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Today's Stories November 19 / 20, 2005 Fred Gardner The Raid on MendoHealing St. Clair / Vest / Walker Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week   November 18, 2005 Michael Neumann The Palestinians and the Party Line Dave Lindorff Murtha and the L Word Michael Donnelly Black November 15 Mark Chmiel / Andrew Wimmer Uncrucify Them Don Monkerud A Decent Workplace Tom Kerr Grant Clemency to Tookie Williams Trish Schuh Faking the Case Against Syria   November 17, 2005 John Walsh A Fractured Anti-War Movement Rep. John Murtha Iraq Must Be Freed from the US Occupation Brian J. Foley We Are All In GITMO Now CounterPunch News Service Guardian Apologizes to Chomsky; Publishes Total Retraction of Brockes' Slurs Dave Lindorff In Post-Saddam Iraq, There are No Civilians Mark T. Harris Coming Out in an Up-and-Coming Sport Cockburn / St. Clair From Reporter to Courtier: the Decline of Bob Woodward   November 16, 2005 John F. Sugg Al-Arian Speaks: In His First Interview Since the Trial Began, Al-Arian Talks About What the Jury Didn't Hear Noam Chomsky Putting Out the Englightenment Dave Lindorff Shake and Bake: Pentagon Admits Using Phosphorous Bombs on Fallujah Evelyn Pringle Laurie Mylroie's War Sam Husseini Trying to Look a Female Suicide Bomber in the Eye Pierre Tristam Toturers' Theater Greg Bates Waffling Alito Charms DiFi Farrah Hassen Moustapha AkkadDavid Lean of the Middle East Killed in Amman Blast Bill Christison Evidence Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars Website of the Day Violent Oscillations   November 15, 2005 Todd Chretien My Evening in the No Spin Zone; Or Why Bill O'Reilly Hates San Francisco Leah Caldwell Death of the Jailhouse Press Frederick Hudson Rosa's Wreath: Miss Parks and Robert Williams Harry Browne Bush-Linked Judge Bows Out: Another Mistrial in Irish Ploughshares Case Jason Leopold Secret CIA Testimony: Iraq Posed No Threat Ingmar Lee Logging Lackies vs. Canada's Most Endangered Species Diana Barahona Showdown on the Silver Coast Tom Andre New Orleans, Two Months Later Website of the Weekend Ernest Crichlow: 1914-2005   November 14, 2005 Diana Johnstone The Origins of the Guardian's Attack on Chomsky Paul Craig Roberts Power Over All: Unlimited Detentions and the End of Habeas Corpus Conn Hallinan Provoking Syria: Cambodia All Over Again? Joshua Frank Off She Goes: Hillary in Israel Christopher Reed The Persistence of Racism in Koizumi's Japan   November 11 / 13, 2005 Alexander Cockburn First the Lying, Then the Pardons Gwyneth Leech Cross Connections: a Painter Reimagines the Passion of Christ in the Wake of Abu Ghraib Elmas Mallo Chillin' in the Blazin' Texas Sun: Inside the Texas Prison System Michael Neumann The Rebel King of Bluegrass: Jimmy Martin, an Appreciation Saul Landau Leakgate: the Screenplay Sam Husseini Bush and Zarqawi Bomb Because We Let Them Brian Cloughley Sleaze, Deceit and Torture Ron Jacobs Rep. McGovern's Withdrawal Resolution: a Step in the Right Direction? Lila Rajiva Dover Bitch: the Curses of Pat Robertson Michael Donnelly Hypocrisy Watch Joe Allen Murder in El Salvador: Who Killed Gilberto Soto? Roland Sheppard Lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott Justin E.H. Smith Another Monkey Trial? Ben Tripp The Cost of War St. Clair / Vest Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Jones, Louise, Ford, Smith, Albert and Engel Website of the Weekend Iraq Vets and Against the War Need Your Help!     November 10, 2005 Peterside, Ogon, Watts and Zalik Delta Blues Again: Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10 Years Gone Pat Williams Will Alito Cost the Republicans the Senate? Steve Higgs Bush Crony Targets Indiana's Forests: 400% Hike in Logging Jimmy Massey Is Ron Harris Telling the Truth? Lucson Pierre-Charles Haiti: Insanity Takes Over Anthony Newkirk Syria in the Crosshairs Lawrence R. Velvel Why Did Libby Lie? Website of the Day Imperial Margarine November 9, 2005 Gary Leupp The Niger Deception / Plame Affair: an Incomplete Chronology Tariq Ali Blair Defeated on Terror Laws Chris Floyd The Philosopher's Stone Elaine Cassel The Shocking Trial of an American Citizen: the Case of Ahmed Abu Ali Joshua Frank Sen. Max Baucus's NASCAR Pay Day Alison Weir Memo to Jon Stewart: Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You Give Israel a Pass? Diana Johnstone Rage in the Banlieue November 8, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Still