The BS Filter

Let’s look at another two antivax claims: that the very first vaccine was a disaster and that vaccines are highly profitable for pharmaceutical companies and the health care industry. Full shownotes below. *Please Note: our weekly news shows are currently available to Silver subscribers and above.    Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts.   We start with antivax claim #3: The very first vaccine was a disaster. Vaccine safety and effectiveness is a created myth, strongly embedded in Americans’ psyche and reinforced by the health care system.The history of small pox vaccines demonstrates that the first vaccine resulted in an increase in the disease and created additional serious health consequences including syphilis and deaths. Physician groups met repeatedly to discuss the “vaccine problem” and concluded that as long as vaccines remained profitable, they would be impossible to eliminate, in spite of the evidence against them. Nothing has changed since this time. The polio vaccine was another one linked to serious health consequences, including cancer and AIDS. Statistics were manipulated to try and prove this vaccine’s effectiveness. With each new vaccine has come new health damage and created illness. See Small Pox Vaccine: Origins of Vaccine Madness. “strongly embedded in Americans’ psyche”  Ah duh, Americans aren’t the only people who vaccinate, dummy.  Did the introduction of the smallpox vaccine result in an increase in the disease?  Hard to get worldwide figures.  But found this one from Boston.  The smallpox vaccine was first used in Boston in 1800.  Before then, hundreds or thousands of people per hundred thousand died whenever there was a smallpox outbreak.  For over a year, from the spring of 1721 until winter 1722, a smallpox epidemic afflicted the city. Started when a British ship arrived in Boston Harbor from the West Indies, carrying the disease. Out of a population of 11,000, over 6000 cases were reported with 850 dying from the disease. They started using the inoculation method mentioned earlier, brought back to England from Turkey.  Cotton Mather a New England Puritan minister is thought to have introduced it to the American colony.  He’s best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials He first learned about inoculation from his West African slave Onesimus, writing, “he told me that he had undergone the operation which had given something of the smallpox and would forever preserve him from it, adding that was often used in West Africa.’’ Anyway, after the actual vaccine was used in Boston in 1800, the disease pretty much disappeared.  So much for it causing an INCREASE.  The only quotes I’ve found that suggest an increase in smallpox in England after vaccinations, all come from books written by the same guy.  Trung Nguyen I took a quote from one antivax article. “Smallpox attained its maximum mortality after vaccination was introduced.” And every book that I can find that quotes that are written by the same guy – with other co-authors.  Same with another quote “Vaccination was made compulsory by an Act of Parliament in the year 1853; again in 1867; and still more stringent in 1871. Since 1853, we have had three epidemics of small-pox, each being more severe than the one preceding.” At least FIVE identical books, written by Trung Nguyen and different coauthors.  Who, btw, are all dead antivaxers from the late 19th and early 20th century.  I found references to them in a 1967 edition of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine: In the 1850s, opposition to vaccination arose, largely from the irregular physicians, the advocates of unorthodox medical theories. For example, Dr.  Joel Shew, adherent of the Vincent Priessnitz water cure, Dr.  Russell T.  Trall, founder of the New York Hygeio-Therapeutic College, and Dr.  C. C. Schiefferdecker, the owner and manager of a Philadelphia hydropathic infirmary, were the leading anti-vaccinationists of the 1850s. Calling vaccination “the greatest crime that has been committed in this last century, ” Schiefferdecker set out to prove scientifically that the Jennerian method was mere “nonsense before reason.” Using the scientific method, he called upon the world’s most highly respected authority, the Bible, to prove the inadequacy of vaccination. Another guy that Nguyen uses is William Tebb, a British radical liberal in the late 1800s.  Vegetarian, abolitionist, a pacifist and anti-imperialist. Sounds like a cool guy But a major anti-vaxxer  he opposed vaccination o

We’re still breaking down antivax claim number 2 from last time and dealing with the claims that “Whenever the outbreaks are examined more closely, the data show that the majority of those suffering have been vaccinated for the disease. Disease charts show that diseases were mostly eliminated prior to the creation of vaccinations. What is truly responsible for most communicable disease elimination is clean water and improved sanitation.”   Full shownotes below.   *Please Note: our weekly news shows are currently available to Silver subscribers and above.    Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts.     Last time we dealt with immunity.  Let’s talk about measles. The measles virus is one of the most infectious diseases known to man. A person with measles can cough in a room and leave, and hours later, if you’re unvaccinated, you could catch the virus from the droplets in the air the infected person left behind. No other virus can do that. According to the CDC, as many as one out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young kids. About one out of every 1,000 children with measles will develop swelling of the brain, which can lead to convulsions and leave the child deaf or with an intellectual disability. For every 1,000 children who get the disease, the CDC estimated one or two will die from it. According to the CDC: Very few people—about three out of 100—who get two doses of measles vaccine will still get measles if exposed to the virus. Experts aren’t sure why. It could be that their immune systems didn’t respond as well as they should have to the vaccine. But the good news is, fully vaccinated people who get measles are much more likely to have a milder illness. And fully vaccinated people are also less likely to spread the disease to other people, including people who can’t get vaccinated because they are too young or have weakened immune systems. Before the measles vaccination program started in 1963, about 3 to 4 million people got measles each year in the United States. Of those people, 400 to 500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 4,000 developed encephalitis (brain swelling) from measles. In 2018, in the USA, do you know how many cases were reported?  349. Down from 3-4 million in a half century ago.  But numbers are on the rise again. A few years ago there was a measles outbreak in California connected to Disneyland. This is one case that antivaxxers like to point at. 125 people infected. Or 131. Or 159. I’ve read different numbers.  100 from California.  The leading theory is that measles was introduced in Disneyland by a foreign tourist. According to the CDC: Among the 110 California patients, only 49 (45%) were unvaccinated; So wait – that means that 55% of the people who got measles, the majority, were vaccinated? Not quite.  5% had 1 dose of the measles vaccine.  2 is recommended for maximum immunity.  So that means 50% were either unvaccinated or didn’t have enough vaccinations.  Only 7% of the people who got measles had 2 or more doses. What about the other 42%? They had unknown or undocumented vaccination status.   So only 7% of the people who contracted the disease were known to be fully vaccinated.  In 2011 there was an outbreak of measles started by someone who was fully vaccinated. So it can happen.  but this was a very big deal because it was the first time it had ever been reported as happening! According to the CDC:  During 2011, a provisional total of 222 measles cases were reported from 31 states. Most patients were unvaccinated (65%) or had unknown vaccination status (21%). So this argument that “Whenever outbreaks are examined more closely, the data show that the majority of those suffering have been vaccinated for the disease” is not supported by the evidence I saw.  Five on the BS meter.    BTW, there’s a measles outbreak happening in the US at the moment.  the number of new cases has climbed to its highest level in 25 years. about 700 cases have been reported Even Trump is telling people to get vaccinated.  And he’s made antivax type statements in the past.  most heavily affected are Orthodox Jewish communities in NY, in which vaccination rates tend to be lower. only 72.9 per cent of people under 18 have been vaccinated against measles The outbreak began in the Rockland County of NY area when seven unvaccinated travellers diagnosed with measles entered the county last October. There have been nearly 200 cases reported to date. But the authorities there think the

I went looking for a list of claims antivaxxers use NOT to vaccinate. Today we’ll look at the first two. Claim #1. Vaccines have never been proven safe or effective.Claim #2. Vaccines do NOT work.   Full shownotes below.   *Please Note: our weekly news shows are currently available to Silver subscribers and above.    Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts.     So to get started, I went looking for a list of reasons NOT to vaccinate. Careful not to get the list of sites that are PROVAX, to make sure they aren’t spinning the real issues. I found these two sites. Funnily enough, they both have the exact same list of talking points. https://vactruth.com/2014/12/12/10-reasons-not-to-vaccinate/ https://www.naturalnews.com/048151_vaccination_dangers_children_Big_Pharma.html Claim #1: “Vaccines have never been proven safe or effective. Vaccine studies funded by pharmaceutical companies compare vaccine “side-effects” from one vaccine to another. True, scientific, double-blind placebo studies have never been conducted on vaccines to determine their safety. Effectiveness cannot be determined unless one is then knowingly exposed to the disease entity following vaccination. Only antibody production is measured.” Some definitions: double-blind: neither the subjects nor the experimenters know which subjects are in the test and control groups during the actual course of the experiments placebo: Some definitions say: an inert substance used especially in controlled experiments testing the efficacy of another substance. But others say: A placebo is a substance as similar as possible to the active drug except it has no therapeutic effect. It does not need to be ‘inert’. The best placebo is one that mimics the active therapy as much as possible. This is because the ‘placebo effect’ is a powerful phenomenon and to truly measure the effect of an active product it important that all recipients are equally as likely to think they received the “real deal’. So let’s break this statement down to its elements. So the first thing that jumps out at me about this complaint is that it’s an argument about the scientific process. They are first making a claim – that the NO vaccines – that’s implied – have ever been PROVEN SAFE The second point is that double-blind placebo studies have NEVER been conducted on ANY vaccines. again, implied. Third point is that you can’t know if a vaccine is effective unless you expose someone to the disease after they have been vaccinated. So I guess we need to tackle these statements one at a time and see how they hold up. First: NO vaccines have ever been PROVEN to be safe. Well I’d first ask what the definition of “proven to be safe” is. How does one PROVE something is SAFE? Lots of wiggle room in there But of course, it’s like saying “no-one has proven God doesn’t exist”. While that is true, we can comfortably say that there is no empirical evidence that a god who intervenes in the world, breaking the laws of physics, exists. On the contrary, we have enormous evidence that the universe operates according to physical laws. So we can’t PROVE God doesn’t exist, we can say with certainty that we have no evidence that God does exist, and no reason to believe he exists. Apart from the ramblings of some fervent believers. How does that apply to science? Well here’s a tip. Whenever you hear somebody saying something about science not PROVING something, that’s your first tip that this person knows nothing about science. Or is trying to bullshit you. Because science isn’t about PROVING anything. Nowhere in the scientific method will you find the word PROVE. Let me explain my understanding of the scientific method. And you know nobody knows more about the scientific method than I do, Ray. The scientific method is a process by which we try to work out which theories are likely to be correct from those that are likely to be incorrect. It’s my old bucket story. Big bucket of things that MIGHT be true. How do you figure out which things go into the very small bucket of things that are LIKELY to be true? You need a process. There are various ways you can go about it. You can just believe whatever you want to believe. You can believe those things that make you happy. Or the things your parents told you to believe. Or the things your friends believe. Or the things a priest tells you to believe. Or a book written 2000 years ago tell you to believe. Or you can use some kind of rational process that can look at all of the theories and the available evidence and see which theories hold up under examination. So that’s what the scientific method does. You take a theory. Y

