a legal defense for individuals and businesses facing discrimination lawsuits if they could have proved they acted upon a "sincerely held religious belief." Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed the measure. In a mailer, he attacks the other GOP candidates, saying they "supported gay-rights agenda" because they backed Brewer's veto. "I have received strong support from conservatives for taking this bold and principled stand," he wrote in an e-mail to The Arizona Republic. Thomas, a Harvard Law School graduate, has also lashed out at higher education, saying college is a "scam," leaving graduates with high debt and poor job prospects. And perhaps even worse, from Thomas' point of view. "Their professors often abuse their position to indoctrinate them in liberal politics," he said in his e-mail. "He's throwing red meat out there," said Bob Grossfeld, a political strategist. Grossfeld said that while moderates are ignoring Thomas, he is getting attention from the party's far-right. "Thomas has blamed the media and then a conspiracy of others, and that plays directly into the 'tea party'-right frame of reference," he said. Thomas' mailer attacks Secretary of State Ken Bennett for calling off an investigation into President Barack Obama's birth certificate and for allowing languages other than English onto ballots to assist Arizona voters; Christine Jones for being a feminist and believing in climate change; and Frank Riggs for voting against a war. Supporter Anna Gaines scoffed at some critics' claims that Thomas' immigration proposals and allegations against immigrants are racist. Gaines said she emigrated from Mexico at the age of 19 and that her family and friends are Thomas supporters. When a TV reporter at last week's news conference asked Thomas about allegations of racism, his supporters answered before he had a chance. "Liberals call it racist. They call everything racist," one man shouted. "And people call your channel Marxist," another added. David Berman, a senior research fellow with the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, said Thomas will have a real impact in the race because of his appeal to right-wing voters. Citing polls showing a narrowing gap between Jones and Ducey, Berman said, "I think that whatever Andy can do in pulling in votes is going to make that race even tighter and probably make it a little bit easier for (former Mesa Mayor Scott) Smith or Bennett to emerge a little stronger." However, the positions that might help Thomas in the primary would condemn him in the general election, Grossfeld said. "The Republican party mechanisms would just shut down on him because the Republican establishment, I would venture to guess, would see him getting the nomination as something of their worst nightmare," he said. While Thomas remains behind in polls, his supporters were enthusiastic during the conference, cheering him on and booing questions from the media. "If we don't get something done very soon it's going to be too late, and if I don't get out of the sun very soon it's going to be too late for me," Thomas said, before retreating from the park, his map of the border in hand.

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Two comments on this. 1) Gee, we have been screwing the Indians since we came here 500+ years ago in 1492. And we continue to screw them. 2) This seems like a typical function of government where you give a politician money and the politician passes laws to put your business competitors out of business. I wonder who has been bribing Senator John McCain and phoney baloney Libertarian Congressman Jeff Flake. Did I say bribing??? I am sorry, I meant giving them campaign contributions. Of course most of you probably consider a bribe and a campaign contribution the same thing. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/glendale/2014/07/28/mccain-flake-introduce-bill-stop-glendale-casino/13305499/ McCain, Flake introduce bill to stop Glendale casino Kaila White, The Republic | azcentral.com 7:08 a.m. MST July 29, 2014 U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona introduced a bill Monday to prohibit any new casinos in metropolitan Phoenix. The measure aims to stop a proposal by the Tohono O'odham Nation to build a major casino resort on its land less than two miles from Jobing.com Arena and University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. The legislation is a companion bill to U.S. House Bill 1410, which was introduced by Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona and approved by the House in September. "We share the objections of many fellow Arizonans when we see attempts to bring Indian gaming to metropolitan areas that are on lands not connected to an extant reservation," the senators said in a statement released Monday. The Tohono O'odham Reservation largely falls in Tucson and further south. The tribe is using a congressional settlement to designate the land near Glendale as a reservation. "Despite the opposition's latest efforts, we are confident that Congress, like so many others, will recognize the incredible benefits the West Valley Resort will provide to the region and all of Arizona," Tohono O'odham Chairman Ned Norris Jr. said Monday. The Glendale City Council opposed the casino plan for years but recently shifted its position, opposing HB 1410 and supporting the casino plans. Mayor Jerry Weiers, who is in the council minority, praised the senators for recognizing the harm the casino would have. A disappointed Councilman Gary Sherwood, who favors the casino, said he would ask to meet with the senators. The measure aims to stop a proposal by the Tohono O'odham Nation to build a major casino in Glendale.

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This should really piss off the gun grabbers in the People's Republic of Tempe!!!!! https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/817867628248131/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular Freedom to marry, Freedom to carry All genders and calibers welcome Open Carry Kiss In Saturday, August 23 at 7:00pm Mill Ave & 3rd Street / Light Rail, Tempe Join us to celebrate FREEDOM in all its diverse forms. Bring a partner and/or a sign, strap on your "whatever" and come meet some like-minded lovers of liberty. This is for LGBT and our Straight allies, too!! Meet at the North end of Mill by the Light Rail station and dress festive for the occasion!! We've chosen a place with high foot traffic and plenty of spectators within viewing distance of public sidewalks. Still working on details of a speaker and more. So bring your signs, your kissing partner (if you have one - singles welcome!!) and of course, your pistols and COME ON OUT for the best little kiss in ever!!

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Jesus don't these pigs have any REAL criminals to arrest??? My parents did stuff like this all the time. As a 3rd grader I routinely baby sat my other brothers and sisters. Of course if that would have happened now, my parents would have been arrested and sent to prison for child abuse. And me and my brothers and sisters would have been sent off to live in a foster home, cared by unloving bureaucrats from CPS or Child Protective Services. And of course the cops would be bragging that there were protecting us from bad guys. But that's not to say my dad wasn't an abuse asshole, he was. But my mom was the best mom in the world. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/28/mother-arrested-girl-park/13289317/ Mom's arrest over girl in park sparks debate Associated Press 2:16 p.m. MST July 28, 2014 NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Plenty of working parents can relate to the dilemma Debra Harrell faced when her 9-year-old daughter asked to play unsupervised in a park this summer. How do you find the time and money for child care when school is out? Harrell's answer to that question got her arrested. She spent the night in jail, temporarily lost custody of her girl for 17 days, thought she lost her job, and still faces 10 years in prison if convicted of felony child neglect. The decision of this 46-year-old single mother and McDonald's shift manager has been picked apart since police were called when Regina was spotted alone in the park. But some of their neighbors tell The Associated Press that Harrell shouldn't be vilified, because many nearby families also leave their kids at Summerfield Park. In the South Carolina summer, the park has obvious appeal to kids: there's cool water on a splash pad, a playground and basketball courts, and a volunteer comes by with a free breakfast and lunch. Plenty of friends and some parents and caretakers also are around to keep an eye on things, they say. "Her child is not the only one at that park without a parent. There are children all over this neighborhood. They hold the feed-a-child program. There's that splash pad too," said Angelina Scott, who lives one street over from Harrell and has a daughter in the same grade as Regina. South Carolina criminalizes leaving a child at "unreasonable risk of harm affecting the child's life, physical or mental health, or safety." But the law offers no specifics on when a child can be left alone without supervision, giving police and prosecutors wide discretion to decide whether a parent's actions have been criminal, or just unwise, said Harrell's lawyer, Robert Phillips. Nationwide, about 5 percent of elementary school-aged children living just with their mothers are left alone at some point during a typical week, according to 2011 report from the U.S. Census Bureau, which notes that the percentage likely increases in the summer. For the libertarian Reason Foundation, Harrell's arrest is an example of how the government thinks it knows better how to raise a child than her mother. An opinion piece in The Los Angeles Times suggested it shows how society is predisposed, without evidence, to think black women are worse mothers. Bloggers cite her case in online duels, with some railing against "helicopter parenting" and others saying it's just too dangerous for a 9-year-old girl to venture out into today's world alone. In Harrell's North Augusta neighborhood, people are talking more about the struggles of low-income parents to find safe places for their children when school's not in session. Despite the sweltering heat, Trina Thomas brings her children to the park for the free lunch and the playground. Her kids are 3, 5, and 11, and she can't imagine leaving her oldest alone. But she is fully aware of the pressure of summer care: Because she watches her kids herself, she has fewer hours at her cosmetology job. Her clients also must spend more for child care, so their every-two-week trip to the beauty shop becomes once a month. "Summer costs me money," she said. Regina stayed at the McDonald's each day at first, passing the summer hours with her mother's laptop on the restaurant's wireless connection. But it was stolen from their home in June, the second burglary in less than a year, according to Aiken County Sheriff's Office reports. Without the computer, she "sat there and was bored to death. She simply asked her mother if she could drop her off at the park rather than drop her off in a McDonald's area all day," Phillips said. "What are the options that are the best for the child? And are certain options criminal?" he asked. On June 30, a woman approached Regina after seeing her alone for five hours. Regina said her mother dropped her off while she worked at the nearby McDonald's, and that she had spent plenty of time there by herself, according to the police report. The arrest warrant accuses Harrell of abandoning her child numerous times at the park between June 6 and June 30, without providing specifics. A worker for the charity that feeds needy children said she often saw Regina there and knew she wasn't with her mother, but apparently didn't think it necessary to call police. The witnesses' identities have been withheld by police and prosecutors, who said it would be improper to try the case in the media. Harrell's next court appearance is scheduled for September. Scott says the arrest is already having an impact: Neighborhood kids left alone at home don't go to the park as often, and aren't even congregating outside as much. Harrell has no criminal record in South Carolina, where property records suggest she moved about three years ago, and the state's child welfare agency said she wasn't under investigation until now. She had a string of arrests in Florida, for drug possession, bounced checks, driving without a license and "nude or semi-nude acts." But her last brush with the law outside of a traffic violation came in 2006, when she was found guilty of cocaine possession. People sympathetic to Harrell's plight have donated nearly $40,000 through an Internet site to a trust fund set up for the girl's education. Regina wasn't harmed the day police picked her up in the park, or apparently any day this summer. The girl who made the A-B Honor Roll at her elementary school came outside with her mother when an AP reporter stopped by. She smiled and nodded, hugging her tiny dog Roscoe, when asked if she's happy to be home. Harrell referred questions to her lawyer, and her co-workers said they've been told not to talk. But she said she's going back to work at McDonald's, where she said supervisors told her she's still welcome. "I'm just happy she's back," Harrell said, standing next to her daughter outside their small home.

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http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/07/28/tom-horne-wants-restraining-order-bill-montgomery/13283523/ Tom Horne wants restraining order vs. Bill Montgomery Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, The Republic | azcentral.com 3:15 p.m. MST July 28, 2014 Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is seeking a restraining order against Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, arguing his office should be prevented from continuing its investigation into election law violations. The request argues that Montgomery and his office should be barred from continuing the probe because Montgomery, who has called for Horne to resign and is supporting his Republican primary challenger, has a conflict of interest. "We're seeking a restraining order, but I want to make it clear: we're not trying to stop the investigation. It's just who does it," Horne's personal lawyer Mike Kimerer, told The Arizona Republic. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has been investigating Horne for several weeks, tied to allegations by a former Horne staffer that he and his top staff illegally worked on his re-election campaign using the resources of the Arizona Attorney General's Office. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office as a practice does not confirm or deny the existence of ongoing investigations. The Republic has learned investigators have knocked on witnesses' doors, pored over documents provided by the ex-staffer, and asked witnesses if Horne had direct knowledge his staff was working on his campaign during office hours. Montgomery has screened himself off from the investigation and on Monday said he would extend that practice to pleadings associated with the case. Kimerer on Monday filed the application for an order to show cause and for preliminary and permanent injunctive relief. He is waiting for a judge to be assigned and for a hearing to be set. Kimerer said it is impossible to resolve the conflict he argues the county attorney's office has with Horne, pointing to Montgomery's continual political advocacy against Horne. "I don't think that screening off from other people in his office does it, especially when the people doing the criminal investigation now are the same people that did it in the first go-around we had," he said, referencing a separate campaign-finance investigation into Horne. Kimerer said the same county attorney who was involved in the prior case against Horne is "doing the grand jury" in the current investigation. "You can't segregate Bill Montgomery's conflict just by saying somebody else in the office will do it -- there's just too much power and control by Montgomery." Montgomery disputed that argument. "If anything comes into this office with Horne's name on it, unless it involves the administrative stuff, I don't see it, I don't touch it," he said Monday. "As happened during the previous election cycle, my folks are professional enough to exercise independent judgment when I am screened off from a matter. Furthermore, keep in mind that an investigation is separate from a prosecution or enforcement action." Horne has been dogged by numerous allegations of legal and ethical missteps as he embarks on the toughest election of his political career. On one front he faces uncertainty on how the first campaign-finance case will end. On another, he is being investigated by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office as well as by two private attorneys retained to determine if the allegations by the ex-staffer were true. The former staffer, Sarah Beattie, has alleged the Attorney General's Office doubled as Horne's campaign headquarters, with top staff working on state time to raise money for Horne's re-election, plan campaign events and discuss talking points to deploy against his challengers. An eight-page reasonable-cause letter from state Election Director Christina Estes-Werther earlier this month said Horne's response to Beattie's allegations either did not specifically address the accusation, was contradictory or admitted she was truthful. Elections officials concluded that Horne's executive staff were not volunteering for his campaign, but "instead were being compensated by the State of Arizona while conducting campaign activities for Mr. Horne." The letter says that Horne presented no evidence to support his claim that staff implemented or followed state law or guidelines laid out in an attorney-general memo to prevent campaign activities from occurring during work hours. "Since the campaign activities are not volunteer hours, they are no longer exempt from the contribution definition," the letter says. "These non-monetary services are in-kind contributions and Mr. Horne has not reported these in-kind contributions in ... campaign finance reports." Elections officials forwarded their reasonable-cause letter to Solicitor General Robert Ellman. Ellman has tapped former appeals court judge Daniel Barker and Gilbert town-attorney Michael Hamblin to investigate the allegations against Horne. The attorneys have been deputized to conduct the investigation. Ellman reports to Horne, but since Horne is a target of the probe the attorney general is not informed of developments in the investigation. Horne said through Grisham that he expects to be completely vindicated. He said he has instructed his staff to cooperate with the investigation.

