TRENTON — The bill legalizing medical marijuana, which was passed by the New Jersey Legislature today, will go into effect six months after Gov. Jon Corzine signs it, as he promised to do before he leaves office Tuesday. New Jersey will become the 14th state to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, and each state’s laws have their own idiosyncrasies.

Until medical marijuana becomes legal here, the state Department of Health and Senior Services will face intense lobbying from advocacy groups as it outlines a wide range of rules, such as where marijuana can be grown in the state, how much it will cost and who gets to distribute the drug. Read the full story

10 states face financial peril

Dropping tax revenue, rising unemployment and yawning budget gaps are wreaking havoc in states from Arizona to Wisconsin, a new report shows.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The same economic pressures that pushed California to the brink of insolvency are wreaking havoc on other states, a new report has found.

And how state officials deal with their fiscal problems could reverberate across the United States, according to the Pew Center on the States’ analysis released Wednesday.

The 10 most troubled states are: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

Other states — including Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, New York and Hawaii — were not far behind.

The list is based on several factors, including the loss of state revenue, size of budget gaps, unemployment and foreclosure rates, poor money management practices, and state laws governing the passage of budgets.

These troubles have forced these states — as well as many others — to raise taxes, lay off or furlough state workers and slash services. These actions can slow down the nation’s recovery, especially since these 10 states account for one-third of the country’s population and economic output.

“Decisions these states make as they try to navigate the recession will play a role in how quickly the entire nation recovers,” said Susan Urahn, managing director of Pew Center on the States.

In a separate study released Wednesday, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that states will likely have to make steep cuts in their fiscal 2011 budgets, which start next July 1 in most states. That’s because the critical federal stimulus dollars will run out by the end of 2010.

These cuts could take nearly a percentage point off the national gross domestic product and cost the nation 900,000 jobs, the study found.

Here’s a summary of what Pew found is plaguing each of the states:

California: The Golden State’s housing collapse — and resulting unemployment surge — has plagued the state’s economy. The weakening economy prompted revenue to fall by nearly a sixth between the first quarters of 2008 and 2009. State lawmakers have limited ability to deal with California’s massive budget gap due to several voter-imposed restrictions, including requirements that all budgets and tax increases pass the legislature by a two-thirds majority.

Arizona: The state depends heavily on a growing economy to bring in tax revenue, and lawmakers don’t have a lot of leeway to address budget deficits thanks to voter-imposed spending constraints. Lawmakers relied on one-time fixes to balance its budget instead of making long-term changes.

Rhode Island: The Ocean State has among the highest unemployment rates in the nation and among the highest foreclosure rates in New England. High tax rates, big budget deficits and a lack of high tech jobs are hurting its chances to pull out of the doldrums. State government has a poor record of managing its finances

Michigan: The state never climbed out of the recession that started in 2001, and matters only became worse during the Great Recession. Two of the Big Three Detroit-based automakers went bankrupt in 2009, sending shockwaves through a state on track to lose a quarter of its jobs this decade. The recession accelerated drops in state revenue, and has left Michigan’s government trying to deal with today’s problems on a 1960s-sized budget.

Nevada: Nevada is one of the recession’s big losers as its gaming-based economy suffered. Year-over-year revenue has fallen for two consecutive years, a record. But changing tax laws is tough because some are written into the state constitution.

Oregon: Oregon’s leading industries, such as timber and computer-chip manufacturing, have been hit hard in the recession. Lawmakers have approved more than $1 billion in new taxes to keep it afloat. But voters in January will have the final say on another $733 million in new income taxes.

Florida: For the first time since World War II, Florida’s population is shrinking — bad news for an budget built on new residents flocking to the Sunshine State. Lawmakers raised $2 billion in new revenue this year, but could face a similar shortfall next year.

New Jersey: The Garden State, which has been plagued by years of fiscal mismanagement, spends more than it collects in revenue. The collapse of Wall Street, which supports about one-third of New Jersey’s economy, has only made matters worse.

Illinois: Since the last recession earlier this decade, the state piled up huge backlogs of Medicaid bills and borrowed money to pay its pension obligations. The state’s current budget still relies heavily on borrowing and paying bills late.