No Jobs Roger Burbach Bush v. Chavez: the Imperial President Meets the Bolivarian Democrat Ron Jacobs An Interview with Behzad Yaghmaian on the Paris Uprising Ralph Nader "The Worst Marketed Disease on the Planet" Jim McGrath Voter Beware: a Cautionary Tale for Election Day David Bloom McCain, Israel and Torture: Setting the Record Straight Stan Goff Jimmy Massey, Ron Harris, and Ambush Journalism   November 7, 2005 Dick Reavis The Origins of Mr. Danger Jason Leopold Cheney and the Cover Up: the Vice President Lied Dave Lindorff What Country was Bush Talking About? Eli Stephens A Tale of Two Generals: the Lies of Colin Powell David Swanson The Bush-Cheney Ethics Refresher Course: a Syllabus M. Junaid Alam An Interview Stan Goff Matt Reichel Paris Uprising: a Rebellion in Real Time Naima Bouteldja Paris is Burning Jeff Halper Israel as an Extension of American Empire Website of the Day Dispatches from Paris   November 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Storm Over Brockes' Fakery: Guardian Fabricates Chomsky Quotes Lawrence R. Velvel Lying, Law Schools and Executive Power: What Senators Should Ask Alito Diana Johnstone Srebrenica: a Response to Certain Criticisms of My Essay Roosa / Nevins The Mass Killlings in Indonesia, 40 Years Later Niranjan Ramakrishnan Missing the Bus: When Conscience Bows to Calculation John Ross The Zapatistas' Otra Campaign for Mexico's Presidential Elections Mike Whitney Globalizing Sadism: the United States of Torture Mark Engler Will Big Business Turn On Bush?: the Economic Nightmare Unfolds Juliano Mer-Khamis They Shoot at Children, Too Ron Jacobs When Gen. Westmoreland Visited Jill S. Farrell Bird Flu and the Posse Comitatus Act Missy Comley Beattie Trent Lott's Untroubled Sleep Mitchel Cohen People of the Dome, Revisited Evelyn J. Pringle Bush-Cheney and Big Oil's Big Summer Reza Fiyouzat Signs of Life or Last Gasp? Structural Problems in the Democratic Party Charles Sullivan When Courage Fails: a White Southerner on Rosa Parks Zachary Richard Return to Louisiana Ben Tripp Beginning of the End? Don't Start Cheering Just Yet St. Clair / Vest Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week   November 4, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Blood on the Tundra, Betrayal in the Rotunda: Losing ANWR Dave Lindorff A Majority Now Favors Impeachment: If He Lied, He Must Be Tried Phillip Cryan Crackdown in Colombia Christopher Brauchli Katrina and Tax Breaks for the Very Rich William S. Lind Exit Strategy: You Can't Stay the Course in a Lost War Daryl G. Kimball Of Madmen and Nukes George Beres Laurels for Negroponte? Peter Montague Why We Can't Prevent Cancer   November 3, 2005 James Petras The Libby Affair and the Internal War Saul Landau Torn Families and Shot Down Planes: a Cuba Story Rep. Cynthia McKinney An Occurrence at Gretna Bridge Michael Dickinson Bang! Bang! You're Deaf! Sonic Weapons Over Palestine Joshua Frank Sham Behind Closed Doors Remi Kanazi Dancing with Perseverance Reza Fiyouzat Taxation or Racketeering? Website of the Day CIA Leak Investigation: Bigger Fish, Deeper Water?   November 2, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Holy Alito!: Not as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad Robert Oscar Lopez Saving Rosa Parks from American Hypocrisy John Walsh The Philosophy of Mendacity: From Leo Strauss to Scooter Libby Brian J. Foley Why Most Americans Don't Care About Gitmo (and Why They Should) Ramzy Baroud Rolling Back Syria M. Junaid Alam What Moral Values? Todd Chretien Judgment Day for the Governator Bruce K. Gagnon The Democrats' Slap Happy Day Website of the Day Hands Off Dave!   November 1, 2005 Ron Jacobs An Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart Gary Leupp The Plame Affair Leads to Rome John Ross Days of the Dead on the Border Bill Quigley Why Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town? Joseph Nevins From a Boundary of Death to One of Life Dave Lindorff Thinking About Impeachment Linda S. Heard Bashing Syria: Another Trojan Horse from the UN? Heather Gray Thank You, Mrs. Parks Michael Dickinson To Di For: Charlie and Camilla Cross the Pond Jeffrey St. Clair Kent State: Wise Up and Back Off   October 31, 2005 Elaine Cassel Libby's Lies Mark Weisbrot Pop Goes the Bubble: Bernancke and the Fed Mike Whitney Carry On, Patrick Fitzgerald Norman Solomon After the Libby Indictment, the Press Acquits Itself Farooq Sulehria Trading Weapons While