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http://www.azcentral.com/story/lindavaldez/2014/07/29/flood-downs-border-fence-nogales-in-message-from-god/13299955/ Flood takes out border fence: A message from God? Linda Valdez, columnist | azcentral.com 2:06 a.m. MST July 29, 2014 Those who see the hand of God in natural disasters can apply their interpretations to this: summer storms took down a section of border fence west of the Mariposa Port of Entry over the weekend. The flood took out 60 feet of the rebar-reinforced steel border fence, according to the Associated Press. The Nogales International reported that "torrent of debris-filled floodwater down Ephriam Canyon and into yards and homes along Western Avenue." Peoples' homes and cars were damaged, and families were left stranded by flood waters up to 3 feet high. "The segment of border fence that collapsed was built above an existing arroyo, with large gates at its bottom that were meant to be opened to relieve pressure from flooding. The gates did not appear to have been opened," the International reported. The Border Patrol just didn't have time to open the gates, a spokeswoman told the International. That's why they call 'em flash floods. They happen fast. The far right is fond of seeing God's judgment in natural disasters, so let's hear what they have to say about this one. On the side of all God's creatures, we have the tree huggers, who have long warned of the dangers of barriers. Dan Millis of the Sierra Club fired off a press release Monday saying: "Border walls have a history of causing and exacerbating flooding along the Arizona-Sonora border." The costly, environmentally damaging border fence poses a real risk to Americans living on this side of the line, but the fence did not stop the latest surge of refugee children fleeing violence in Central America. Yet the clamor from the usual GOP border-bashers in response to the humanitarian crisis of Central American kids is the same old, same old: Build more dang fences. Maybe God is trying to tell them something.

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Randy Gross forgot to mention the carpet bombing in Vietnam by the B-52s. We also poisoned a good chunk of Vietnam when we covered it with Agent Orange to take away the cover from the Viet Cong, and same goes for all the mines that we planted there which are still killing civilians. And I almost forgot to mention the firebombing of the civilian population of Japan during WWII, and of course the nuking of civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima which many people say was unnecessary. I think Randy Gross's letter is referring to the Israeli terrorism in Gaza, which is pretty much financed by the American government. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/letters/2014/07/28/u-s-has-also-attacked-a-defenseless-country/13305137/ U.S. has also attacked 'defenseless' country Randy Gross 8:21 p.m. MST July 28, 2014 A powerful nation obliterating populated urban and rural areas of a relatively defenseless country in order to destroy a duly elected authority. What was the United States thinking when it carpet-bombed Nazi Germany? — Randy Gross, Tempe

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Remember they are "public servants" protecting us from "bad guys". Well at least that's what they want us to think. Also remember both Attorney General Tom Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery are both haters of marijuana and are doing the best they can to flush Prop 203 or Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act down the toilet. Prop 203 was passed by the PEOPLE of Arizona. I should also throw in U.S. Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema name. She tried to flush Prop 203 down the toilet by introducing a bill that would have slapped a 300% tax on medical marijuana. U.S. Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema's 300 percent tax on medical marijuana would have added $900 to the cost of an ounce of medical marijuana boosting it from $300 and ounce to $1,200 an ounce at medical marijuana dispensaries in Arizona. http://www.azcentral.com/story/laurieroberts/2014/07/28/horne-court-block-montgomery/13291951/ Could Tom Horne be ...gulp... right? Laurie Roberts, columnist | azcentral.com 2:41 p.m. MST July 28, 2014 Attorney General Tom Horne is asking a judge to block Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery from investigating him. Again, that is. This time, Maricopa County prosecutors are looking into whistleblower Sarah Beattie's claims that Horne used state employees and state resources to work on his re-election campaign. That's not to be confused with a second ongoing investigation into whether use of those state employees constituted a violation of campaign-finance laws. (A pair of attorneys are investigating, after the Secretary of State's Office found reasonable cause to believe that Horne didn't list their state pay as an in-kind contribution on his campaign finance statements, as required.) Now comes the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, doing its own mini-Hatch Act investigation into Horne's activities. And the predictable response by Horne, to try to gum up the works. Horne attorney Michael Kimerer on Monday filed for a restraining order, hoping to block Montgomery's office from sniffing around Horne. "We're seeking a restraining order, but I want to make it clear: we're not trying to stop the investigation. It's just who does it," Kimerer, told The Republic's Yvonne Wingett Sanchez. Montgomery, meanwhile, told Sanchez that he's been "screened off" from the case. "If anything comes into this office with Horne's name on it, unless it involves the administrative stuff, I don't see it, I don't touch it," he said. "While it may be hard for some people to think (being screened off) can't be done, the professional folks in this office not only can do it, but have been doing it." That may be, but it still looks bad. Montgomery can't stand Horne. He's previously investigated Horne for violating campaign-finance laws in his 2010 campaign -- a case that was picked up by Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk after Horne got Montgomery bounced from the case. (Polk's findings were the same as Montgomery's, and Horne's now appealing.) More recently, Montgomery has called on Horne to resign and he's long supported Republican Mark Brnovich's campaign to replace Horne as AG. By taking the case, Montgomery is making it easy for Horne to cry political vendetta. Again, that is. That's not good for Arizona, which needs to know the unvarnished, unpoliticized truth about Tom Horne. It's hard to believe I'm saying this but Horne's rii. Horne's rigggh… Oh heck, I'll just say it. Horne is right….for once. There are 14 other county attorneys in this state. Surely one of them can investigate the AG's latest scandal.

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Thomas Smoody forgets to mention that Mary Rose Wilcox is also one of the Maricopa County Supervisors that stole a billion dollars from us and give it to Jerry Colangelo to build Bank One Ballpark. Jan Brewer the current government of Arizona was also one of those tyrants on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. Based on this letter I think it would be a good idea to have a "none of the above" candidate on the ballot for every office. And if "none of the above" wins the election the office should go unfilled for the term. And let's not even mention that lousy shot Larry Naman!!!! http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/letters/2014/07/28/wilcox-nod-ranks-with-stand-on-huppenthal/13305119/ Wilcox nod ranks with stand on Huppenthal Thomas Smoody 8:20 p.m. MST July 28, 2014 Endorsing Mary Rose Wilcox for Congress is almost as bad as what you said about state schools Superintendent John Huppenthal. To say Huppenthal is the best of the two Republicans running for superintendent is worse than saying you have no recommendation in this race at all. As for Wilcox, who took almost $1 million from taxpayers to help end her pain and suffering at the hands of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas: You should be ashamed. To her I would say, it's politics so deal with it just like we taxpayers do. — Thomas Smoody, Gilbert

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Most people don't know it, but that's how the US income tax got started. People figured if they passed the 16th Amendment the income tax could be used to soak the rich and get them to pay all of the US governments bills. Sadly most people at the time didn't know that the US income tax would come back as a soak and rob everybody tax. When the US income tax was first passed only rich people that made $3,000 or more a year had to pay the tax. $3,000 in 1913 was probably around $50,000 or $60,000 in 2014 dollars. The first US income tax was only a lousy 1 to 6 percent tax. In Congress they actually talk about capping the income tax at 10 percent. That thought if it ever got that high it would be an outrageously high tax. You can see a copy of the 1st income tax form at this IRS website. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/1913.pdf ‎ The form is a louse 2 pages long, with the instructions being another lousy 2 pages. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/clout/chi-millionaire-tax-question-to-appear-on-fall-ballot-20140729,0,4692375.story 'Millionaire tax' question to appear on fall ballot Rick Pearson Chicago Tribune 11:52 a.m. CDT, July 29, 2014 Gov. Pat Quinn today signed into law a measure to put a non-binding referendum on the fall ballot asking voters whether millionaires should be taxed at a higher rate — a move aimed at helping drive up Democratic turnout. The measure represents a Plan B for Quinn, who had supported efforts initiated by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan to have a binding constitutional amendment placed on the ballot to require millionaire incomes to pay an additional 3 percentage points above the current individual income tax rate. That plan went nowhere in the General Assembly. The ballot proposal signed by Quinn at a Berwyn elementary school asks voters if they think the constitution should be amended to give schools, based on their student population, money from a 3 percent tax on millionaire incomes. The state Revenue Department said such a tax would generate about $1 billion. It would not have the force of law, however. Illinois has a flat tax for incomes, which is currently 5 percent after Quinn and Democrats who control the legislature approved increasing the rate from 3 percent following the 2010 election. The personal rate is scheduled to roll back to 3.75 percent on Jan. 1 after rank-and-file lawmakers —concerned with their own re-election --- rejected a call by Quinn and leading Democrats to make the higher rate permanent. Republican challenger Bruce Rauner, a wealthy equity investor from Winnetka, has said the state should focus on cutting the spending burden on taxpayers rather than looking to raise taxes. Rauner, though, has indicated he might need to boost the 3.75 percent personal rate he would inherit if he becomes governor, but vows to lower it to 3 percent at the end of a four-year term. The effect of the tax rollback to 3.75 percent would cost the state about $4 billion in revenue on an annual basis. Quinn previously signed off on two other advisory referendums for the Nov. 4 ballot asking if the state’s current $8.25 an hour minimum wage should be increased to $10 and whether all prescription insurance programs should include birth control. In addition, there are two proposed Illinois constitutional amendment questions on the ballot that would codify voters rights for minorities, women, gays and lesbians and expand the constitutional rights of crime victims. Rauner is in court seeking a third proposed constitutional amendment that would limit lawmakers to eight years of service. A Cook County circuit court judge ruled the Rauner-backed proposal did not fall into the category of petition-driven initiatives that could be used to amend the state constitution. The bill signing came as Quinn’s campaign launched a new television ad — a rare one-minute spot that talks up his lengthy activist populist background in Illinois politics. A narrator says the governor “never backed down from a challenge, even when it meant taking on the powerful.” “Courage counts and character matters,” the narrator says. The ad notes that Quinn vetoed legislators’ paychecks as a “test of leadership” when the General Assembly failed to approved a measure making changes to the state’s debt-ridden public employee pension system. But the commercial does not note that a Cook County circuit judge found Quinn’s actions unconstitutional and ordered paychecks to be paid. While full details for spending on the Quinn ad were unavailable, reports show Quinn is spending nearly $104,000 alone on WBBM Ch.-2 in Chicago to air the commercial 36 times through Aug. 4. Rauner’s campaign sharply criticized the ad, with a spokesman saying Quinn has “failed as governor” and “now finds his administration the focus of a federal criminal investigation” --- a reference to the governor’s $54.5 million pre-election 2010 anti-violence program that a state audit found was mismanaged. rap30@aol.com Twitter @rap30

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AZ Gov candidate Christine Jones did time for drunk driving Let's face it the DUI laws are mostly about raising money for the government and have little to do with safety. So on that I don't have a problem with Arizona Governor candidate Christine Jones getting a DUI ticket. Here is what Christine Jones said: "About 10 years ago I was pulled over and charged with DUI ... I even have the great distinction of spending 24 hours in 'Tent City' with Sheriff Joe Arpaio." But I do have a problem with government hypocrites who believe in one set of rules for themselves and another set of rules for us serfs they rule over. I did a quick Google on Christine Jones and she seems like one of those hypocrites. She is against legalizing marijuana and she is a big fan of Sheriff Joe's police state. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/07/29/christine-jones-rebuts-attacks-town-hall-teleconference/13319573/ Jones rebuts attacks in town-hall teleconference Christine Jones holds conference call, answers questions Under attack from campaigns and independent political groups, Republican gubernatorial candidate Christine Jones took the unusual step of holding a conference call Monday to rebut the allegations point by point. Her campaign called thousands of voters, inviting participants to ask questions of the candidate. Below are some of the answers: Did you receive a DUI? "About 10 years ago I was pulled over and charged with DUI, and as with a lot of things that we do in life it's a mistake that I very much regret. I'm definitely not proud of it. I did learn something from that. "I went to court. I paid my dues just like everybody else, and I even have the great distinction of spending 24 hours in 'Tent City' with Sheriff Joe Arpaio." Do you support Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano, and the National Organization for Women (NOW)? "I am not a member of NOW. I don't know that I've ever said positive words in public about Janet Napolitano. I don't even remember ever saying much positive about her in private. And Hillary Clinton, I can't think of anybody I think would be a worse president at the moment. I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton. "Any comment I made in the past about Hillary Clinton was made in the context of comparing her to other members of the Obama Administration, and the quotes that you hear in the ad that's been playing in rapid rotation on the news lately were made in respect to John Kerry." Were you in the Air Force? "I was never on active duty in the Air Force. "When I graduated from high school I went off to join the Air Force, and I thought with certainty that I was going to spend a lifetime as an Air Force officer." Jones continued, saying she left the ROTC but moved around Air Force bases for 20 years with her husband, who did serve. Why do you keep saying you will send the bill for border security to President Barack Obama? "Securing the border is absolutely the federal government's responsibility, and they should pay for it. My point is even if they won't -- and my plan has always stated from day one that as Arizonans we're going to go get this border secure and then we're going to go seek reimbursements from the federal government. "This is rightly their expense, and we're going to send the bill and we're going to keep sending it and sending it and sending it. And even if they don't pay it, I have some legal theories that we can hold them accountable." Giving it back to the Ducey campaign Jones closed the event by calling out Ducey's spokeswoman, Melissa DeLaney, for tweeting that the conference call had been was prerecorded. "If this were a prerecorded call I guess I wouldn't know about your live tweet," Jones said. "Nice try, though. I think maybe you're going to be looking for a job really quick because on August 27... "OK I just got a glare from my campaign manager for that one." Mark Olalde, The Republic | azcentral.com 11:50 a.m. MST July 29, 2014 Under attack from campaigns and independent political groups, Republican gubernatorial candidate Christine Jones took the unusual step of holding a conference call Monday to rebut the allegations point by point. Her campaign called hundreds of thousands of voters, inviting participants to ask questions of the candidate. "Tonight I intend to answer every single charge that's been leveled against me, and we're going to set the record straight," she said. She began by rebutting statements by the Doug Ducey campaign as well as blasting his campaign for running ads against her. From there she went on to answer listener's questions. Below are some of her answers. Did you receive a DUI? "About 10 years ago I was pulled over and charged with DUI, and as with a lot of things that we do in life it's a mistake that I very much regret. I'm definitely not proud of it. I did learn something from that. "I went to court. I paid my dues just like everybody else, and I even have the great distinction of spending 24 hours in 'Tent City' with Sheriff Joe Arpaio." Do you support Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano, and the National Organization for Women (NOW)? "I am not a member of NOW. I don't know that I've ever said positive words in public about Janet Napolitano. I don't even remember ever saying much positive about her in private. And Hillary Clinton, I can't think of anybody I think would be a worse president at the moment. I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton. "Any comment I made in the past about Hillary Clinton was made in the context of comparing her to other members of the Obama Administration, and the quotes that you hear in the ad that's been playing in rapid rotation on the news lately were made in respect to John Kerry." Were you in the Air Force? "I was never on active duty in the Air Force. "When I graduated from high school I went off to join the Air Force, and I thought with certainty that I was going to spend a lifetime as an Air Force officer." Jones continued, saying she left the ROTC but moved around Air Force bases for 20 years with her husband, who did serve. Why do you keep saying you will send the bill for border security to President Barack Obama? "Securing the border is absolutely the federal government's responsibility, and they should pay for it. My point is even if they won't -- and my plan has always stated from day one that as Arizonans we're going to go get this border secure and then we're going to go seek reimbursements from the federal government. "This is rightly their expense, and we're going to send the bill and we're going to keep sending it and sending it and sending it. And even if they don't pay it, I have some legal theories that we can hold them accountable." Giving it back to the Ducey campaign. Jones closed the event by calling out Ducey's spokeswoman, Melissa DeLaney, for tweeting that the conference call had been was prerecorded. "If this were a prerecorded call I guess I wouldn't know about your live tweet," Jones said. "Nice try, though. I think maybe you're going to be looking for a job really quick because on August 27… "OK I just got a glare from my campaign manager for that one."

