I have heard the term “Earmark” at least a half dozen times before finally researching it to know what it actually means and bring that research to this report. although i don’t recognize this source, the term seems to have a very simple meaning that cannot be easily twisted to fit anyone’s political preferences. According to, ThoughtCo;

We care about all of your opinions and would like you to post any future topic you may be interested in seeing on the blog to debate on or just see some legitimate data on in the comments section of this post or you can directly email me at “justinmathew.politics@gmail.com. The point of this blog was to get views from multiple angles of a topic and if there is one you may feel more comfortable debating on or just learn more about please feel free to comment or email me.

Regards,

True Politics

The use of recreational marijuana has been up for debate for the last several years. There have even been rumors of former president Jimmy Carter using the long debated drug to cure his cancer case. According to Snopes fact check, that is nothing more than a false story. Snopes stated; “While Carter did announce in December 2015 that he was “cancer-free,” the former President did not credit medical marijuana”(Snopes).

Furthermore, there was even a claim that mentioned that the National Institutes of health quietly admitted that marijuana “kills cancer”. Yet again, Snopes comes to the rescue and proves that this claim is also a completely false claim. Snopes provides a surprisingly lengthily report of how this claim is wrong but to prevent this reports from becoming too lengthily Snopes summarized the start of the conclusion by stating:

[the piece of the evidence claiming this data from the NIH overview] “Cannabis has been shown to kill cancer cells in the laboratory (see question 6)”

[part of Snopes response] “The mysterious Question 6 (the other item cited by these viral studies as proof of some sort of admission by the government) provides information regarding a number of preclinical trials that have shown some promise at killing cancerous cells. That list includes studies on mice, rats, and cell lines suggesting that some cannabinoids (the group of medically relevant chemicals in cannabis) may be able to selectively kill cancerous cells — including those found in colon, liver, and breast cancers. That list was also not modified in any way between 2014 and mid-2018, save for the addition of one new clinical review added to the PDQ in 2017″(Snopes).

(See the links below for the full articles that were used to compile this data)

Now lets take a look at the negatives of marijuana usage. For this, I went no further than the World Health Organization (WHO). According to WHO; “Half of all drug related seizures worldwide are cannabis seizures. The geographical spread of those seizures is also global, covering every country in the world(WHO).” WHO later goes on to say some of the short term effects marijuana has on the human body such as:

• Cannabis impairs cognitive development (capabilities of learning), including associative processes; free recall of previously learned items is often impaired when cannabis is used both during learning and recall periods;
• Cannabis impairs psycho-motor performance in a wide variety of tasks, such as motor coordination, divided attention, and operative tasks of many types; human performance on complex machinery can be impaired for as long as 24 hours after smoking as little as 20 mg of THC in cannabis; there is an increased risk of motor vehicle accidents among persons who drive when intoxicated by cannabis (WHO).

WHO continues to say some of the long term side effects of the consumption including:

• selective impairment of cognitive functioning which include the organization and integration of complex information involving various mechanisms of attention and memory processes;
• prolonged use may lead to greater impairment, which may not recover with cessation of use, and which could affect daily life functions;
• development of a cannabis dependence syndrome characterized by a loss of control over cannabis use is likely in chronic users;
• cannabis use can exacerbate schizophrenia in affected individuals;
• epithelial injury of the trachea and major bronchi is caused by long-term cannabis smoking;
• airway injury, lung inflammation, and impaired pulmonary defense against infection from persistent cannabis consumption over prolonged periods;
• heavy cannabis consumption is associated with a higher prevalence of symptoms of chronic bronchitis and a higher incidence of acute bronchitis than in the non-smoking cohort;
• cannabis used during pregnancy is associated with impairment in fetal development leading to a reduction in birth weight;
• cannabis use during pregnancy may lead to postnatal risk of rare forms of cancer although more research is needed in this area.

WHO does admit however that; “Several studies have demonstrated the therapeutic effects of cannabinoids for nausea and vomiting in the advanced stages of illnesses such as cancer and AIDS (WHO).”

In essence, all the sources above are far more trustworthy than what any college or university may tell you about a drug like marijuana. Some topics you may want to debate on about this article may be: Should marijuana be legal for recreational use? Why would the state governments be so adamant about legalizing it for everyone with the above data being stated? If recreational marijuana does become legalized in your state, what laws and regulations would you want to see take effect to ensure the safety of the public? (ie traffic laws, legal age, ect…). For the last question, I will obviously not require a source for your opinion. Please see below for links to all the articles I used will producing this report.

http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/facts/cannabis/en/

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-nci-admit-marijuana-kills-cancer/

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jimmy-carters-cancer-cured-marijuana/

What if I told you that the infamous amazon rain forest was not entirely natural? Well it isn’t. According to National Geographic, the Amazonian’s were able to successfully engineer a fertilizer with high concentrations of low temperature charcoal also known as Terra Preta or boichar. According to the report, roughly ten percent of the amazon basin is covered with this miraculous fertilizer. Before the creation of Terra Preta, the original amazonian soil was far too acidic to support any less than the hardiest of crops which were not nearly enough to support the thousands of Amazonian’s who occupied the region. Also according to National Geo-graphics report, one of the reasons the amazon rain forest is so massive is because of this nutrient rich soil. Unfortunately, scientists have not been able to recreate Terra Preta in labs since its discovery many years ago. 

