Because their current “cyber defences” are in shambles. Ars Technica

Colorado Sen. Pat Steadman, with Reps. Millie Hamner and Johnathan Singer, sent a letter to the anti-pot organization, Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy, politely asking them to stop lying about Colorado’s experience with legal marijuana.  Here’s the letter:

“Dear Mr. Leibsohn and Ms. Polk:

It has been brought to our attention that your committee has produced and aired television ads that convey inaccurate and misleading statements about Colorado’s experience with regulating and taxing marijuana for adult use.

Specifically, your ad titled “Empty Promises” features a former Colorado local school official saying, “We were promised millions of new revenues for our schools, but they were empty words.” It also features a Colorado school principal saying, “Politicians spent more money on regulation and bureaucracy than in the classroom.” Similarly, in your ad titled “Mistake,” former Denver mayor Wellington Webb says, “We were promised new money for education. Instead, that money is going to regulation and the pot industry.”

The proponents of the initiative you are opposing and members of the Arizona media have raised questions about the validity of these claims. We have also heard from Colorado residents who read or saw stories about these ads in our local media outlets and were confused by the claims that they make.

As members of the Colorado Legislature who played intimate roles in the budgeting and appropriation of marijuana tax revenues, we feel it is our duty to set the record straight so that voters in both states have accurate information about this subject. 

We can say with certainty that the claims about Colorado marijuana tax revenues featured in your committee’s ads range from highly misleading to wholly inaccurate. As you can see in the attached issue brief provided by Colorado Legislative Council staff and fact sheet produced by the Colorado Department of Education:

•    Of the approximately $220.8 million in total marijuana tax revenue distributions made in FY 2015-16 and FY 2016-17, more than $138.3 million was distributed to the Colorado Department of Education to benefit Colorado schools. This far exceeds the amount that was distributed for the purposes of regulating marijuana, which included $15.8 to the Department of Revenue, $2.4 million to the Department of Agriculture, $2.8 million to the Department of Law, and less than $500,000 to the Governor’s Office of Marijuana Coordination.

•    Of those funds, $114.9 million was distributed to the Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) public school construction program. When Colorado voters adopted Amendment 64, they were promised a tax on wholesale marijuana transfers would raise $40 million per year for the BEST program. That tax actually raised more than $40 million in the last fiscal year, resulting in $40 million for the BEST program in FY 2016-17, plus an additional $5.7 million for Colorado’s Public School Fund.

•    In addition to the funds raised for the BEST program and the Public School Fund, more than $5.5 million was used to increase the presence of health professionals in our schools, and more than $4.3 million was used for health-related programs in schools. In addition, $2.9 million was used for drop-out prevention programs, and $2.9 million was used for school bullying prevention and education.

It is also worth noting that more than $1.5 million in marijuana tax funds were distributed to the Department of Public Health and Environment to conduct the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, which is the most comprehensive survey of our state’s middle and high school students. As you can see in the attached fact sheet from that department, the survey’s findings contradict the claim that “marijuana use among our students soared,” which is made in your ad titled “Empty Promises.” Rates of teen use have actually remained relatively unchanged since 2009 and are in line with the national average. In fact, they were slightly lower last year than they were prior to legalization.

We respectfully request that you stop airing or otherwise publishing campaign ads that contradict these facts. We also trust they will be reflected in any of your future communications to Arizona voters regarding Colorado’s experience with regulating and taxing marijuana for adult use.

Sincerely,

Rep. Jonathan Singer
Member, Colorado House Appropriations Committee

Rep. Millie Hamner
Chair, Colorado Joint Budget Committee
Vice Chair, Colorado House Appropriations Committee

Sen. Pat Steadman
Member, Colorado Joint Budget Committee
Member, Colorado Senate Appropriations Committee”

Of course, the experience Colorado has had with legalized marijuana has been entirely positive, as the legislators make clear.  Supporters of Prohibition have no facts on their side, so naturally, they have to lie.

CopBlock.  Typical SWAT raid story: adrenaline-jacked cops bust door down, break windows, trash house, scare the crap out of a 7-year old boy and his father, discover it’s the wrong house, deny it’s the wrong house, etc.  At least no one was killed, and that no dogs were in the house. They would surely be dead.

Rapidly advancing surveillance technology has allowed law enforcement at every level to conduct continuous, blanket surveillance of innocent American citizens.  We don’t even notice it when they scan our license plate, search biometric databases that contain our image, or make use of the many other spy tools at their disposal.  The fact that we don’t notice it is the insidious aspect of it.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation points to a story of police conducting mass, dragnet-style surveillance of a popular, California gun show.  The cops scanned license plates and ran them through a database, and all without the attendees aware that it was happening.  There’s really no regulation on the books tying the hands of law enforcement in matters of mass surveillance, but there should be.  A massive surveillance infrastructure is being built in the shadows, and it will soon contain the high-resolution images, history, and daily movements of every US citizen.

Defense Tech.  Is an exclusively robot army in our future, complete with the ability to disable the enemy’s robot army?

New frontiers in robotic warfare.

They call Israeli hackers who can.

Antiwar.com.  Bob Waldrop is urging fellow Catholics to boycott the 2016 national collection in Catholic churches for the Archdiocese of Military Services.  He accuses the military bishops of “material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war” and has prepared a document that can be printed and placed into the offering instead.  The entire, heroic document reads:

“I am not giving to the 2016 Archdiocese for Military Services Collection.

The bishops of the Archdiocese for Military Services, together with nearly all of their brother United States Bishops, are guilty of material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war. In 2003, both Pope John Paul II and then Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Benedict XVI, condemned our attack on Iraq as an unjust war. In spite of the Pope’s opposition, the Most Rev. Edwin O’Brien, then Archbishop for the Military Services advised Catholic members of the US Armed Forces: “Given the complexity of factors involved, many of which understandably remain confidential, it is altogether appropriate for members of our armed forces to presume the integrity of our leadership and its judgments and therefore to carry out their military duties in good conscience.”

Subsequent events have sadly proven the truth, wisdom, and prudence of Pope John Paul II’s judgment, and the fallacy and danger of the moral relativism embraced by the Bishops of the Archdiocese for Military Services and most of the other US Catholic Bishops regarding unjust war. The consequences cascading from our invasion brought death and injury and social dislocation to hundreds of thousands and devastated the historic Christian communities of Iraq and subsequently Syria. It may fairly be said that those who enabled and supported the war on the people of Iraq are “secondary terrorists” in that they created the objective conditions on the ground in the Middle East that are driving the extreme forms of terrorism currently prevalent in the region. Actions have consequences and those who propose the actions must own the consequences.

Therefore, because of these issues, I am not giving to the collection for the Archdiocese of Military Services. Instead, I will donate to an organization working to resolve the problems caused by war.

It is a sad and scandalous day when a people’s religious leaders fail them so egregiously. I promise to pray for the conversion of the Military Services hierarchy and clergy, and for the moral and physical protection of the members of our Armed Services, who are our sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, and children. They deserve religious leaders who will courageously preach and teach all of the Gospel of Christ, not just that which is acceptable to the United States Government.”