Daily Archives: December 10, 2012

Pipe dreams: Claims of legalized pot benefits quickly busted in Colo. and Wash.

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Patricia Campion
The Examiner

While pot is still banned under federal law, voters in Colorado and Washington passed referendums legalizing marijuana for recreational use on Nov. 6. Despite claims by advocates that legalization would reduce crime, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that “two University of Colorado Boulder students face multiple felony charges after the marijuana-laced brownies they brought to class put their professor in the hospital.”

Thomas Ricardo Cunningham, 21, and Mary Elizabeth Essa, 19, were arrested on suspicion of planning and intentionally committing second-degree assault and inducing consumption of controlled substances by fraudulent means.

Officials said “two other students were hospitalized with anxiety and lightheadedness, and five more had a ‘bad reaction.'”

“Putting marijuana into a food product and providing it to somebody without their knowledge has always been illegal, and that will continue to be illegal, even after Amendment 64,” campus police spokesman Ryan Huff said Sunday. “So I just want to make this clear that these are serious felony cases and we take these very seriously.”

Read more at The Examiner

SEAL Killed in Rescue Mission Identified

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The Pentagon has identified Petty Officer 1st Class Nicolas Checque as the Navy SEAL who died of injuries sustained in the successful rescue of an American doctor from the Taliban over the weekend.

Checque, who hailed from Monroeville, Pa., died of “combat related injuries,” according to a Pentagon release. Though the release only said Checque was assigned to “an East Coast-based Naval Special Warfare unit,” ABC News previously reported the fallen servicemember was a part of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6, the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden.

Checque, 28, sustained his mortal injuries while on a nighttime mission Saturday to free Dr. Dilip Joseph, an American doctor who worked for an non-governmental organization based in Kabul. Joseph was kidnapped by the Taliban earlier this month and American officials believed he was in imminent danger.

Read more at ABC News

Transparency not an option?

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The Internet is abuzz with the story that the January 20th swearing in of Barrack Obama may be a private affair. Apparently the word is that Obama intends not to allow the media that installed him to attend the ceremony. Alana Goodman of Commentary Magazine reported, “Politico reports that Obama’s second inaugural oath for the ‘most transparent administration in history’ might be administered privately, without any media present.”

The web site Politico reported a quote from the NBC News White House correspondent. “Call me shell-shocked. I’m stunned that this is even an issue; it boggles the mind,” Chuck Todd told POLITICO. “This is not their oath, this is the constitutional oath. It’s not for them. It’s for the public, the citizens of the United Sates. It just boggles the mind. How is this even a debate?”

In his original swearing in ceremony, there were mistakes in the oath of office that he took. Some said that mistake nullified the oath causing another swearing in ceremony to be conducted in the White House in private.

According to the Politico office, the White House intends a public ceremony after the private ceremony. Apparently they intend to reverse the process from the first gaffed ceremony.

The excuse of the White House is alleged to be that January 20th falls on a Sunday, they will hold the ceremony privately and hold a public ceremony the following day.

“The White House Correspondents Association has reason to be concerned,” Goodman wrote in her commentary. “While Obama’s second oath of office in 2009 (if you remember, he had to do it twice) wasn’t completely closed to the media, only four reporters were allowed to attend, writes Dylan Byers.”