Kashmir Burns Nicole Colson Scapegoating Immigrants Madis Senner Dhafir Sentenced to 22 Years: Another Erosion of Civil Rights Paul Craig Roberts Scooter and the Neocons October 29 / 30, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair The Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies? Peter Linebaugh The Wedges of Hephaestus Tim Wise Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media John Chuckman Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words Steven Higgs Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland Brian Cloughley The Fifth Afghan War M. Shahid Alam Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness Nikki Robinson Crack Down at Kent State Ralph Nader Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives Joe DeRaymond Requiem for Bethlehem Steel? Joshua Frank Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter? Laura Santina Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder? Fred Gardner Death of an Organizer Michael Dickinson Insult Your Country Ron Jacobs Autumn in America Dr. Susan Block Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting Vanessa S. Jones Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair Website of the Weekend Red State Update   October 28, 2005 Jared Bernstein Inflation Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record Virginia Tilley Embracing the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine Phil Gasper The Race to Execute Tookie Williams Jennifer Matsui It's Mardi Graft Time! Manual Garcia, Jr. Is the US Really Against Torture? Monica Benderman In the Name of Justice Jason Leopold Fitzgerald Focuses on the Forgeries Dave Lindorff Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials Otober 27, 2005 Saul Landau The Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War Stuart Hodkinson Bono and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't! Ingmar Lee Stop the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq Lila Rajiva License to Bill: Gates Does India Ilan Pappe The Last Moment of Hope Niranjan Ramakrishnan Waiting for Fitzgerald Michael Donnelly Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury Ron Jacobs Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo Cockburn / St. Clair White House in Meltdown   October 26, 2005 Kathy Kelly For Whom They Toll Gary Leupp Dialectics of the Plame Affair Mike Marqusee Empire of Denial Eric Ruder War Crimes in Afghanistan Patrick Cockburn Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation Joshua Frank Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check J.L. Chestnut, Jr. The Legacy of Rosa Parks Website of the Day Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index     October 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Condi and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President? Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Attack on the Palestine Hotel Conn Hallinan Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Pulling the Court Strings Jackie Corr Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros Robert Day Talk to Strangers John Sugg Judith Miller and Me   October 24, 2005 Dave Lindorff Revoke Judy Miller's Pulitzer Michael Donnelly Shades of Iran/contra Patrick Cockburn A Nation Stands on Trial Mike Whitney Apres Rove Norman Solomon Iraq is Not Vietnam, But... Bill and Kathleen Christison US Foreign Policy and Palestine   October 22 / 23, 2005 Alexander Cockburn When Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller Billy Sothern Letter from the Circle Bar, New Orleans Saul Landau Bush, an Assessment Ralph Nader An Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers Behrooz Ghamari Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve? Brian Cloughley Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory? Diana Barahona Venezuela's National Workers' Union Fred Gardner Dershowitzed! Lee Sustar What the War on Terror is Really About Patrick Cockburn Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer Laura Carlsen Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake James Petras China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness Joshua Frank Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them? Manuel Garcia, Jr. Disasters are Us Michelle Bollinger When Abortion Was Illegal Missy Comley Beattie CSI: Iraq Kona Lowell Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun Ben Tripp Tanks for the