On this episode we discuss the arrest of Julian Assange, break down a recent NYT story about him, and look at other various bits of disinformation that people are blindly repeating. Below are some links that you might find useful reading. Detailed breakdown of the Swedish sexual misconduct allegations by Celia Farber, half-Swedish journalist. Sweden blow by blow timeline Wikileaks won the highest award given to journalism in Australia in 2011 – the “Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism” Walkley award. Why the prosecution of Julian Assange is troubling for press freedom, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists According to James Goodale, the veteran lawyer who helped the Times defend the Pentagon Papers from the Nixon administration’s hot pursuit in 1971, prosecuting Assange would be devastating. According to Assange’s Swedish lawyer, Björn Hurtig, he contacted the Swedish prosecutor on five occasions in September and October 2010 – before the arrest warrant was issued on 18 Nov – “and offered that Julian could be interrogated in Sweden – I would even say I requested it”. He later proposed that Ny could interview Assange by other means, such as by video-link, or that police in Britain be allowed to interview him. Even after Assange had sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, due to fears he would be extradited to the United States, his legal team and the Ecuadorian government continued to offer access to Assange to answer the questions of the Swedish prosecutors. They *finally* sent someone to interview him – on 14 November 2016. Six years after the arrest warrant. So for SIX YEARS he had been offering to be subjected to an interview. “Wikileaks never ‘leaked’ anything from Russia” … except, of course, for the stuff they leaked from Russia. But don’t let facts get in the way of the American deep state narrative. Or, you know, bother to actually take a look at the Wikileaks website before you make such comments. Wikileaks never posts leaks about dictatorships? Oh, FFS. *Please Note: our weekly news shows are currently available to Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post BFTN 42 – Julian Assange appeared first on The BS Filter.

On this episode we take a look at the History Of Vaccinations & the story of Andrew Wakefield.   *Please Note: our weekly news shows are currently available to Silver subscribers and above.    Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts.   The post ANTIVAX 4.2 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Today we start a short series on THE ANTIVAX MOVEMENT. On the first episode we have a discussion about why people believe what they believe. Where do we get our knowledge? What sources do we trust? In other words, it’s all about epistemology and heuristics.    The post ANTIVAX 4.1 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Today we break down what we know – and don’t know – about the Mueller Report and ask why for the last two years we’ve heard so much about Trump – Russian collusion when there is apparently no evidence to support it. *Please Note: our weekly news shows are currently available to Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post BSF NEWS #41 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Today’s show is all about the mosque shooting in Christchurch, the rise of Islamophobia in Australia and the role of the media and Christianity in that rise. *Please Note: our weekly news shows are currently available to Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post BSF NEWS #40 appeared first on The BS Filter.

NYT’s Exposé on the Lies About Burning Aid Trucks in Venezuela Shows How U.S. Government and Media Spread Pro-War Propaganda Venezuelan opposition leader will call for ‘state of national emergency’ as power blackout goes on U.N. Finds Israel Intentionally Shot Children, Journalists & the Disabled During Gaza Protests Debunking the myth that anti-Zionism is antisemitic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Manafort sentencing shows justice isn’t ‘blind,’ it’s ‘bought’ Warren wants to break up big tech companies Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify to grand jury in WikiLeaks case Teen Defies Anti-Vaxxer Mom, Gets Vaccinated After 18th Birthday *Please Note: our weekly news shows are currently available to Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post BSF NEWS #39 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Michael Cohen’s Statement. Proposal: keep the nuclear launch codes in an innocent volunteer’s chest-cavity Netanyahu to be Indicted on Bribery, Fraud, Press Tampering: Israeli AG Religion works exactly like a drug *Please Note: our weekly news shows are for Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post BSF NEWS #38 appeared first on The BS Filter.

U.S. Supreme Court rules against civil asset forfeiture Dutch historian Rutger Bregman vs Tucker Carlson Cardinal admits to Vatican summit that Catholic Church destroyed abuse files BREAKING: Australian Cardinal George Pell Convicted Of Child Rape American airstrikes contribute to record number of children, civilians killed in Afghanistan *Please Note: our weekly news shows are for Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post BSF NEWS #37 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Trump Declares National Emergency – what else can he do? No Direct Evidence Of Collusion Ilhan Omar Smacks Down Elliott Abrams In Front Of Everybody The massacre Trump’s envoy to Venezuela wants us to forget *Please Note: our weekly news shows are for Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post BSF NEWS #36 appeared first on The BS Filter.

The final chapter (nearly 2 hours long) of our mini-series on VENEZUELA and the “soft coup” that’s going on at the moment (February 2019). This time we’re talking about the Maduro era, 2013 – 2018, and looking at how Guaido ended up being declared the interim President. We also look at more media manipulation of American audiences and the American army’s field manual for conducting “unconventional warfare”. *Please Note: our weekly news shows are for Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP #35 – Venezuela (3/3) appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part two of our mini-series on VENEZUELA and the “soft coup” that’s going on at the moment (January 2019). This time we’re talking about the period 2002 – 2013 and building the case for how the United States deliberately and actively tried to overthrow the democratically-elected government of VZ. *Please Note: our weekly news shows are for Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP #34 – Venezuela (2/3) appeared first on The BS Filter.

Today’s show is all about VENEZUELA and the “soft coup” that’s going on at the moment (January 2019). This is the first part of a short series on Venezuela. We talk about the political history of the country up to Hugo Chavez and the first coup against him in 2002. In the next episode we will look at the remainder of the Chavez years through to Maduro and the current crisis. *Please Note: our weekly news shows are for Silver subscribers and above. Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP #33 – Venezuela (1/3) appeared first on The BS Filter.

Today’s stories: 1. Avengers Infinity Stones – Essential aspects of existence? 2. Trump Told Cohen To lie to Congress. Or did he? 3. China wants to build a moon base. We say – Yay Communism! And ABOUT TIME. 4. The Gillette “toxic masculinity” commercial – A Disaster? Or exactly what we need? Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and REGISTER NOW for one of our premium accounts. The post WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP #32 appeared first on The BS Filter.

PLEASE NOTE: Starting today our weekly news show is for Silver subscribers and up only. If we get enough people upgrading their subscriptions, we will keep the mini-series going (we have lots of ideas for new series). If we don’t, we’ll just continue with the news shows for the immediate future. Go here to register, and here to upgrade an existing subscription (select the CHANGE PLAN option). Email Cam if you have any questions. Today’s stories: 1. Update on Marketing The Messiah 2. How Are Jesus, da Vinci, Bonesaw & Trump Connected?. 3. Has Russia Weaponized Crickets? 4. Who did what to whom in Afghanistan in 1979? Follow Cameron on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. The post WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP #31 appeared first on The BS Filter.

China’s Got A (Rail)Gun Reporter Quits NBC Citing Network’s Support For Endless War Excusion My Fusion Brazil’s New President Cartel Boss’s Son & His Sweetheart DEA Deal Ecuador vs Assange & Giuliani   Follow Cameron on Facebook Follow Ray on Facebook. HOW TO LISTENIf you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts.   The post WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP #30 appeared first on The BS Filter.

I’m back with my 18 year old twin sons, Taylor and Hunter, to chat about climate change. Does their generation worry about it? Are they skeptical about the science? Do they have any hope for their future? The post GenZ #03 – Climate Change appeared first on The BS Filter.

