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
NEW YORK – Brazil has recently generated positive headlines with its 2016 Olympic bid victory, as well as its increased economic and political visibility.
Based on current economic trends, it could be one of the world’s five biggest economies — along with China, the United States, India and Japan — by the middle of this century, according to The Economist.
Yet, the evidence of progress has been marred by the nation’s troubling crime statistics — and reports of unlawful methods employed by the security forces. Read the full story
We have volunteer Soldier “contacts” on the “Where to Send” page. Click through the names and select the one(s) you wish to support. They list what the folks they represent want and need. We even have a search capability so you can easily identify what the troops need most.
All the Soldiers involved in this effort are military volunteers stationed in areas that are in harm’s way. You send your support (letters and/or packages) addressed to them and when they see the “Attn: Any Soldier®” line in their address they put your letters and packages into the hands of Soldiers who don’t get much or any mail first. Everything is shared.
We have “What to Send“, “How to Send” and “FAQ” pages to help you properly send letters and packages, please read these. Be sure to also read our “New & Stuff” and “Success Stories” pages. This effort is 110% voluntary. You send your support, and maybe some stuff, directly to whatever unit or units you want.
We have a video you may watch free online, “Tango Mike!” which is a great overview of how the site works. The video is available for purchase HERE.
Spread the holiday joy to the men and women who put their lives on the line for the freedoms we experience daily in the United States. If all you can send is a letter thanking them, the time and thought will mean the world to them. God bless our troops, and happy holidays!
WASHINGTON — A third of the most popular children’s toys in the United States this year contain harmful chemicals including lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury, a US consumer group said Wednesday.
The Ecology Center, which published its findings on the website HealthyStuff.org, tested nearly 700 toys ahead of the Christmas shopping season and found that 32 percent contained one or more toxic chemical. Read the full story
PALMVIEW, Texas (CBS/AP) President Barack Obama’s approval rating may be hovering in the 50 percent range, but that doesn’t mean America’s Commander-in-Chief isn’t catching on with new constituents.
There is now a line of Ecstasy pills made in the image of the 44th president of the United States, according to Texas police who have snatched a batch off the streets. Read the full story
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.
More stimulus needed
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.
On Monday night, French media giant Vivendi and NBC parent company General Electric agreed to terms that clear the way for US cable giant Comcast to take a controlling stake in NBC Universal. An announcement from Comcast is expected within days. The proposed merger would create a media behemoth, and clear the way for an unprecedented era of media consolidation across cable, the Internet and broadcast television.
Be afraid. Comcast is both the largest cable company and the largest residential broadband provider in the United States: a $34-billion business with 24 million subscribers, reaching nearly one out of every four homes in the country. NBCU owns NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Universal Studios, 27 television stations, and a host of other properties. Read the full story
The Netherlands were the surprise beneficiary of FIFA’s late decision to abandon the principles of the 2002, 2006 World Cup draw’s seeding formula.
In those cycles, FIFA assigned weights to the two preceding World Cup finishes along with the end-of-year FIFA World Rankings from the last three years.
Today, when announcing the eight seeded teams that will be draw into separate groups for World Cup 2010, FIFA disclosed that the only factor in this year’s seeding was the October 2009 FIFA World Ranking. The top seven nations from that last will join host nation South Africa as seeds for Friday’s draw. Read the full story
One of the most interesting things I found out about in this 60 Minutes story is that Wal-Mart is the largest gold retailer in the United States. Here at Disinfo, we distributed Robert Greenwald’s Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, and here’s another troubling consequence to add to this idea, that low price doesn’t come without costs that you, the consumer, may not be aware of. Costs that can make you think twice about exactly what you are buying.
Washington (CNN) — The United States won’t join its NATO allies and many other countries in formally banning landmines, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said during his midday briefing Tuesday.
“This administration undertook a policy review and we decided our landmine policy remains in effect,” Kelly said in response to a question. “We made our policy review and we determined that we would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign this convention.” 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
U.S. President Barack Obama’s trip to China has a dirty little secret: cyberwarfare. It is an issue Beijing refuses to acknowledge exists, but it has the potential to torpedo military relations between the two nations. Almost every other conceivable area of disagreement between China and the U.S. will have been raised during Obama’s visit by one side or the other — even such highly sensitive issues as human rights and the unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang province. But even if U.S. officials try to raise the issue of what they believe is a constant and growing campaign by China to infiltrate U.S. networks, steal secrets and hone Beijing’s ability to wreak havoc in case of military conflict, the likelihood is that Chinese officials will simply deny that the problem exists, as they have done with great success in the past. From the American point of view, there’s unfortunately currently little Washington can do to change that state of affairs.
“At a fundamental level, the Chinese view cyberwar as an overt tool of national power in a very different way from the United States,” says James Mulvenon, a Washington-based specialist on the Chinese military. “The U.S. is still uncomfortable exercising that power, but the Chinese — and the Russians — are very comfortable with the deniability and using proxies, even though the actions of those proxies could have enormous strategic consequences.” Read the full story
New Iowa plant, based on technology developed at MIT, will use bacteria to produce biodegradable plastics from corn.
