I’ve long said that there’s only one thing holding me back from tossing my cable box in favor of getting all my TV online: live sports.

In particular, I’d really miss ESPN, the legendary all-sports cable and satellite network that keeps me company at lunchtime, gets me all prepped for the NFL on Sunday, and serves up more live tennis that you could swing a racket at. Read the full story

About 80 percent of Americans approve of medical marijuana laws, but some conservatives are incensed that state legislatures keep passing them. In a recent column, George F. Will, the Washington Post’s bow-tied curmudgeon, decried the reefer madness he sees taking over California, sweeping across Colorado and perhaps even coming to a normal state near you. Read the full story

2009 will go down as the beginning of the end of the United States drug war. I have worked at the Drug Policy Alliance promoting alternatives to the war on drugs for 10 years, and I can say without a doubt that there was more debate and movement toward sensible drug policies this year than in the last 9 years combined! Here are 10 stories that contributed to the unprecedented momentum to end America’s longest running war.

1) Three Former Latin American Presidents Call Drug War a Failure (February) Read the full story

The truth about Prince may be orders of magnitude stranger than fiction.

For the past six years, he appears to have led an astonishing double life. Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been helping [the C.I.A.] to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into “denied areas”—places U.S. intelligence has trouble penetrating—to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members. Read the full story

Hey, hyperactive kids, in California you can get stoned — legally. California doctors are now recommending marijuana to children diagnosed with attention hyperactivity disorder, Sphere reports.

Since 2004, California has given out more than 36,000 medical marijuana cards.  The number of these cards going to children - it appears that all of the known cases are teenagers – is not known, as doctors are not required to report medical marijuana cases. Read the full story

The brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who faces a runoff election next week, is on the payroll of the CIA, the New York Times reports, citing unnamed current and former American officials.

The Times reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai has provided a variety of services for the CIA for the past eight years, including finding recruits for Afghan paramilitary forces that operate under the direction of the CIA. Read the full story

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The power of lies, deceptions and disinformation as Americans pay the price of collective stupidity.

“You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us? We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, and we control everything in America. In America you can criticize God, but you can’t criticize Israel…” Israeli spokeswoman, Tzipora Menache Read the full story

Clearly you can see in this more recently released video a line of demo charges going off vertically on the right middle of the building. Note the charges start going off and only then does the building start to collapse with them. And I say this to any who will insist that the “structural failure” caused these effects. Nuh uh, no way in hell.

Something went off inside that building, in a line, just like demo charges!

From the Financial Times (FT.com) Read the full story

The State Department said it would meet one-to-one with Pyongyang negotiators in an effort to persuade the reclusive Stalinist state to return to multilateral talks on dismantling its nuclear weapons programme.

Washington has also accepted a vague Iranian offer of talks on broad national security issues, even though Tehran refused to discuss its illicit atomic operations.

Read the full story

Andrew Breibart’s BigGovernment.com has got to be the strangest anomoly to hit Holllywood since Reagan was elected President.   A conservative website smack dab in the middle of the liberal capital of the world, Hollywood California, BigGovernment.com is becoming more than just a thorn in the side of the left.

The buzz all over the internet this morning is BigGovernment.com’s exlusive of the transcript from James O’Keefe’s investigation that uncovered the Baltimore ACORN chapter promoting fraud and perpetuating child prostitution.

The fact that this had to be exposed by an independent film maker and broke on an internet site is just one more example of the entrenched media’s kid glove approach to all things politically left.  The recent Van Jones fiasco but another.

It’s one thing to swoon for a candidate so much you use your power to sway a national election, tis totally another to completely shirk responsibility to investigate and report on ovbiously fraudelent organizations because it might hurt the image of the man you put in power.

From Dan Rather at the Aspen Institute to the the Marburger brothes in the L.A. Times the entrenched media is constant in it’s lamenting of, and crying for, the saving of “quality”, “investigative”, journalism and news.

They whine of the internet stealing their profits, leaving them withouth the financial resources to do the hard hitting investigative reporting required for a free republic.

Yet a 25 year old independent film maker has just exposed yet another fraud from that Obama favorite organization ACORN.

I wonder how O’Keefe’s budget compares to that of the L.A. or New York Times news budgets?

The lesson to be learned in this whole mess, is not whether a media outlet is right or left, old or new, but rather if it is willing to just report THE TRUTH.

After all the slobbering from the entrenched media over the President’s speech last night and CNN’s misleading poll (45% democrat to only 18% republicans polled) reporting, is there any doubt the only truth report is the administration’s version?