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More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our religious leaders, government masters and police??? http://www.azcentral.com/story/laurieroberts/2014/07/30/ralph-heap-bob-worsley-medicaid-fight/13327999/ Ralph Heap rants about Medicaid, then collects from it Laurie Roberts, columnist | azcentral.com 5 a.m. MST July 30, 2014 He is running to rescue Arizona from the scourge of Obama and the expansion of Medicaid. Ralph Heap is challenging that bastion of East Valley liberalism, state Sen. Bob Worsley -- one of 14 Republicans who voted to expand Medicaid in order to uphold the will of Arizona voters and save the state a few billion dollars. Or not, if you listen to the guy hoping to knock him off. Cue Heap: "It is an unmitigated disaster, yet my opponent voted to expand and fully implement ObamaCare here in Arizona, committing the taxpayers to hundreds of millions of dollars in new costs and further surrendering our health care system to the federal government," he told a Gilbert tea party group. If elected, Heap vows to "block ObamaCare in every possible way at the state level." He might want to start with himself. Heap is an orthopedic surgeon, a doctor who has collected more than $130,000 in Medicaid funds since 2010, according to Jennifer Carusetta, spokeswoman for Arizona's Medicaid program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. Hypocritical, much? See also:Bob Worsley ... a liberal? Who knew? The tea party has been seething about Medicaid expansion ever since its plan to block the program via referendum fizzled last year. Despite tea party predictions of end-of-days doom and gloom, Medicaid expansion in Arizona was a no brainer -- one that Gov. Jan Brewer and the business community embraced. They and the Legislature understood that that the state was already on the hook for most of the 300,000 Arizonans who would be added to AHCCCS, thanks to voters who boosted Medicaid eligibility in 2000. Better, they figured, to take the federal funding than to pay for it out of the state treasury. If the feds eventually stop payments, the law allows Arizona to drop the expansion program. Meanwhile, the state's small portion of the tab is funded through a hospital fee, one that can't be passed along to patients. Already, the program is paying dividends, as hospitals report that uncompensated care — the reason you pay $20 for a hospital box of Kleenex —has plummeted. None of that, however, fazes a tea party determined to cry traitor. And nobody's doing it better than Heap, who told the Arizona Charter Schools Association that Medicaid expansion "will jeopardize funding for critical state educational initiatives which should be our number one priority." Imagine my surprise last week when New Times columnist Stephen Lemons reported that Heap has been collecting some of that funding from Medicaid since 2009. In fact, he's gotten $130,050 from 2009 through 2013, according to AHCCCS's Carusetta. Figures aren't in yet for 2014, when expansion kicked in. But according to HealthPocket.com, an internet service that compares health plans, Heap accepts 122 Obamacare plans. Heap didn't return a phone call to talk about why he would take money from a program that he claims will sap the state budget. His campaign adviser, Chris Baker, told me he has no choice. "First, there is no profit in seeing Medicaid patients. The payments are so low that they lose money. It's why so few orthopedic surgeons see Medicaid patients in Arizona," he said, via email. "Second, it's not Ralph's decision whether to see them or not. He is an employee of Physicians Group of Arizona. He sees who they tell him to see. He has no say in it." Sure he does. If Medicaid will truly starve the schools and cost the state "hundreds of millions of dollars," as Heap claims, I'd think he would quit Physicians Group of Arizona and refuse to participate in Medicaid. Worsley may have voted for it but Heap is collecting from it.

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I guess Sheriff Joe's goons have lots of time on their hands to do anything but catch real criminals. You know criminals that hurt people, like robbers and rapists. Not pot smokers, dishwashers, burger flippers, gardeners, maids and field workers. Oh well, with Sheriff Joe, it's mostly about generating publicity to feed his ego. With our tax dollars. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/07/29/sheriff-arpaio-deputies-urge-migrant-workers-report-crimes/13326539/ Arpaio's deputies urge migrant workers to report crimes Megan Cassidy, The Republic | azcentral.com 6:13 p.m. MST July 29, 2014 Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies drove to the far reaches of Maricopa County on Tuesday to try to encourage migrant farm workers to report crimes. Sheriff's officials trekked out to the western fringes of Maricopa County on Tuesday morning to encourage seasonal migrant workers to reach out to deputies should they fall victim to a crime. Aguila, an unincorporated, sleepy farming community 25 miles west of Wickenburg, is not immune to thefts, assaults and other crimes, but many of the incidents go unreported, according to sheriff's officials. About 30 seasonal workers broke briefly from their melon harvesting Tuesday morning to listen as Deputy Hector Martinez, a Spanish-speaking community liaison, urged laborers to reach out to deputies should they fall victim to a crime. After the meet-and-greet, deputies distributed fliers that echoed Martinez's sentiments and provided both emergency and non-emergency numbers. Deputies planned to reach out to more than 300 workers, most of whom are citizens of Guatemala. The farm laborers are authorized to work in the U.S., but there are concerns that some might hesitate to report crimes to law-enforcement agencies, particularly those that have reputations for engaging in immigration enforcement. "We want these workers to know we are interested in their safety while they are in the county," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said in a released statement. "We will encourage them to let us know of any crimes, or, if they are victims of crime." The outreach effort comes just over a year after a federal judge found that Arpaio's office had violated the constitutional rights of thousands of Latinos and several months after he laid out specific orders that would prevent discrimination in the future. Along with increased data collection, a court-appointed monitor and cameras in patrol vehicles, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow ordered that the department make strides to foster relations with the Latino community. A separate, ongoing racial-profiling lawsuit spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Justice awaits a trial date. Deputy Chief Paul Chagolla denied there was a direct correlation between the judge's ruling and the outreach effort that took place Tuesday. "We've been doing community outreach for a very long time," Chagolla said. "The matter in which we have talked about it and presented it has not been one where we have been that vocal about it. The result of (the lawsuit) is that we are going to talk about what we do in the community." Despite an earlier press release that anticipated "buses filled with migrants" rolling into town to be greeted by deputies, the workers have been in Aguila for months, according to Martori Farms manager Joseph Oddo. The season runs from May to November, he said. Oddo said, in previous years, there were crimes in which someone had been punched, had their windows broken or bicycles stolen. "They would report any activity to us, we would contract the sheriff's department," he said. "But it's much better if an employee contacts the sheriff's department directly when it happens, because then they can respond immediately." Oddo said they additionally hope the Sheriff's Office will increase its patrol presence in the area. "They've always been responsive, but due to logistics and distance, it takes them a while to get here," he said. The Sheriff's Office received about 250 calls for service in 2012 and again in 2013; the office has fielded 48 so far in 2014. Luis Veles-Medina, a temporary laborer who has been working in the area for 24 years, said he has seen an increase in criminals preying on workers. "Before that, everything was fine," he said. "But for the past 10 years, there have been a lot of problems. Robberies. Assaults. Everything." Veles-Medina said workers are often afraid to report crimes because they are only seasonal workers and are afraid criminals will retaliate against them. "I have told them to report it, when they see something," he said. "'Don't be afraid of this person, they are going to be arrested.'" Veles-Medina said he is familiar with Arpaio's "tough" reputation and his stance on deportation but was happy to see deputies reaching out to workers. "It's good that they've come so people know they don't have to be afraid, that they should report any people they see so they can be arrested." Others in the Latino community had a less optimistic take on the event. Lydia Guzman, a community immigration-rights advocate and frequent Arpaio critic, said the sheriff's efforts felt especially disingenuous in light of recent comments he made in San Diego, where he praised immigration protesters. "My initial thought was, 'What a hypocrite,' " Guzman said. "He's trying to mitigate the situation. The judge at any moment is going to announce when the (Department of Justice) trial begins. He's trying to mitigate, but he's inflaming the situation."

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More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our religious leaders, government masters and police??? http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/29/indiana-sheriff-charged-in-prostitution-case/13331243/ Sheriff arrested in case involving prostitute Associated Press 2:29 p.m. MST July 29, 2014 NEW ALBANY, Ind. — A southern Indiana sheriff has been arrested in a prostitution investigation just weeks after a suburban Indianapolis sheriff resigned over his own relationship with a prostitute. Authorities declined to say at a Tuesday news conference whether the cases are linked. But a person with knowledge of the connection told The Associated Press they involve the same woman. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the connection hasn't been made public. Authorities wouldn't say if the woman is cooperating with law enforcement. An indictment alleges Clark County Sheriff Daniel Rodden gave the woman a uniform so she could get a government discount at a Kentucky hotel and paid her $300 for a sex act. Rodden denies the allegations. Boone County Sheriff Ken Campbell resigned in June amid a prostitution investigation.

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When you need help for a loved one, never, never, never call the police. Cops are trained to think of the people they pretend to serve as the enemy. And many times the police end up murdering your loved one instead of helping them. Whenever I head of cases like this I think of Mario Madrigal. Mario Madrigal is a 15 year old boy who was murdered by the Mesa police when his parents called the cops to prevent him from committing suicide. Mario Madrigal didn't have to commit suicide. The cops murdered him. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/29/officer-shoots-family-dog/13318319/ Police officer fired after shooting family's dog A police officer from suburban Chicago is out of a job after a family says he fatally shot their dog in front of their 6-year-old daughter. Associated Press 10:05 a.m. MST July 29, 2014 HOMETOWN, Ill. — A suburban Chicago police officer was fired after shooting to death a family dog. Nicole Echlina says her 6-year-old daughter saw the shooting of their dog, Apollo, by the Hometown police officer The owners of the 14-month-old, German shepherd mix called police for help after he ran off. Authorities say police officers found the dog and tried to coax him to go inside. They say that is when the dog growled and approached the officer, prompting the officer to shoot. In a statement released on the department's Facebook page, Hometown Police Chief Charles Forsyth said the officer may have been justified under state law governing deadly force, but he decided to fire the officer. Forsyth said reports and witness statements will be forwarded to the Illinois State Police for review.

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Border cops should answer for teen's death Don't count on it!!!! The police routinely get away with murder!!!!! I am sure the BP will have a compete investigation as they always do and proclaim that their cops did nothing wrong. As police agencies always do. One of the odd things is that when I go to Mexico everybody knows the police are corrupt to the core. But here in the USA most Americans are dumb sheep that think cops are honest, law abiding citizens that protect us. Sure American cops are corrupt as Mexican cops, but the American cops are a lot better at brainwashing Americans, then Mexican cops are at brainwashing Mexicans. Or maybe Americans are just a lot dumber then Mexicans. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/29/border-patrol-lawsuit/13341079/ Border cops should answer for teen's death Editorial board, The Republic | azcentral.com 5:27 p.m. MST July 29, 2014 Our View: It shouldn't have come to this. But if the Border Patrol insists on secrecy, let's get answers in court. American taxpayers bought the bullets that killed a Mexican mother's son. Now she's going to court to find out who pulled the trigger. It shouldn't have come to this. It has been nearly two years since a Border Patrol agent or agents firing over the border killed 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez as he walked down the street in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The Border Patrol still has not identified who shot this boy in the back and head at least 10 times. The agency denied Freedom of Information requests from The Arizona Republic for those names and for video from surveillance cameras that may have recorded the incident. If there's nothing to hide, the Border Patrol shouldn't be hiding. If this was a tragic mistake, the circumstances should be openly discussed. Araceli Rodriguez' lawsuit, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, seeks unspecified damages for a "senseless and unjustified" killing. She wants a jury trial. That could pull back the veil. Secrecy is a troubling part of the Border Patrol's DNA. It's rare to get any answers when its agents shoot and kill. Unanswered questions so long after Jose Antonio's death show how deep the culture of secrecy goes. Hashing this out in court may provide more information about this case than the Border Patrol has been willing to share. Americans deserve to know what's being done in their name.

