The Maryland Senate voted on Saturday to allow patients access to medical marijuana at state-licensed dispensaries. The bill now moves to the state’s lower chamber.
The bill was approved overwhelmingly, with bipartisan support and without objections or discussion, by a 35-12 margin.
Maryland would join 14 other states in legalizing medical marijuana. The neighboring District of Columbia legalized it in a 1998 referendum that was only recently allowed by Congress to go into effect. The District’s city council is writing rules to establish the city’s medical marijuana policy.
Current Maryland law allows defendants charged with pot possession to cite a medical necessity defense. If a judge deems the drug to be beneficial, a maximum hundred dollar civil fine is imposed. Read the full story
The latest calculation of the National Debt as posted by the Treasury Department has – at least numerically – exceeded the statutory Debt Limit approved by Congress last February as part of the Recovery Act stimulus bill.
The ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at nearly $12.135 trillion.
A senior Treasury official told CBS News that the department has some “extraordinary accounting tools” it can use to give the government breathing room in the range of $150-billion when the Debt exceeds the Debt Ceiling. Read the full story
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to announce a new policy on Wednesday to curb the spread of biological weapons, but it will reaffirm the Bush administration’s opposition to an international regimen for verifying stockpiles of anthrax, smallpox and other agents.
The policy, to be disclosed in a speech in Geneva by the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Ellen O. Tauscher, will focus on increasing health security to reduce the impact of outbreaks of infectious disease, whether natural or man-made, administration officials said Tuesday. Read the full story
Support for the US mission in Afghanistan has slipped to a new low, with 44 percent of Americans now saying the war there has been worth the cost, according to a recently released poll.
Amid mounting divisiveness over what was once one of President Barack Obama’s top foreign policy issues, the poll by The Washington Post and ABC News also showed ratings for how he has handled the mission there eroding, to 45 percent approving of how he is dealing with Afghanistan and 47 disapproving, compared to 63 percent approval last year. Read the full story
For the first time in history, the Federal Reserve Bank may be facing an audit. On Thursday, the House Finance Committee passed a bill (HR 1207) that authorizes the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed’s secretive deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions.
HR 1207, sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), currently has 313 co-sponsors in the House from both sides of the aisle, which is a veto-proof majority. A companion bill in the Senate (S 604) has 30 co-sponsors.
(CBS) According to Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, the government has been “too slow” in providing information to members of Congress in the investigation into Maj. Nadil Malik Hasan and the Ft. Hood massacre.
On CBS’ “Face The Nation,” host Bob Schieffer asked Hoekstra if he was satisfied with the administration’s transparency with members of Congress.
“There hasn’t been enough transparency for members of Congress, for the press, or for the American people. You know, I think that we need to move very, very aggressively and do a full-scale investigation as to who knew what and where,” Hoekstra responded. Read the full story
WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) – After a narrow win in the U.S. House of Representatives, President Barack Obama’s fight for a sweeping healthcare overhaul moves to the U.S. Senate where it faces a difficult path to approval. Read the full story
Last week I was very pleased that the Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, HR 1207. The bill has 295 cosponsors and there is also strong support for the companion bill in the Senate. This hearing was a major step forward in getting the bill passed. Read the full story
Supermarkets’ Bloody Vaccination Campaign Advances “Health Care Reform” by Lethal Injections
By Dr. Leonard Horowitz and Sherri Kane 09-26-09
Wondering why food stores and pharmacies have replaced doctors offices and clinics as vaccination stations? Ask Steve Burd, the wizard behind Obama’s Health Care Reform plan.
Burd, the Chairman of Safeway Supermarkets (VONS, Pavilions, and more) is also the founder of the Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform (CAHR) in the US., and Burd has his fingers in more pies than healthcare. Read the full story
This legislation eliminates the federally-guaranteed student loan program and replaces it with 100% direct lending from the federal government. SAFRA uses the savings to fund an increase in the Pell Grant program among other initiatives. The US Senate is expected to consider its own version of the legislation within a few weeks. Read the full story
On Friday, September 25th the House Financial Services Committee has scheduled a full committee hearing on Ron Paul’s HR.1207 to audit the Federal Reserve. The hearing is slated to begin at 9am eastern time. For details and a link to the (eventual) live streaming video of the hearing check out the committee website. Read the full story
The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses. Read the full story
In a move raising eyebrows among civil liberties advocates, the Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it would give so-called local and state “fusion centers” access to classified military intelligence in Pentagon databases. Read the full story
Support for the US mission in Afghanistan has slipped to a new low, with 44 percent of Americans now saying the war there has been worth the cost, according to a recently released poll.
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