How does this soils reproduction relate with American politics? The successful reproduction of Terra Preta would significantly aid in fighting global warming, logging would no longer have any environmental consequences, world hunger would be a thing of the past, and the American economy would be at an all time high if the recipe for the soil was under the control of the U.S. government. Please find the attached link for the site I pulled much of this information from. I am aware that this site is not on the list of acceptable site, however, they pulled their information from National Geographic.if you want to look up the article its called “Superdirt Made Lost Amazon Cities Possible”. Please remember to follow the blog guidelines before commenting

https://global.mongabay.com/news/bioenergy/2008/11/national-geographic-documentary-on.html

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been around for many years. According to the World Health Organization (WHO);

“Genetically Modified (GM) foods are foods derived from organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been modified in a way that does not occur naturally, e.g. through the introduction of a gene from a different organism. Currently available GM foods stem mostly from plants, but in the future foods derived from microorganisms or GM animals are likely to be introduced on the market. Most existing genetically modified crops have been developed to improve yield, through the introduction of resistance to plant diseases or increased tolerance to herbicides.

In the future, genetic modification could be aimed at altering the nutrient content of food, reducing its allergenic potential, or improving the efficiency of food production systems. All GM foods should be assessed before being allowed on the market. FAO/WHO Codex guide exists for risk analysis of GM food.(WHO).”

The topics that may be up for debate for this topic may involve; what sort of immorality comes with modifying something that has been the way it has for thousands of years? What sort of world problems does the applications of GMOs help solve? what problems may have been due to the introduction of GMOs? If you haven’t already, please be sure to read the blog guidelines before blogging to ensure clean accurate data. The link below is where I pulled the above information from (WHO).

 

http://www.who.int/topics/food_genetically_modified/en/

This case has been one of the hottest court hearings in recent memory. The new york times had this to say summarizing the accusations made against Brett Kavanaugh:

“Three women have publicly accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual assault or misconduct, including Dr. Blasey, who was the first to come forward.

During a Senate hearing last week, Dr. Blasey, a university professor and research psychologist, described a chilling scene at a high school gathering more than 30 years ago, when, she said, a young, drunken Mr. Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, tried to rip off her clothes and placed his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams for help.

Deborah Ramirez, who works for a county housing department in Colorado, accused Mr. Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at a drunken college party.

The third woman, Julie Swetnick, who has held a variety of public- and private-sector jobs, said that Mr. Kavanaugh was “present” when she was raped at a high school party.

The allegations have raised several questions about Judge Kavanaugh, including his drinking; references to a woman in his high school yearbook; a letter he wrote to high school friends ahead of a week at the beach; and his involvement in a bar fight years ago.”(New York Times).

The questions you may want to ask yourselves and blog about on this post may be, Was/is this case about rape at all or is it about control of the supreme court? Was Donald Trump just trying to get a member into the court that supports his views without caring if he was a sex offender? Was the left just stalling until the midterm elections of 2018 so that they may once again gain majority control of senate and just block Kavanaugh completely? The article i pulled for this information is below. Please remember the rules before blogging.

 

Before we get started commenting, we first must clear through a few ground rules about comments on this blog.

1. Probably the most important rule is that you must use fully legitimate sources to support a statement that you are making about a particular post. For now, you must have at least one of the following sources to confirm what you are stating is true.

• Snopes news
• BBC news
• Wall street journal
• New York Times
• Any legitimate government site (ie: national treasury, national revenue service ect…)
• National geographic
• History channel
• Science Channel
• Discovery Channel
• WHO – World Health organization

1. B. In order to prove that you did pull your data from at least one of the reliable sources, all of your comments related to any data must have the URL pasted at the bottom of them. This way, I or anyone else who wants to verify your data can easily do so by copying and pasting the URL back into their search engines and see the exact article you pulled your data from.
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Greetings,

I am Justin, the creator of True Politics (aka JTMathewPolitics). our goal for this blog is to begin to dissect each major topic happening in American politics through well organized and properly supported debating. When I say “properly support” I am simply referring to using reliable sources to back up a point you may be making in an argument. Please see the terms of use tab to see a more detailed description of what will be required from your comments, and how they will be handled. Aside from that i hope you all enjoy and learn something from this blog.