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Constitution??? F*ck the Constitution!!! We are going to do whatever we feel like!!! Sadly that's how our royal government rulers routinely behave. And sadly as Robert Robb points out they get away with it. "Arizona's debt limit, set in the Constitution, is still what it was at statehood: $350,000. The courts, however, have approved a variety of evasions of the debt limit, rendering it meaningless" http://www.azcentral.com/story/robertrobb/2014/07/29/riggs-debt/13343387/ Riggs proposes honest debt Robert Robb, columnist | azcentral.com 6:23 p.m. MST July 29, 2014 Dark horse gubernatorial candidate Frank Riggs has floated a fiscal idea worth noting: Increase the state's debt limit and use general obligation bonding to pay for the state's capital needs. Arizona's debt limit, set in the Constitution, is still what it was at statehood: $350,000. The courts, however, have approved a variety of evasions of the debt limit, rendering it meaningless. State government today is carrying $8.6 billion in debt. The evasions are less transparent and require higher interest costs than if the state were issuing general obligation bonds. So, Riggs' proposal makes sense. It's probably politically toxic, however. It certainly was for Terry Goddard's father, Sam, when he was governor in the 1960s. He made a similar proposal, voters overwhelmingly rejected it, and then turned Sam out of office the next election. If Evan Mecham had been recalled rather than impeached, former House Minority Leader John Rhodes was gearing up to run for governor. Rhodes planned on making increasing the debt limit and using general obligation bonding for the state's capital needs part of his platform. Rhodes might have had the political moxie to put that on the policy agenda. Riggs probably not. Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RJRobb.

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Jim Revier knows how to run YOUR life!!!! Jim Revier seems like one of those jerks who knows know to run our lives better then we do. He even seems to be offended that some people like me will call him the "grammar police". Sadly it's usually busybodies like Jim Revier who are always asking the government to pass laws to make us live our lives like they think we should. It's folks like Jim Revier who are responsible for the government passing laws that made liquor and marijuana illegal. In addition to all the other silly "blue laws". Somebody should tell Jim Revier that languages are not static things. Languages are constantly evolving. That's why English as spoken in the USA, England, Canada and Australia have evolved into languages that are slightly different now and which over time will probably become completely different languages. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/letters/2014/07/30/focus-on-basic-grammar-before-teaching-cursive/13349307/ Focus on basic grammar before teaching cursive Jim Revier 9:50 p.m. MST July 29, 2014 While the article on cursive writing in the public schools was interesting, I'd rather see our educators concentrate more on basic English grammar ("Writing it old school," Valley & State In-Depth, Sunday). As a society we seem to be "dumbing down" our use of correct grammar (especially the proper use of objective and nominative pronouns). Many of the local television personalities constantly use the wrong pronoun form: (i.e., "between you and I" rather than the correct "between you and me"). It would take about 60 minutes to teach these adults the proper use of these. Those who derisively call those of us who point this out "grammar police" don't seem to understand that poor grammar reflects poorly on those who use it. This is especially true for those in the media who should be setting better examples for the public. — Jim Revier, Scottsdale

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More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our religious leaders, government masters and police??? Attorney General Tom Horne seems to be a religious nut job who wants to force his religious values on you. Well let's not talk about his little affair with Carmen Chenal. Tom Horne has got a different set of values for himself. While this article doesn't address it Tom Horne has also been doing the best he can to flush Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act down the toilet. http://eastvalleytribune.com/arizona/politics/article_b4046970-16a8-11e4-a644-001a4bcf887a.html Horne seeks void of block on abortion drug regulations Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services Posted: Monday, July 28, 2014 4:15 pm By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services Attorney General Tom Horne is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to void of a federal appellate court ruling blocking the state from limiting the use of a controversial abortion drug. Horne on Monday got permission from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to ignore its month-old order sending the case back to a federal judge in Tucson for a trial on whether the state can limit how doctors can use RU-486. The judges agreed with his arguments that the high court, facing contradictory rulings from other appellate courts, is likely to want to weigh in on the issue. In the meantime, though, the appellate court's injunction against enforcement of the 2012 Arizona law remains in effect. That keeps medication abortions available to women through the ninth week of pregnancy — at least for the time being. But Bryan Howard, president of Planned Parenthood Arizona, said Horne's legal move has less to do with the law and more to do with the attorney general's efforts to ward off a strong challenge from Mark Brnovich in next month's Republican primary. Howard said the Arizona law does nothing to protect the health of women, the touchstone federal courts have used in deciding when states can restrict abortions. He said Horne, rather than fighting what could be a losing battle in trial court, instead wants the more immediate headlines of a high court appeal. “It is Horne's latest attempt to revive his crisis-plagued reelection campaign, this time on the backs of women seeking health care,” Howard said. “That's idiotic,” Horne responded. “It's my job to defend laws that are passed by the Arizona Legislature,” Horne continued, accusing Howard of “just being a lapdog for the Democrat,” meaning Felecia Rotellini who intends to take on whoever is the GOP nominee. Monday's order is at least an interim major setback for Planned Parenthood and the Tucson Women's Center. Both organizations have used RU-486, technically known as mifepristone, for medication abortions in combination with misoprostol, taken at home 24 to 48 hours after the first drug, to ensure that the fetus is expelled. Doctors said they have determined that combination in certain dosages is effective in terminating a pregnancy through the ninth week. The law says any medication used to induce abortion must be administered “in compliance with the protocol authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” And the FDA has approved RU-486 only for the first seven weeks, and only when given in two doses on separate days, each one administered by a physician. The law took effect April 1 when a trial judge refused to block enforcement. Last month the appellate court said the limits “substantially burdened” the legal right of women to terminate a pregnancy. There was evidence that the law made medication abortions off limits to hundreds of Arizona women a year, forcing them instead to undergo more complicated surgical abortions. Potentially more significant, the judges said attorneys for the state never provided any evidence to show the restrictions were necessary to protect the health of women. Horne contends the appellate judges are missed the point. He said the Legislature is legally entitled to decide that doctors have to follow FDA labeling — and that courts should defer to that decision. “You shouldn't be able to say that we're being constitutionally unreasonable for following an FDA protocol,” he said. But appellate Judge William Fletcher, writing last month for the three-judge panel, said the evidence presented shows no basis for the state's argument. “The on-label regimen requires three times more mifepristone than the evidence-based regimen,” the judge wrote. And he said there was no evidence that any doctor was using the drug in a dangerous manner. In seeking Supreme Court review, Horne has something else working for him: Two other federal appellate courts have upheld similar restrictions in other states. Horne said that pretty much assures the Supreme Court will have to look at the issue. He said there's no reason to take the case back for trial in Tucson now if the high court may decide the issue in the interim.

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Letter: Candidates violate law with signs More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our religious leaders, government masters and police??? http://eastvalleytribune.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/article_b396eba0-1461-11e4-b424-001a4bcf887a.html Letter: Candidates violate law with signs Posted: Tuesday, July 29, 2014 1:30 am Letter to the Editor It is election season once again and with that comes ubiquitous campaign signs filling nearly every street corner throughout Mesa. Despite Arizona Revised Statute 16-1019 and Mesa City Code Title 11-41-7G and 8-6-F&S, which prohibit campaign signs within 15 feet of the face of a curb or the edge of the pavement, almost all of these signs are within 4-5 feet, thus creating traffic hazards as motorists struggle to see cross traffic through the kaleidoscope of vision-restricting banners and signs. In addition, these laws regulate the number of signs that can be placed on any one corner, yet most street corners in Mesa contain more than a dozen signs, and some nearly two dozen, all jammed together, one on top of the other. Two of the biggest violators are gubernatorial wanna-be Scott Smith and Mesa mayoral wanna-be John Giles. Their signs are usually the ones closest to the street, in clear violation of city ordinances. If they cannot be trusted to adhere to the community’s most basic laws, how can citizens trust them to honor other, more serious laws. The candidates’ campaign offices will cite “overzealous” volunteers for putting up the violating signs, but the candidates are the ones ultimately responsible. When will Mesa do something to enforce its own laws and clean up this campaign sign mess that blights our streets? Edward F. Murphy Mesa

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How do you spell perjury - FBI forensic labs!!!! OK, cops don't consider it perjury when they lie in court to frame people they know are criminals, so I guess technically it's testilying, not perjury. Of course most of us folks who are not police officers disagree with that!!!! You think you are going to get a fair trial??? Don't make me laugh!!!! http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/federal-review-stalled-after-finding-forensic-errors-by-fbi-lab-unit-spanned-two-decades/2014/07/29/04ede880-11ee-11e4-9285-4243a40ddc97_story.html?hpid=z1 Federal review stalled after finding forensic errors by FBI lab unit spanned two decades By Spencer S. Hsu July 29 at 7:49 PM Nearly every criminal case reviewed by the FBI and the Justice Department as part of a massive investigation started in 2012 of problems at the FBI lab has included flawed forensic testimony from the agency, government officials said. The findings troubled the bureau, and it stopped the review of convictions last August. Case reviews resumed this month at the order of the Justice Department, the officials said. U.S. officials began the inquiry after The Washington Post reported two years ago that flawed forensic evidence involving microscopic hair matches might have led to the convictions of hundreds of potentially innocent people. Most of those defendants never were told of the problems in their cases. The inquiry includes 2,600 convictions and 45 death-row cases from the 1980s and 1990s in which the FBI’s hair and fiber unit reported a match to a crime-scene sample before DNA testing of hair became common. The FBI had reviewed about 160 cases before it stopped, officials said. The investigation resumed after the Justice Department’s inspector general excoriated the department and the FBI for unacceptable delays and inadequate investigation in a separate inquiry from the mid-1990s. The inspector general found in that probe that three defendants were executed and a fourth died on death row in the five years it took officials to reexamine 60 death-row convictions that were potentially tainted by agent misconduct, mostly involving the same FBI hair and fiber analysis unit now under scrutiny. “I don’t know whether history is repeating itself, but clearly the [latest] report doesn’t give anyone a sense of confidence that the work of the examiners whose conduct was first publicly questioned in 1997 was reviewed as diligently and promptly as it needed to be,” said Michael R. Bromwich, who was inspector general from 1994 to 1999 and is now a partner at the Goodwin Procter law firm. Bromwich would not discuss any aspect of the current review because he is a pro bono adviser to the Innocence Project, which along with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is assisting the government effort under an agreement not to talk about the review. Still, he added, “Now we are left 18 years [later] with a very unhappy, unsatisfying and disquieting situation, which is far harder to remedy than if the problems had been addressed promptly.” Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole this month ordered that reviews resume under the original terms, officials said. According to the FBI, the delay resulted, in part, “from a vigorous debate that occurred within the FBI and DOJ about the appropriate scientific standards we should apply when reviewing FBI lab examiner testimony — many years after the fact.” “Working closely with DOJ, we have resolved those issues and are moving forward with the transcript review for the remaining cases,” the FBI said. A Washington Post investigation reveals that Justice Department officials have known for years that flaws in forensic techniques and weak laboratory standards may have led to the convictions of innocent people across the country, raising the question: How many more are out there? Emily Pierce, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said: “The Department of Justice never signed off on the FBI’s decision to change the way they reviewed the hair analysis. We are pleased that the review has resumed and that notification letters will be going out in the next few weeks.” During the review’s 11-month hiatus, Florida’s Supreme Court denied an appeal by a death-row inmate who challenged his 1988 conviction based on an FBI hair match. James Aren Duckett’s results were caught up in the delay, and his legal options are now more limited. Revelations that the government’s largest post-conviction review of forensic evidence has found widespread problems counter earlier FBI claims that a single rogue examiner was at fault. Instead, they feed a growing debate over how the U.S. justice system addresses systematic weaknesses in past forensic testimony and methods. “I see this as a tip-of-the-iceberg problem,” said Erin Murphy, a New York University law professor and expert on modern scientific evidence. “It’s not as though this is one bad apple or even that this is one bad-apple discipline,” she said. “There is a long list of disciplines that have exhibited problems, where if you opened up cases you’d see the same kinds of overstated claims and unfounded statements.” Worries about the limitations and presentation of scientific evidence are “coming out of the dark shadows of the legal system,” said David H. Kaye, a law professor at Penn State who helped lead a Justice Department-funded study of fingerprint analysis and testimony in 2012. “The question is: What can you do about it?” Courts and law enforcement authorities have been reluctant to allow defendants to retroactively challenge old evidence using newer, more accurate scientific methods. The Justice Department and FBI inquiry, which examines convictions before 2000, could provide a way for defendants to make that challenge. Because the government is dropping procedural objections to appeals and offering new DNA testing in flawed cases if sought by a judge or prosecutor, results could provide a measure of the frequency of wrongful convictions. Responding to the FBI review, the accreditation arm of the American Society of Crime Lab Directors last year recommended that labs determine whether they needed to conduct similar reviews, and New York, North Carolina and Texas are doing so. According to a Justice Department spokesman, officials last August completed reviews and notified a first wave of defendants in 23 cases, including 14 death-penalty cases, that FBI examiners “exceeded the limits of science” when they linked hair to crime-scene evidence. However, concerned that errors were found in the “vast majority” of cases, the FBI restarted the review, grinding the process to a halt, said a government official who was briefed on the process. The Justice Department objected in January, but a standoff went unresolved until this month. After more than two years, the review will have addressed about 10 percent of the 2,600 questioned convictions and perhaps two-thirds of questioned death-row cases. The department is notifying defendants about errors in two more death-penalty cases and in 134 non-capital cases over the next month, and will complete evaluations of 98 other cases by early October, including 14 more death-penalty cases. No crime lab performed more hair examinations for federal and state agencies than the 10-member FBI unit, which testified in cases nationwide involving murder, rape and other violent felonies. Although FBI policy has stated since at least the 1970s that a hair association cannot be used as positive identification, like fingerprints, agents regularly testified to the near-certainty of matches. In reality, there is no accepted research on how often hair from different people may appear the same. The FBI now uses visual hair comparison to rule out someone as a possible source of hair or as a screening step before more accurate DNA testing. This month, the inspector general reported that inattention and foot-dragging by the Justice Department and the FBI led them to ignore warnings 15 years ago that scientifically unsupported and misleading testimony could have come from more than a single hair examiner among agents discredited in a 1997 inspector general’s report on misconduct at the FBI lab. The report said that as of 1999, Justice Department officials had enough information to review all hair unit cases — not just those of former agent Michael P. Malone, who was identified as the agent making the most frequent exaggerated testimony. By 2002, Maureen Killion, then director of enforcement operations, had alerted senior criminal division officials to “the specter that the other examiners in the unit” were as sloppy as Malone, the inspector general said. “This issue has been raised with the FBI but not resolved to date,” Killion wrote to then-Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff and his principal deputy, John C. Keeney, in July 2002, the report said. Twelve years later, the Florida case shows the continued inadequacy of officials’ response. Duckett, then a rookie police officer in Mascotte, Fla., was convicted of raping and strangling Teresa McAbee, 11, and dumping her into a lake in 1987. After a state police examiner was unable to match pubic hair found in the victim’s underwear, prosecutors went to Malone, who testified at trial that there was a “high degree of probability” that the hair came from Duckett. Such testimony is scientifically invalid, according to the parameters of the current FBI review, because it claims to associate a hair with a single person “to the exclusion of all others.” The Florida court denied Duckett’s request for a new hearing on Malone’s hair match. The court noted that there was other evidence of Duckett’s guilt and that the FBI had not entirely abandoned visual hair comparison. Duckett attorney Mary Elizabeth Wells confirmed this week that Duckett’s case was under the FBI’s review. Both Wells and Whitney Ray, a spokeswoman for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, said Thursday that parties had not been notified of results, but they otherwise declined to comment. Duckett’s case was eligible for the 1996 review as a Malone case but was omitted, even though the inspector general stated that “it was important to the integrity of the justice system” that all of Malone’s death-penalty cases be immediately reviewed. The Justice Department declined to comment on the omission. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/report-irreversible-harm-when-fbi-didnt-reveal-flawed-lab-work-in-death-row-cases/2014/07/16/ebf9496e-0d29-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html Report: ‘Irreversible harm’ when FBI didn’t reveal flawed lab work in death-row cases By Spencer S. Hsu July 16 The Justice Department and FBI delayed notifying prosecutors in scores of death-row convictions that their cases might have relied on flawed FBI forensic work, the department’s Office of Inspector General reported Wednesday. In a scathing report that shed new light on one of the FBI lab’s worst modern scandals, the inspector general said the Justice Department didn’t properly review all of the cases by FBI examiner s whose work was known to be flawed. The report said the FBI took more than five years to identify more than 60 death-row defendants whose cases had been handled by 13 lab examiners whose work had been criticized in a 1997 inspector-general investigation. As a result, state authorities could not consider whether to stay sentences, and three men were put to death. One of those defendants, who was executed in Texas in 1997, would not have been eligible for the death penalty without the FBI’s flawed work, the report said. “Failures of this nature undermine the integrity of the United States’ system of justice and the public’s confidence in our system,” the 146-page report stated. The failure to admit errors at the time “also injured the reputation of the FBI and the Department.” The report was requested by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) after The Washington Post reported in 2012 that Justice officials knew for years that flawed evidence and testimony might have led to the convictions of innocent people. The Post focused on the Texas case and three men in Washington, D.C., who were represented by the Public Defender Service and have been exonerated. Problems at the FBI lab first surfaced in the early 1990s, when scientist-turned-whistleblower Fred Whitehurst reported that sloppy work by examiners was producing unreliable forensic testimony. Justice officials launched a task force that was active from 1996 to 2004 to ensure that potentially exculpatory evidence involving criticized agents was turned over to defendants. But The Post found that such notification rarely happened and that not all flawed cases were properly reviewed. Justice Department officials, responding to Wednesday’s report, said that they had been diligent in trying to protect defendants’ rights in undertaking a review of unprecedented size and complexity. However, “with the benefit of hindsight, the Department agrees that certain aspects of the Task Force review could have been more efficient or effective,” Brette L. Steele, senior adviser on forensic science, wrote in a department memo included in the report. As of October, the 26 surviving death-row inmates whose cases were included in the review had all been notified that their convictions had been re-examined, Steele said. The inspector general had recommended the notifications and retesting of evidence in 24 death-row cases in which the defendant was deceased. The inspector general’s office said the department should notify all 2,900 defendants whose cases were reviewed by the task force, starting with 402 defendants whose cases were so problematic that the task force obtained a fresh scientific review. Their names were made public Wednesday for the first time. The report said that even more defendants’ cases should have been reviewed but were omitted for inappropriate reasons, and the scope of errors never would be known. For many defendants, it said, “delays were very prejudicial and, for some, they caused irreversible harm.” The report also stated that the FBI agent responsible for the greatest number of problem cases, hair examiner Michael P. Malone, was transferred to field work until he retired in 1999. He then became a contractor to the agency from 2002 until last month, conducting security investigations, the report said. “We believe that Malone’s employment as an FBI contractor was a consequence of the failure of the FBI and the Department to discipline Malone for the misconduct we identified in our 1997 Report,” Wednesday’s review said. In an interview, Whitehurst said it’s “preposterous” that two decades after he reported the forensic problems, the FBI is still allowed to re-examine its own mistakes. “When we divert our attention, we’ll be back where we were before,” he said. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called Wednesday’s findings “shocking” and criticized the FBI for “foot-dragging and resistance to accountability.” “The initial shoddy lab work was compounded by the Justice Department’s unconscionable failures to fix the problems it caused in hundreds of cases,” Grassley said. “The FBI and the Justice Department will have a lot of work to do to restore the public’s confidence in their integrity following these revelations.”