Memories Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week Poets' Basement Albert and Engel Website of the Day Indictment Watch   October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff The Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy Winslow T. Wheeler Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense Budget Col. Dan Smith The Destruction of the National Guard Norman Solomon Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph Madis Senner Abusing Katrina Michael Donnelly Richard Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots October 20, 2005 Dave Lindorff Impeachment Comes to NYC Ray McGovern 16 Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right? Patrick Cockburn Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court Kevin Zeese Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed? Ross Eisenbrey Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment Randy Shields James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton Justine Davidson Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory After Lucas Cranach Judy and Holofernes Joe Allen The Scandalous History of the Red Cross     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition November 19 / 20, 2005 Gestapo Tactics in the War on Medical Pot The Raid on MendoHealing By FRED GARDNER I met David Moore in the spring of 2000 at a UC San Francisco conference on cannabis therapeutics sponsored by G.W. Pharmaceuticals (the British company that is developing strains with differing cannabinoid ratios to achieve different medical effects). Moore, who was then in his early 40s, said he had loved ones with AIDS and schizophrenia, and problems of his own that were alleviated by cannabis. He said he wanted to advance the cause. I gathered that he had a background in business and that he had done time (marijuana-related, small-scale). He seemed affable, calm and serious. I told him a few things off the top. 1) That California growers, too, could develop strains with different cannabinoid ratios, standardized for use by doctors; all G.W. had on us, really, was a lab to analyze the contents of their plants. 2) That Tod Mikuriya, MD, was ardently promoting vaporization as an alternative to smoking. 3) That the real measure of Prop 215 being implemented would be the price coming down, according to Dennis Peron, the prime mover. Next time I heard from Moore he had been to Tutlingen, Germany, to meet with the inventor of the Volcano vaporizer, Markus Storz, and to offer his services as a U.S. importer and representative. Storz told Moore that he already had a business partner and a plan to expand Volcano distribution in the U.S., but the two hit it off and Storz invited Moore on a camping trip in the beautiful green countryside around Tutlingen (a town famous for making precision medical equipment). Moore brought back tapes of some interviews he had conducted with Storz, and photographs of the inventor at his workbench. Moore had made the down payment on some land in Fort Bragg, on the Mendocino County coast, and begun producing medicinal grade cannabis by organic methods. In 2001 he opened a dispensary in Fort Bragg in which the Medical Marijuana Patients Union was involved. (The project ended when the property was sold.) In late 2003, feeling confident in his productive capacity, he opened a dispensary called MendoHealing in San Francisco, selling high-grade cannabis "farm direct" for $30 an eighth-ounce--when other dispensaries were charging $50-$60. He sold Volcanoes at cost ($420, which was at least $100 below the prevailing retail price). He joined the board of the Medical Cannabis Association and advocated formation of a "collective" comprised of patients, distributors and growers. (The word "collective" has been used as loosely in the medical marijuana industry as it was in the 1960s by various political activists.) Moore's low prices--and a policy of giving a few free grams to people in need--resulted in long lines (with a high percentage of young black and Hispanic men) forming outside the door of the MendoHealing storefront on Lafayette, a small street that runs off Howard between 11th and 12th. Some residents were righteously upset about people emerging from the dispensary and loitering in front of their houses, smoking, being rude, offering cannabis for sale, taking up parking spots, double-parking, etc. MendoHealing canceled the giveaway policy and upped the price to $40/eighth (the point to which other