cannabisnews.com: Drug Czar Deployed for GOP, Papers Show





Drug Czar Deployed for GOP, Papers Show
Posted by CN Staff on July 18, 2007 at 06:39:47 PT
By James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer
Source: Los Angeles Times 
Washington, DC -- As President Bush fought to keep Congress in Republican hands last year, the White House political director enlisted the nation's drug czar to attend events with vulnerable GOP incumbents, documents made public on Tuesday disclosed.John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, attended 20 programs — round-table discussions, tours, a town hall meeting and other antidrug events — with Republican candidates from New Jersey to California.
The White House says the meetings were official events, not partisan ones, but they took place largely in districts and states where Republicans were in tough election battles. Nearly half of the candidates with whom he appeared lost their elections. The documents suggest a coordinated effort to employ a senior official who is barred by law from political activities to help boost the fortunes of Republican candidates. They indicate that the former White House political director, Sara M. Taylor, suggested Walters attend the events, and that Karl Rove, Bush's chief political advisor, thanked Walters for his attention to the candidates. The release of the documents by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, follows disclosure of other efforts by Taylor and Rove to deploy senior executive branch officials to boost the GOP's political fortunes.Walters' office denied any wrongdoing and said he also took part during the year in events with Democratic politicians intended to highlight successes in the effort to curb illegal drug use. Deputy White House Press Secretary Scott Stanzel said Waxman offered no evidence that the antidrug chief "was used to urge the election of any political candidate."Taylor's lawyer, W. Neil Eggleston, said in a brief statement: "Ms. Taylor believes she managed the office of political affairs in a manner consistent with previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat." Eggleston said he was considering whether to comply with Waxman's request that Taylor testify before his committee at the end of the month. Taylor appeared last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is investigating whether the Bush administration fired eight U.S. attorneys for political reasons.In a letter to Taylor, Waxman wrote: "Documents recently provided to the Oversight Committee suggest that White House efforts to politicize the activities of federal agencies may be more widespread than previously known." He cited the case of the U.S. attorneys, testimony by former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona that he had been instructed to repeatedly draw attention to Bush's accomplishments, and political work by the administrator of the General Services Administration. Among the documents was a memorandum Taylor wrote to the drug office's White House liaison on Nov. 20, two weeks after the election in which Democrats won majority control of the House and Senate. In the memo, Taylor listed the events in which Walters had participated at the suggestion of her office. Walters' spokesman, Tom Riley, said the list did not include events he attended with Democratic officeholders, which were sprinkled throughout his 2006 calendar. "Our office does events with congressmen and senators of both parties, to draw attention to the drug issue, drug policy and drug programs," Riley said. "It doesn't seem surprising to me that as an election gets near, the people who would want to do events talking about administration policies are Republicans."Walters, however, was praised by Rove, according to an e-mail sent to him by his White House liaison, Douglas A. Simon. Simon reported to Walters on a post-election meeting that Rove addressed in which he offered thanks "for all of the work that went into surrogate appearances by Cabinet members and for the 72-Hour deployment," the White House's crash effort in the three days before the election. Referring to Rove, Simon wrote: "He specifically thanked, for going above and beyond the call of duty, the Dept. of Commerce, Transportation, Agriculture, AND the WH Drug Policy Office…. The Director and the Deputies deserve the most recognition because they actually had to give up time with their families for the god awful places we sent them." In a letter to Taylor, Waxman said the degree of White House control over Walters' schedule and the number of trips he made was striking. It was difficult to understand, Waxman wrote to Taylor, how Walters' work would be enhanced "by extensive taxpayer-funded travel to 'god awful places' to appear with vulnerable Republican members." Note: Documents suggest a coordinated effort to help boost vulnerable candidates by using an official legally barred from political activities.Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)Author: James Gerstenzang, Times Staff WriterPublished: July 18, 2007 Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles TimesContact: letters latimes.comWebsite: http://www.latimes.com/Related Articles:White House Had Drug Officials Appear With GOP http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread23187.shtmlHouse Oversight Committee Calls Taylor Back http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread23184.shtml
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Comment #17 posted by kaptinemo on July 19, 2007 at 03:57:09 PT:
No, they haven't slipped; they've dodged
The GAO is not about to order the ONDCP to re-investigate every bit of data on cannabis that the ONDCP swears up and down is solid...no matter how laughably implausible it is. What we have here is a gentleman's agreement between an inveterate liar (ONDCP) and an upstanding citizen (GAO) who suspects his neighbor is a mendacious creep, but because the creep's 'facts' are accepted as Gospel by the rest of society (government) and the GAO has no authority to demand re-investigation of said creep's 'facts', they are allowed to stand. Unless and until ONDCP and every other DrugWarrior agency can be forced to re-examine those fraudulent 'facts', courtesy of that ASA DQA suit I keep mentioning, the GAO will continue to allow the ONDCP to foam on about cannabis being 300x more powerful than yer Daddy's grass.When the 'facts' of the ONDCP meet reality courtesy of being compared to all the studies proving them wrong, then and only then will GAO order ONDCP to cease and desist. This is what happens when politics trump science. It's been going on for years, decades, even, but it's gotten much worse with this Administration. Let's hope the practice ends with this one. 