Wisconsin: Wisconsin has a long history of budget shortfalls. It also borrows frequently to cover operating expenses, among other measures. Unemployment is climbing as manufacturing, the state’s largest sector, sputters.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group, says the states need additional federal fiscal relief to avoid budget cuts that will hurt both the economy and people. State and local spending accounts for about one-eighth of the GDP.

Already, less than five months into fiscal 2010, several states are looking at additional budget cuts. Rhode Island announced Tuesday it is facing a revenue shortfall for the current fiscal year of $130.5 million. Gov. Donald Carcieri said the state must examine its aid to local governments, since it has already cut personnel and social service programs.

And in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that his state is facing a budget gap of up to $7 billion. The state will likely announce across-the-board spending cuts in January.

“So we just have to hang in there, tighten our belts and live within our means,” he said.

The center would like to see the federal government allocate another $50 billion, while economist Mark Zandi said about half of that would be needed. Congress should pass the additional aid now since states are currently crafting their fiscal 2011 budgets.

States received billions of dollars in funding from the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus package, including $87 billion for Medicaid and $48.3 billion for maintaining education and other key services.

The stimulus funds plugged about 30% to 40% of the budget gaps states were facing, and created or saved more than 300,000 jobs, said Iris Lav, the center’s senior adviser.

But the economic downturn is greater than administration officials expected when the Recovery Act was passed in February, Lav said. That’s why more assistance is needed now.

Budget projections show that states could face deficits as large as $260 billion in 2011 and 2012 after stimulus funding is exhausted. State economies usually take up to two years longer to recover after the nation’s fiscal health begins to improve.

New budget cuts and tax increases “will be a serious drag on the economy at just the wrong time,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.

Without assistance, the economy could slide back into a recession, he said.

NEW YORK — A home movie purporting to show Marilyn Monroe smoking a marijuana joint has surfaced some five decades after being shot at a gathering with friends in New Jersey.

Collector Keya Morgan uncovered the color footage while researching an documentary which he says will prove Monroe was murdered in August 1962.

The reel-to-reel film, which has no sound, shows Monroe relaxing with female friends in a house and smoking. Read the full story

(CNN) — Vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur said Tuesday it shipped the first batch of H1N1 flu vaccine from its plant in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, several days earlier than expected.

A single dose induces a strong immune response in healthy adults and children as young as 9.

Further shipments will be ongoing on a regular basis, with a total of 75.3 million doses expected through December, said Donna Cary, spokeswoman for the vaccine maker.

Citing security concerns, she would not divulge which of the distribution centers set up by the Department of Health and Human Services will get the first doses.

Sanofi Pasteur is one of four vaccine makers approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“We will have enough vaccine available for everyone,” Kathleen Sebelius told the House Energy and Commerce Committee this month.

Tuesday’s shipment comes a few days before health officials had anticipated. This month, Sebelius had predicted that the large-scale vaccination program against H1N1 — also called swine flu — would begin in mid-October at as many as 90,000 sites, and that limited amounts of the vaccine were expected to be available a week to 10 days earlier.

A single dose induces a strong immune response in healthy adults and children as young as 9, though children younger than that may need two doses, she said.

Clinical trials are under way among pregnant women, who appear to be at heightened risk of dying from the disease.

Though researchers had originally expected it would take 21 days from the time of inoculation for the vaccine to induce an immune response robust enough to confer protection, they were pleasantly surprised when the first trials found that protection occurred in eight to 10 days for most people older than 9 years of age.

The two types of vaccine that have been approved — a flu shot made from inactivated or dead virus and a nasal spray made from live, weakened virus — will be available free of charge, though some providers may charge an “administration fee,” Sebelius said.

The last attempt to inoculate the U.S. population against a type of swine flu occurred in 1976 after some 200 soldiers from Fort Dix, New Jersey, became infected. Though the flu never spread, some 40 million Americans got the vaccine, which was blamed for hundreds of cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that causes severe muscle weakness.

http://www.cnn.com/

MSNBC is continuing the push for H1N1 vaccinations, even though its a proven fact that the virus kills less people yearly worldwide than the regular seasonal flu. Check our previous articles regarding the vaccine…the only thing that is “terribly efficient” about this virus is the continuous stream of hype the mainstream media has pushed on us. Read this piece found on Operation Mindseed for more info… Read the full story

Not a good look for the Clintons, President Obama, and other key democrats he has helped…

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200908251258DOWJONESDJONLINE000315_FORTUNE5.htm

NY Businessman Charged With $74 Million Bank Fraud Against Citigroup

A New York man was charged with allegedly defrauding Citigroup Inc. (C) out of $74 million in loans. Read the full story

Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) — New York City’s Central Park was slammed last night by a sudden thunderstorm with tropical storm- force winds that toppled or damaged hundreds of trees, some of them almost a century old.

