If this doesn't get you charged, nothing will
Posted by Sherman Frederick
Nov. 23, 2009
Just play the video of congressional candidate Lt. Col. Allen West. You'll be glad you did.
http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/If_this_doesnt_get_you_charged_nothing_will.html

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Dear concerned citizen,
    As a conservative and Libertarian, where do I begin?  Let me start at the beginning: I am addicted not to cigarettes, I am addicted to cigarette lighters.  That is how on Wednesday, June 24, I found myself in a tobacco shop.
    The owner was examining my lighters and tried one out, then lit a cigarette with it.  It occurred to me he was 'breaking the law'.  That is when I began to think about the law and people's rights.
    I believe in personal freedom.  People have a right to do as they please as long as it does not affect other's people's rights.
    That is why I, as well as a growing number of Americans, believe in the right to smoke in private property and public grounds.
    We all agree with the issue of government property - for instance the right of asthmatic Americans visiting a post office, registering their vehicle or serving on jury duty, going to city hall, not to be affected by smoke.
    But the right to smoke on private property or public grounds does not affect other people.  It is none of the government's business.
    If businesses want to ban smoking, that is their right, not the government's!
Daniel Barker
Florida
June 26, 2009

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Government anti-smoking efforts not as effective as first thought
July 8th, 2009
By Cameron English
In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) claimed that “Research shows that the more states spend on comprehensive tobacco control programs, the greater the reductions in smoking—and the longer states invest in such programs, the greater and faster the impact.”
Despite such claims, new economic research indicates that increased funding for state tobacco control programs does not significantly reduce tobacco consumption, and calls into question the methodology of the research the CDC relies on to support their assertion. Michael L. Marlow, professor of economics at California Polytechnic State University, summarized a number of the flaws in the CDC’s research in the latest issue of the Cato Institute’s Regulation Magazine.
According to Marlow:
The CDC recommendations draw heavily on research from just two states: California and Massachusetts. Those two states are considered models of effective programs, in part, because they have the longest funding histories. Even if highly effective, their success may not be easily exported to other states.
The CDC ignores studies that show little to no impact from tobacco control programs.”
There is evidence, again ignored by the CDC, that little to no connection exists between state
spending on tobacco control and the degree to which residents smoke.
The CDC offers no empirical verification that implementing recommended spending targets causes significant reductions in tobacco use.
While some research does support the CDC policy recommendations, these studies typically ignore other factors that may influence tobacco consumption. A 2003 Journal of Health Economics paper by Matthew Farrelly et al., for example, explained “that most studies simply perform trend analysis on the introduction of new tobacco control programs,” according to Marlow. They don’t actually establish a causal relationship between tobacco control efforts and a reduction in smoking.
Several studies published as late as 2005, however, did control for other factors that influence tobacco consumption and still found that government programs can reduce smoking. Unfortunately, the value of the data these studies analyzed was severely limited. Most states didn’t begin funding their tobacco control programs until the Master Settlement Agreement was reached in 1998, and, as a result, the CDC only started releasing funding data in 2000. Therefore, the studied data only reflects the results in a handful of states that were funding their programs before 1998. It’s questionable whether such results can be counted as evidence that all states’ tobacco control efforts are successful.
Parenthetically, well-funded tobacco control programs may inversely urge teenagers and young adults to take up smoking as a form of rebellion. The reason being that, pushing a particular behavior beyond the bounds of social acceptability with foolish laws and poorly-produced media campaigns often results in more of that supposedly illicit behavior.
If given a hearing this evidence could seriously inconvenience the tobacco nannies and complicate their unrelenting attacks on personal freedom.
We can only hope.
Read

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Check out #6 - and RWJF has one of their former trustees nominated for the Surgeon General position.

Recommendations from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America
1. Ensure that all children have high-quality early developmental support (child care, education and other services). This will require committing substantial additional resources to meet the early developmental needs particularly of children in low-income families.
2. Fund and design WIC and SNAP (Food Stamps) programs to meet the needs of hungry families for nutritious food.
3. Create public-private partnerships to open and sustain full-service grocery stores in communities without access to healthful foods.
4. Feed children only healthy foods in schools.
5. Require all schools (K-12) to include time for all children to be physically active every day.
6. Become a smoke-free nation. Eliminating smoking remains of the most important contributions to longer, healthier lives.
7. Create “healthy community” demonstrations to evaluate the effects of a full complement of health-promoting policies and programs.
8. Develop a “health impact” rating for housing and infrastructure projects that reflects the projected effects on community health and provides incentives for projects that earn the rating.
9. Integrate safety and wellness into every aspect of community life.
10. Ensure that decision-makers in all sectors have the evidence they need to build health into public and private policies and practices.

