Barack Obama And His Drug Use: The Tell-All Book Details

Thanks to Buzzfeed for the piece that’s making the rounds online, though in quite a conservative way if I may say so. There’s been US Presidents in the past who have used drugs, experimented with others but this just takes the cake. This is one of the most elaborate, detailed accounts of President Obama smoking pot when he was a teenager.

Barry was quite the accomplished marijuana enthusiast back in high school and college. Excerpts from David Maraniss‘ Barack Obama: The Story dealing with the elaborate drug culture surrounding the president when he attended Punahou School in Honolulu and Occidental College in Los Angeles. He inhaled. A lot.

Click on the Buzzfeed link to see the pictures of Obama, holding his marijuana cigarette-one of them made the rounds back in 2008 I believe. In addition to that image, there’s his friends, and a couple of places they hang out. Here’s the rundown, from the book:

“A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. Choom is a verb, meaning ‘to smoke marijuana.’” The best quote from Maraniss’ piece: “Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted ‘Intercepted!,’ and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.”

As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called “TA,” short for “total absorption.”

Along with TA, Barry popularized the concept of “roof hits”: when they were chooming in the car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.

When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning “numbing tobacco”) instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,” explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo.

He was a long-haired haole hippie who worked at the Mama Mia Pizza Parlor not far from Punahou and lived in a dilapidated bus in an abandoned warehouse. … According to Topolinski, Ray the dealer was “freakin’ scary.” Many years later they learned that he had been killed with a ball-peen hammer by a scorned gay lover. But at the time he was useful because of his ability to “score quality weed.”

…

In another section of the [senior] yearbook, students were given a block of space to express thanks and define their high school experience. … Nestled below [Obama's] photographs was one odd line of gratitude: “Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.” … A hippie drug-dealer made his acknowledgments; his own mother did not.

 

Their favorite hangout was a place they called Pumping Stations, a lush hideaway off an unmarked, roughly paved road partway up Mount Tantalus. They parked single file on the grassy edge, turned up their stereos playing Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, and Stevie Wonder, lit up some “sweet-sticky Hawaiian buds” and washed it down with “green bottle beer” (the Choom Gang preferred Heineken, Becks, and St. Pauli Girl).

 

This is what I call vetting, my friends. This is what the media tried desperately to hide back in 2008 and they never bothered to check on Obama’s peccadilloes-and there will be more to surface if the discontent escalates.

Related Articles

• Flashback: Obama’s Sordid High School Past (rubinoworld.com)
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Delicious: Joe The Plumber’s Smackdown of VP Joe Biden And Al Sharpton

Via Breitbart. Click here to watch. Although everything starts great, it heats up later during the interview.

 

While waiting for a kind soul to upload it to YouTube, please watch as one mortal (who’s now running for office, tsk tsk) is taking on the Vice President Joe Biden, while at the same time eats Al Sharpton for dinner-in his own TV show!

 

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Dear Mrs. Couric, In Your Dreams!

Dear Mrs. Couric,

Would you accept to do a second interview with a reporter who had a clear agenda of personal destruction, cut about six hours of footage to intentionally portray you in a negative light-and then got rewarded for it? Why would you visit the same reporter who had the PRIVILEGE to be a pioneer with her own evening news program, only to be cancelled because nobody cared to watch her?

Why interact with a reporter that showed contempt to you, did not have a hunger nor a curiosity for the truth, and mislead the audience and those that wanted to know more about you, yet what they took away from that interview was a crass attack to a “renowned” journalist with a lifelong career?

Would you, Katie want a round with a Journolist that destroyed your reputation, helped change the message and molded it to accommodate a narrative of Katie Couric that is not correct?

While all these questions are valid since any reporter worth their salt these days won’t stop and consider that what they do is crucial for Americans as a service and as honest, serious portrayal of national and world news, there’s a clamor for Governor Palin to decline the bait and switch and avoid Couric’s wishes to quench her ratings thirst.

I totally agree with Sarah Palin‘s reaction: “I hear that she wants to now engage in more ‘multi-dimensional story telling‘ versus I guess just the straight on, read into the, that teleprompter screen story telling. More power to her. I wish her well with her ‘multi-dimensional story telling.”

Maybe it’s time Sarah asks Couric what is her problem with sputum.

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Sarah Palin Interviewed By CNN And The NYT

Via C4P, written by Doug Brady:

Prior to Governor Palin’s much anticipated speech at CPAC today, she sat down for a brief interview with CNN and the New York Times. She reiterated her preference for an extended nominating process so that the candidates can be vetted. She also called on Mitt Romney to explain his record to conservatives or face an enthusiasm gap if he’s the nominee.