No doubt Breitbart and O’Keefe will be trashed by ACORN and their supporters, but somehow I don’t think they’ll mind.

http://www.examiner.com/

ACORN Officials Could Face Criminal Charges for Trying to Help ‘Pimp’ and ‘Prostitute’

Staffers for the community organizing group ACORN could face criminal charges after being caught on video encouraging a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute to commit federal tax fraud and offering to help them — for a fee — to establish a child brothel, legal experts say.

In a video made public Thursday, two visitors to an ACORN office in Baltimore told staffers they needed assistance securing housing where the woman, a 20-year-old who called herself “Kenya,” could continue to run her prostitution business.

An ACORN official told the couple how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 “very young” girls from El Salvador that they said they wanted to import as prostitutes.

Though no tax forms were filed and the child prostitutes didn’t exist, the ACORN official engaged in “numerous acts of criminal facilitation,” said Judge Andrew Napolitano, FOX News senior judicial analyst.

“Criminal facilitation occurs whenever a person encourages, enables, entices, or explains to another how to commit crimes with the real purpose of helping that person to commit those crimes” — a violation the ACORN employee “committed in full,” he said.

Napolitano said the worker could also face charges for criminal conspiracy, though each charge would require a heavier burden to prove: a so-called “act of furtherance” — a concrete move that makes the conspiracy active.

Napolitano outlined eight crimes the ACORN worker could potentially have committed that could bring a total sentence of 24 years in prison, including criminal facilitation and conspiracy to:

• (a) commit prostitution

• (b) operate a prostitution ring

• (c) file false documents with taxing and other government authorities

• (d) file false documents with a bank [also known as bank fraud]

• (e) violate numerous immigration laws

• (f) transport children into the U.S. for immoral purposes

• (g) transport women into the U.S. for immoral purposes [also known as violating the Mann Act]

• (h) impair the welfare of minors.

But not all legal experts agreed that ACORN had committed a crime. Trial attorney Lee Armstong said that the employee had engaged in “repulsive … disgusting behavior,” but nothing illegal occurred because the entire scenario was a sham.

“For aiding and abetting tax evasion, for aiding and abetting child prostitution … you need the actual crime,” said Armstrong, an attorney for Jones Day in New York. “That’s what’s missing here.”

Armstrong said that the videotape appeared to show the ACORN official hatching a conspiracy, but no violation occurred because the 25-year-old filmmaker was only “pretending” to be a 25-year-old pimp.

“You need an actual agreement between two people to commit a crime. If one person is just faking it, you don’t have a meeting of the minds, you don’t have a conspiracy,” Armstrong told FOX News. “How do you clap with one hand?”

ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — calls itself a network of families “working together for social justice and stronger communities,” according to its Web site.

But the organization has been accused by conservatives and Republicans of committing fraud in voter registration drives around the country, and reaction to the videotape came swiftly after its release on Thursday.

“Taxpayers should be outraged that their money has gone to an organization that, in addition to facing charges of voter fraud and tax violations, is willing to facilitate prostitution,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

“As this video confirms, ACORN continues to operate as a criminal enterprise.”

In a selection from the video, ACORN officials treated the “pimp’s” illegal schemes with nonchalance and offered to help further what they knew to be crimes.

“It’s illegal. So I am not hearing this, I am not hearing this,” said an ACORN staffer who identified herself as an accountant. “You talk too much. Don’t give up no information you’re not asked.”

Because the group receives millions of dollars in federal grants, Napolitano said, “ACORN agents and employees are required by law to adhere to high standards of lawful and ethical behavior; standards akin to those required by law of federal employees.”

ACORN suggested a plan of action for the purported pimp and prostitute, but did not fill out tax forms with any false information. But because the official sought a $50 fee for ACORN’s services, a conspiracy charge could still be considered, a defense attorney told FOX News.

“Conspiracy requires an agreement to do something unlawful and an act in furtherance,” said Mark Eiglarsh, a New York-based attorney. “There’s an agreement to assist in creating the brothel, in tax evasion, a number of other offenses.”

The act in furtherance, he suggested, could be the staffer’s seeking payment for the work. “I think that a prosecutor … would agree to go forward on a conspiracy count,” he said.

Whether or not prosecutors charge any ACORN officials in Baltimore, the filmmaker himself could be in hot water.

A Maryland state statute requires consent from all parties whenever a conversation is taped, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Violations of the law are punishable by a maximum of five years in jail and a fine up to $10,000.

