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)
• Barry-O a Confirmed Frequent Drug User in High School (dewgeneral.wordpress.com)
• Obama’s Lies To American Youths (personalliberty.com)
• It’s Safe To Say That Penn Jillette Does Not Agree With Obama’s Stance on Marijuana (hailmaryjane.com)

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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Herman Cain “Palinized” By MSNBC

Liberal media has a fascinating obsession with race, and color.  Hey, Lawrence O’Donnell, why weren’t you protesting and sitting down when Black Americans?

Watch the exchange; it’s disgusting. NOTE: I am NOT on the “Cain Train.” After Sarah Palin decided not to run, I am for no one but I do get a kick out of the libs cup Obama with their hands while at the same time go after Cain which is blacker than Obama (his mother was white, as everybody knows).

Why O’Donnell is going into such minutia by where was Cain at what year? Sorry I call for fairness in journalism. Ask Obama where was he, even at his time of birth. That’d be fair enough for me. As far as Mr. Cain I am glad he handled himself well.

NOTE: This comment via Zip proves the misinformation from the liberal media to twist history and switch parties when it comes to sad history events like this:

Max Asays:

October 7, 2011 at 11:58 am

Larry forgot to mention:
1 – that MOST black Americans in the South did NOT show up at the protests/marches.
2 – that MOST black Americans KNEW that the police and the dogs had been unleashed and were aiming to hurt and kill as many blacks as may have gotten in their way.
3 – That it was the DEMOCRATS in power who had UNLEASHED the police and DOGS on the BLACK FOLKS.
4 – Just where was Mr. O’Donnell when all the marches and protests were taking place back then ( Hanging out with other privileged white democrats at Harvard?)

Jake Tapper Is The Real Deal

Jake Tapper goes for the kill and hammers Jake Carney for Hoffa’s SOB comment in Michigan:

Transcript from Mediaite:

Jay Carney: Of course he did.

Jake Tapper: Then, where do the comments by the Teamsters president fit in with that?

Jay Carney: First of all, those weren’t comments by the President. Secondly, as I think it’s been reported…

Jake Tapper: …comments by a union leader, at an event that President Obama spoke at…

Jay Carney: I understand that there is a ritual in Washington that, you know, somebody says something, and you link the associations, and then everybody who has an association with him or her has to avow or disavow. The President wasn’t there, he wasn’t on the stage, he didn’t speak for another twenty minutes, he didn’t hear it. I really don’t have any comment beyond that.

Jake Tapper: Okay, well, some of us covered the campaign, and recall a time when somebody made some harsh comments about then-Senator Obama during the introduction at a McCain rally, and the Obama campaign was offended, and expected an apology, Senator McCain came out and did so.

Jay Carney: Mr. Hoffa speaks for himself, he speaks for the labor movement, AFL-CIO. The President speaks for himself, I speak for the President. What the President was glad to do yesterday was the opportunity to present his views on the importance of working Americans, and on the importance of taking measures to help working Americans, to create jobs and grow the economy.

Jake Tapper: So the precedent you’re setting right now for the 2012 election is, the Republican candidates are the ones to pay attention to. Those who introduce them at rallies, their surrogates, we don’t have to pay attention to anything that they say.

Jay Carney: Jake, I think I’ve said what I can say…

Jake Tapper: Is that the standard now?

Jay Carney: (inaudible)

Jake Tapper: I’d rather not have to do this Washington kabuki every time something happens, but if that’s the standard, if that’s the standard…

Jay Carney: The standard is we should focus on the actions we can take to grow the economy and create jobs, instead of focusing on kabuki theater.

Fred Lucas: Does the President find the comments appropriate?

Jay Carney: Can we move on?

White House correspondents, you got schooled.

So Obama Had No Clue? Why Hoffa Was On AF-1?

Hoffa Jr. was with Barack Obama on Air Force One. This does not surprise me, since he has this knack for bringing aboard people and sneak them with his Secret Service.  They did have a game plan. This is no coincidence, folks. Jim Carney can speak for the president or he can’t (whichever the wind blows).

Anybody that has attended a political event knows how the event unfolds before politicians go onstage and the pep talk can be heard in order to introduce the main speaker. That’s what happens in rock concerts-the warm up and the main attraction. Obama was listening. Obama was not hiding out in a soundproof booth with loud music like Miss Universe used to do with their pageants.

From Left Out In America‘s blog:

 

President GWB was often portrayed like a monkey, an idiot and a warmonger. President Obama has a responsibility-a whole country in his hands. His job is to protect America and not pin brother against brother. Conservative media and bloggers have called Obama on his continued hatred agenda. Several cards have been played; let’s see if Obama’s “union army” will incite violence on those who believe that they have rights too-only they give it to the wrong people and not to empower themselves.

It was an alarming Labor Day for America. And may God shed His grace on thee.

Sarah Palin Fires Back At Obama And Hoffa

Welcome, Union Brothers and Sisters

In my speech on Saturday in Iowa, I said: “Between bailouts for Wall Street cronies and stimulus projects for union bosses’ security and ‘green energy’ giveaways, [Barack Obama] took care of his friends. And now they’re on course to raise a billion dollars for his re-election bid so that they can do it all over again.” This was shamefully on display yesterday at President Obama’s taxpayer-funded campaign rally in Detroit. In introducing the President, Teamsters President James Hoffa represented precisely what I was talking about as he declared war on concerned independent Americans and on the freshman members we sent to Congress last November by saying, “Let’s take these son-of-a-bitches out!”

