Marijuana legalization supporters -- a majority of all Americans -- scored a trifecta of wins in a clean sweep on Election Day 2013.
Voters in Portland, Maine legalized adult possession of up to 2.5 ounces with a stunning 70% in favor.
In 3 Michigan cities -- Ferndale, Jackson, and Lansing -- voters approved legalization of posession of up to 1 ounce of marijauna by margins of 61% or greater.
In Colorado, where voters legalized possession, productions and sales last November, voters approved a 25% tax when legal sales start in January.
by Marvin Ammori
Net neutrality is a dead man walking. The execution date isn’t set, but it could be days, or months (at best). And since net neutrality is the principle forbidding huge telecommunications companies from treating users, websites, or apps differently — say, by letting some work better than others over their pipes — the dead man walking isn’t some abstract or far-removed principle just for wonks: It affects the internet as we all know it.
by David Cole
Achieving justice for racial discrimination has long been fraught with obstacles. During the civil rights era, it was Southern governors and school boards who blatantly obstructed court orders to desegregate schools. In more recent years, the burdens have been erected not by Southern politicians, but by the courts themselves. The Supreme Court has made it virtually impossible to prove race discrimination short of compelling evidence that specific individuals were intentionally targeted because of their race; proof that government policies or practices—up to and including the death penalty—have widespread discriminatory effects on African-Americans is not enough. And by striking down a core part of the Voting Rights Act last term, the Supreme Court has decided that states and localities that had discriminatory voting practices in the past no longer need to have changes to their voting laws vetted to ensure they don’t continue to discriminate.
Outrage and denunciations are following reports out of the UK which show that the British government has labeled the husband of journalist Glenn Greenwald a "terrorist" for allegedly possessing leaked NSA documents while passing through London's Heathrow Airport earlier this year.
by George Zornick
Starting Friday, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will see a $5 billion reduction in funding. This means families of four who rely on food stamps will receive $36 less each month, starting now—a serious blow to struggling families, but also the economy, since every federal dollar spent on food stamps generates $1.74 in economic activity.
This is just a prelude to deeper food stamp cuts likely to come, as Congress debates a five-year farm bill. So it is important to get the political dynamics of Friday’s cut correct. There is a troubling trend among some left-leaning writers to blame the big bad GOP. See for example Jonathan Capehart in the Washington Post: “Oh SNAP, veterans get dissed by the GOP.” But that’s not the entire story.
DENVER, CO — After last weekend’s International Drug Reform Conference in Denver, a clear picture is emerging of which states are likely to be the first to follow Colorado and Washington down the path of marijuana legalization. And while some recent polls suggest the American public is getting ahead of even the leading marijuana reform honchos, well-laid plans already in place point to the possibility of a 2014 trifecta, with Oregon following Alaska to legalization through the initiative process and Rhode Island becoming the first state to legalize through the legislature.
by Howard Friel
In the state where Indy Media has been censured (Michigan) for some time, a few visionary poets, a.k.a. "orrior poetz" have been engaging the systematically dumbed-down, no matter what. Today, on Halloween, we have a report about one angle of bringing depth and substance to an otherwise emptied spectacle as usual!
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by Juan Cole
The revelation from the Snowden Papers that the National Security Agency had German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal cell phone under surveillance has produced a central fallout. Dueling leaks over the international embarrassment have forced the White House to a key admission: President Barack Obama did not know what the NSA was up to.
Ever since the Snowden revelations of the massive, world-girdling extent of NSA electronic surveillance surfaced, I have been wondering two things: Did they tell Obama about it when they took office in 2009? And, do they have something on Obama?
Outgoing NSA head Keith Alexander or his circle leaked to German tabloid Bild am Sonntag that Alexander had told Obama about the tap on Merkel’s personal phone in 2010 and that Obama asked for more information on Merkel at that time.
by William Greider
With his usual directness, Professor Lawrence Goodwyn told his doctor to tell the truth. How long did he have? Weeks, months, the doctor said. My old friend and Nell Goodwyn, his wife, shared the news. A great historian was dying, I realized, the teacher who has been my lodestar for more than a generation. I told Larry I needed to say some things, in case we didn’t get another chance. Glad that I did. He died a month later on September 29. A memorial celebration will be held on November 9 on the Duke University campus where he taught for thirty-one years.
by Jay Walljasper
Despite missteps, cities are learning to build bike lanes while advancing social justice.Rev. Kenneth Gunn’s ministry at Chicago’s Bread of Life Church encompasses both the Bible and bicycles. He organized a bike club that regularly rides from the South Side church to Lake Michigan and along the Lakefront Trail. In his spare time, Gunn repairs donated bikes that he gives to kids in the predominantly African-American neighborhood.
WASHINGTON, DC — Gallup released new polling data today that shows an overwhelming majority of Americans want marijuana to be legalized. According to their survey, 58% of Americans support legalizing marijuana, while only 39% are opposed.
This is up significantly from the last time Gallup polled the question in 2012, when only 48% of Americans were in favor and 50% were opposed. For historical perspective, the first time they surveyed this question in 1969 a paltry 12% of Americans were in favor of legalization.
by Michelle Chen
As tuitions rise and the job market still slumps, many young college graduates are wrestling with the question of how to make their increasingly expensive educations pay off. Now, new technologies are emerging as a potential solution for the college affordability crisis, according to some educational administrators and officials. The growing public fascination with “Massive Open Online Courses,” or MOOCs, suggests that in the near future, a public university degree may become cheaper and more accessible, with a greater economic "return on investments" for the government. Yet some education advocates are wary of the MOOC phenomenon and urge the government to focus on brick-and-mortar educational investments before seeking a magic bullet .
by Richard Eskow
As the Bob Dylan song says: “Things should start to get interesting right about now.” You may think they’re already interesting – what with government closings, threats of a debt default, and extremist rhetoric under the Capitol Dome – but chances are we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
In twelve weeks or so our new system of government-by-crisis will resume its regularly scheduled programming: more threats, more confrontations, and even more extreme rhetoric.
There are only a few ways this could play out, and most of them involve cuts to Medicare and Social Security. The ones which don’t probably involve either A) catastrophic gridlock or B) a mobilized citizenry.
Your personal level of optimism probably correlates closely to whether you think A or B is more likely.
Vox populi
Any scenario which leads to Social Security or Medicare cuts would be bad for seniors. It would also be bad for any politician who supported it.
As I write this blog, Canada is at war with the Mi'kmaw Nation -- again -- this time in Elsipogtog (Big Cove First Nation) in New Brunswick. The Mi'kmaw have spoken out against hydro-fracking on their territory for many months now. They have tried to get the attention of governments to no avail. Now the Mi'kmaware in a battle of drums and feathers versus tanks and assault rifles -- not the rosy picture painted by Canada to the international community.
by Robert Parry
Even as the Republican Right licks its wounds after taking a public-opinion beating over its government shutdown and threatened credit default, the Tea Partiers keep promoting a false narrative on why the U.S. debt has ballooned and why the economy struggles, a storyline that will surely influence the next phase of this American political crisis.
If a large segment of the American public continues to buy into the Tea Party’s fake reality, then it is likely that both the political damage and the economic decline will continue apace, with fewer good-paying jobs, a shrinking middle class and more of the bitter alienation that has fed the Tea Party’s growth in the first place. In other words, the United States will remain in a vicious circle that is also a downward spiral.
The pattern can only be reversed if American voters come to understand how and why their economic well-being is getting flushed down the drain.
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