Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Partisan Republican Drug Czar must resign

As we reported earlier, Congressional investigators have uncovered White House e-mails and documents showing that the U.S. Drug Czar and other staffers from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) spent taxpayer money traveling around the country to campaign for embattled Republicans in the months leading up to the 2006 elections.

In an e-mail from ONDCP White House liason Doug Simon, he commends Karl Rove for orchestrating the operation, and thanks other members of his office, including Drug Czar John Walters, "because they actually had to give up time with their families for the god awful places we sent them."

With such disdain for those districts coming from the Republican administration, is it really any wonder that Democrats swept Congress last November?

And it is not only offensive that an someone charged with crafting sensible policies to address the serious harms of drug abuse and drug prohibition would waste government resources and time on partisan politics, it is a blatant violation of the federal Hatch Act.

Hrmmm... political appointees abusing their office for partisan purposes. Sound familiar?

Please join us in calling for the Drug Czar to resign in the wake of this outrageous scandal. Just enter your e-mail address below and the rest of your info on the following page. A letter will be sent directly to the Drug Czar. And your members of Congress - who control ONDCP's budget - will be copied on the message.

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Even if the Drug Czar doesn't listen to us, our lawmakers who are CC'ed on our messages will have to. Take action now!

3 comments:

JT Barrie said...

I'm POed about his campaigning against medical marijuana initiatives and decriminalization of smaller amounts of marijuana. This must be illegal under the Hatch Act - prohibiting public employees spending taxpayer dollars on political campaigns decided by voters. Technically it's still legal to lobby legislatures - including Congress - for more intrusive laws. In Oregon it's legal to hold political rallies to rally public support to pressure the legislature while legislation is still pending. But there seems to be zero media outrage at this longstanding practice of taxpayer funded police departments.
With all the taxpayer funded lies and propaganda why don't those in charge actually allow a public vote on drug prohibition. Of course I would prefer that this law have to be renewed and it was honestly depicting as random acts of prohibition without any standards or criteria. This is what the GOP and right wing hosts claim to loathe - some unelected bureaucrat making laws without any accountability or guidelines.

Anonymous said...

The ONDCP practice of lying through their teeth about cannabis has been dragged out before.

It was excused under the flimsiest of sophistries. According to the GAO, the ONDCP can disseminate propaganda so heavy with lies it's a wonder they don't sink to the core of the planet...so long as its' being done in its' official capacity. So long as those lies remain unchallenged in a legal milieu where there are penalties for lying again after the facts have been established, the ONDCP will continue to use those lies...and will never be held legally responsible for disseminating them.

(This is what the ASA's Data Quality Act suit seeks to address, namely, exposing the substance of their lies as being inherently false, due to their being based upon prejudice, hearsay and ignoring scientific evidence that doesn't support those lies.)

But now it appears that since the ONDCP seems to have actually been campaigning, they are now open to bona fide charges of Hatch Act violations that can have some teeth. The lies told about cannabis in this case are purely secondary...although I can't wait until they are brought before a Committee and made to swear that what they have told about cannabis isn't a lie. With the enormous amount of studies proving them wrong on almost every point, the ONDCP's reps should begin practicing the Alzsheimer's defense...as in "I do not recall..."

Tyler Smith said...

Ohhh, nice Alberto turned Waltero graphic!