Back when we were doing our gun control series in late 2017, one of our listeners, let’s call him “Mac”, emailed us to say he worked in the gun industry in the USA, he’s a gun owner, and, if he ever got out, he’d love to come on the show to talk about his experiences and perspectives. Well – he’s out. And he’s on today’s show. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. The post GUN CONTROL 2.7 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Former Staffer on “The Apprentice” Claims Trump Was ‘Speed Freak’ Christian mother drowned 4 year old daughter and tried to burn body because God told her to The Guardian publishes dubious negative story about Assange Follow Cameron on Facebook Follow Ray on Facebook. The post WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP #29 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Taylor joins me (no Hunter on this episode) to discuss gaming and whether or not he thinks it’s been a positive or negative thing in his life. He’s been gaming heavily since about age 4. He’s now 18, writing code, studying business and IT – and still playing games. The post GenZ #02 – Is Gaming Bad For Kids? appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part THIRTY-TWO, the final episode of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “Prop 215”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: On July 28, 1992, the biggest of journalistic guns swiveled on the Drug War. The New York Times put the failure of the War on Drugs on page one for the first time: SOME THINK THE ‘WAR ON DRUGS’ IS BEING WAGED ON THE WRONG FRONT. As part of a series on George Bush’s record as president, reporter Joseph Treaster wrote that “Mr. Bush has poured more and more money into tactics that over the last 20 years have repeatedly failed to change the course of the campaign against drugs” Then Bill Clinton got elected in 1992. He was a child of the rock and roll generation. The drug generation. He admitted he smoked pot but didn’t inhale. Just one of many lies he would tell while in office. And people on the other side of the drug war were hopeful. Everyone knew that marijuana — not crack, cocaine, or heroin — was politically the most important illegal drug. It doesn’t kill people who use it, spawn gun battles in city streets, enrich foreign drug lords, or inspire women to abandon their babies Without the marijuana ban, the country’s “drug problem” would have been tiny. There wouldn’t be 11 million regular users of illegal drugs in the United States, there would be 2 million. Of those, about 350,000 use cocaine every day. Along with the country’s half million heroin addicts, these hard-core users are the real “drug problem”: tragic, resistant to solutions, but statistically minuscule. Heroin and cocaine are the scary drugs that keep the Drug War’s home fires burning, but vastly more people are touched personally by a war on marijuana that yields few benefits. Lives aren’t saved. Violent criminal organizations aren’t disrupted. Instead, a lot of harmless potheads — and the generally peaceful growers who supply them — go to prison at enormous expense to the taxpayer. But a thick critique of Bush’s drug policy issued just prior to the election by Democratic senator Joe Biden’s Judiciary Committee was published. It was called “The President’s Drug Strategy: Has it Worked?” No, Biden answered – but only because Bush didn’t spend enough money on law enforcement, wasn’t tough enough on those addicted to drugs, didn’t give the military enough power and money to fight illegal drugs. It never mentioned “racism,” “AIDS,” “poverty,” “tobacco,” or ”civil liberties.” Not in nearly 200 pages. Clinton’s first drug budget duplicated precisely Bush’s heavy emphasis on law enforcement. On Pearl Harbor Day 1993, Joycelyn Elders, Clinton’s surgeon general, gave an hour-long speech to the National Press Club about AIDS, teen pregnancy, and other matters of public health, concluding that the country faced many difficult choices. During questions, legalization activist Eric Sterling asked if legalization isn’t “one of the difficult choices we must face to fight violence.” Elders answered. “I do feel that we would markedly reduce our crime rate if drugs were legalized,”  “But I don’t know all the ramifications of this. I do feel that we need to do some studies.” The White House sided with Elders’s many critics. “The president is against legalizing drugs,” press secretary Dee Dee Myers said, “and he’s not interested in studying the issue.” For good measure, a New York congressman introduced a bill “to prohibit federally sponsored research pertaining to the legalization of drugs.” Eight days after Elders’s comment, Arkansas police arrested Elders’s son Kevin for his role in a two-gram cocaine deal they’d known about for seven months. Though it was his first offense, he faced a ten-year mandatory sentence without parole. Still, the surgeon general came back in early January saying she’d studied up on legalization and now “realized I probably made a more honest, aboveboard statement than I knew I had made.”* I think it’s important to understanding why the Democrats wouldn’t budge on drugs. It’s probably NOT for the same reason as the Republicans. Not at THIS stage, anyway. For the Republicans, it’s about stopping the minorities from voting – because they probably aren’t going to vote for the GOP. For the Democrats, it’s because they don’t want to appear soft on drugs. But also – remember that the big money behind both parties is intrinsically interested in maintaining the status quo. They don’t want blacks and Jews in the country clu

Australian government to hack our devices CIA found that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ‘sent 11 messages to advisor who oversaw Jamal Khashoggi murder squad in the hours surrounding the journalist’s death’ Chinese Scientist Claims To Have Created First Genetically Modified Babies New evidence supports the broken NATO one inch promise to Russia Follow Cameron on Facebook Follow Ray on Facebook. The post WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP #28 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part THIRTY-ONE of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “The Sentencing Project”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: Georgia Gospel Choir https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2wCBAdT6FI We finished up last time In 1989 Mass murderer George HW Bush is President. May he get anally raped for eternity by the hundreds of thousands of civilians who were murdered on his watch. Percentage of high school seniors who said cocaine is “easy or very easy” to get in 1980: 48. Percentage who said the same thing in 1990: 59. So despite a fortune being spent on the war on drugs during the Reagan years, the “problem” is getting worse. What’s that old saying about doing the same thing and expecting a different results? Sounds like me and podcasting. In 1988, the chief administrative judge of the DEA, Francis Young, recommended the DEA reclassify marijuana to a less restrictive classification. He called it “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man”. He quoted scientific evidence and medical studies. The DEA in 1990 ignored him. In the spring of 1991, Harvard University researchers surveyed a third of the country’s oncologists, and of the thousand who responded about half said they would prescribe marijuana if it was legal. Of those, almost all said they’d done so anyway, telling at least one patient that, though illegal, marijuana can fight the debilitating nausea of chemotherapy. The survey, published in May, seemed to discredit the DEA’s contention that marijuana has “no accepted medical use.” Meanwhile the AIDS epidemic was going into overdrive. Since Bush’s inauguration, the number of drug-related AIDS cases had jumped from 12,000 to 16,000. A third of all the country’s AIDS cases were believed to have originated with a dirty needle. The obvious solution was to provide clean needles for drug users. Pharmacists didn’t want junkies coming into their stores to buy needles. Parks and sanitation workers didn’t want to handle discarded and potentially lethal syringes. Requiring addicts to bring their needles back provided an opportunity for counseling, health care, even addiction treatment. New Haven, Connecticut, launched a needle exchange program in 1990. They had a van that drove around handing out needles. If you brought back your old needles, you got clean ones in return. In the first few months, two out of ten needles that were handed were returned to the van – and 68% contained the AIDS virus. Two years later, some seven in ten were coming back, and the percentage of those testing positive was down to 44. one of every six addicts participating had gone into drug treatment But the Bush administration’s position on drugs was “zero tolerance”. They convinced Congress not to fund a nationwide needle exchange program. Because FUCK people dying of AIDS. Bush actually said “Here’s a disease where you can control its spread by your own personal behavior. You can’t do that in cancer.” Because no-one can help it if they smoke a pack a day. According to the Washington Post, by 1990, U.S. Customs Service agents had confiscated more than $50 million using sniffer dogs at Border crossings and airports, most of which has been forfeited to the government. Did you know that if a sniffer dog smells cash tainted with cocaine on your person, the police can confiscate the cash? Trained dogs sniff cash, and if they bark, that’s taken to mean the money is contaminated with drugs and is therefore “drug money” and seizable. A guy from the ACLU said: “Everything the dog does, no matter what it is, the police claim it’s a hit. If the dog barks, it’s a hit. If the dog sits down, it’s a hit. If the dog fell over dead, they’d probably claim the scent of cocaine killed him.” The Pittsburgh Press found in 1991 that virtually all currency in the United States is tainted with enough cocaine to trigger a dog’s response. Two different private labs tested currency from banks in eleven cities and found as much as 96 percent of it showing traces of coke. In one study, they tested more than 135 bills from seven U.S. cities and found that all but four were contaminated with traces of cocaine. Clean money put in the same drawer as “dirty” money will later make a dog bark. Police and federal agents don’t clean or destroy drug-tainted cash they seize. They deposit it in the bank, to be put into circulation — perhaps to be seized — again. Baum 317 And then, in 1992, the tide started to turn. The Sentencing Project, a tiny liberal nonprofit organization, had been tracking big increases in incarceration since 1981, issuing a seri