Note by TPE: On this topic, I totally agree with the Governor:

“People who start screaming that a brokered convention is the worst thing that could happen to the G.O.P., they have an agenda,” Ms. Palin said in an interview. “They have their own personal or political reasons, their own candidate who they would like to see protected away from a brokered convention.”

Now, on the CNN end, on Romney’s “severely conservative” statement:

In an interview with CNN and The New York Times before her speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Palin said she was confused by Romney’s declaration here on Friday that he was a “severely conservative Republican.”

“I wasn’t quite sure what the word ‘severely’ meant,” Palin said.

She said Romney and his two main rivals – Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – should be given time to explain the flaws in their record until the Republican National Convention in August, when she said the nomination fight could ultimately be decided.

But Romney may have the hardest sale to make, she said, asking him to explain his “shifts in ideology” since he left the Massachusetts governorship.

Mitt Romney must be vetted on this issue. Vetted? Continue to be vetted? Yes, and by that I mean that I disagree with Rush Limbaugh and others on  comments that Romney needs to be “pushed” to the right. If he feels it, he should not overstate it or emphasize to prove a point.

Governor Palin doesn’t have to prove it; just like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, they live it. I do believe that if Newt is elected as the candidate to beat Obama (now it’s a bit of a stretch) he will fix up the mess we’re in. Now it’s up to all four candidates to make their point on how they plan to reduce the deficit the United State has (Newt laid it out on his CPAC speech, Paul is quite vocal about it) but with Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, people need to do more digging because it’s quite elaborate.

To read the New York Times interview, click here.

To read the CNN interview, click here.

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No More Leading from Behind for America-By Rick Santorum

January 30, 2012

By Rick Santorum

My passion for protecting and preserving freedom is a gift that comes to me from my grandfather, an immigrant who brought my father to this country and whose well-weathered hands mined coal in Southwestern Pennsylvania until he was 72. He left the totalitarian regime of Mussolini’s Italy to bring his family to freedom.

He worked hard and committed himself to creating a better life for his children and grandchildren. He taught me how to treasure the gift of freedom, to have faith in God’s grace, to achieve what American liberty offers to those who work hard and to love and support a family. The Pennsylvania town my grandfather called home is just a few miles down the road from the field where Flight 93 crashed on that beautiful, blue-sky September day; a day when radical jihadists declared war on America, in America, on our own soil. The passengers and crew bravely stood up for freedom.

Some wonder why conservatives like me have such a problem with the oppressive Castro regime of the relatively tiny Island nation of Cuba. We do because we believe in freedom and don’t like the stink of oppression next door. We believe in the God-given dignity of all human beings, and we believe, like the American founders, that religious freedom and freedom of conscience is the foundational freedom for civil and political freedom and rights. Dictatorships like the former Soviet Union and Cuba believed and continue to believe this as well. This is why they seek and sought to oppress the Church and others who believe in the inalienable rights of life and liberty.

It is no surprise that the same Cuban regime that locked hands with the Soviet Union is aligned today with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Though Iran is not secular, the Iranian Mullahcracy opposes freedom, including religious freedom. They are not radical secularists but radical Islamists and the result is the same: They oppose liberty. Tehran has already demonstrated its desire to thwart freedom with whatever tools at its disposal. The U.S. must halt them in their march toward a nuclear weapon before it’s too late.

Some wonder if I can get along with the Muslim world. I understand that there are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world and that many of our allies are majority-Muslim countries. I want to work with those nations and challenge them where and when they are wrong. I also understand, unlike President Barack Obama, that radical Islamists are not going away in 2012, and that we still need to be capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time in our foreign policy. We need to defend America and her interests and values while also engaging with “Three Cups of Tea” (or as many as are necessary) around the world. Conservatives, along with most Americans, desire peace, but we know that freedom is worth defending. Standing with strength and core principles separates the pursuit of peace from appeasement.

President Obama went to Cairo early in his presidency not to stand for our values and interests, but, as his subsequent actions have shown, to just drink tea. In his speech, he sought a “new beginning” for the United States and the world’s Muslims. But he also gave his first interview as president to Al Arabiya television, apologized for America’s past behavior, bowed before Saudi royalty, sided with the Palestinians against our ally Israel, did next to nothing in his first two years to forestall Iran’s development of nuclear arms and released a National Defense Strategy which ignores the connection between radical Islam and terrorism.

