US House of Representatives // Current

House Passes Credit Card Bill Of Rights Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday passed a landmark consumer protection measure aimed at leveling the playing field for... more

Future_America
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Top House Republican Blunt leaving leadership

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number two Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, will announce on Thursday he will not run... more

riffhard98
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Conspiracy Theories: The Handy Bilderberg/Obama Conspiracy Theory Widget

I'm afraid our next president is one of them..... whether that's good or bad is to be determined ... more

Psychedelic
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A Rendezvous With Destiny, Cast in Bronze

This is an article about a visit to the FDR monument in DC and it's disturbingly relevant message and place it holds in... more

Psychedelic
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No shortage of tax-free work for pot 'clippers' who groom marijuana plants i

There's green to be made clipping and trimming the green leaves in British Columbia's marijuana industry. The... more

Psychedelic
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House passes revised bail-out bill

The US House of Representatives on Friday approved the $700bn US financial bail-out, ending the political uncertainty hanging over... more

Crazyotto
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Sarah Palin Lsd Found in Car Going to Phish Show

Thursday, March 5, 2009 NEW KENT, Va. (AP) -- A man was arrested outside of New Kent, Va., Thursday after state troopers found... more

Psychedelic
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Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?

The root cause of the Economic Crisis... According with Rep. Scott Garrett. R-New Jersey, 5th District Paramus, Newton Opss!... more

stopnoise
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Is ecstasy still a drug problem?

In January, North Wales Police chief constable Richard Brunstrom courted controversy when he suggested ecstasy was less dangerous... more

Psychedelic
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Ron Paul on Fox Business News

Let the companies liquidate their bad assets through the market and go out of business. Other companies will come in and fill the... more

Psychedelic
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Watch REP. Peter DeFazio drop the "Financial Crisis BS bomb" on the House Floor.

Find out a little about this $700B biil, who the Treasurer is, where we are gonna get the money, how much time do we have? Watch,... more

ThomasGreen
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Marijuana ingredient may fight bacteria

Marijuana may be something of a wonder drug — though perhaps not in the way you might think. Researchers in Italy and... more

Psychedelic
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Colleges take on drinking age

"129 college presidents have signed a statement calling on elected officials "to support an informed and dispassionate... more

Psychedelic
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Two drug offenders jailed 18 years

The Asamankese Circuit Court presided over by Mr Kofi Akrowiah, on Monday sentenced two young men to a total of 18 years in prison... more

Psychedelic
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Colleges want lower drinking age

At least two metro Atlanta colleges are bowing out of a nationwide debate about lowering the legal drinking age.

Morehouse College and Emory University confirmed Thursday they are not taking part in the the Amethyst Initiative, a nationwide effort to get college presidents talking about urging lawmakers to lower the drinking age.
“While we welcome and encourage spirited public debate about appropriate standards of behavior, we do not support policies that would have the effect of encouraging or making it more likely that younger citizens would use alcohol or drugs,” Morehouse president Robert M. Franklin said.

Emory released a similar written statement: “Emory University has decided not to join the Amethyst Initiative. Emory will continue its long-standing commitment to educate students about the dangers of abusing alcohol and other drugs.”

College presidents from about 100 well-known U.S. universities — including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State — support of the issue, according to the Amethyst Initiative. The group plans to call on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.

The movement began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate.

“This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. “It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.”

Choose Responsibility, a national non-profit organization that promotes safe drinking, supports the Amethyst Initiative. Organizers say the initiative is to get people talking about underage drinking.

“The Amethyst Initiative is not calling for a lower drinking age, it’s not calling for an 18-year-old drinking age,” said Grace Kronenberg, assistant to the director of Vermont-based Choose Responsibility. “It’s a group of leaders in higher education are speaking out on an issue they know a lot about.”At least two metro Atlanta colleges are bowing out of a nationwide debate about lowering the legal drinking age. Morehouse... more

Psychedelic
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3 responses

3 months ago

Proposed changes to Endangered Species Act illegal?

The Bush administration wants to rewrite the Endangered Species Act to cut scientific review by independent experts out of the... more

Psychedelic
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2 responses

3 months ago

United State's Preparations to Declare Martial Law

Senator Kucinich's question to congress if there's ever been a "Secret Meeting" (A Closed Door... more

jonathanselby
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3 months ago

LSD Pickard Russian coercion

A man charged with laundering money for William Leonard Pickard - a former Mill Valley man convicted of running a massive LSD lab inside a defunct Kansas missile silo - says his indictment should be dismissed because federal authorities relied on witness statements coerced by Russian agents.

Stefan Wathne, a wealthy New York-raised Icelander, was arrested in New Delhi last year on a federal grand jury indictment from San Francisco. The indictment charges Wathne with conspiring to launder the proceeds from Pickard's LSD lab between spring 1996 and November 2000.

Pickard, a Harvard graduate and former drug policy researcher at the University of California, was convicted in 2003 of possession with the intent to distribute and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute LSD. Pickard was sentenced to life in prison; an accomplice, Sunnyvale resident Clyde Apperson, was sentenced to 30 years.

Pickard and Wathne, who moved to Moscow after graduating from Harvard, met in the mid-1990s through a Harvard friend. Unbeknownst to Wathne, according to defense attorneys, Pickard agreed to pay the mutual friend a 10 percent commission for any drug proceeds he could launder through Wathne.

"In 1999, Pickard became the assistant director of UCLA's Drug Policy Analysis Program," Karen Snell, an attorney for Wathne, wrote in a recent motion. "It is the government's theory that Pickard funded his position by giving approximately $140,000 to Stefan Wathne, who then gave it to two Russian businessmen, who sent it to UCLA as 'donations' to support Pickard's work."

As federal investigators pursued the case, they contacted Russian authorities for their assistance in locating Wathne and interviewing potential witnesses. According to defense attorneys, a team of U.S. investigators traveled to Russia and allowed Russian agents to detain and interrogate Wathne and numerous witnesses according to their own harsh and coercive standards.

"The use of beatings, intimidation and blackmail to gain confessions is widely understood to be common throughout Russia," Snell said. "As a result, abuse is both feared and expected by nearly every Russian who finds himself in police custody in whatever capacity."

The American investigators used the information gathered by the Russians to prepare their case for the U.S. grand jury without telling the jurors how it was obtained, according to Wathne's lawyers. As a result of this prosecutorial misconduct, defense attorneys said, Wathne's constitutional rights were violated and the indictment should be dismissed.

A hearing on the motion to dismiss the indictment is scheduled for Aug. 12 before Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

"We have no comment," said Josh Eaton, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco.

Wathne, whose family owns a prosperous high-end apparel company, is free on $5 million bail.

Pickard was a champion of education and freedom, when his lab was busted he had enough LSD to dose everyone in the world twice, and enough raw material to make the same amount again. His work changed the lives and minds of Millions of people around the world. He deserves a presidential pardon.A man charged with laundering money for William Leonard Pickard - a former Mill Valley man convicted of running a massive LSD lab... more