Well of course there’s only one story for us to talk about this week (for 90 MINUTES) – the hushed up criminal history of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States, whose Faustian deal with the devil expired last week. And that of his father and grandfather. I know you’re going to think we’ve gone all Alex Jones when you hear some of the shit we have to tell you, but if you want to fact check it yourself, here are some links to get you started. How the Bush family made millions from supporting the Nazis. Operation Condor Project MKULTRA The father of the attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan was friends with George Bush WikiLeaks’ released Glaspie’s cable in 2011. Nayirah Testimony Highway of Death Follow Cameron on Facebook Follow Ray on Facebook. The post WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP #27 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part THIRTY of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “Tautology”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: Things continued to get worse under Reagan. Social services were cut, and the hardest hit turned to drugs. Reagan took the money from social services and put it into drug enforcement. Putting lots of young black men – who probably weren’t going to vote Republican – into jail. So they could never vote again. The George HW Bush ran on a crime and drug campaign in 1988 and won. Like Nixon, Bush discredited the suggestion that social pressures such as poverty and racism play a role in creating crime, and promoting the notion that, like all other social problems, crime is entirely the fault of bad people making bad choices. At this point, the United States had been fighting its War on Drugs for twenty years. Despite the billions spent, the millions imprisoned, and the loss of liberties to both drug user and nonuser alike, drugs were cheaper, more potent, and used by younger children than when Nixon started the war. The drug cartels were wealthier and more sophisticated than ever. The number of cocaine dependents had grown. Drug violence, unheard of at the start of the Drug War, now terrorized poor neighborhoods. Drug combatants died daily; just the number of slain innocent bystanders had tripled in the two years prior to Bush’s inauguration. Rather than evaluate the efficacy of the War on Drugs and the wisdom of pursuing it, Bush shuffled the deck one more time. Under Nixon, heroin was the big bad drug. Halfway through Carter’s reign, marijuana nudged it aside. As the public’s passion to fight marijuana waned, cocaine was thrust forward to draw fire. Then crack. The Drug War front shifted endlessly too, from the border to the streets to Bolivia to the money-laundering banks to the suburbs and back to the border again. One new development in Bush’s years was his administration’s decision that drugs would no longer be mentioned as a health problem. Which is strange because the physical damage of drugs – while always highly over-rated – was the whole point of the war on drugs up to this point. But now it just came down to morality. Right and wrong. If drugs are a health problem, then addicts are sick, and that portrays them in a sympathetic light. If you base prohibition on drugs’ health effects, what do you say to the millions of occasional users who convincingly claim to be uninjured by the drugs they took? The biggest problem with basing a prohibitive drug policy on the health risks, though, was the invitation to comparisons. The year Bush became President, tobacco killed some 395,000 Americans — more than died in both world wars. Alcohol directly killed 23,000 and another 22,400 on the highways. Cocaine, on the other hand, killed 3,618 people that year. Heroin and other opiates killed 2,743. And no death from marijuana has ever been recorded. In terms of crime, booze was implicated in violent crime to a much greater degree than any illegal drug. The Justice Department found that half of those convicted of homicide in 1989 were using alcohol at the time of the killing, while fewer than 6 percent said they were on drugs alone. Bush relied on a neat bit of tautology: marijuana, heroin, and cocaine are immoral because they are illegal. Why are they illegal? Because they are immoral. End of story. A guy called Paul McNulty WTF DID I DO? From the Justice Department, said: “Now that the government has spoken to the subject that drugs are unlawful, a person who disobeys the law has made a moral choice and should be dealt with appropriately.” The media kept playing their part in spreading disinformation. In the late 80s, their favourite stories were about crack babies. By 1989 scientists had had four years to study the phenomenon of “crack babies” and some were backing off from their initially alarming reports. Ira Chasnoff, the Chicago doctor whose 1985 article in the New England Journal of Medicine started the crack-baby panic, now cautioned that crack was only a small part of the problem for small, undernourished, and sickly babies. Pregnant women are sixteen times more likely to use alcohol than crack, he wrote, and unlike cocaine, alcohol has proven fetus-damaging effects. Poor women have always birthed smaller and sicker babies, and the sharp increase in the number of poor, uninsured women was certain to boost the number of ailing newborns. Prenatal care — and the insurance to pay for it — was and is a better predictor of a newborns health than whether the mother smokes crack. “In the end,” Florida health officials concluded in 1985, “it is safer for a baby to be born to a

I keep seeing headlines like “Generation Hopeless: millennials who lack basic life and workplace skills.” Which I think is bullshit. Older generations usually poke shit at the younger ones. But maybe they know something we don’t? So I thought an interesting podcast might be to sit down with my 18 year old identical twins – Hunter and Taylor. They are GenZ, the generation after Millennials, but it’s still relevant. Both just finished their first year of university, have held down part-time marketing jobs, and are entrepreneurial – by 18 they have started a couple of business ventures and written a couple of business plans. How does their generation see the world? That’s the purpose of this show. If you think it has legs, we might turn it into a separate series, or it might just turn up sporadically in this feed. Let me know what you think! This first episode is about their view on social media – what it’s for, and how their generation tends to use it. Imagine you’re 18 and Instagram is a dating tool. And you have TWO Instagram accounts – one for the general public, and one for your close friends. Twitter is where you go to get your daily news. Facebook is what you let your religious grandparents see. The post GenZ Pilot Podcast appeared first on The BS Filter.

Welcome to day 674 of the presidency of our Lord and Saviour Donald J Trump, may his nose hairs never be ticklish and his tiny hands continue to fondle his daughter’s sweet ass. And may he continue to give thanks for himself. On our news show this week: 1. Trump vs the CIA 2. Trump vs Venezuela and why the Petro Dollar important to the US. 3.El Chapo Trial Witness Alleges Presidential Bribes 4. Stupid American Christian tries to wipe out the entire population of an island Follow Cameron on Facebook Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #26 2018-11-26 appeared first on The BS Filter.

On our news show this week: 1. Ray updates us on hate crime stats 2. CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination 3. French Polynesia leader admits nuclear lie 4. Facebook cover-up 5. The U.S. Government May Be Charging Julian Assange Follow Cameron on Facebook Follow Ray on Facebook. (yes we get the irony) The post BFTN #25 2018-11-19 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part TWENTY-NINE of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “DeLorean”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: If you don’t know the story of DeLorean He worked at GM where he invented the Pontiac GTO, the first muscle car, in the early 60s. He then developed the Pontiac Firebird which became the Trans-Am, The Bandit’s car and KITT. He left General Motors in 1973 to form his own company, the DeLorean Motor Company. And of course the car he produced was the DMC-12 – the Back to the Future car. Unfortunately it took 8 years to get the car to market. And when it did, the U.S.economy was in a downturn. And the car got average reviews – it looked sexy as hell but it was expensive and had lower horsepower than other sports cars on the market. The company ended up not being able to sell many cars and was saddled with $175 million in debt and went into liquidation. DeLorean was already mired in legal problems by the time Robert Zemeckis chose a DMC–12 to serve as Marty McFly’s time machine in “Back to the Future.” In an early script, the time machine was a refrigerator, and Marty would need the power of an atomic explosion at the Nevada Test Site to return home. Zemeckis was concerned that children would accidentally lock themselves in refrigerators, and felt it was more useful if the time machine were mobile. The DeLorean DMC-12 was chosen because its design made the gag about the family of farmers mistaking it for a flying saucer believable. AND THEN… On October 19, 1982, DeLorean was charged by the U.S. government with trafficking cocaine following a videotaped sting operation in which he was recorded by undercover federal agents agreeing to bankroll a cocaine smuggling operation. The $25,000 automobile hit the market just as the world recession sent most car companies into a tailspin, and sales were slow. compared with $10,000 for the average car and $18,000 for a souped-up Corvette. On the day of DeLorean’s arrest the British government, which had lent his company more than $160 million, closed his factory in Northern Ireland. The FBI set him up with more than 59 pounds (27 kg) of cocaine (worth about US$6 million) in a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport after arriving from New York, and the FBI stated DeLorean was the “financier” to help the financially declining company in a scheme to sell 220 lb (100 kg), with an estimated value of US$24 million. If convicted on all counts, he could have been sentenced to 67 years in prison and fined $185,000. The government was tipped off to DeLorean by confidential informant James Timothy Hoffman, a former neighbor, who reported to his FBI superiors that DeLorean had approached him to ask about setting up a cocaine deal; in reality, Hoffman had called DeLorean and suggested the deal (which DeLorean then accepted) as part of Hoffman’s efforts to receive a reduced sentence for a 1981 federal cocaine trafficking charge on which he was awaiting trial. Hoffman (whose name was redacted on the original indictment) also stated that he was aware of DeLorean’s financial troubles before he contacted him, and had heard him admit that he needed US$17 million “in a hurry” to prevent DMC’s imminent insolvency. Taken together, these two elements allowed DeLorean to successfully defend himself at trial with the procedural defense of police entrapment. DeLorean’s lawyers successfully argued that the FBI and DEA had unfairly targeted and illegally entrapped DeLorean  when they allowed Hoffman (an active FBI informant who only knew DeLorean casually) to randomly solicit DeLorean into a criminal conspiracy simply because he was known to be financially vulnerable. Another factor was DeLorean’s lack of criminal history, whereas Hoffman was a career criminal who stood to directly benefit if he was able to convince DeLorean to incriminate himself on tape. The DeLorean defense team did not call any witnesses. DeLorean was found not guilty on August 16, 1984,  but by then DMC had already collapsed into bankruptcy and DeLorean’s reputation as a businessman was irrevocably tarnished. The attorney who successfully proved entrapment in John DeLorean’s cocaine case noted, “There’s rampant paranoia among the criminal defense lawyers, and it’s there with good purpose.” When asked after his acquittal if he planned to resume his career in the auto industry, DeLorean bitterly quipped “Would you buy a used car from me?” On suspicion alone, the Supreme Court ruled that summer, an international traveler into the United States may be strip-searched and then held incommunicado until he or she defecates into a wast

