I forgot to mention that any presidential veto can be overridden. It requires a 2/3 majority vote.

With regard to lobbies, I think that this is a case where better and stricter guidelines are needed, much in the same way that if one wishes to donate to a political candidate you must essentially declare that you are not doing so as or on behalf of a corporation. That's what PACs are for.

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Ron Paul doesn't deliver babies.
He reads them the Bill of Rights until they crawl their way to freedom!

DUUUDE! that looks like hes like got an earpiece or sumthin an someones tellin him wat to say!

Ron Paul is great, Kucinich & Gravel are good too. Too bad Kucinich dropped out and Mike Gravel is going 3rd party while. I'd take Obama over McCain any day but don't really want either one of them. Would have been awesome if Ron Paul got the GOP nomination!

The day I let marijuana influence my choice on presidents is the day I kill myself.
People who base their presidential choice on something to trivial make me fuckin' sick.

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You dont belong in this forum.

Yeah ok , I guess We should pay real close attention to all their other political stances and promises then.... It's not like any presidential nomine ever fucking flip flopped about their stands on issues.... We can't believe anything these assholes say..... They will say whatever the state they are running in at the time wants them to say. They could sound like the fucking mesiah before elected but after they get elected they are just a fucking puppet of the govt.

Plain and simple.... Any issue they agree with you on, they will spit on that issue once they get their presidentcy. It sucks but its true. The president is just the front man to our stupid fucked up Govt... If the govt in whole doesn't want the change, Veto Veto Veto..
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The President can veto, but the veto can be over ridden, so it's a balancing act. On the other hand, it's too easy to just sit around and cry about the law; how many people are actually contacting their elected officials, regularly, frequently, and politely? The bottom line is that Federal law in the U.S. is made by 435 Congressmen and Congresswomen, 100 Senators, and 1 President. Any law of the land can be changed by a majority of Congresspersons (218 ), Senators (51), and the President (1). House Boll 5843 and 5842 are both in front of the Congress for consideration; are you prepared to spend five minutes a day to encourage your Congressperson, Senators, and President vote for the changes you want? You don’t have to travel or organize a rally or spend much money (just a few bucks for stamps). What it’s going to take is a steady stream of letters to your Congressperson, your two Senators, and the President. Here’s a template for a friendly, supportive letter to your Congressperson, Senator, State Representative, etc. This is the kind of letter that will get their attention, because we’re coming across as the friendly, tax-paying citizens that we are. Letters that are rude or too stoney aren’t going to have nearly the impact that a friendly, supportive approach will get (So let’s steer clear of the “Dear Dude, we all have, like, the inalienable right to, you know, do whatever…” approach). Something like the following is a good start:
1) Go to https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml to get the name and address of your Congressperson. This will take less than a minute. Do it now and you’ll have it out of the way.
2) Write the letter. You can make it look like the one below or any way you like; this is just a sample. Spend at least five minutes on it, check the spelling, and read it out loud to yourself to see if it makes sense. (Do this while your in a sensible frame of mind,). You don’t have to be a great writer; just stick to the point and keep it short, i.e, not more than one page.
3) Find friend to write a letter, too. Share this material with him or her at your next get together.
4) Repeat the process at least once a week. Make it your personal mission to do two things: Get a letter like this into the hands of your Congressperson, each Senator, and the President, every month (that’s four letters a month), and get some friends to do the same. It only takes a dozen letters to create the impression of a public mandate; an elected official getting a dozen letters a week will really feel the public presence.

Here’s the sample letter.

Your Name
Your Address
Your City State and ZIP

January 99, 2008

The Honorable <Name of Congressperson / Senator / etc. >
Address (get the right address from https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml )



Dear Congressman/Congresswoman/Senator <LastName >:

I am writing to ask you to <whatever it is you want him or her to do>.

Thanks for your time, and keep up the great work!

Sincerely,


<Your Name>
*
*
***Remember: The Prohibitionists say marijuana leads to lack of motivation. Is it true, or will a few interested folks take this on and actually get this process moving?***

Oh yes, my representative (Dan Lungren) is familiar with Mrs. Seamaiden (I am a constituent, so I use my real name when I correspond with him). On one hand, I appreciate that his answers and rebuttals seem to actually be thought out beforehand instead of some form letter (like what I get back from Feinstein). On the other hand, he is IMMOVABLE in his stance, and nothing I have presented him with makes an impact. He rebuts every study and every bit of scientific evidence with his own. And then he goes on to say that this is what the voters want, despite what the voters have actually voted on for our state.

It is maddening. And I keep wondering if I should find a good place up in the mountains for a hide-out.

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Ron Paul doesn't deliver babies.
He reads them the Bill of Rights until they crawl their way to freedom!

Sounds like you have a reasonable approach; do you have some similarly minded friends who would be willing to get together for a letter-writing session? If each of you wrote a letter to your congressperson and your two senators, and followed it up about every two weeks, that starts to make an impression. It's all about numbers with the politicians, so getting a couple of friends to each get a couple of friends and so on... It's just old-fasihoned grass-roots politics, the steady trickle of public opinion letters growing to a stream and then a torrent. The politician's greatest fear is loss of the next election, so it really is all about finding a way to show that there are lots of votes on the line; those letters DO make a difference, once they start coming in from enough people.

I do have like-minded friends, but I am unsure as to how active they would be. It's certainly worth bringing up, though.

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Ron Paul doesn't deliver babies.
He reads them the Bill of Rights until they crawl their way to freedom!