I want to work with those in the Muslim world. But unlike President Obama, I will not bow before dictators, fanatics and thugs. I will not ignore the relationship between radical Islam and terrorism. I will not give in to those who oppose freedom. To do so would threaten the safety and security of the American people and turn a blind eye on those who are oppressed and struggling for freedom in other parts of the world.

And what has changed in Egypt since the president’s speech? Yes, an initial new birth of freedom, but the result has thus far been an Islamist parliament in Egypt, turning an Arab Spring into winter. Coptic Christians and other minorities are dealing with the consequences, and there is growing uncertainty and risk for neighboring Israel. This is democracy rushed and reduced to voting alone – rather than one built into the DNA of democracy with properly understood and meaningful protections for political and religious minorities. We abandoned an imperfect but longtime American ally without a better plan B.

This confusion and these outcomes impact our own security, our other allies and the nations now struggling to define the meaning of freedom in the Arab Winter and around the world. This is not what the President of the United States says or does to those who oppose fundamental freedoms like radical Islamists in Egypt or elsewhere.

Much like Ronald Reagan called out for freedom in the symbolic heart of communism, I will call upon the Muslim world to tear down the walls of oppression that oppose freedom of conscience and religion, equality of women, the security of Israel and support violence and Jihadism, which inverts the concept of martyrdom from one who dies for his or her faith to one who kills for his or her faith. I will not coddle those who want to kill and destroy. I will seek peace with those who treasure freedom for all.

Christianity struggled with these issues of freedom of conscience and violence largely hundreds of years ago; Islam is struggling with them now. We will stand with the true advocates of freedom who define freedom not just by a ballot box, but also by meaningful protections for minorities. This is the message of freedom that should be proclaimed and practiced from Cairo to Tehran. This is consistent with universal human dignity, our values and our national security interests.

Informed Americans are opposed to those who want to kill and destroy, not to those who want to make peace and treasure freedom for all. I supported America’s security and freeing Muslims and others from oppression in Iraq and Afghanistan. I stood for the Green Movement in Iran when President Obama sat down. I support freedom of religion – for Muslims and other religious minorities – but believe they should provide the same.

I also understand that at this time in history many of the most influential voices in the Muslim world come from intolerant and destructive strains of Sunni and Shia leadership and theology in places such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. Days before the election in 2006, I was still challenging America to stand against radical Islam and Iran at the height of unpopularity of the Iraq war not because of polling but because I felt it was the primary threat facing America. It’s no accident that the vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, and that the Iranian regime exports anti-American and anti-Israeli terrorism around the world while pursuing nuclear weapons capacity. Radical Islamists oppose us not because of our policies, but because of our freedom.

As President of the United States, I will stand for America’s interests around the world as well as universal and American values rooted in the God-given dignity of every human being. I understand with the clarity that we saw from Ronald Reagan that these are walls that need to be torn down, not remodeled or repainted. America should unabashedly stand for freedom – this includes freedom of religion and conscience, here in the United States and around the world.

We need to stand with the real freedom fighters. We need to stand with those human rights defenders wrongfully in prison in Cuba, Iran, China and around the world. Just as we did for those who stood up to communism, including Polish activist Lech Walesa and the late Pope John Paul II, who warned of the “death of true freedom” and observed that “freedom itself needs to be set free.” Both have inspired me through my time with them and through their examples.

When Lech Walesa visited our nation a couple of years ago he offered this observation:

The United States is the only superpower. Today they lead the world. Nobody has doubts about it. Militarily. They also lead economically but they’re getting weak. But they don’t lead morally and politically anymore. The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we have lost that hope…

It is time that America stop leading from behind and stand for freedom once again. Pretending that this battle isn’t raging will not protect our families and our interests, nor will it strengthen our allies; it will only diminish our nation, increase our risk and grow our security challenge.

In his farewell address to the nation, President Reagan reminded us of this when he told the story of the USS Midway that was patrolling the South China Sea in the early 1980s. A sailor on the Midway saw a tiny boat, filled with refugees from Indochina, and a rescue launch was sent to them. As the Americans came into view, one of the refugees smiled, stood up and shouted out: “Hello American Sailor. Hello Freedom Man!”

That is who we are: Freedom Men. And Women. And Children. Let us not forget that privilege nor neglect that legacy. Stand for freedom.

 Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, is a Republican candidate for president.

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Sarah Palin’s Complete Video Of Indianola, IA Speech

Friends,

Here is the HD version of Gov. Sarah Palin‘s speech in Indianola, IA. Complement that with the transcript that I posted here.

Enjoy.