On our news show this week: Stan Lee made our childhood better Some analysis of the U.S. midterms The Migrant Caravan & conditions in Honduras Hate Crime on the rise in the U.S. Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #24 2018-11-14 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part TWENTY-EIGHT of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “Bubble Boy”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: In 1985, a new drug hit the market – MDMA. Short for Methyl ene dioxy methamphetamine In general, MDMA users report feeling the onset of subjective effects within 30–60 minutes of MDMA consumption and reaching the peak effect at 75–120 minutes, which then plateaus for about 3.5 hours.  The desired short-term psychoactive effects of MDMA have been reported to include:     Euphoria – a sense of general well-being and happiness     Increased self-confidence, sociability and feelings of communication being easy or simple     Entactogenic effects – increased empathy or feelings of closeness with others  and oneself     Relaxation and reduced anxiety     Increased emotionality     A sense of inner peace     Mild hallucination     Enhanced sensation, perception, or sexuality     Altered sense of time Sounds downright HORRIBLE. It was first synthesized in 1912 by Merck chemist Anton Köllisch in Germany. Merck wanted to find a substance that stopped abnormal bleeding to compete with a similar product made by Bayer. MDMA – 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine – was an intermediate compound during production of the actual substance. But it wasn’t until 1970 that it appears to be used recreationally in the US. It was probably manufactured as a substitute for a similar drug – methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA) – a popular psychedelic  which had just been banned in 1970. American chemist and psychopharmacologist Alexander Shulgin started producing it in the late 60s and by the mid 70s he was testing the psychoactive effect of the drug on himself and others and giving talks about it at conferences. They found that it reduced people inhibitions and thought it could be useful for therapy. Shulgin occasionally used MDMA for relaxation, referring to it as “my low-calorie martini”, and gave the drug to friends, researchers, and others who he thought could benefit from it. One such person was Leo Zeff, a psychotherapist who had been known to use psychedelic substances in his practice. Zeff named the drug “Adam”, believing it put users in a state of primordial innocence. Psychotherapists who used MDMA believed the drug eliminated the typical fear response and increased communication. Depression, substance abuse, relationship problems, premenstrual syndrome, and autism were among several psychiatric disorders MDMA assisted therapy was reported to treat. According to psychiatrist George Greer, therapists who used MDMA in their practice were impressed by the results. Anecdotally,   was said to greatly accelerate therapy. According to David Nutt – no relation to Lefty Nutt from our earlier episodes, this guy is actually a British neuropsychopharmacologist specialising in the research of drugs that affect the brain and conditions such as addiction, anxiety, and sleep –  MDMA was widely used in the western US in couples counseling, and was called “empathy”. Only later was the term “ecstasy” used for it, coinciding with rising opposition to its use. In the late 70s and early 80s, ADAM was being used by psychotherapists, psychiatrists, users of psychedelics, and yuppies. Hoping MDMA could avoid criminalization like LSD and mescaline, psychotherapists and experimenters attempted to limit the spread of MDMA and information about it while conducting informal research By the early 1980s MDMA was being used in Boston and New York City nightclubs such as Studio 54 and Paradise Garage.   Into the early 1980s, as the recreational market slowly expanded, production of MDMA was dominated by a small group of therapeutically minded Boston chemists. Having commenced production in 1976, this “Boston Group” did not keep up with growing demand and shortages frequently occurred. Perceiving a business opportunity, Michael Clegg, the Southwest distributor for the Boston Group, started his own “Texas Group” backed financially by Texas friends.   In 1981,  Clegg had coined “Ecstasy” as a slang term for MDMA to increase its marketability.   Starting in 1983,  the Texas Group mass-produced MDMA in a Texas lab  or imported it from California  and marketed tablets using pyramid sales structures and toll-free numbers. MDMA could be purchased via credit card and taxes were paid on sales. Under the brand nam

On BULLSHIT FILTER THE NEWS this week: Cameron gets hacked. Monsanto, Roundup, glyphosate & cancer. Khashoggi updates. Christian terrorism in the United States. Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #23 2018-11-05 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part TWENTY-SEVEN of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “The Evil Empire”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: Another thing that happened in the U.S. in the early 80s was the dismantling of civil protections regarding search warrants. Keep in mind that the war on drugs has always been fuelled by a combination of two things: a)  disenfranchising segments of society by criminalising the mostly harmless behaviour of a minority of people and b) playing on the fear the majority had of this minority to build up a political and policing infrastructure that strengthened the careers of the men in power. In the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s under Harry Anslinger, it was about targeting the blacks, the Mexicans, and the jazz musicians. In the 70s under Nixon it was about the anti-war demonstrators and the civil rights movement. In the 80s under Reagan it was about cementing his “tough on crime” position. And by the 80s, the Republicans had managed to stack the Supreme Court with right-leaning Justices. In 1983, four of them were Nixon appointees. Reagan, Eisenhower, LBJ, JFK and Ford all had one each. The Burger Court. Sounds delicious. So seven of nine were appointed by Republicans. One of things that was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1984 was the “two pronged” test, or the exclusionary rule. Basically this rule meant that police couldn’t get a warrant to search your property or vehicle or arrest you, based on confidential informant or an anonymous tip. unless they could convince the judge signing the warrant that the informant was reliable and credible. So you couldn’t get a warrant, or make an arrest, based on a completely anonymous tip. The fear was that if you COULD do that, cops would just start inventing anonymous tips and use it to search or arrest anyone they didn’t like and hope it paid off. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”. But in 1984, SCOTUS threw that law out. They created something called the “good-faith exception” to the exclusionary rule. Or the “totality of the circumstances” rule. This meant that police could now get a warrant to pull over your car just because they had a suspicion you were doing something illegal. And the court would later decide if the search or arrest was justified or not based on the totality of the circumstances. William Brennan, one of the dissenting Justices, said “The Court’s victory over the Fourth Amendment, is complete.” Meanwhile Senator Strom Thurmond who represented South Carolina from 1954 until 2003, and who switched from being as Democrat to being a Republican in 1964 because he didn’t like the Civil Rights Act, was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He passed a new crime bill in the Senate that also wanted to get rid of the two pronged rule. His bill passed the Senate three-to-one. Thurmond is famous for leaving office as the only member of either chamber of Congress to reach the age of 100 while still in office. And for the longest filibuster ever by a lone senator, at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length, nonstop, in 1957 to oppose the Civil Rights Act. Six months after Thurmond died at the age of 100 in 2003, his secret mixed-race, then 78-year-old daughter Essie Mae Washington-Williams revealed he was her father and that he’d raped her mother in 1925 when she had been his family’s maid and was aged 15. So Strom’s bill passed the Senate. The vote was 91 to 1. The lone dissenter was Senator Charles McC. Mathias Jr., Republican of Maryland, who opposed uniform sentencing, a provision of the bill, as ”ill-conceived, inflexible and potentially quite costly” because it could add to prison crowding. ‘This is, for the most part, a bill designed to give the American people the impression that the U.S. Senate is doing something about crime.” Earlier, the Senate rejected an amendment that would have made it illegal for Government officials to secretly tape-record telephone conversations. Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum, an Ohio Democrat, said, ”I am beginning to think that there is a lot more secret taping gong on in this Government than we have imagined.” The principal sponsors were Senators Thurmond of South Carolina and Paul Laxalt of Nevada, both Republicans, and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats. But would it pass the House, controlled by the Democrats? Republican congressman Dan Lungren of California came up with a new trick to force it through. On September 25 he made a motion to attach a brand-new House