But that statute does not apply to videotape recordings — only to phone calls or other electronic “communications,” Napolitano argued — meaning the filmmaker is likely in the clear.

http://www.foxnews.com/

In the beginning…

The New York Sunday News on March 30, 1947. Read the full story

According to the 1933 obituaries in both Time Magazine and the New York Times, Li Ching-Yun was reported to have buried 23 wives and fostered 180 descendants by the time he died at the age of 256. Read the full story

Big news today. We’ve confirmed that eight more major advertisers have pulled their support from Glenn Beck’s show — Wal-Mart, Best Buy, CVS, Travelocity, Allergan (maker of Restasis), Ally Bank, Broadview Security, and Re-Bath.

Overall, twenty advertisers have now ended their support of Beck. We’re going to keep the pressure on Beck’s remaining advertisers this week, and we’ll let you know how you can help.

From the press release we’re sending right now:

Eight more Glenn Beck advertisers, including Wal-Mart — the world’s largest retailer — have confirmed to ColorOfChange.org that they pulled their ads from the controversial Fox News Channel broadcaster’s eponymous show. Allergan (maker of Restasis), Ally Bank (a unit of GMAC Financial Services), Best Buy, Broadview Security, CVS, Re-Bath, Travelocity and Wal-Mart join the dozen other companies who previously distanced themselves from Beck.

Twenty companies have pulled their ads from Beck’s show in just the last two weeks. The moves come after the Fox News host called President Obama a “racist” who “has a deep-seated hatred for white people” during an appearance on Fox & Friends. Previous companies who pulled their ads include ConAgra, GEICO, Lawyers.com, Men’s Wearhouse, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, RadioShack, Roche, SC Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis, Sargento, and State Farm Insurance.

“We are heartened to see so many corporate citizens step up in support of our campaign against Glenn Beck,” said James Rucker, executive director of ColorOfChange.org. “Their action sends a clear a message to Glenn Beck: Broadcasters shouldn’t abuse the privilege they enjoy by spewing dangerous and racially charged hate language over the air. No matter their political affiliation, hate language doesn’t belong in our national dialogue.”

“Walmart [sic] today confirmed the retailer pulled ads from the Glenn Beck show on August 3rd,” said David Tovar, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.

“While advertising on Fox is part of our communication plan, we had not requested time on Glenn Beck’s show specifically,” said Carolyn Castel, Vice President of Corporate Communications for CVS Caremark, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We have instructed our advertising agency to inform Fox to ensure Glenn Beck’s program is not part of our advertising plan.”

“Our position is simple,” Castel continued. “We support vigorous debate, especially around policy issues that affect millions of Americans, but we expect it to be informed, inclusive and respectful, in keeping with our company’s core values and commitment to diversity.”

In an email exchange with ColorOfChange.org, Lisa Svac Hawks, Director of Public Relations for Best Buy, stated that any advertisements for Best Buy that were placed on Glenn Beck’s show were done so in error. Svac Hawks pledged that Best Buy will correct any mistakes made.

“We did not specifically place our ad on the show,” said Amanda Borichevsky, a spokesperson for Travelocity in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We buy ads in bulk and then they are placed somewhat randomly. However, we have now specifically asked that our ads do not appear during this show.”

“We reviewed our commercial schedule, and based on your feedback, we’ve put any programming featuring Glenn Beck on our “do not air” list,” said Aziz Mottiwala, Senior Marketing Manager for Allergan, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “This means that you will no longer see any Restasis ads during programming featuring Glenn Beck. Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.”

“Ally advertises on a broad spectrum of programs to reach our potential customers,” said a Customer Care Representative for Ally Bank. “Our advertising is not an endorsement of editorial content on any program. We have ceased to advertise on the Glenn Beck program.”

In a phone conversation with Dwayne Sigler, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Broadview Security Systems, Sigler told ColorOfChange.org that Broadview’s advertising is bought based on network, not particular programs, but that “given the considerations, we have requested of Fox News not to include us in the rotation that would have our commercials running on Glenn Beck’s show.”

“…We are no longer airing our commercials on the Glenn Beck Show…” said Mary Beth Mayer, spokesperson for Re-Bath, in a phone message to ColorOfChange.org.

As the list of advertisers who don’t want themselves associated with Beck continues to grow, our campaign is also getting major media attention, which helps send a strong message to Fox and to Beck’s remaining advertisers. Last week, our campaign was mentioned in several media and advertising industry publications, on MSNBC, in the New York Times, and by Stephen Colbert.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/