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As long as the government taxes and regulates the krap out of marijuana, the problems associated with Black Market drugs will not go away. The only solution to the problem is to tax marijuana no differently then the government taxes everything else. And of course if you are a Libertarian that means not taxing marijuana at all!!! Here in Arizona despite the fact that medical marijuana is legal, marijuana that can be purchased legally in dispensaries costs $300+ an ounce which is several times the black market price of $50 to $100 an ounce. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/07/30/inside-colorados-flourishing-segregated-black-market-for-pot/?hpid=z4 Inside Colorado’s flourishing, segregated black market for pot By Tina Griego July 30 at 5:11 AM DENVER — In these, the curious, infant days of the state’s legalization of recreational marijuana, of shiny dispensaries and touch-screen ordering and suburban parties where joints are passed like appetizers over granite countertops, no one would notice the duplex. Plain brick, patchy grass behind chain link, it appears weary, resigned to what the tenant calls “the ‘hood” and others might call left-behind Denver, untouched by the frenzy of investment that has returned to downtown. The front door of the duplex stays closed. Sheer white curtains cover the living room window. A basement filtering system vents air scrubbed of the sweet funky smell of the pot growing in the basement. The tenant keeps his grow operation here small. It’s his home. That’s his grandson upstairs watching TV with strict instructions not to open the door if someone knocks. Should the cops inquire, they’d find a frail-looking, middle-age Latino with diabetes and heart problems, talking about his pension and his Medicaid and waving his medical marijuana registry card. The red card — part of the state’s legal landscape since 2000 when voters approved the sale of marijuana for medical use — allows the grower to cultivate a doctor-prescribed 16 plants. It does not allow him to do what he typically does next: sell what he does not consume to the underground market. It does not allow him a second grow op in another rented house where he and a partner grew 55 plants until the landlord grew suspicious. It does not allow him, in other words, to run his own little corner of a black market that still exists in the state with America’s most permissive legal pot sales. The grower says he recently sold more than 20 pounds of his weed — Blue Dream for the mellow, Green Crack for the perk — to middlemen who flipped it for almost double the price. “I try to keep it legal,” he says, “but sometimes it’s illegal.” Camouflaged amid the legal medicinal and recreational marijuana market, the ever-adaptable underground market thrives. Some in law enforcement and on the street say it may be as strong as it’s ever been, so great is the unmet local and visitor demand. That the black market bustles in the emerging days of legalization is not unexpected. By some reckonings, it will continue as long as residents of other states look to Colorado — and now Washington state — as the nation’s giant cannabis cookie jar. And, they add, as long as its legal retail competition keeps prices high and is taxed by state and local government at rates surpassing 30 percent. “I don’t know who is buying for recreational use at dispensaries unless it’s white, middle-class people and out-of-towners,” Rudy Reddog Balles, a longtime community activist and mediator. “Everyone I know still has the guy on the street that they hook up with.” This black market boom, the state argues, is a temporary situation. As more legal recreational dispensaries and growers enter the market, the market will do what it does with greater competition: adjust. Prices will fall. The illegal market will shrink accordingly. In any case, these first curious months of the legal recreational market have laid bare a socioeconomic fault line. Resentment bubbles in the neighborhoods where marijuana has always been easy to get. The resentment goes something like: We Latinos and African Americans from the ‘hood were stigmatized for marijuana use, disdained and disproportionately prosecuted in the war on drugs. We grew up in the culture of marijuana, with grandmothers who made oil from the plants and rubbed it on arthritic hands. We sold it as medicine. We sold it for profit and pleasure. Now pot is legalized and who benefits? Rich people with their money to invest and their clean criminal records and 800 credit scores. And here we are again: on the outskirts of opportunity. A legion of entrepreneurs with big plans and rewired basements chafes with every monthly state tax revenue report. Ask someone who buys and sells in the underground market how it has responded to legalization and the question is likely to be tossed back with defiance. “You mean, ‘Who’s been shut out of the legal market?’ ” asks Miguel Lopez, chief community organizer of the state’s 420 Rally, which calls for legalization of marijuana nationally. “It’s kind of like we made all the sacrifices and they packed it up and are making all the money,” says Cisco Gallardo, a well-known gang outreach worker who once sold drugs as a gang member. For the record, he does not partake. It rattles him a little, he says, to see the young people with whom he works shed their NFL and rapper dreams for the next big thing: their own marijuana dispensary. In this light, taxation is seen as a blunt instrument of exclusion, driving precisely the groups most prosecuted in the war on drug further into the arms of the black market where they remain at risk for arrest or robbery. In one Denver dispensary, a $30 purchase of one-eighth of the Trinity strain of cannabis includes $7.38 in state and local taxes – a near 33 percent rate. As Larisa Bolivar, one of the city’s most well-known proponents of decriminalizing marijuana nationally and opening a true free market, puts it: That seven bucks buys someone lunch. “It’s simple,” she says. “A high tax rate drives black market growth. It’s an incentive for risky behavior.” There may be an argument there, says Lt. James Henning, who heads the Denver Police Department’s vice/drug bureau, but one, don’t expect much sympathy and two, “you have to follow the law. If you want to sell marijuana, find a way to sell it legally.” Until then, there’s Junior. He’s visiting the duplex basement, standing amid the Cool-Bloom, the Rapid Grow, the bags of Coco, sharing an e-cig loaded with a hash oil cartridge with the grower. Both men insist on anonymity, for fear of being targeted by law enforcement. “Dude, it’s way too hot in here,” Junior says, examining a yellowing plant. “It should be, like, 80.” The digital thermometer on the wall reads 97 degrees. The portable AC broke, the grower says. Junior, round-cheeked, soft-spoken, a once-upon-a-time gang member, recently lost his job in the oil industry, so he’s returned to an old pastime. “Would I prefer he had his legitimate job, still?” his wife says. “Yes, but when he did he was never home and now he is.” You have pot to sell, Junior will find you a buyer. You want to buy? He’ll find you product. He prefers to deal in bulk, taking a small commission, usually $100 a pound. Every once in a while, when he’s got extra bills to pay, he sells it himself. That’s much riskier, felony risky, kids-visiting-dad-at-the-jailhouse risky. But profit tempts from all directions. Two thousand dollars a pound in Colorado is $3,200 in Oklahoma or Kansas City and $5,500 in New York City. A July 9 study of Colorado’s marijuana market and demand for the Colorado Department of Revenue estimates the total adult demand, including out-of-state visitors, at about 130 metric tons in 2014. Of that, licensed retailers are expected to supply 77 metric tons, most of it from medical marijuana outlets. That leaves what the report calls a “sales gap” of about 53 million tons of projected unmet demand — not including use by minors. Enter the licensed home growers, the people buying legally and reselling illegally, the illegal grow and distribution networks: the underground. Marijuana production in the state “is like a shoe factory,” Balles says. “You’ve got the ones that go to Nike and the ones that go out the back door to the flea market. One way or another, it all gets sold.” Seven months of legality is too early to tell anything, and what is now may not be in another seven months. What exists now, however, is profit. The grower says he cleared $30,000 on his last big deal. “That’s the kind of math I want to be doing,” Junior says. He has plans to start his own grow op in his stepdad’s house. He dreams of opening his own dispensary and is now interviewing for a job at one. “A lot of people they look at me,” the grower says, “and they go: ‘Damn, must be nice baller, driving that new car, driving that motorcycle, taking your boat out on Sunday.’ I say I worked hard for it. ‘Oh, yeah, we know, you’re working hard, watering plants.’ I call them my money trees.” “They say money don’t grow on trees,” Junior says. “They’re lying.” The grower laughs. “They say, ‘What’s that smell?’ I say, ‘Money.’” Tina Griego is a reporter for Storyline. Previously, Tina was a city columnist for the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post for a combined 12 years.