Part TWENTY-SIX of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “Just Say No” HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: So we’re back in the land of “it’s the individual’s fault for being weak”. And he wanted to make major changes to the law. He wanted to get rid of the exclusionary rule which prevents evidence collected in violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights from being used in a court of law. So an illegal wiretap for example. If the FBI use an illegal wiretap to arrest you, the entire case can get thrown out. He  wanted the Posse Comitatus Act further relaxed to let soldiers and sailors make arrests. He wanted new wiretap authority. He wanted to expand preventive detention. He wanted to let police officers serve on secret grand juries. Reagan’s Justice Department also demanded broad new powers to confiscate citizens’ property upon suspicion — not proof — of drug trafficking. The 1970 RICO laws nor the 1978 forfeiture laws didn’t go far enough for Reagan. They didn’t let the government take real estate, for example. Stash pads, marijuana farms — and, for that matter, people’s homes — were therefore immune. The current laws also prevented the government from seizing assets until after an indictment was returned, on the theory that at least the minimal evidence needed to indict a person should be required before their property was confiscated. Reagan’s Justice Department wanted all that reversed, along with the law requiring police to give people notice that their property was about to be seized. Better to grab the assets first, went the thinking, and then file the notice or present the evidence to a grand jury for indictment. Finally, the Justice Department wanted a new authority — never hinted at in previous law—to seize “substitute” assets, assets that are completely legitimate but equal in value to the allegedly tainted goods. And Reagan got nearly everything he wanted. And he didn’t even need to go to the mattresses to get it. It was all mostly included in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 – sponsored not by Republicans, but by Democrat Joe Biden. It expanded drug trafficking penalties and federal “civil asset forfeiture,” which allows police to seize and absorb someone’s property — whether cash, cars, guns, or something else — without proving the person is guilty of a crime. Under the federal Equitable Sharing program, local and state police get up to 80 percent of the value of what they seize as funds for their departments, which critics say creates a for-profit incentive to take people’s stuff. More about that in the next episode. And Joe didn’t stop there either. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was sponsored and partly written by Biden. It ratcheted up penalties for drug crimes. It also created a big sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine — even though both drugs are pharmacologically similar, the law made it so someone would need to possess 100 times the amount of powder cocaine to be eligible for the same mandatory minimum sentence for crack. Since crack is more commonly used by black Americans, this sentencing disparity helped fuel the disproportionate rates of imprisonment among black communities. And then – he co-sponsored the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. This law strengthened prison sentences for drug possession, enhanced penalties for transporting drugs, and established the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which coordinates and leads federal anti-drug efforts. And he didn’t stop there! He sponsored more anti-drug laws in the 90s and 2000s, But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. In short, Biden helped write and co-sponsored two of the most important pieces of legislation in the punitive war on drugs — the 1986 and 1988 laws — and helped create the sentencing disparity for crack and powder cocaine. And he was at least partly behind other laws that perpetuated mass incarceration and increased police powers. So it wasn’t just a Reagan or Republican effort – the War on Drugs was now bipartisan. About 1.3% of the population. These guys peg it slightly higher, around 2.5%. When Stephen Jacobs went to visit Carlton Turner, Reagan’s drug adviser, he came up with the idea of using comic books to spread the President’s message. Stephen Jacobs had managed public relations for Jimmy Carter’s Energy Department and had come up with the idea of a comic book, financed entirely by the Campbell Soup company, featuring the villainous superhero Energy Waster. He pitched the idea of a comic book about the evils of drugs to Turner and his team and they loved it. They said “go do it – but you can’t spend any

We spend the whole hour talking about the disappearance and alleged murder of Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Who is he? What do we really know about him and his family background? What is Trump’s relationship with Saudi Arabia? Should we trust Turkey? Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #22 2018-10-15 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part TWENTY-FIVE of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “Posse Comitatus”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: * Last time we said Carlton Turner, Ross Perot’s anti-drug guy, was appointed as Reagan’s new drug czar. * And Reagan made his war on drugs part and parcel of EVERY department of the Federal government. * Then Turner started sitting in on Cabinet meetings. * Reagan would go around the table to the secretaries of each department, and ask “what is your department doing about drugs?” * No other single issue had this much of the Reagan administration’s attention. * One of Reagan’s first legislative victories was the revision of a 103-year-old law that kept the military out of civilian affairs. * The 1878 law was written as an offering to the southern states after the Civil War; Congress banned military participation in domestic law enforcement. * The Posse Comitatus Act, as it was called, made it illegal for the military to act as police on U.S. territory or waters. * Posse Comitatus is also the West Wing episode where Bartlett approves the plan to assassinate Abdul ibn Shareef, the Qumari Defense Minister, and CJ’s Secret Service bodyguard Simon Donovan (Mark Harmon) gets killed. * Quick quiz Ray – which President signed it into law? * President Rutherford B. Hayes. * During the 1876 U.S. presidential election, Samuel J. Tilden of New York, the Democratic candidate, defeated Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio in the popular vote. * Hayes lost the popular vote to Tilden but he won an intensely disputed electoral college vote after a Congressional commission awarded him twenty contested electoral votes. * In return for Southern acquiescence regarding Hayes, Republicans agreed to support the withdrawal of federal troops from the former Confederate States, formally ending Reconstruction. * Known as the Compromise of 1877, South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana agreed to certify Rutherford B. Hayes as the president in exchange for the removal of federal troops from the South. * One of the Southern Democrat demands was the right to deal with blacks without northern interference. * And so by 1905 most black men were effectively disenfranchised by state legislatures in every southern state. * So that’s where it comes from. * The act only specifically applies to the United States Army but it was amended in 1956 to include the United States Air Force. * Doesn’t mention the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps, but the Navy has prescribed regulations that are generally construed to give the act force with respect to those services as well. * Originally comes from England. * The term derives from the Latin posse comitātūs, “power” or “force of the county” * The Posse comitatus, in common law, is all able-bodied males over the age of 15 within a specific county, when mobilized in whole or in part by the conservator of peace – usually the sheriff – to suppress lawlessness or defend the county. * The posse comitatus originated in ninth century England simultaneous with the creation of the office of sheriff. * Since 1971, though, the military had been providing sporadic Drug War assistance to law enforcement personnel. * And the Reaganites figured that imported drugs were a threat to the security of the United States. * Drugs from abroad maimed and killed Americans as surely as any other foreign enemy. * The White House pushed for a relaxation of Posse Comitatus, and Congress approved it with hardly a murmur. * Military units now were directed to spot, track, and follow suspected smugglers. * In December 1981, the Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Statute (10 USC 371-380) was enacted, allowing for military “assistance” to civilian law enforcement agencies generally outside the U.S., especially in combating drug smuggling into the U.S. * Under this law, the military is generally allowed to give technical and support assistance, including the use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, translation and surveillance. * The statute specifically prohibits the direct involvement of soldiers in law enforcement, such as search and seizure, arrests or detention, and the use of military personnel in an undercover capacity (10 USC 375). * They couldn’t arrest them, but were ordered to report them to civilian law enforcement, including the Coast Guard, a unit of the Department of Transportation. * However, it was the start of something that escalated. * In five years Pentagon funding for the war on drugs went from $1 million to $196 million. * Air force AWACS—huge four-engined jets with powerful radar domes mounted on their backs— Made by Boeing – and navy Haw

On BULLSHIT FILTER THE NEWS this week: Welcome to day 625 of the Trump presidency. And Cameron’s birthday. Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies A leading Holocaust historian just seriously compared the US to Nazi Germany Banksy Painting Self Destructs Girl pulls 1,500-year-old sword from lake Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #21 2018-10-10 appeared first on The BS Filter.

On BULLSHIT FILTER THE NEWS this week: Welcome to day 611 of the Trump presidency. Trump got laughed at.   PM Jacinda Ardern rejects US President Donald Trump’s call to join war on drugs Why I regret my war on drugs   Young single people in Japan aren’t having sex and the reason is proving fatal Brett Kavanaugh &  Gamble v. United States Problems with his story  Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #20 2018-10-01 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part TWENTY-FOUR of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “Say No To Drugs”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: Hoover had been dead 8 years, and the new Director, William Webster, was all for it. He’d been appointed to the role by Carter, even though he was a Republican. He was going to get his agents to use RICO to wage war on the drug business. But what drug business where they going to go after? Heroin was a nonissue; nobody talked about it officially or in the press. Although the number of addicts hadn’t shrunk since Nixon’s day, it hadn’t grown, either. The problem was stationary, and therefore invisible. About cocaine the country had not yet made up its mind, and its ambivalence was typified by Times cover story that summer displaying a martini glass full of white powder under the legend “High on Cocaine: A Drug with Status — and Menace.” In small and occasional doses, Time said, cocaine “is no more harmful than equally moderate doses of alcohol and marijuana, and infinitely less so than heroin.” An Illinois appeals court had just ruled there was “no causal connection between the ingestion of cocaine and criminal behavior.” It was still the drug of the “smart set”; all the cokeheads in the story were people otherwise enviable for their wealth and fame — Richard Pryor, Keith Richards, and a long string of well-heeled yups. A Chicago cop quoted in Time explained: “These people,” he said, “are not the dregs of society.” Heroin was invisible, and cocaine wasn’t yet a demon. That left marijuana. But marijuana use was also in decline. At least it was in teenagers, according to studies done at the time. As was the use of tobacco. Whether the propaganda was starting to get to them, or they were just not as rebellious as previous generations, who knows. Vietnam was over, the hippy movement had finished / been crushed. The 80s were the years of technology, Wall Street, Michael J Fox, and Knight Rider. And of course everyone who bothered to read the studies knew that marijuana was neither a health problem or a crime problem. But hey – never let the facts get in the way of a good story. We don’t. Carlton Turner, Ross Perot’s anti-drug guy, was appointed as Reagan’s new drug czar. His position on marijuana was: “Stop talking about whether marijuana’s good or bad for you; I’m here to tell you it’s bad.” In September 1981, about 9 months into his first term, Reagan gave a big speech in New Orleans. He said His War on Drugs, was  “one of the single most important steps that can lead to a significant reduction in crime,” It would include injecting the military into the drug fight, bail and parole “reform”, enlisting the FBI into the War on Drugs, and “the responsible use of herbicides”. But more than this, he saw drugs as a spiritual problem. “It’s ultimately a moral dilemma, one that calls for one that calls for a moral or if you will, a spiritual solution.” …in the end, the war on crime will only be won when an attitude of mind and a change of heart takes place in America, when certain truths take hold again and plant roots deep in our national consciousness, truths like: right and wrong matters; individuals are responsible for their ac- tions; retribution should be swift and sure for those who prey on the innocent, Reagan was redeploying the tactic Richard Nixon used to batter “root causes” in 1968: shift the blame for social problems away from inequality, racism, injustice, and the like and place it on the immoral acts of bad individuals. That way, government has no greater role than to mete out “swift and sure” retribution. “[Crime is] a problem of the human heart and it’s there we must look for the answer,” he said. “Men are basically good but prone to evil, and society has a right to be protected from them.” Turner, his drug czar, was a chemist and an expert in marijuana as a plant. But he had zero experience in drug treatment, or social policy making, or politics. Unlike his three predecessors. He didn’t know much about cocaine or heroin and he knew they weren’t a big issue anyway, so he only wanted to focus on mj. His goal, he said was to “create a generation of drug-free Americans to purge society.” When Turner quoted marijuana studies on fat solubility, sperm counts, and immune-system damage, he was selective. He never cited Nixon’s marijuana commission, which found the drug relatively benign for adults and recommended decriminalization. Nor did he acknowledge researchers at Harvard Medical School and elsewhere who we