dispensaries had come down), but it was too late to mollify the Lafayette St. NIMBYs. Moore began looking for another location. Before he could find one, a lawyer hired by the neighbors got a court order to close MendoHealing as a nuisance (which the city wouldn't do because the club had complied with all requests made by the police). Moore kept MendoHealing functioning as a delivery service and hired a San Francisco attorney, Terry Goggin, a former state legislator, to fight for his right to relocate. But as of last week Moore needed Goggin to defend him against looming criminal charges for cultivation. Moore's Fort Bragg property was raided at noon on Thursday, Nov. 3--the peak of the harvest--by a task force consisting mainly of FBPD officers and sheriff's deputies. Glenda Anderson's report in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat noted that the trim crew consisted mainly of workers from south of the border, many of whom had worked the grape harvest. "Finding 65 people trimming and packaging pot under one roof surprised even Rusty Noe, the veteran leader of the County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team," Anderson wrote. Apparently the sheer amount of cannabis being grown convinced law enforcement that it could not have been destined for distribution through medical channels. Anderson wrote in the PD: "While the people processing marijuana in the Mitchell Creek Road barn claimed they were working for a medical cannabis club, [Sheriff's Capt. Kevin] Broin said the operation was clearly commercial, which makes it illegal. "Law enforcement seized 1,707 plants and 1,000 pounds of processed, trimmed marijuana from the barn, he said. The seizure brings the total number of plants confiscated in Mendocino County this year to 144,021." According to a source on the scene, the task force wreaked unnecessary destruction, breaking down doors, including the door to the safe, instead of asking that they be opened. "We had several letters posted in the kitchen from officials confirming our medical status. Letters from [Sheriff Tony] Craver and the planning department and the tax collector and business licenses... They were all posted on a wall. [Craver was not working the day the raid on MendoHealing went down.] Although they said at the gate that they wanted to check our paperwork, they seemed surprised to see that we really were medical... "They were told that Craver and the district attorney had been right here at this farm. They were asked, 'Why are you guys here?' They said, 'Well, without getting too much into the case, we have evidence that this is going somewhere else than medicine.' By this time I could see men in the field chopping things down... Patients' records were in a file cabinet in the office and living room area of the main house. They just took the whole filing cabinet." The crew was handcuffed for about half an hour--"detained but not arrested," they were told--then cut loose and ordered to leave the premises until 9 p.m. Those who returned that night found the warrant and an itemized list of what had been seized on the kitchen table. Our source says, "Anybody that had more than $100 cash on them, they took it and they didn't give anybody a receipt for it. Since everybody was paid in cash, most of the trim crew had more than $100 on them... I feel like we were robbed. Somebody broke and entered and robbed us. It was the exact same thing." Migrant workers don't usually use banks, many keep their earnings on them in cash. One man who had worked the grape harvest was said to have lost $8,000 to the law enforcers. Two days after the raid on MendoHealing, a New York Times piece about the history of American marketing noted that the president of a leading grocery chain (A&P in 1931) attributed his company's success to its policy "of immediately passing on reductions in wholesale commodity prices to the consumer... A&P had one dominant mission: to sell quality food at low prices." Of course I thought of David Moore, who has been punished--ruined financially--for distributing cannabis according to rational marketing principles and respect for the letter and spirit of California law. Fred Gardner can be reached at: fred@plebesite.com

Coming in the Fall from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Click Here to Advance Order Philosopher Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair CounterPunch Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.