California Polytechnic, Professor of Economics, Michael Marlow, looks at the question of the real risks of ETS exposure in comparison to several of the negative consequences of smoking bans, and concludes that:
 
"To achieve a political goal, advocates of smoking bans may exaggerate the risk of ETS and deny evidence of economic harm to some businesses. Distorted presentation of epidemiologic and economic evidence has the adverse effect of increasing total health risk, and of undermining the integrity of science."

Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 14 Number 2 Summer 2009

Read:  http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/PDF/marlow.pdf

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The Economic Impact Of Smoking Bans
06.04.09
Jonathan T. Tomlin
A debate over the desirability of smoking bans for bars and restaurants, seemingly ancient history in cities such as Los Angeles and New York, is now reaching the news again as legislatures in traditional tobacco-growing states have begun to consider the issue. Legislatures in both North Carolina and Virginia recently approved statewide smoking bans for bars and restaurants.
There are pros and cons of such a ban. On the pro side, secondhand smoke can result in adverse health consequences for some patrons and employees. What about the cons? Arguments based on harm to tobacco manufacturers or libertarian viewpoints focusing on individual freedom are often partially or completely discarded by politicians. This leaves only one potential con that could have significant appeal to legislators: A ban could reduce the profits of and employment by bars and restaurants--and, in particular, may harm small business owners.
Well over 100 empirical studies have attempted to examine the economic impact of smoking bans on the hospitality industry. Most of these studies purport to show that smoking bans do not have adverse economic impacts on bars and restaurants, and some actually claim to demonstrate that they improve their profitability. The surgeon general explicitly relied on this body of literature in a report on smoking bans in 2006, and many legislators have relied on it since then.
If one accepts these results, then smoking bans reduce secondhand exposure yet don't negatively affect (and may even help!) bars and restaurants. So there isn't much need for debate and, given this evidence, even states known for tobacco production continue to vote smoking bans into place.
But there is one major problem. Upon further inspection, previous studies do not, on the whole, demonstrate that smoking bans don't harm bars and restaurants. In fact, appropriately done studies and basic economic logic demonstrate that they often do.
As several recent economic research articles have explained, many prior studies of smoking bans are riddled with statistical shortcomings. For example, some simply compare revenues of bars and restaurants for a short time period with a smoking ban with revenues during a short time period without a ban. But, they do so without making any adjustment for other factors that impact revenues over a given time period.
Others simply try to account for the factors influencing sales in a rough way. When the authors don't find a statistically significant result (which shouldn't be surprising because they haven't carefully done the analysis), they conclude that bans do not harm bars or restaurants. Several recent peer-reviewed, published articles have noted these and other more technical flaws.
In a peer-reviewed research article I published a few months ago, I performed an empirical study of the proposed smoking ban in India that examined its economic impact by looking at stock market prices. (This is a method that has been used in hundreds of peer-reviewed economic research articles.)
I found a statistically significant result that the proposed smoking ban lowered the market value of hospitality industry firms. In my sample, that category included bars, restaurants and hotels. Of course, I studied only India, and only one particular smoking ban. Yet the result of my analysis (the only one using this well-established method) certainly establishes that a smoking ban can hurt the hospitality industry.
To be sure, it is also a possibility that any ban will lower smoking patrons' demand for the services of bars, restaurants and gaming establishments where smoking is not permitted. Basic economic theory maintains that such lower demand could lower the profits of any bar or restaurant subject to such a ban.
Basic economic theory also posits that a ban can distort the natural action of the market by leading to a transfer of business from one establishment to another. For example, many recent state legislatures have considered approving only a partial ban, which exempts certain types of establishments like private clubs or cigar lounges. Such targeted bans can be particularly harmful to those establishments subject to the ban, as they lose business to competing firms that don't face the ban.
Such an impact can also occur for establishments located in areas under a smoking ban but near an area without such a ban. In this case, a ban can simply lead to a transfer of business away from the area with a smoking ban to the area without the ban.
So, even if legislators are reluctant to listen to arguments about individual freedom or those based on preserving the welfare of tobacco manufacturers, there are other, very real economic trade-offs they should consider when voting on a smoking ban.
Dr. Jonathan T. Tomlin is an economist and principal at LECG, an international economic research and consulting firm. His research on smoking bans recently appeared in the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy.
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March 28, 2009
This video is dedicated to all those true Americans that still believe in liberty. The US constitution and the Bill of Rights are two of the most important documents in history, they should not be torn up simply to appease anti smoking bigots and self serving facists.
Perhaps whil president Obama is visiting England for the G20 summit, rather than wasting his time talking to that boring old git Gordon Brown, he'd like to pop round mine for a cup of tea and discuss the constitution.
Phil Williams
United Kingdom Regional Director
Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
The Smoker's Club
Read More
http://encyclopedia.smokersclub.com/253.html

Watch the Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cq00Vl3Ar8

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These are important times to be informed about political differences. 
This video is most instructional.
http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment

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Daschle withdraws as nominee for HHS secretary 
Feb 3, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) - Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination on Tuesday to be President Barack Obama's Health and Human Services secretary, dealing potential blows to both speedy health care reform and Obama's hopes for a smoother start as president.
"Now we must move forward," Obama said in a written statement accepting "with sadness and regret" Daschle's surprise request to be removed from consideration. A day earlier, Obama had said he "absolutely" stood by Daschle in the face of problems over back taxes and potential conflicts of interest.
Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader and a strong backer of Obama's presidential bid, said he would have been unable to operate "with the full faith of Congress and the American people."
"I am not that leader, and will not be a distraction" to Obama's agenda, he said.
Obama had given Daschle two jobs—to be White House health czar on top of the post leading the Health and Human Services Department—and Daschle is relinquishing the czar post too. The developments called into question whether Obama will be able to move as quickly as he has promised on sweeping health care reform—one of the pillars of his first 100 days agenda.
"It really sets us back a step," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. "Because he was such a talent. I mean he understood Congress, serving in the House and Senate he certainly had the confidence of the president."
Daschle's stunning statement came less than three hours after another Obama nominee also withdrew from consideration, and also over tax problems. Nancy Killefer, nominated by Obama to be the government's first chief performance officer, said she didn't want her bungling of payroll taxes on her household help to be a distraction.
Daschle was the third high-profile Obama nominee to bow out. Obama initially had tapped Bill Richardson to be Commerce secretary, but the New Mexico governor withdrew amid a grand jury investigation into a state contract awarded to his political donors.
Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Daschle's former Democratic colleagues had rallied to his defense in the wake of questions about his failure to fully pay his taxes from 2005 through 2007. Last month, Daschle paid $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest.
"Tom made a mistake, which he has openly acknowledged," Obama said. "He has not excused it, nor do I. But that mistake and this decision cannot diminish the many contributions Tom has made to this country."
"I was a little stunned. I thought he was going to get confirmed," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the panel that would have voted on Daschle's nomination. "It's regrettable. He's a very good man."
Daschle also was facing questions about potential conflicts of interests related to the speaking fees he accepted from health care interests. Daschle also provided advice to health insurers and hospitals through his post-Senate work at a law firm.
It all proved too bitter a pill for senators to swallow, even for a former member of their club. Last week, the Senate confirmed Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary despite his tax problems.
The controversy also has undercut Obama's promise to run a more ethical, responsible and special interest-free administration.
The withdrawal came after Republicans and major newspapers had been questioning Obama's initial decision to stick with Daschle.
Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina said Obama was "losing credibility" with his statements in support of Daschle. "Part of leadership is recognizing when there has been a mistake made and responding quickly," the Republican said.
In an editorial, The New York Times described Daschle's ability to move "cozily between government and industry" as a cloud over any role he might play in changing the nation's health care system.
The Chicago Tribune opined that "Daschle is dispensable" and suggested that "to proclaim high standards and then suspend them exposes Obama to charges that he is either hypocritical or obtuse."
In a letter released Monday, Daschle sought to explain how he overlooked taxes on income for consulting work and the use of a car service. He also deducted more in charitable contributions than he should have. He also met with Senate Finance Committee members behind closed doors.
"It was completely inadvertent, but that's no excuse," he said. "I apologize to President Obama, to my colleagues and to the American people."
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Bringing It Up Again: Obama And Cigarettes

January 20, 2009

In tonight's Web-only Inauguration wrap-up, Katie Couric mentioned a question she asked President Barack Obama in an interview shown in tonight's prime-time special, "Change and Challenge: The Inauguration of Barack Obama." It was about a subject that's still a little touchy to him: smoking.
  
  (CBS)COURIC: You don't really think of this job as working at home, do you, necessarily (laughter). But speaking of stress, what's going on with the smoking thing?

  PRES. OBAMA: You know, we're doing fine with it. I know everybody likes to poke, you know. I haven't had an interview yet where this one doesn't get raised.

  COURIC: Well, I think people just wanna know how it's going. And I think - they feel for you.

  PRES. OBAMA: Yeah, we're doing fine. I'll do better if people don't keep on bringing it up (laughter).
So Couric asked Politico.com's Mike Allen if he could read anything between the lines of Mr. Obama's answer, such as, that he still is wrestling with the habit.

Allen concurred that it's possible, but suggested that perhaps we might all go a bit easier on the new president. After all, he spent an altogether frantic day looking completely cool, poised and collected.

"If you look at the way President Obama has handled himself and the way he's been portrayed, I'm happy he has a few faults, weaknesses," Allen laughed. "That shirtless photo op sure gives guys a lot to worry about. I'm happy he has a few hidden habits like that."

Plus, Couric said: "You also do have to appreciate that the guy's under a lot of pressure."

Allen added a zinger: "If he wants to get in his Audi* and have a cigarette, he ought to be able to."
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