On BULLSHIT FILTER THE NEWS this week: Welcome to day 611 of the Trump presidency. Ten Years After the Crash, We’ve Learned Nothing F.D.A. Targets Vaping, Alarmed by Teenage Use Australia’s democracy is a sham – and nobody cares The Japanese land some small robots on a small space rock The Calabrian Mafia and strawberries More: https://www.smh.com.au/national/new-twist-in-strawberry-case-20180919-p504rq.html “This is no doubt the worst thing to ever happen to my family,” she said.  https://www.qt.com.au/news/real-cost-strawberry-contamination/3524235/ Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #19 2018-09-24 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part TWENTY-THREE of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “Perot & Reagan”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: William Clements, Texas’ first Republican governor in 105 years. He decided to launch a Texan War On Drugs. And he decided to appoint Texas’s richest businessman to lead it: Ross Perot. He forgot to tell Perot though. Who was mightily pissed. But when people started saying publicly that Perot would suck at the job, he said “oh yeah? You watch.” He ended up putting on a roadshow throughout Texas, holding town meetings, PTA meetings, Lions Club luncheons, ladies auxiliary teas, anywhere they could gather a forum of concerned parents, warning them about the horrors of marijuana. One of the guys he took with him was Carlton E. Turner – a scientist who was the Director of the federal government’s Marijuana Project. It grew Cannabis sativa plants, processed the plant material into marijuana and supplied it as  standardized research marijuana to researchers throughout the world. And he was – and IS – very anti-marijuana. In 2016, he wrote an article for the American Centre for Democracy, where he stated: The fact is that marijuana is a dirty drug with so many different side effects that it will never pass the required safety and efficacy testing for medicine. Marijuana can contain over 700 individual chemicals, and when smoked the number of chemicals expand to the thousands. The smoke contains 50 percent to 70 percent more cancer-causing compounds than tobacco. Which we know is horseshit. At least it is, according to Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years. Perot had his corporate lawyer write legislation, too: mandatory life without parole for selling pot to a minor, complicated reporting requirements for pharmacists, expanded wiretap and search authority for police, and more. The legislature wouldn’t bite, so Perot, Turner and Schuchard organized a drug-education seminar for the male legislators’ wives the day before the legislature opened in 1980. They really arrive from all over Texas the day the session opened. “You’re either for us or against us, ” Perot told the legislators through a press conference that morning. His legislation passed. On September 28, 1980, the Washington Post ran on page one a story depicting the life of “Jimmy,” a black eight-year-old who had been a heroin addict since the age of five. Splendidly written by staff reporter Janet Cooke, “Jimmy’s World” described the needle sliding into “the baby smooth skin of his thin brown arms… like a straw into a freshly bakedcake,” Jimmy’s mother watching her “live-in- lover”” plunging a needle into [Jimmy’s] bony arm, sending the fourth grader into a hypnotic nod,” the violence and rapes of the neighborhood, and the DEA’s confirmation of “Golden Crescent heroin” flooding the city. So disturbing was the piece that Mayor Marion Barry launched a citywide search for the boy, ordering police and teachers to inspect the arms of every child in the District of Columbia. A $10, 000 reward was offered for Jimmy’s whereabouts. The Post assigned six reporters to find another “Jimmy,” on the theory that if there is one, there must be others. After days of searching, neither Jimmy nor any other child addict was found. When Cooke said she “couldn’t find” again the house she had described so vividly, her editor, Milton Coleman, suspected the story was a fake and shared his suspicions with the other Post editors. They decided to do nothing, however. Six months later, the Pulitzer Prize committee asked for nominations and put the Post editors in a bind; if they didn’t nominate Cooke’s story, it would look like they didn’t be- lieve it. “In for a dime, in for a dollar,” said assistant managing editor Bob Woodward. Yes – THAT Bob Woodward. So the piece was sent up to Columbia University in New York, where the Pulitzer committee was meeting. Among the judges was Roger Wilkins, who had won a Pulitzer of his own writing editorials for the Washington Post and who had writ- ten the New York Times’s urban-affairs column for five years. When someone suggested that the story might be a fake, Wilkins stood up and angrily reminded the judges that on any day of the week at the corner of Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 116th Street — just a few blocks from where they were sitting — you could find little children heavily involved in the drug trade. Nobody chose to argue with one of the nation’

On BULLSHIT FILTER THE NEWS this week: Someone suggested we should provide some Syria updates. MoD accidentally reveals British drones firing thermobaric missiles in Syria More than 30,000 Syrians displaced in Idlib assault U.S. Holds Talks With U.K., France on Possible Syria Strikes YouTube shuts down pro-Syrian government channels Rescuer hit in airstrike keeps filming to capture the horror in Syria’s Idlib In other news: Manafort’s plea deal John Bolton slams International Criminal Court as “illegitimate” Trump’s ties to Russian Mafia  Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #18 2018-09-17 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part TWENTY-TWO of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “RICO”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: I want to talk about RICO – The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act RICO was passed into law by Nixon in 1970 But it was the brainchild of law professor, Bob Blakey He’d been a federal prosecutor under Bobby Kennedy when he was chasing the Mafia and then he’s worked for various Republican members of Congress. In 1970, he was teaching at Notre Dame Law School. He was known to be obsessed with the Mafia and was invited to help write a law targeted organised crime. Up until that time, when the Feds went after the Mob, they might put a capo or even a boss in jail for a while. The problem, as Blakey saw it, was that sending a crime boss to prison didn’t hurt the organization. Prison was seen as a cost of doing business; you did your time and got on with it. To hurt a criminal organization, you had to take away its money But The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution specifically bars the government from taking away a citizen’s property – even a criminal’s “without due process” and “without just compensation”. But one form of confiscation had been a comfortable fixture of American law since the earliest days of the republic. The first Continental Congress passed a law letting the navy seize slave ships even if the owner wasn’t aboard or wasn’t known. The principle was this: a slave ship is of itself offensive to the law and must be shut down. Ever since slave days, police have been allowed to seize obvious contraband – a robber’s gun, say, or during Prohibition a barrel of whiskey. The technical term for government confiscation of illegal objects is “forfeiture.” And because such seizures aren’t necessarily connected to a criminal prosecution, they are called “civil”. In a case of “civil forfeiture, ” prosecutors don’t need to convict anyone to take away the property; they don’t even have to know whose property it is. If the law calls it illegal, the government can take it. As much as anything, civil forfeiture was – until recently – a matter of public safety. Dangerous stuff was removed from circulation. But civil forfeiture was of limited use against organized crime. Only illegal assets like bootleg liquor or illegal slot machines could be taken. The cash derived from them could not. And if the syndicate chose to invest its dirty liquor money in, say, a pizzeria, the place was untouchable. It pissed Blakey off that the pizzeria could then go on to make the crime bosses rich, a pizzeria they wouldn’t have owned to begin with if not for their crimes. So Blakey invented a whole new category of forfeiture: criminal forfeiture. His idea was – once prosecutors convicted a crime boss, they could take away his illegal profits. If those profits were invested in a legitimate business, the government could take that business away, too. In criminal forfeiture, losing the assets was part of the punishment. Here was a law with teeth. Some civil libertarians objected, Blakey had this response: unlike civil forfeiture, criminal forfeiture requires the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person losing the assets is guilty of a crime. Central to Blakey’s new forfeiture idea was a vastly broadened definition of what constituted “organized crime.” It wasn’t just whiskey and casinos; it also included brokerages and banks, anywhere the modern syndicates could extend their moneyed tentacles. While he was writing his law, the gangster image that most often came to Blakey’s mind was that of Edward G. Robinson as the vicious gangster Rico Bandello in the 1930 movie Little Caesar. https://youtu.be/O2x9-ezRn3s In that movie, Rico is killed by police, but his respectable patron, “Big Boy, ” is left untouched. Blakey wanted his law to get Big Boy, and when it came time to send his blended bills to the Senate floor he came up with the name: Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act: RICO To this day, Blakey keeps a lifesize painting of Edward G. Robinson as Rico Bandello hanging above his desk But by 1979, RICO was hardly being used. It was too complicated to be quickly used by prosecutors. So in the summer of 1979, Blakey ran seminars at Cornell University for detectives, FBI agents and prosecutors. He was teaching them the basics of RICO and all of the tools it gave them. And they listened well. Because in the next few years they used RICO to arrest mobsters like Paul Castellano, who ran the Gambino family before John Gotti. But the detectives who attended Blakey’s course als

On BULLSHIT FILTER THE NEWS this week: Trump can’t say Anonymous  The “Resistance” Inside the Trump Administration Is the United States of America a republic or a democracy? The United States ranks only 21st in the Economist’s “Democracy Index 2017 Christian author: Trump is under attack from ‘multidimensional Luciferian advanced beings’ Bob Woodward’s book (and recording) on Trump Canary Mission’s Threat Grows, From U.S. Campuses To The Israeli Border Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #17 2018-09-10 appeared first on The BS Filter.