Every year, more than 250 billion pounds of plastic are produced worldwide. Much of it ends up in the world’s oceans, a fact that troubles MIT biology professor Anthony Sinskey.
“Plastic does not degrade in the ocean. It just gets ground up into tiny particles,” he says. In the Pacific Ocean, a vast swath twice the size of Texas teems with tiny bits of oil-based plastic that can poison ocean life. Read the full story
TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian former deputy defense minister who has been missing for nearly three years was abducted by Israeli agents and is now being held in Israel, several Iranian news Web sites reported Sunday.
Ali Reza Asgari, a retired general who served in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, disappeared while on a private trip to Turkey in December 2006. In March of this year, a former German Defense Ministry official said Asgari had defected and was providing considerable information to the West on Iran’s nuclear program.
Iranian officials and Asgari’s family have claimed that he was abducted.
One of Sunday’s Web reports, on a site called Alef, said German and British intelligence services assisted Israeli agents in abducting Asgari and taking him to Israel. The site is close to a conservative Iranian lawmaker.
“On the basis of a two-year investigation carried out by concerned bodies, Asgari was abducted by foreign intelligence services and is being held in a Zionist prison,” the site reported, apparently referring to an Iranian intelligence probe into the matter.
“Asgari was abducted with the cooperation of Mossad as well as German and British intelligence services and was finally taken to Israel,” the news report said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry refused to comment.
Hans Ruehle, a former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry, wrote in a Swiss newspaper in March that Asgari told the West that Iran was financing North Korean steps to transform Syria into a nuclear weapons power, leading to an Israeli airstrike that targeted a site in Syria on Sept. 6, 2007.
The U.S. claims the site was a nearly finished nuclear reactor, but Syria denies that and says the facility was an unused military installation.
Ruehle said Asgari, who was instrumental in establishing the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, “changed sides” and provided information to the West on Iran’s own nuclear program.
The U.S. and its European allies, as well as Israel, suspect Iran is intent on using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies that and says it only wants to generate power.
Iranian officials have said Asgari was not linked to Iran’s nuclear program, but Western media reports have said he has cooperated with U.S. intelligence and is considered a “high value” defector.
Asgari, who became involved in the olive business after retirement, arrived in Turkey on a private visit from Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 7, 2006, and disappeared on Dec. 9, according to Iranian officials.
Ziba Ahmadi, one of Asgari’s two wives, claimed at the time that her husband did not defect to Turkey and she believed “some evidence” showed he was abducted.
TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian former deputy defense minister who has been missing for nearly three years was abducted by Israeli agents and is now being held in Israel, several Iranian news Web sites reported Sunday.
Ali Reza Asgari, a retired general who served in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, disappeared while on a private trip to Turkey in December 2006. In March of this year, a former German Defense Ministry official said Asgari had defected and was providing considerable information to the West on Iran’s nuclear program.
Iranian officials and Asgari’s family have claimed that he was abducted.
One of Sunday’s Web reports, on a site called Alef, said German and British intelligence services assisted Israeli agents in abducting Asgari and taking him to Israel. The site, http://www.alef.ir, is close to a conservative Iranian lawmaker.
“On the basis of a two-year investigation carried out by concerned bodies, Asgari was abducted by foreign intelligence services and is being held in a Zionist prison,” the site reported, apparently referring to an Iranian intelligence probe into the matter.
“Asgari was abducted with the cooperation of Mossad as well as German and British intelligence services and was finally taken to Israel,” the news report said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry refused to comment.
Hans Ruehle, a former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry, wrote in a Swiss newspaper in March that Asgari told the West that Iran was financing North Korean steps to transform Syria into a nuclear weapons power, leading to an Israeli airstrike that targeted a site in Syria on Sept. 6, 2007.
The U.S. claims the site was a nearly finished nuclear reactor, but Syria denies that and says the facility was an unused military installation.
Ruehle said Asgari, who was instrumental in establishing the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, “changed sides” and provided information to the West on Iran’s own nuclear program.
The U.S. and its European allies, as well as Israel, suspect Iran is intent on using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies that and says it only wants to generate power.
Iranian officials have said Asgari was not linked to Iran’s nuclear program, but Western media reports have said he has cooperated with U.S. intelligence and is considered a “high value” defector.
Asgari, who became involved in the olive business after retirement, arrived in Turkey on a private visit from Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 7, 2006, and disappeared on Dec. 9, according to Iranian officials.
Ziba Ahmadi, one of Asgari’s two wives, claimed at the time that her husband did not defect to Turkey and she believed “some evidence” showed he was abducted.
PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) – The United States’ first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration’s move to relax policing of medical use of the drug.
The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, is the first to give certified medical marijuana users a place to get hold of the drug and smoke it — as long as they are out of public view — despite a federal ban.
“This club represents personal freedom, finally, for our members,” said Madeline Martinez, Oregon’s executive director of NORML, a group pushing for marijuana legalization. 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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