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Comment #16 posted by whig on July 18, 2007 at 19:04:22 PT
kaptinemo
I understand the ONDCP being slick. I don't understand the GAO saying they are authorized to lie and engage in partisan behavior. Has the GAO slipped here?
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Comment #15 posted by kaptinemo on July 18, 2007 at 14:50:38 PT:
Whig, they're trying to be slick
And hide behind the cachet of 'fighting drugs'. They think that they can pull off this devil's bargain because they figure that any who call them out on this can be slapped with the innuendo paintbrush of "What's the matter? Don't you care about the chil-drunnnn? Are you unpatriotic? Are you a closet druggie?" and insulting dreck of a similar nature. In the time since this became common knowledge on the 'Net, the ONDCP had the same kind of pat answers handy. But this time they stepped over the line...and the proof leads right back to the White House.They haven't been burned...yet...for lying to the public about cannabis. They have been called out for making another, but remarkably (and arrogantly!) clear violation of the Hatch Act which only a fool or a Bush Administration mouthpiece (but, I repeat myself) would deny. But as the old saying went, pull a string, and get a snake. The string being pulled with regards to the campaigning can't help but lead to questions about why all that money was spent purportedly on drug issues when there were meetings with only Republican officeseekers. That question has only one answer: the Administration's insane monomania about cannabis. Monomania bolstered by...drug prohibition. Drug prohibition...which is based upon lies. This is one bureaucratic bullet ONDCP won't be able to dodge, no matter how much it spins and gyrates. (Pointing at the ONDCP wonks reading this) Know why, wonks? Your bosses slipped up, guys. They were so arrogant, they left a trail easy to follow. Shame, shame, shame...assuming you understand the concept. But no matter, 'cause this is only the beginning...
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Comment #14 posted by whig on July 18, 2007 at 11:15:57 PT
kaptinemo
Lying is one thing, but political advocacy another.How can a statute authorize public funds and employees used for partisan purposes?
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Comment #13 posted by kaptinemo on July 18, 2007 at 11:11:32 PT:
This cannot be emphasized enough
Every reformer who knows their 'catechism' knows how the drug laws are based upon lies. Lies about race, lies about ethnicities, lies abBecause those lies have not been forcefully challenged in an arena where there are penalties for telling those lies, the lying continued. And the liars were protected from the effects of those lies...which have hurt everyone else.I keep likening this issue to the one in the last century about evolution. It was not so much the theory itself but the unwillingness of certain religious people to consider that it had any validity at all that led to the Scopes trial...where those beliefs were subjected to examination and logical dissection. Once that happened, the beliefs fell out of political favor...and in only a very rare set of circumstances were ever officially resurrected. Such die-hards clung to their beliefs, then as now, with white-knuckles. So do many modern day racists, who thought Blacks and Hispanics and Asians would never be as 'good' as White people. Neither group is in the majority, now.  But this happened after seminal court cases established fact over hyperbole and lies. 
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Comment #12 posted by whig on July 18, 2007 at 11:10:54 PT
goblet
Thanks."Even though the statements may have been controversial, they were made within the context of ONDCP's statutory responsibilities, which include taking such actions as necessary to oppose efforts to legalize certain controlled substances such as marijuana."?