On BULLSHIT FILTER THE NEWS this week: Donald Trump not coming to Australia  Chinese billionaire Jack Ma says the US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure A “Social Wealth Fund” Could be the Next Big Idea Harvey Weinstein’s money is still good for something Louis CK is back doing standup Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. Thanks to our special guest The Iron Fist. Check out his podcast! The post BFTN #16 2018-09-03 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part TWENTY-ONE of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “Broken Windows”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: Heroin addicts constituted about one-quarter of one percent of the US population in 1972. But if you listened to the rhetoric coming out of the Nixon administration, they were like the hordes of hell. The conservative Hudson Institute, set up futurist Herman Kahn after he left the RAND Corporation – BTW he was one of the nuclear strategists that Kubrick based Dr. Strangelove on – we’re going to be talking about him soon on the Cold War series – estimated that New York City’s 250,000 heroin addicts were responsible for a whopping $1.7 billion in crime, which was well more than the total amount of crime in the nation. Presidential candidate George McGovern said in a speech on the Senate floor. “In 98 percent of the cases [the junkie] steals to pay the pusher . . . that translates into about $4.4 billion in crime.” Senator Charles Percy of Illinois saw McGovern’s bid and raised him. “The total cost of drug-related crime in the United States today is around $10 billion to $15 billion,” he said. Richard Harkness, an NBC reporter hired by the White House to manage public relations for the Drug War, wrote a confidential memo in May to drug officials throughout government, where he said:  “If we assume that 60 percent of the estimated 560,000 heroin addicts steal property to support their habit, more than $18 billion worth of property is stolen each year to pay for heroin addiction.” Which was only about 15 times as much property that was stolen across the country each year. A major study of the connection between addicts and crime was published in 1985 was called Taking Care of Business. Seven researchers from a handful of colleges, along with a corps of graduate students, examined the junkie population in New York for eight years and found some surprises. They discovered that while most addicts commit some kind of crime to pay for their habit, it’s mostly selling heroin to other addicts. It’s not like most of them are breaking and entering. In fact, if drugs were legal, most addicts would be leading largely law-abiding lives. Most hold legitimate jobs or do legitimate jobs here and there to make their money. The addicts who are thieves were thieves BEFORE they became addicts. Krogh actually confessed to Congress in 1976, after he was out of the drug policy business, that he and his staff actually used to wonder if they weren’t just making the problem worse. Whether it would, in his words, “lead to a shortage, increase the price, and thus compel addicts to commit more crime to feed their habits.” Haven’t we seen this before in this series? Back in the 30s when Harry Anslinger was stopping doctors from prescribing it? And the Mafia got hold of it and jacked the price up by 1000%? Here we are 40 years later in the story, no lessons learned. And here we are today, recording this, nearly 90 years later, still no lessons learned. Doctors at the Centers for Disease Control were telling the government that they found more people seeking treatment in times where heroin was abundant. But still – nobody in government listened. It wasn’t about facts – it was about politics. Nixon was “tough on drugs” and “Tough on crime”. Except when it came to bugging the Democrats and then trying to cover it up. Because WHEN THE PRESIDENT DOES IT A reporter asked the new White House drug enforcer, Myles Ambrose, about a survey that had just been published: “I wondered if you are pleased with the trend among youth, particularly college kids, away from marijuana and back to booze?” Ambrose chuckled paternally and said, “It recalls a happier day in which those of us who had the good fortune of going to college indulged in booze on more than one occasion, as I recall. It was beer. Lets say beer mostly. Yes I am very much pleased in that respect.” That same year, 55,000 Americans died in highway accidents, most of them believed to be alcohol-related. Another 33,000 died from alcohol poisoning or cirrhosis of the liver. No death from marijuana has ever been recorded. In early 1973, Harvard professor James Q. Wilson wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine which was an excerpt of his highly influential book Thinking About Crime which was published in 1975. He had a pretty radical view on crime. Up until then, the prevailing theory in social science was that crime was caused by social circumstances, such as a deficient upbringing, poverty, or racial discrimination. To solve something like crime, these theorists argued, you have to get at the “root causes”. Poverty, et

On BULLSHIT FILTER THE NEWS this week: Australian PM has his Ides of March – in August.  Robert Mueller Might Have ‘Quite Ugly’ Information on Donald Trump’s Unreleased Tax Returns McCain is dead. He wasn’t a hero. California Measure Would Expunge Many Marijuana-Related Crimes Follow Cameron on Facebook. Follow Ray on Facebook. The post BFTN #15 2018-08-27 appeared first on The BS Filter.

Part TWENTY of our series on the WAR ON DRUGS – “Operation Golden Flow”. HOW TO LISTEN If you’re seeing this message, it means you aren’t logged in as a subscriber. If want to listen to the premium episodes of the series, you’ll need to become one of our Bullshit Fighters and register for one of our premium accounts. Show Notes: Meanwhile,  in the early 1970s, Nixon put together something called The Shafer Commission, formally known as the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, to make recommendations about what the government should do about marijuana. Its chairman was former Pennsylvania Governor Raymond P. Shafer. The commission issued a report on its findings in 1972 that called for the decriminalization of marijuana possession in the United States. It said “the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal is socially self-defeating” It said “Considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marihuana does not, in our considered judgment, rank very high. We would deemphasize marihuana as a problem.” Health effects are minimal. The “gateway drug” theory has no basis. If anything, smoking marijuana inhibits criminal behavior. They concluded that the reason people were so worried about the drugs wasn’t based on any of the usual things people pointed to. It was because it was associated with kids dropping out, growing their hair long, free love, rock and roll, sex and questioning authority. “Marihuana becomes more than a drug; it becomes a symbol of the rejection of cherished values.” Of course – The report was ignored by the White House. And by the media. I went searching for coverage of it – it’s practically non-existent. The only coverage in the media was a year later, when another report came out basically debunking the original report. Oh and in 1976, Robert Hegyes, who played Epstein on Welcome Back Kotter, gave the report a shout out. Here’s his first appearance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZskDTbnmZw The director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Bertram Brown, said in a speech he thought marijuana offenses should be treated “like a parking ticket.” Nixon fired him. Back in Vietnam, the army started cracking down hard on heroin use. Whole battalions of troops were diverted from combat against the NVA to try to catch suppliers, smash supply lines, seize sampans full of smack. The vials of heroin that Krogh had seen in the bunkers went from $3 to $12 apiece, and their purity dropped. it was a catastrophe. When Krogh saw men snorting, smoking, or drinking heroin with alcohol, he was seeing the luxurious effects of low prices and high purity. Nobody likes sticking a needle in his own arm (at least not at first); early heroin users find it far more pleasant to snort or smoke or drink, and those practices are far less likely to get them addicted. But all three ways require the user to consume a good deal of the powder, which is a luxury he cannot afford if the price quadruples and the purity drops. Then the user has to find a way to get more bang for his buck, and the most direct way to get heroin to the brain is to inject it. By cracking down on marijuana, the army had pushed its troops into snorting heroin. By cracking down on snorting heroin, the army pushed its men into mainlining. In June of 1972, Jaffe was summoned again to Washington. This time he was to present his plan for dealing with drugs to Nixon himself. At the meeting, Nixon declared that he was creating a new agency – the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, or SAODAP. It would operate out of the Executive Office of the President with the highest authority in the land, enough authority to “knock heads”. He would tomorrow ask Congress to appropriate $371 million for SAODAP, so it can set up a comprehensive testing and treatment program for the soldiers in Vietnam — and also fund a vast network of state-run methadone maintenance clinics in the U.S. Finally, Nixon said, I want to introduce the new director of SAODAP, the man who will oversee our nation’s antidrug effort. He extended his hand in Jaffe’s direction. “Jerome Jaffe.” It took Jaffe a moment to realize what had just happened. Although the term hadn’t yet entered the lexicon, Jerry Jaffe had just become the nation’s first drug czar. Here’s Nixon’s press conference AFTER he went to Congress. Here’s the actual press conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8TGLLQlD9M As you can hear, he talks about drugs like it was the hordes of hell beating on the door of America. Public Enemy Number One. PUBLIC ENEMY You always need a big scary boogieman. The drug problem was now firmly established as a problem of individuals. The solution would be to get those individuals to stop using drugs. “Root causes” was well and truly dead. The next day there was