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Remember how the cops always investigate themselves and find amazingly that they have done nothing wrong!!! "4 Chicago cops at center of scandal had amassed more than 200 complaints" "The four officers faced virtually no punishment as a result of the complaints." The good news is that this article was published. The bad news is corrupt cops will continue to terrorize the public and nothing will be done. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-4-chicago-cops-at-center-of-scandal-had-amassed-more-than-200-complaints-20140730,0,5746067.story 4 Chicago cops at center of scandal had amassed more than 200 complaints By Jeremy Gorner and Annie Sweeney Tribune reporters 12:15 p.m. CDT, July 30, 2014 Four Chicago police officers from a unit at the center of one of the worst misconduct scandals in department history amassed 200 complaints in the years leading up to revelations that they were repeatedly abusing and robbing citizens, according to City of Chicago documents made available this week to the Tribune. The officers included former cops Jerome Finnigan and Keith Herrera of the now-defunct Special Operations Sections. They racked up 105 complaints against them to Internal Affairs from 2001 through 2006 – the period during which the officers took part in robberies, illegal traffic stops and illegal searches of the homes of suspected drug dealers and other citizens. Finnigan and Herrera were both convicted after the scandal broke. Finnigan and Herrera and two other SOS officers rank in the top five on what is known as a “repeater list” of 662 officers who accumulated 11 or more complaints during that period, according to the list, which was obtained by the Tribune through a Freedom of Information Act request. Altogether, the officers amassed 210 complaints. The four officers faced virtually no punishment as a result of the complaints. Herrera was reprimanded once, in 2004, according to the documents. Craig Futterman, an attorney who handled the litigation that resulted in the creation of the list, said the document lays out a pattern by the SOS that could have been detected by the Chicago Police Department long before the scandal broke in 2006. “Here the city has had the information that could reveal patterns of abuse committed by groups of officers and who have caused so much harm and cost the city and tax payers so much money and done grievous harm to the reputation of good cops out there,” Futterman said. Futterman noted that not every officer on the list “ is a bad cop.” SOS was once one of the department's elite crime-fighting units, praised by department brass as the best at making gang and drug arrests. But while they were racking up arrests in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they were also tallying thousands of complaints of false arrest and thefts. Battles within the Internal Affairs Division about the handling of complaints against SOS officers have been at the center of the federal investigation. When the scandal broke, it was the first and biggest domino in a line of misconduct cases that led to the early retirement of then-Supt. Philip Cline, whom Mayor Richard Daley replaced with Jody Weis, an ex-FBI official. The SOS unit was disbanded in October 2007. The city has settled numerous lawsuits against SOS officers connected to the alleged Finnigan crew, but several pending suits have been delayed by the criminal investigation. jgorner@tribune.com asweeney@tribune.com

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Christine Jones Republican candidate for Arizona Governor Republican governor candidate Christine Jones sounds like a religious nut job, who is having gay porn star Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu campaign for her. I don't have anything again gay porn stars, but I do have a problems with religious nut jobs who want to use government to force their religious values on me. And I do have a problem with Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. He seems like a smarter and brighter version of racist, police state nut job Sheriff Joe, who I don't want anything to do with. http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2014/07/christine_jones_paul_babeu.php Christine Jones Made Money from Porn, Was Pro­-SOPA, and Forgives Sheriff Paul Babeu's Sex­capades By Stephen Lemons Wed., Jul. 30 2014 at 12:21 PM Christine Jones and firearms? Sounds like a fine way to spend a Saturday. Such was my thought when I found out Jones, a contender for the GOP nod for governor, would be at Shooter's Vault, a gun shop in North Phoenix, for a campaign meet­-and-greet. See, I had a few questions for the 45­-year­-old former corporate attorney for GoDaddy.com, not the least of which was why she would have anything to do with sleazy Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. Babeu's been using the "crisis" of unaccompanied minors from Central America to creep back into the good graces of Fox News and appear on less ­partisan outlets to denounce Obama and all those brown kids crossing the border. But this is the same guy who posed half-­naked for a selfie that he posted on the gay pickup site Adam4Adam.com under the handle "studboi1," who had an undocumented Mexican boyfriend, who employed that undocumented boyfriend as a website manager for his ill-­fated 2012 congressional campaign, and who allegedly threatened to deport the guy after the relationship went south and the dude supposedly threatened to expose Babeu's then-­closeted sexuality. A thoroughly discredited individual, who cynically orchestrated a recent redneck protest of undocumented kids headed for a boy's camp in Oracle (children who never materialized, thankfully), Babeu's glommed onto Jones' campaign as her top immigration adviser, appearing with her at some events and taking center stage in her latest campaign commercial. "Border security is what I deal with every day," Babeu tells us in the ad. "That's why I'm supporting Christine Jones for governor." For those new to town, Pinal County is not on the border. But I digress. As opposed to the commercials in which Jones promises to "send Obama the bill" for her $270 million border plan, Babeu assures us that Jones has "a realistic plan" and, as a former CPA, "has a solid way to pay for it." Forget about the massive budget shortfalls Arizona faces for the next couple of years or the $1.6 billion owed to schools because of a recent court decision. Ignore that yawning black hole. Focus instead on Babeu's shiny bald head. Anyway, when I arrived at the gun shop, there Jones stood before a wall of AR­-15s with a group of about 20 or so, all of whom wanted to kvetch about illegal immigration. The funniest was one guy with a heavy foreign accent saying that he came here the right way and that all those illegal rugrats should be shipped back home, no exceptions. Ah, America -- where even immigrants can be anti-­immigrant. My turn came, and I asked Jones where the heck she was gonna get that $270 million her border plan was supposed to cost. She gave me some shuck-­and-­jive about how her plan would pay for itself in the long run. But in the short run, where does the cash come from, considering the state's budget? "In your budget session . . . you make that your highest priority," she told me. "You start with the things that really matter to you. [Then] you're going to be left with stuff that's going to fall off the table that you're not going to pay for. It's going to be painful, but I'm just telling you at the moment that we cannot afford not to do it." She claimed there were "huge pickups" that the state could make in "efficiency" because of "duplicating spending." Still, what would she cut to get the $270 million? "Some of it is going to have to come out of the state agencies that have a bunch of middle management," she said. Not through layoffs. But through "technology solutions" and normal attrition. "I'm going to look like a complete genius," she promised, "because it's not very hard." Whew, that's a load off my mind. Following the Q & A, folks approached Jones to chat. I did likewise, identifying myself when my turn came. I asked her about Babeu's scandal with the undocumented boy toy. To her credit, she didn't run away, like some politicians I know. "Well, I think it was a mistake," she acknowledged. And the profile for studboi1 on Adam4Adam.com, with such need-­to-know info about his penis as "7 inches cut" and the racy pics? "I'm not sure of the context for that," she admitted. "I never asked him . . . I don't know, Steve, I really don't know. But what I know is, I'm the least perfect among us. I'm just a sinner among all the other sinners. If you find a perfect candidate, I'd like to meet him." Jones identifies as a Christian. In one YouTube video I've seen, she speaks to young Christian adults about their importance as citizens of the kingdom of God and about trying to bring about heaven on earth through, um, the political process. (Yikes!) Also, in her campaign ads, she describes herself as an "unapologetic conservative," which is odd considering that she once worked for a company, GoDaddy.com, that registers porn websites, among many others. "[You're] talking about porn at GoDaddy? Give me a break," she told me. "Less than one­quarter of 1 percent of all of GoDaddy's revenue came from adult sites. Not porn, anything to do with adults." I tried to get confirmation of this with GoDaddy but was unable to by the time this column went to press. Jones helped sell GoDaddy in July 2011 for $2.25 billion. Shortly before that, GoDaddy announced that it would register porn sites through the new premium domain Dot­-XXX -- designed (obviously) with porn purveyors in mind. Dot­-XXX actually is owned by Florida company ICM Registry, and GoDaddy is one of ICM's "accredited registrars." In one 2011 news item, Jones is quoted as saying GoDaddy was "agnostic" on the subject of the new Dot-­XXX, while GoDaddy's then­-owner, Bob Parsons, told another outlet his company would "give our customers what they want." Which doesn't bother me -- but ain't Jones supposed to be a good, Christian right­-winger? "Look at when I left the company," she said. "I fought [Dot-­XXX] for 10 years." Jones cashed out from GoDaddy, the biz known for its sexually sophomoric Super Bowl ads featuring gals with glandular excesses, at the end of May 2012. That was about a year after GoDaddy started doing the new dot­-XXXs. And about a year after the company sold. So far, Jones has lent more than $2 million of her own dough to her campaign and spent nearly as much. I pointed out that some of her wealth can be said to have come from the registration of porn sites. She didn't disagree. Instead she went on a tirade about her main rival in the primary, Doug Ducey, and controversies over Ducey's leadership of Cold Stone Creamery. Which will have to wait for another day. Back when Jones departed from GoDaddy, some speculated it had to do with the debacle over the amazingly unpopular Stop Online Piracy Act, which GoDaddy initially backed while other Internet giants, like Google and YouTube, opposed it. The move backfired, causing some entities and individuals to dump GoDaddy for other registrars. GoDaddy ultimately ate crow and reversed itself. Because of such popular outrage, SOPA never became law. Jones denied writing SOPA's actual language but admitted she was involved in pimping it. "By the way, you understand SOPA had nothing to do with censorship?" she asked me. She should try telling that to the folks online still ticked by Jones' involvement in a bill that would have expanded civil and criminal liability when it comes to copyright infringement. For Jones in the primary, SOPA probably is more of a problem with libertarians, while social conservatives can't be happy with her making bucks off adult entertainment. On the other hand, if Babeu can get away with his icky doings, maybe Republicans will forgive Jones' profiting from the flesh pits of porn. E­mail stephen.lemons@newtimes.com.

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http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/07/30/dps-recommends-charges-phoenix-arson-investigators/13394937/ DPS recommends charges for 2 Phoenix arson investigators 12 News probe triggers DPS investigation, felony charges recommended. 12 News Matthew Casey, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:47 p.m. MST July 30, 2014 The Phoenix Fire Department has suspended three high-ranking members after an Arizona Department of Public Safety investigation recommended felony charges against two captains accused of ­lying under oath during an arson investigation, documents show. The recommendations resulted from a criminal inquiry into the actions of Fire Marshal Jack Ballentine, Capt. Sam Richardson and Capt. Fred Andes during the arson investigation of a fire at a home near 40th Street and Campbell Avenue in May 2009. Police arrested the homeowner, 50-year-old Barbara Sloan, on suspicion of arson. The county attorney later dropped the case, in part because there was no evidence tying Sloan to the fire, according to the DPS investigative ­report. "I think it is a very good start," Sloan said about the DPS findings. "It saddens me to think it's gone on this long and it's taken this many years for someone to stand up and realize ­dishonesty has occurred." AZCENTRAL Officials want outside inquiry into Phoenix Fire Department arson unit RELATED: 3 Phoenix arson investigators put on paid DPS recommending criminal charges against two for acts of dishonesty during investigation. The DPS report, which the Maricopa County Attorney's Office received July 24, ­alleges discrepancies in testimony by the two fire captains. Investigators have recommended that Richardson be charged with six counts of false swearing and that Andes be charged with one count. No charges were ­recommended for Ballentine. Among the alleged ­inconsistencies: • The DPS said Richardson gave conflicting accounts during depositions in May 2010 and September 2010 about his investigation of the fire in Sloan's garage. At first, Richardson said he did not go into the ­garage but later said he walked through it. • When Richardson testified before a grand jury in September 2009, he said firefighters used a "sledge and hammers" to open Sloan's "barricaded" front door. A firefighter who was there told the DPS that he did not use those tools and that the door opened when he and another firefighter pushed hard on it. • Richardson told a grand jury in September 2009 that a gas line in Sloan's laundry room was used to spread gas throughout the house. When questioned by DPS investigators, he said a Southwest Gas employee did not tell him the gas line was stripped or wide open. • Richardson gave conflicting accounts about his interaction with a private fire investigator, Robert Laubacher, saying during the May 2010 deposition that they spoke only once when call records later showed they spoke 10 times. • Richardson said during the September 2010 deposition that Sloan put ignitable liquid in an electrical outlet. In June, he told the DPS that laboratory results for flammable liquids came back negative, that he found no containers to carry the liquids and that no one told him Sloan poured the liquid into the electrical outlet. • Richardson told a grand jury in September 2009 that he had interviewed Farmers Insurance adjuster Nicholas Boley, but wrote in the Phoenix Fire Department report that he did not interview Boley ­until two weeks after he appeared before the grand jury. • Andes said in a deposition on August 2011 that his fire-accelerant- detecting dog was right 100 percent of the time and was more accurate than lab analysis. In May, hetold DPS investigators that he did not compile lab-analysis results because it could show that his dog was "right half the time." False swearing is a Class 6 felony. It carries a sentencing range of probation up to a maximum of 18 months in prison, according to ­Jerry Cobb, spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. "This case will be reviewed like any other case we receive," Cobb said. "There is no timeline. We don't have a fixed deadline on making charges in this case." The County Attorney's Office could decide to pursue the case or — if, for instance, Richardson or Andes are slated to be witnesses in other cases they investigated before going on administrative leave —ask another county attorney or the Arizona attorney general to prosecute, said Russ Richelsoph, an attorney with the Tempe-based firm Davis Miles McGuire Gardner PLLC. "I think the Attorney General's Office would be more diligent about prosecuting it than the county attorney," he said. Richelsoph questioned whether County Attorney Bill Montgomery would be willing to indict law-enforcement officers. He cited Montgomery's June decision to not pursue a manslaughter charge against sheriff's Deputy Sean Pearce as recommended by the Glendale Police Department. Police said Pearce was driving 81 mph in a 40-mph zone seconds before he struck John Edward Harding's Nissan Cube as it was turning left onto 59th Avenue from Hayward Avenue in Glendale. Harding died, and Pearce told investigators he was helping to apprehend a suspect. "They didn't even give that to a grand ­jury," Richelsoph said. "If you want to make it look like you gave the case a fair shake as the county attorney, you let the case be presented to a grand jury and let the grand jury decide not to make charges." Shelly Jamison, a Fire Department spokeswoman, said that there is no timeline for completing the internal investigation but that ­officials plan to finish it as soon as possible. Ballentine, Richardson and Andes will ­receive full pay and benefits while on leave, Jamison said. An interim fire marshal has not been chosen to replace Ballentine. 12 News investigative reporter Wendy Halloran contributed to this article.