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Comment #11 posted by whig on July 18, 2007 at 11:07:57 PT
Colored sand unmixes when jostled
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/12/colored_sand_unmixes.html
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Comment #10 posted by goblet on July 18, 2007 at 10:58:16 PT:
permission to lie
here is the statement from the GAOhttp://redbook.gao.gov/17/fl0083064.php
permission to lie
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Comment #9 posted by whig on July 18, 2007 at 10:57:59 PT
kaptinemo
A strong polarizing force causes everyone to put themselves with those of the same polarity.
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Comment #8 posted by kaptinemo on July 18, 2007 at 10:52:17 PT:
Whig, the rationale runs like this:
The ONDCP is allowed to disseminate whatever information it has based upon it having received that information in - wait for it - 'good faith'. The GAO assumes that the ONDCP has thoroughly checked the data it has (with its' fellow liars the NIDA, SAMHSA, HHS, the DEA and the sundry other bureaucracies all supporting each other in this circle-jerk) and thus may be allowed to vomit its' bilge as God's Truth.It is the nature of the lies, themselves, that have never been challenged in a court of law to determine if they have any factual basis. This is why the ASA's Data Quality Act is so important. When the lies about cannabis are challenged in court, and the liars proven to be liars, they will also be legally abjured from telling those lies again as part of their policy. The entire thrust of cannabis prohibition, and therefore the entire DrugWar, as the majority of it is based upon cannabis prohibition, will come crashing down after burning up.This latest bit may hurry the process, as the ONDCP is already trying to use the rhetorical human shield of its' oh-so-pure-as-the-driven-snow motives of 'fighting drugs' to try to run this 'two-fer' past Waxman's committee. The fact of the matter is the ONDCP will be proven to have become overwhelmingly partisan in its' support of Republican lawmakers while purportedly doing its bit against the scourge of druuuuuhgs!'. They cannot separate the two functions no matter how much they dissemble and obfuscate. And this may finally trip them up.
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Comment #7 posted by whig on July 18, 2007 at 10:26:21 PT
kaptinemo
How can the GAO say that the ONDCP is authorized to lie? Is that was the meaning of the "war on drugs" that deception was a tactic incident to war against the American people?And how can any congress or president ever authorize and pay government employees to do political things?That is theft of our government.
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on July 18, 2007 at 09:18:23 PT
Related Article from The New York Times
Drug Policy Director Stirs Things Up, but Not the Way GOP Candidates Had Hoped By Martin Kady II, CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLYPublished: July 18, 2007URL: http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/07/18/cq_3109.html
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on July 18, 2007 at 08:47:39 PT
Press Release from the Drug Policy Alliance
Karl Rove and John Walters are Stealing Your CashWednesday, July 18, 2007 http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/071807ondcp.cfm
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Comment #4 posted by TroutMask on July 18, 2007 at 07:58:24 PT
An Honest Day's Work
Man oh man. This administration doesn't know the meaning of "an honest day's work." It's obviously the 'honest' part that throws them for a loop. I can't believe the "righteous" GOP can be such slime-balls AND get caught at it. We can add stupid onto dishonest. Good riddance, come next year! In the mean time, it's fun to make them sweat.-TM
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Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on July 18, 2007 at 07:33:58 PT:
It's been years coming
And it's finally here. But only because of partisan politics, not because of the inherent rightness of investigating illegal actions on the part of civil servants. The fact of the matter is the ONDCP has been playing fast and loose with the Hatch Act for years. This has largely been excused using the specious argument that propaganda is part of the ONDCP armory, and as such is allowable, even when it disseminates lies. (See here for the history of this: http://www.njweedman.com/lying.htmlBut now, its' blatantly political. Now, a verifiable, visible, stinking trail of bright green slime leads straight to the White House and under Karl Rove's office door. Signal flares and blaring horns couldn't do a better job.As I was once told, sometimes, when you pull a string, you wind up with a snake. This snake has been hidden under the political rug for seven years, biting reformers repeatedly. Hopefully this will smoke that snake out where it can be decapitated...or at least de-fanged.
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on July 18, 2007 at 07:31:51 PT
Bye Bye Republicans
I am really looking forward to the 08 elections. I don't want to wish my life away but I hope in 08 we get rid of as many Republicans that are up for election as we can. Then maybe we will be able to get the laws on marijuana changed. We sure stand a much better chance then with the Republicans in power.
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Comment #1 posted by MikeEEEEE on July 18, 2007 at 07:22:36 PT
The policy speaks for itself
"Nearly half of the candidates with whom he appeared lost their elections."
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