Mexican ambassador: US should take marijuana legalization seriously by David Edwards and Joe Byrne Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan joined CBS' Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation today to talk about the violence on Mexico's border resulting from the drug trade. Among other things, the senior diplomat told Schieffer that the U.S. should take the debate over marijuana legalization seriously.
Gun Sales: Will The "Loophole" Close? by CBS 60 Minutes: Fear Of Tighter Gun Control May Be Contributing To Big Rise In Gun Sales(CBS) Just in the last four weeks, there have been at least eight separate deadly shooting sprees all across the country. Some of this can be linked to the recession since several of the gunmen had lost their jobs.
CDC covered up high lead levels in D.C. by Joe Byrne Eight years ago, engineers and officials in Washington, D.C. decided to give the go-ahead for a program that would eliminate the "potentially carcinogenic by-products" of chlorine in tap water. The program replaced chlorination with chloramination, and it worked. However, in the next three years, hundreds of families with homes fitted with lead pipes in the District of Columbia were exposed to dangerously high lead levels. Unknown to scientists at the time, the chlorine in tap water served as a 'binder' for the lead pipes, keeping a certain amount of lead from dissolving in the water. In 2004, the chlorination method was restored. Still, in the first half of that year, 74 out of 108 household taps sampled had lead concentrations above the "EPA action level," some astronomically so.
100,000+ in London march against Tamil genocide by Raw Story Some 100,000 demonstrators marched through central London Saturday to demand a truce in Sri Lanka, as similar protests were held in Scandinavia and Paris against Colombo's offensive on Tamil rebels.Waving flags and placards and chanting for a truce, they streamed through the city's main Trafalgar Square en route for Hyde Park, led by a large banner reading "Britain act now! Immediate and permanent ceasefire in Sri Lanka."
At Cal, Global Poverty Minor's Hot, Humane by Reyhan Harmanci UC Berkeley senior Emma Shaw-Crane is graduating in May with a degree in interdisciplinary studies and a Fulbright scholarship that will take her to Bogotá, Colombia. But she says that if it weren't for the university's newly established global poverty and practice minor, she might not have made it through her four years of study.
Obama Administration's Early Friction with New Israeli Govt by Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - If the past week was any indication, the U.S.-Israeli relationship, which could scarcely have been smoother during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush, appears headed for choppy waters.Since taking office 10 days ago, the new government headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been slapped down - at least, rhetorically - by the two most senior members of the Barack Obama administration, including the president himself.
Michael Steele's Nutty ACORN Obsession by John Nichols Michael Steele is still the chairman of the Republican National Committee.He's just being picking fights with people who don't have microphones.Instead of stirring it up with the real boss of the Grand Old Party, Rush Limbaugh, or with Arlen Specter and the handful of congressional Republicans who might actually want to extend their party's platform beyond the word "no," Steele has returned to the obsessive focus that made him a favorite of the party's neanderthal wing: picking on poor people, working families and the organizations that advocate for people who do not have closets full of pinstripe suits.
Awake and Sing! by Frank Rich “I am pronouncing the depression over!” declared CNBC’s irrepressible Jim Cramer on April 2. The next day the unemployment rate, already at the highest level in 25 years, jumped yet again, but Cramer wasn’t thinking about the 663,000 jobs that disappeared in March. He was thinking about the market. Mad money. Fast money. Big money. The Dow, after all, has rallied in the weeks since Timothy Geithner announced his bank bailout 2.0. Par-tay! On Wednesday, Cramer rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, in celebration of the 1,000th broadcast of his nightly stock-tip jamboree.
Demi in Des Moines? by Maureen Dowd California’s having an identity crisis.Once the West Coast glowed with prosperity and was the harbinger of hip new things. Now it’s in the grip of recession and repression. California’s cool has been stolen by, of all places, Iowa.White-bread, cornfed, understated Iowa was the first state to ratify the black rookie Barack Obama and has usurped the role everyone thought California would play as a leader in the fight to give gays the right to marry.