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Like guns, drones are neither good nor bad. Drones can be used by freedom fighters or government terrorists. In this case drones are being used by freedom fighter. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/weird/2014/07/30/drone-crashes-prison-contraband/13369841/ Drone carrying contraband crashes at prison Associated Press 1:06 p.m. MST July 30, 2014 COLUMBIA, S.C. — A drone carrying cellphones, marijuana and other contraband into a South Carolina maximum-security prison never made it inside the 12-foot-high razor wire fence, and authorities said Wednesday they are looking for one of two people accused in connection with trying to sneak it in. The search has been ongoing since April 21, when officials found a small, crashed drone in bushes outside the walls of Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, according to Corrections Department spokeswoman Stephanie Givens. At the site, Givens said that officers also found materials that inmates aren't supposed to have, including the phones, tobacco products, marijuana and synthetic marijuana. One person has been arrested. Givens said officials aren't sure exactly where the drone would have gone if it made it over the wall. According to Givens, this is the first time officials know of a drone being used to smuggle banned items into a South Carolina prison. Last fall, four people in Georgia were accused of using a remote-controlled drone to fly tobacco and cellphones into a state prison there. "The technology gets better and better, and we have to figure out how to fight that," Givens said. Corrections officials have long said that the use of banned cellphones behind bars is a security threat to both agency officers and the public. In 2010, then-Corrections Capt. Robert Johnson was shot six times at his Sumter home in a hit police said was orchestrated by an inmate using a cellphone smuggled into prison. Johnson, who worked at Lee, survived and has since retired. In the South Carolina done case, one person has been charged with drug possession and trying to give contraband materials to inmates. Court records listed no attorney for 28-year-old Brenton Lee Doyle, and Givens said that he has not been cooperative with investigators. Authorities are seeking a second man seen on convenience store surveillance images buying some of the products later found with the crashed drone, Givens said. Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/news/world/1-arrested-after-drone-carrying-phones-marijuana-other-contraband-crashes-at-us-prison-1.1268189 1 arrested after drone carrying phones, marijuana, other contraband crashes at US prison Meg Kinnard / The Associated Press July 30, 2014 11:31 AM COLUMBIA, S.C. - A drone carrying cellphones, marijuana and other contraband into a U.S. maximum-security prison never made it inside the razor wire fence, and authorities said Wednesday they are looking for one of two people accused of trying to sneak it in. The search has been ongoing since April 21, when officials found a small, crashed drone in bushes outside the walls of Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina, according to Corrections Department spokeswoman Stephanie Givens. At the site, Givens said officers also found materials that inmates aren't supposed to have, including the phones, tobacco products, marijuana and synthetic marijuana. One person has been arrested. Givens said officials aren't sure exactly where the drone would have gone if it made it over the wall. According to Givens, this is the first time officials know of a drone being used to smuggle banned items into a South Carolina prison. Last fall, four people in Georgia were accused of using a remote-controlled drone to fly tobacco and cellphones into a state prison there. In the South Carolina case, one person has been charged with drug possession and trying to give contraband materials to inmates. Court records listed no attorney for 28-year-old Brenton Lee Doyle. Authorities are seeking a second man seen on convenience store surveillance images buying some of the products later found with the crashed drone, Givens said. ___ Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

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So, who's really the incompetent one here? The good news is when this stuff happens in the private sectors the players involved go out of business. Sadly when this stuff happens in government, they just raise our taxes and make us pay for the governments incompetence. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/30/miguel-corzo-mcccd-fired/13387067/ So, who's really the incompetent one here? Editorial board, The Republic | azcentral.com 7:40 a.m. MST July 31, 2014 Our View: The firing of an MCCCD worker over a security breach points to bigger problems than just the IT unit. Knowing whether a public-sector employee has been fired for a just cause — or whether he has been made a scapegoat to cover for the incompetence of others higher up the food chain — is a dodgy, difficult thing. The case of Miguel Corzo, formerly an employee in the IT department of the Maricopa County Community College District, is a case in point. Was Corzo responsible for events that led up to the district's disastrous 2013 computer-system security breach, which exposed the personal and financial information of 2.4 million students and employees of the district? The cost to taxpayers for that breach is at $14 million and counting. Or is Corzo, a mid-level IT employee, a scapegoat, herded out the door to deflect attention from administrators for whom he worked? There is reason to suspect both conclusions may be right. Earlier this month, the community college district's governing board voted 3-2 to fire Corzo. Based on an audit of events leading to the massive security breach, the district concluded "he was one point of failure among several, but the District asserts that he bears responsibility for his part in allowing these conditions to develop and continue to exist." From the outside audit report, there seems little doubt that the district's IT department was a snake pit of warring factions and paranoia. In 2011, the district experienced a much smaller security breach, exposing the financial information of about 400 people. That breach also brought in outside investigators, who now say that if Corzo had adequately reported it, district executives could have taken steps to protect the computer system better. It gets worse. Those auditors also say Corzo and other mid-level IT employees refused to allow them to pass along to the district's vice-chancellor for technology their deep concerns about the district's computer security. In what kind of organization are mid-level personnel afforded that kind of authority? According to a subsequent investigation of the 2011 security breach, the auditors asked to speak directly to the vice-chancellor for IT, but their requests "were ignored" by Corzo and other IT personnel. Let's sum this up: An audit team hired by the district to examine problems with computer system security could not report their findings to the head of the IT department because obstructionist IT employees wouldn't let them? That is just … bizarre. The Maricopa community college district has a history of scandals that somehow manage to escape the attention of Chancellor Rufus Glasper and his inner circle. In 2007, another audit found that district employees for years had been treating themselves to expensive and lavish international trips, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars between 2001 and 2007. That scandal has a common thread with this recent computer-security scandal: Despite audits detailing the expenses, the chancellor simply didn't know! Glasper now tells the district board that he was "working to address" the dysfunctions of his IT department. But others left him in the dark about the security issues. "I relied on qualified and trusted executives to manage their resources effectively and produce the expected results in this highly technical area." Those executives are still on the job. In a big organization, no top executive can know what every employee is up to. But at the community college district, even the vice-chancellor in charge of IT didn't know his IT system was vulnerable to a massive breach? He didn't ask questions after the 2011 incident? The top guy is responsible for the competence of his top lieutenants. In this case, it doesn't seem that Glasper is taking much responsibility for the competence of his own team. http://www.azcentral.com/story/dougmaceachern/2014/07/24/maricopa-computer-hack-glasper/13120115/ Maricopa hacking scandal: Same old excuses Doug MacEachern, columnist | azcentral.com 3:13 p.m. MST July 24, 2014 In 2013, the Maricopa County Community College District experienced an enormous computer system breach by hackers. Perhaps you got one of the notices that your precious personal data now is hands of Russian organized-crime syndicates. I did. The consequences in terms of lost personal data of 2.4 million students, parents and employees who entrusted that information to an incompetent college administration was bad enough. Rest assured, the costs are still piling up. The college district has let word out that it may (oh, that word so invaluable to bureaucrats, "may!") need to raise tuition as a result. The taxpaying public, in other words, will pay for their screw-ups. There is another cost. A district tech employee with nearly 30 years experience has been fired. Miguel Corzo, a director in the district's IT department, claims he is being scapegoated. The main claim against him is that he failed to inform his superiors about an earlier, less widespread, breach of security in 2011. Corzo claims he and other IT employees did their best to alert their superiors, but no one listened. He claimed he had witnesses, including a former district IT employee who now is vice-president of IT services at another college district. But none of the investigators bothered to even talk to his witness. Now, the details about who is really responsible for letting this massive data theft happen are difficult to sort out. The district is doing a good job of hiding some of the evidence, including waiting seven months before saying anything publicly about the April 2013 computer theft. What is quite clear, however, is just how similar this scandal is to a 2007 MCCCD scandal involving lavish spending by college presidents and other staff and administration on international "fact-finding" trips. In that case, as well as this one, the buck for responsibility always stopped somewhere else than the top. In 2007, we learned that 88 district employees, including Mesa Community College President Larry Christiansen, had spent $324,000 on trips to Europe and China. The real scandal, though, was that no one above these self-indulgent public employees ever had bothered to scrutinize the audits that exposed their behavior. So, they answered to no one. The district administration of Chancellor Rufus Glasper had a response to that 2007 travel scandal: We didn't know! Same with the incompetent, dysfunctional district board. All of them ignored audits showing disturbing amounts of spending on international trips between 2001 and 2007. Flash-forward to the current crisis, the infinitely more expensive ($14 million and counting) computer-system hacking scandal. The administration's explanation for why it did nothing after the 2011 IT system security breach that accessed the private information of 400 people? We didn't know! The IT people hid it from us! And just like in 2007, the consequences for the administration's ignorance is falling not on the administration -- ie, Glasper -- but on the fall guys downstream.

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I think Steve Gallardo is pro-marijuana. But in this article he seems to be using the race card to get elected. http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/30/steve-gallardo-mcccd-ruling/13378921/ Steve Gallardo wins the battle but loses the war Editorial board, The Republic | azcentral.com 4:48 p.m. MST July 30, 2014 Our View: So, in the state senator's world, kicking four Latino candidates off the ballot counts as a win for diversity? Steve Gallardo got the big win he was after. But in doing so, he suffered a big defeat for the cause he seeks to advance. Gallardo, a state senator running for a seat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, successfully sued to toss out a law adding two at-large seats to the Maricopa County Community College District. A state appeals court ruled the law was "special" because it applied only to Maricopa County. But that's not why Gallardo sued. "It would have been difficult to have minority representation on the board in an at-large election," Gallardo said after the decision. That ignores reality. Four of the six candidates seeking the at-large seats are Latino. "We were on our way to accomplish something historic," said Ilya Iussa, one of the four. Gallardo's racial-identity politics would have us believe people self-segregate. But Latinos live throughout the Valley, and voters today are more interested in a candidate's accomplishments than his or her ethnicity. The new at-large seats increased the possibility of adding minority representation to the board. The Attorney General's office says it will appeal the decision. We wish it well. We wish even more that Gallardo and his allies would recognize how much harm this lawsuit ultimately does to their cause. You can't increase minority representation by kicking four Latino candidates off the ballot.

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They are not bribes, they are campaign contributions - Honest!!!! http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/aide-use-of-ferrari-yacht-were-part-of-lavish-gifts-made-to-the-mcdonnells/2014/07/30/4008da7e-17ed-11e4-85b6-c1451e622637_story.html?hpid=z1 Businessman who gave gifts takes stand in McDonnell trial By Matt Zapotosky, Rosalind S. Helderman and Laura Vozzella July 30 at 6:07 PM RICHMOND — The wheeling-and-dealing Richmond businessman at the center of the corruption case against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife stepped into public view Wednesday with a pivotal assertion: For $65,000, he testified, Maureen McDonnell said she would help his company, with her husband’s blessing. “She said to me, ‘I have a background in nutritional supplements, and I can be helpful to you with this project with your company,” Jonnie R. Williams Sr. testified, describing a private meeting with Maureen McDonnell in the governor’s mansion in May 2011. “ ‘The governor says it’s okay for me to help you, but I need you to help me with this financial situation.’ ” Williams provided riveting testimony for more than an hour during the third day of a trial that already has made a dramatic spectacle of the couple that occupied the Virginia governor’s mansion just seven months ago. Williams described how he lavished cash and high-end clothing on Maureen McDonnell, in particular, and how the first lady seemed to push the boundaries of his generosity. Williams, who is scheduled to take the stand again Thursday, began to outline what had been his grand plan for advancing his company’s dietary supplements by using the “credibility” of the governor’s office and persuading the governor to spur state research of his wares. “I know that [the governor] controls the medical schools, so I needed his help with the testing of this,” Williams testified. Williams, 59, who has made no public statements in the 16 months since his relationship with the McDonnells burst into public view, arrived at the courthouse in mid-afternoon, reporters trailing him. He wore a dark business suit, and his hair was flecked with considerably more gray than in the few photos of him that have surfaced since the scandal broke. In his testimony, Williams acknowledged that even when he promised to give Maureen McDonnell $65,000 — a $50,000 loan and $15,000 to help pay for her daughter’s wedding — he did so without a pledge that her husband would assist him. The governor’s wife, Williams testified, had confided in him that she and her husband had discussed filing for bankruptcy because of mounting credit-card debt and troubled real estate investments. He said that he insisted on talking with the governor about the money but that even then, he did not try to convey that his generosity came with strings attached. “He’s the breadwinner in the house, and I’m not writing his wife checks without him knowing about it,” Williams said. He said the governor thanked him for the gift. Defense attorneys have asserted that Williams is a “master manipulator” who is testifying only because he received immunity from potential criminal charges. They have said that Maureen McDonnell had a “crush” on Williams and that she and her husband’s marital woes ran so deep that they barely spoke. The picture of marital discord runs counter to the allegation that the McDonnells conspired together to sell the governor’s office in exchange for gifts and cash — which is the essence of the 14 public corruption and related charges against them. Williams — who spoke enthusiastically about his product, saying that he believes his pills cured his wife’s precancerous thyroid condition — also spoke of providing Virginia politicians with flights on his private jet in an effort to make his company, Star Scientific, successful. A manicurist and a model are just two of the witnesses that may be called to testify in the federal corruption trial of former Va. governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, which commenced on Monday. The Washington Post's Matt Zapotosky reports from Richmond on some of the standout witnesses on the list released by prosecutors and defense attorneys. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post) “I think it’s become common practice if you’re a Virginia company. You want to make sure you have access to those people, and the airplane accomplishes that,” he said. Williams described in detail an April 2011 New York shopping trip during which, he said, he, the first lady and her chief of staff went to high-end boutiques, including Bergdorf Goodman, Oscar de la Renta and Louis Vuitton. By Williams’s account, Maureen McDonnell had intended to buy only two dresses but instead ran up a $20,000 tab, which he covered. She left with a full-length white leather coat, a pair of shoes, a raincoat and a dress. “It went on for hours,” Williams said. Williams’s appearance on the stand capped a day that included testimony about the range of gifts Williams gave to the governor, the first lady and their adult children. One of the McDonnells’ twin 22-year-old sons, Robert “Bobby” Ryan McDonnell, testified that after Williams noticed his old, well-worn golf clubs during a round of golf in 2011, Williams called and said he was sending a present to the governor’s mansion. There, Bobby McDonnell found a new set of clubs in a bag with the University of Virginia logo on it, along with a pair of golf shoes. Bobby McDonnell also testified about the now-notorious Rolex watch, which prosecutors allege Williams purchased in August 2011 at Maureen McDonnell’s request and which was engraved with the words “71st Governor of Virginia.” He said his mother gave the watch to his father for Christmas. Bobby McDonnell said he assumed the watch was a fake because it “ticked” rather than “rolled.” He said his father — having already received a Seiko from Maureen McDonnell — thought simply, “Another watch?” Throughout his testimony, Bobby McDonnell pushed back against the idea that his father was accepting inappropriate gifts from Williams or encouraging his sons to do so. Bobby McDonnell said that his father thought the clubs were “excessive” but that he kept them anyway. He also said the governor persuaded him not to accept an internship Williams offered him. The manager of an exclusive golf course outside of Richmond, where dues are $11,000 annually, testified that McDonnell and his sons played repeatedly on Williams’s tab in 2011 and 2012, each time racking up hundreds of dollars in greens and caddy fees and food and pro shop purchases. Only once did Williams golf with the governor; sometimes, McDonnell’s sons played without either their father or Williams, according to testimony. Jerri Fulkerson, Williams’s onetime personal assistant, testified about private plane and vacation arrangements for the McDonnell family. There was a family vacation for the McDonnells to Williams’s Smith Mountain Lake vacation home in July 2011. (Fulkerson testified that a Star Scientific employee drove Williams’s Ferrari there for the governor’s use and then got a ride in another vehicle back to Richmond.) There was a vacation for the governor and his wife at the exclusive Chatham Bars Inn on Cape Cod during Labor Day weekend 2012, including dinners, golf games, a day of yachting and spa treatments. Fulkerson testified that during that same weekend, she made arrangements for the McDonnells’ 25-year-old daughter, Rachel, to fly to Florida with a friend. The two stayed at Williams’s condo, and Fulkerson arranged flights, passes to the Ritz-Carlton Beach Club and a yacht outing. Fulkerson acknowledged that Williams made his plane available to a number of other politicians — including Jerry Kilgore and Ken Cuccinelli, during their respective tenures as state attorney general, and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney — but she said the McDonnells were an unusual case. In one instance, Maureen McDonnell’s chief of staff asked for Williams’s private jet to fly three of the governor’s children to the Homestead resort in western Virginia for an annual political event for the governor, according to an e-mail Fulkerson read aloud. The chief of staff indicated in the e-mail that the plane should pick up the governor’s twin sons in Richmond, fly to Virginia Beach to pick up his eldest daughter and then fly on to the resort, Fulkerson said. Ultimately, the eldest daughter flew out of Richmond with her brothers. But Fulkerson noted the chief of staff’s odd request. “Can you recall any other time when a politician asked for the use of Mr. Williams’s plane to transport their children over a space of a one-and-a-half-hour drive?” federal prosecutor David Harbach asked Fulkerson. “No,” she responded. “Do you recall a time any other politician asked for the use of Mr. Williams’s plane to fly their children at all?” he continued. “No,” she answered. Justin Jouvenal and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report. Matt Zapotosky covers the federal district courthouse in Alexandria, where he tries to break news from a windowless office in which he is not allowed to bring his cell phone.