“It’s possibly the worst damage Central Park has ever suffered from a storm,” said Adrian Benepe, the city’s parks commissioner, in a telephone interview.

Scattered thunderstorms developed just west of Newark, New Jersey, around 9:30 p.m. local time, leading the National Weather Service to issue a thunderstorm warning for midtown Manhattan and Central Park, said David Wally, a meteorologist with the service’s forecast office in Upton, New York.

The storm moved over the park at about 10 p.m., with wind gusts as strong as 70 miles (113 kilometers) per hour registering on Doppler radar, Wally said. At least 300 mature trees were toppled or snapped in half, while several thousand lost limbs in a half-mile “swath of devastation” in Manhattan between 90th and 110th streets, from Riverside Park east to Randall’s Island, Benepe said. There were no reports of injuries, he said.

“The tragedy is that we lost many large, mature trees close to a century old and some very important specimens of American elms and horse chestnuts and yellow buttonwoods,” said Benepe, who estimated the cleanup costs would run at least into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Continue Reading:

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Now this is interesting to say the least. Apparently the FBI is training people to root out “problematic” people in the states.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BLOGGER_LAWMAKER_THREATS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-08-18-12-23-58

Attorney: FBI trained NJ blogger to incite others

By KATIE NELSON
Associated Press Writer

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A New Jersey blogger facing charges in two states for allegedly making threats against lawmakers and judges was trained by the FBI on how to be deliberately provocative, his attorney said Tuesday.

Hal Turner worked for the FBI from 2002 to 2007 as an “agent provocateur” and was taught by the agency “what he could say that wouldn’t be crossing the line,” defense attorney Michael Orozco said.

“His job was basically to publish information which would cause other parties to act in a manner which would lead to their arrest,” Orozco said.

Prosecutors have acknowledged that Turner was an informant who spied on radical right-wing organizations, but the defense has said Turner was not working for the FBI when he allegedly made threats against Connecticut legislators and wrote that three federal judges in Illinois deserved to die.

“But if you compare anything that he did say when he was operating, there was no difference. No difference whatsoever,” Orozco said.

Special Agent Ross Rice, a spokesman for the FBI in Chicago, said he would not comment on or even confirm Turner’s relationship with the FBI.

Orozco spoke to reporters after a court hearing in Hartford on Tuesday. Turner, 47, of North Bergen, N.J., did not appear, because he is in federal custody in Illinois. His arraignment on the Connecticut charges was rescheduled to Oct. 19.

In June, Turner urged his readers to “take up arms” against Connecticut lawmakers and suggested government officials should “obey the Constitution or die,” because he was angry over legislation – later withdrawn – that would have given lay members of Roman Catholic churches more control over their parish’s finances.

He wrote in Internet postings the same month that the Illinois federal appeals judges “deserve to be killed” because they issued a ruling that upheld ordinances in Chicago and suburban Oak Park banning handguns. He included their photos and the room numbers of their chambers at the courthouse.

Orozco officially joined Turner’s defense team in the Connecticut case on Tuesday, with approval from Superior Court Judge David Gold. Orozco said his Newark, N.J.-based firm has been representing Turner for the past five years, including during his FBI informant years.

Turner’s Connecticut attorney, Matthew R. Potter, said it’s too early to tell which trial will move forward first. Orozco said he plans First Amendment defenses in both cases.

Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago, said the office would not comment on Orozco’s statements.

Three men were indicted on charges of being responsible for five corporate data breaches in a scheme in which the card numbers were stolen from Heartland Payment Systems, 7-Eleven Inc and Hannaford Brothers Co, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

The suspects also hacked two unidentified corporate victims, the US attorney’s office in New Jersey said in the statement. Read the full story

NEW YORK (WPIX) — A helicopter and a small plane have collided just before noon over the Hudson river.

There were five tourists and a pilot onboard the sightseeing helicopter. It is being reported that three people were on the plane. At least one passenger has been killed and six others have been rescued thus far. Read the full story