What I say now, I say as a proud former union member and the wife, daughter, and sister of union members. So, as a former card-carrying IBEW sister married to a proud former Laborers, IBEW, and later USW member, please hear me out. What I have to say is for the hard working, patriotic, selfless union brothers and sisters in Michigan and throughout our country: Please don’t be taken in by union bosses’ thuggery like Jim Hoffa represented yesterday. Union bosses like this do not have your best interests at heart. What they care about is their own power and re-electing their friend Barack Obama so he will take care of them to the detriment of everyone else.

To the same degree Americans are concerned about irresponsible, greedy corporate execs who got cushy bonuses from taxpayer-funded bailouts, we should also be concerned about greedy union bosses who are willing to tank our economy just to protect their own power. As union history shows, power and greed corrupt. Just because you claim to represent union members doesn’t mean you are on the side of the angels. The greed of too many of these union bosses has all but destroyed the labor movement in this country, helped chase away our jobs, and is killing the American dream.

To see where this leads, look at what’s happening to the working class in our industrialized cities. These cities are going to hell in a hand basket thanks to corruption, crony capitalism, and the union bosses’ greed. The union bosses derive their power from your union dues and their promise to deliver your votes to whichever politician they’re in bed with. They get their power from you, and yet their actions ultimately hurt you. They’re chasing American industry offshore by making outrageous, economically illogical demands that they know will never work. And now that they’ve chased jobs out of union states, they’re trying to chase them out of right-to-work states like South Carolina, so eventually the jobs will leave America altogether. But these union bosses will still figure out a way to keep their gig, and so will their politically aligned corporate friends. As long as these big corporations have a good crony capitalist in the White House, they can rely on DC to bail them out until the whole system goes bankrupt, which, I am afraid, is not very far off. When big government, big business, and big union bosses collude together, they get government to maximize their own interests against those of the rest of the country.

So, now these union bosses are desperately trying to cast the grassroots Tea Party Movement as being “against the workingman.” How outrageously wrong this unapologetic Jim Hoffa is, for the people’s movement is the real movement for working class men and women. It’s rooted in real solidarity, and not special interests and corporate kickbacks. It represents the needed reform that will empower workers and job creators. We stand with the little guy against the corruption and influence peddling of those who collude to grease the wheels of government power.

This collusion is at the heart of Obama’s economic vision for America. In practice it is socialism for the very rich and the very poor, but a brutal form of capitalism for the rest of us. It is socialism for the very poor who are reduced to a degrading perpetual dependence on a near-bankrupt centralized government to provide their every need, while at the same time robbing them of that which brings fulfillment and success – the life-affirming pride that comes from taking responsibility for your own destiny and building a better life through self-initiative and work ethic. And Obama’s vision is socialism via crony capitalism for the very rich who continue to get bailouts, debt-ridden “stimulus” funds, and special favors that allow them to waive off or help draft the burdensome regulations that act as a boot on the neck to small business owners who don’t have the same friends in high places. And where does this collusion leave working class Americans and the small business owners who create 70% of the jobs in this country? Out in the cold. It’s you and your children who are left paying for the cronyism of Obama and our permanent political class in DC.

Ask yourself if the folks you heard demonize concerned, independent Americans yesterday really speak for the working class when they’re all too happy to burden your families with the bill to bail out the President’s friends on Wall Street.

We should not forget that for all his lofty rhetoric, President Obama is a Chicago politician. Graft, cronyism, and quid pro quo are the well-known methods of an infamous Chicago political machine, of which Barack Obama emerged. This corruption isn’t just the result of a few bad apples. It’s the nature of a skewed system that’s typical of one not allowing a level playing field. If one desires opportunity for all, then the only solution is sudden and relentless reform. I know of what I speak. I too served in public office in a state that had a corruption problem. The difference is that I fought the corrupt political machine. Barack Obama used the machine in his state to advance. He never challenged it. And he’s evidently brought the same Chicago “pay-to-play” practices to the White House.

It’s sad to see much of the labor movement fall lock step behind a President whom Hoffa calls upon to partner in “waging war” against patriotic Americans. I will never forget that as a governor, in trying to be a friend to the working men and women in our unions, I gave a speech on August 27, 2008, at the annual AFL-CIO meeting in Anchorage. There, union members humbled me with a standing ovation for fighting the corruption in Alaska and for bringing parties together for progress on energy development projects. Then just two days later I landed on the national stage as John McCain’s running mate, and the union leadership turned on me from that day forward even though I had not changed one iota in my plans, principles, vision, and commitment to jobs for working class Americans. The only difference was I was challenging the politician the union bosses were committed to electing. It was almost comical, this lesson learned with their new spots revealed so quickly.

Recently someone commented: “I’m a union member. I’ve been a Democrat all my life. Now I’ll vote for anyone with a plan to save America.” I know what that person is feeling. I want all good union brothers and sisters to know that there is an alternative. The grassroots, independent Tea Party Movement articulates a real alternative rooted in free men and free markets, not the cronyism of Barack Obama and the permanent political class in DC. Their cronyism is why we have no job growth, massive unsustainable debt, and a housing market in the tank. Too many politicians are simply addressing the economic symptoms instead of fighting the underlying disease. The path forward is through reform. On Saturday, I outlined some ideas about that reform, and I will continue to do so.

In the meantime, good union brothers and sisters, don’t let Hoffa tell you what to do. He doesn’t represent the real interests of working men and women. He’s not doing you any favors. He’s just living off your paychecks.

- Sarah Palin