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6 Philadelphia officers accused of robbing and beating drug suspects You think your going to get a fair trial???? Don't make me laugh!!!! http://touch.latimes.com/#section/607/article/p2p-80950580/ 6 Philadelphia officers accused of robbing and beating drug suspects By James Queally July 30, 2014, 5:07 p.m. A group of Philadelphia narcotics officers repeatedly robbed and assaulted the drug suspects they were supposed to be investigating, engaging in a campaign of brutality that lasted nearly six years, federal authorities said Wednesday. Five of the six officers could face life in prison if convicted of the slew of corruption charges unveiled Wednesday by Edward Hanko, special agent in charge of the FBI's Philadelphia field office. “The crimes alleged here are indefensible,” Hanko said in a statement. “That many of the victims were drug dealers, not Boy Scouts, is irrelevant. Police officers are sworn to uphold the law -- and to do it ‘by the book.’ This corrupt group chose to make their own rules. Now they will have to answer for it." Each officer had been with the Philadelphia Police Department for nearly 20 years, according to a criminal complaint made public on Wednesday. They were identified as Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman and John Speiser. The crew routinely stole personal items and money from suspects, including a safe containing $80,000 from an alleged drug dealer, the FBI said. The list of abuses laid out in the 42-page complaint details a half-decade of corruption, including several examples that sound as though they were ripped from a mob drama. The first allegation involves a February 2006 incident in which the officers are accused of stealing $12,000 from a man at gunpoint and holding him prisoner in a hotel room for several days, the complaint said. One year later, during an illegal search of a suspect's home, the officers held a suspect by his ankles off the edge of an 18th-floor balcony while demanding information, according to the complaint. The officers also participated in a game in which they "would receive points for different types of physical abuse that they could inflict on subjects" and hid their misdeeds by doctoring police reports and case files, the complaint said. Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey said the officers' alleged actions don't represent the dedication he saw from police who worked around the clock in recent days to catch suspected carjackers linked to the deaths of three children last week. "We will continue to be transparent; we will continue to pursue those involved in corruption and remove those who don’t belong in this department," Ramsey said. Follow @JamesQueallyLAT on Twitter for breaking news.

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C.I.A. Admits Penetrating Senate Intelligence Computers Hmmm .... Who is actually running our government???? Does the President, US Congress and US Senate report to the people, or to the appointed bureaucrats that run the CIA, FBI, NSA, US Army, US Air Force, US Navy and other institutions in the Federal government??? I am half way joking here, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the appointed government bureaucrats in these agencies have more say in running the government then Congress. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/world/senate-intelligence-commitee-cia-interrogation-report.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 C.I.A. Admits Penetrating Senate Intelligence Computers By MARK MAZZETTI JULY 31, 2014 WASHINGTON — An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has found that its officers improperly penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its report on the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program. In a statement issued Thursday morning, a C.I.A. spokesman said that agency’s inspector general had concluded that C.I.A. officers had acted inappropriately by gaining access to the computers. The statement said that John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director, had apologized to the two senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and that he would set up an internal accountability board to review the matter. The board will be led by former Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana. The statement gave almost no specifics about the findings of the report, written by David Buckley, the agency’s inspector general. Officials said there was a tense meeting earlier this week when Mr. Brennan briefed the two senators — Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia. The officials said Ms. Feinstein had confronted Mr. Brennan about past public statements on the issue, in which he defended the agency’s actions. When the C.I.A.'s monitoring of the committee became public in March, Mr. Brennan said, “When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.” Last year, the C.I.A. gained access to a computer network, reserved solely for Senate investigators working at an agency facility in Northern Virginia, after officials suspected the intelligence committee had improperly obtained an internal C.I.A. report about the detention program, which is now defunct. Shortly after the C.I.A. action was made public, Ms. Feinstein gave a blistering speech on the floor of the Senate accusing the agency of infringing on the committee’s role as overseer. The C.I.A. statement was first reported by McClatchy.

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What Science Says About Marijuana http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/opinion/what-science-says-about-marijuana.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region What Science Says About Marijuana By PHILIP M. BOFFEY JULY 30, 2014 For Michele Leonhart, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, there is no difference between the health effects of marijuana and those of any other illegal drug. “All illegal drugs are bad for people,” she told Congress in 2012, refusing to say whether crack, methamphetamines or prescription painkillers are more addictive or physically harmful than marijuana. Her testimony neatly illustrates the vast gap between antiquated federal law enforcement policies and the clear consensus of science that marijuana is far less harmful to human health than most other banned drugs and is less dangerous than the highly addictive but perfectly legal substances known as alcohol and tobacco. Marijuana cannot lead to a fatal overdose. There is little evidence that it causes cancer. Its addictive properties, while present, are low, and the myth that it leads users to more powerful drugs has long since been disproved. That doesn’t mean marijuana is harmless; in fact, the potency of current strains may shock those who haven’t tried it for decades, particularly when ingested as food. It can produce a serious dependency, and constant use would interfere with job and school performance. It needs to be kept out of the hands of minors. But, on balance, its downsides are not reasons to impose criminal penalties on its possession, particularly not in a society that permits nicotine use and celebrates drinking. Continue reading the main story Who Got Hooked An Institute of Medicine study found dependency rates for marijuana were far lower than those for other substances. Marijuana’s negative health effects are arguments for the same strong regulation that has been effective in curbing abuse of legal substances. Science and government have learned a great deal, for example, about how to keep alcohol out of the hands of minors. Mandatory underage drinking laws and effective marketing campaigns have reduced underage alcohol use to 24.8 percent in 2011, compared with 33.4 percent in 1991. Cigarette use among high school students is at its lowest point ever, largely thanks to tobacco taxes and growing municipal smoking limits. There is already some early evidence that regulation would also help combat teen marijuana use, which fell after Colorado began broadly regulating medical marijuana in 2010. Comparing the Dangers As with other recreational substances, marijuana’s health effects depend on the frequency of use, the potency and amount of marijuana consumed, and the age of the consumer. Casual use by adults poses little or no risk for healthy people. Its effects are mostly euphoric and mild, whereas alcohol turns some drinkers into barroom brawlers, domestic abusers or maniacs behind the wheel. An independent scientific committee in Britain compared 20 drugs in 2010 for the harms they caused to individual users and to society as a whole through crime, family breakdown, absenteeism, and other social ills. Adding up all the damage, the panel estimated that alcohol was the most harmful drug, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana ranked eighth, having slightly more than one-fourth the harm of alcohol. Federal scientists say that the damage caused by alcohol and tobacco is higher because they are legally available; if marijuana were legally and easily obtainable, they say, the number of people suffering harm would rise. However, a 1995 study for the World Health Organization concluded that even if usage of marijuana increased to the levels of alcohol and tobacco, it would be unlikely to produce public health effects approaching those of alcohol and tobacco in Western societies. Most of the risks of marijuana use are “small to moderate in size,” the study said. “In aggregate, they are unlikely to produce public health problems comparable in scale to those currently produced by alcohol and tobacco.” While tobacco causes cancer, and alcohol abuse can lead to cirrhosis, no clear causal connection between marijuana and a deadly disease has been made. Experts at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the scientific arm of the federal anti-drug campaign, published a review of the adverse health effects of marijuana in June that pointed to a few disease risks but was remarkably frank in acknowledging widespread uncertainties. Though the authors believed that legalization would expose more people to health hazards, they said the link to lung cancer is “unclear,” and that it is lower than the risk of smoking tobacco. The very heaviest users can experience symptoms of bronchitis, such as wheezing and coughing, but moderate smoking poses little risk. A 2012 study found that smoking a joint a day for seven years was not associated with adverse effects on pulmonary function. Experts say that marijuana increases the heart rate and the volume of blood pumped by the heart, but that poses a risk mostly to older users who already have cardiac or other health problems. How Addictive Is Marijuana? Marijuana isn’t addictive in the same sense as heroin, from which withdrawal is an agonizing, physical ordeal. But it can interact with pleasure centers in the brain and can create a strong sense of psychological dependence that addiction experts say can be very difficult to break. Heavy users may find they need to take larger and larger doses to get the effects they want. When they try to stop, some get withdrawal symptoms such as irritability, sleeping difficulties and anxiety that are usually described as relatively mild. The American Society of Addiction Medicine, the largest association of physicians specializing in addiction, issued a white paper in 2012 opposing legalization because “marijuana is not a safe and harmless substance” and marijuana addiction “is a significant health problem.” Nonetheless, that health problem is far less significant than for other substances, legal and illegal. The Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, said in a 1999 study that 32 percent of tobacco users become dependent, as do 23 percent of heroin users, 17 percent of cocaine users, and 15 percent of alcohol drinkers. But only 9 percent of marijuana users develop a dependence. “Although few marijuana users develop dependence, some do,” according to the study. “But they appear to be less likely to do so than users of other drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), and marijuana dependence appears to be less severe than dependence on other drugs.” There’s no need to ban a substance that has less than a third of the addictive potential of cigarettes, but state governments can discourage heavy use through taxes and education campaigns and help provide treatment for those who wish to quit. Impact on Young People One of the favorite arguments of legalization opponents is that marijuana is the pathway to more dangerous drugs. But a wide variety of researchers have found no causal factor pushing users up the ladder of harm. While 111 million Americans have tried marijuana, only a third of that number have tried cocaine, and only 4 percent heroin. People who try marijuana are more likely than the general population to try other drugs, but that doesn’t mean marijuana prompted them to do so. Marijuana “does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse,” the Institute of Medicine study said. The real gateway drugs are tobacco and alcohol, which young people turn to first before trying marijuana. It’s clear, though, that marijuana is now far too easy for minors to obtain, which remains a significant problem. The brain undergoes active development until about age 21, and there is evidence that young people are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of marijuana. A long-term study based in New Zealand, published in 2012, found that people who began smoking heavily in their teens and continued into adulthood lost an average of eight I.Q. points by age 38 that could not be fully restored. A Canadian study published in 2002 also found an I.Q. loss among heavy school-age users who smoked at least five joints a week. The case is not completely settled. The New Zealand study was challenged by a Norwegian researcher who said socio-economic factors may have played a role in the I.Q. loss. But the recent review by experts at the National Institute on Drug Abuse concluded that adults who smoked heavily in adolescence had impaired neural connections that interfered with the functioning of their brains. Early and frequent marijuana use has also been associated with poor grades, apathy and dropping out of school, but it is unclear whether consumption triggered the poor grades. Restricting marijuana to adults is more important now that Colorado merchants are selling THC, the drug’s active ingredient, in candy bars, cookies and other edible forms likely to appeal to minors. Experience in Colorado has shown that people can quickly ingest large amounts of THC that way, which can produce frightening hallucinations. Although marijuana use had been declining among high school students for more than a decade, in recent years it has started to climb, in contrast to continuing declines in cigarette smoking and alcohol use. Emergency room visits listing marijuana as the principal cause of admission soared above 455,000 in 2011, up 52 percent from 2004. Nearly 70 percent of the teenagers in residential substance-abuse programs run by Phoenix House, which operates drug and alcohol treatment centers in 10 states, listed marijuana as their primary problem. Those are challenges for regulators in any state that chooses to legalize marijuana. But they are familiar challenges, and they will become easier for governments to deal with once more of them bring legal marijuana under tight regulation.

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