America's Imperial Wars: We Need to See the Horrors by Dave Lindorff When I was a 17-year-old kid in my senior year of high school, I didn't think much about Vietnam. It was 1967, the war was raging, but I didn't personally know anyone who was over there, Tet hadn't happened yet. If anything, the excitement of jungle warfare attracted my interest more than anything (I had a .22 cal rifle, and liked to go off in the woods and shoot at things, often, I'll admit, imagining it was an armed enemy.)
As New Bank Bailouts Seem Likely, There Is More to Speak Out Against by Danny Schechter There's phrase that's worked its way into the Japanese language: "Lehman Shokku" - translated as Lehman Shock. It refers to what happened to 460,000 people after Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner let the global Lehman Investment Bank collapse. A former Lehman executive told me over Matzoh at a Passover seder that she believes the decision reflected a competitive conflict and ego battle between the former Goldman Sachs chief turned Treasury Secretary and the bullheaded CEO of Lehman.
Barack Obama, Torture Enabler by Ted Rall Spain Enforces America's LawsNEW YORK--America is a nation of laws--laws enforced by Spain.John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith wrote, authorized and promulgated the Justice Department "torture memos" that the Bush Administration used for legal cover. After World War II, German lawyers for the Ministry of Justice went to prison for similar actions.
Is the Recession a Teachable Moment? by Bob Burnett The financial crisis has raised public awareness that corporations deemed "too big to fail" have to be broken into manageable units. And there is widespread anger about colossal CEO salaries. Clearly, big is no longer beautiful. What remains to be seen is how far this understanding will extend. Whether this is a teachable moment where Americans will embrace major social changes.
Republican Pants On Fire by Stephen Pizzo I've been on lie patrol this week. And I suggest ya'll join me as I stand guard at the border between what's really happening now and what the right wing liars say is happening right now.Republicans are in a bind. They are out of power and no longer have access to the Bully Pulpit from which they assured us for 8-years that our lying eyes were indeed, lying to us. You know like when they used to told us the best way to regulate the financial services industry was not to regulate at all. Or when they assured us that Saddam not only had weapons of mass destruction, but they knew where they were. Or when they told us that cutting $1.6 trillion from the tax bills of America's top 1% of earners would spark a roaring. sustainable and egalitarian economy. That kind of stuff.
Hysterical fear afflicts the right by Jaime O'Neill — from the Paradise PostThere's a level of hysteria on the right that hasn't been seen in a long time, even from people who are so prone to fear and hysteria.For right wingers, the sky is always falling: the commies are under every bed, the "liberals" are gonna get us all, the environmentalists are bent on driving us into the poor house, the French are going to impose their hated lifestyle upon us, the wimps are going to make us register our firearms, the gays are going to turn our kids into homosexuals, the atheists are going to take Christmas away from us, the unions are going to bring down the capitalist system, the illegals are going to deprive us of our hoped-for careers as lettuce harvesters, the global warming scientists are going to put an end to the free enterprise system, the do-gooders are going to force us all to drive dinky little cars, the welfare recipients are going to drain away the hard-earned money of defense contractors, the politicians are going to put bureaucrats in charge of our health care while denying us the right to choose our own doctors, the peaceniks are going to dismantle the Pentagon, and the terrorists are on their way to blow up our shopping malls with the active collusion of our newly-elected Muslim president, the most dangerous threat to the Republic we've ever seen, if you don't count Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Jimmy Carter.
Appomattox Again by William Rivers Pitt "Out of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul."- Timothy McVeigh quoting from "Invictus" by William Ernest HenleyApril 9 was a Sunday in 1865, and in the town of Appomattox, Virginia, the sun was shining down on the end of a war. Confederate forces, led by Gen. Robert E. Lee, had finally been brought to bay by Gen. Ulysses Grant after four grueling, blood-sodden years. Lee's surrender at Appomattox was the conclusion of the largest and deadliest armed insurrection in American history.
