Could Detroit be the new Amsterdam -- a city where prostitution and marijuana are both legalized to help attract young people and turn the troubled city’s prospects around?
Why not, barrister and occasional mayoral candidate Geoffrey Fieger said during a taping of “Michigan Matters” on what he would do if he walked in Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s shoes and tried to address the city’s woes.
Tea party Republicans won the House last year by promising to focus on the economy and “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”
But in the four months or so that they have controlled the House, the GOP has focused instead on curtailing women’s rights; defunding programs that help seniors, children and the poor; and going after public broadcasting.
Now the tea party has added the fight against gay civil rights to its agenda. Earlier this week, the Homophobe Caucus in the House quietly scheduled a hearing on same-sex marriage, which it gave the Newspeak title, “Defending Marriage.”
The star witness at the hearing will be Maggie Gallagher, leader of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). Late last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center officially added NOM to its list of domestic hate groups, a longstanding list that also includes the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nation.
Thinking that reporters were out of the room, President Obama opened up Thursday night about the recent budget talks with Republicans and what he called their efforts to sneak in attacks on Planned Parenthood and his health care bill.
"I said (to Republicans), 'You want to repeal health care? Go at it,' " Obama told backers in a private meeting with an open microphone.
" 'We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget.' "
He said he added: "You think we're stupid?"
The Arizona Legislature approved a bill Thursday night that would require presidential candidates to prove they are U.S. citizens before their names could be placed on a state ballot.
The so-called "birther bill" got final approval by a vote of 40 to 16 in the state House, according to the website for the Arizona State Legislature.
The bill's author, Arizona State Rep. Carl Seel, a Republican, has repeatedly said the bill is not targeted at President Barack Obama. "It's not about that," Seel said. "It's about future elections and maintaining the integrity of the Constitution."
The bill still needs to be signed by GOP Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/04/15/arizona.president.bill/index.html?hpt=T2
As expected, the Senate has voted down a measure to defund Planned Parenthood, with five Republicans voting with Democrats to keep the funding in place.
The vote was 42-58.
Even the U.S. military doesn't want to cut the State Department and foreign aid budget. So why is Congress playing a dangerous game with America's global influence?
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama and Congress struggled until the 11th hour to agree on budget cuts that would avert a government shutdown. The United States' budget deficit is a serious problem, and there have been serious proposals to deal with it, such as those by the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson Commission.
But last week's efforts were not a serious solution. They were focused solely on the 12 percent of the budget that is non-military discretionary expenditure, rather than the big-ticket items of entitlements, military expenditure, and tax changes that increase revenue.
Yet while last week's cuts failed to do much about the deficit, they could do serious damage to U.S. foreign policy. On Tuesday, the axe fell: The State Department and foreign operations budget was slashed by $8.5 billion -- a pittance when compared to military spending, but one that could put a serious dent in the United States' ability to positively influence events abroad.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/12/the_war_on_soft_power
At least 11 more bodies have been found in unmarked graves in north Mexico, taking the total to 127 corpses uncovered near the US border, with officials earlier accusing the Zetas drug gang of most of the killings.
The latest finds in Sinaloa state on the Pacific coast came only hours after authorities said Tuesday 116 bodies had been uncovered in mass graves in Tamaulipas state in the northeast.
An official with Sinaloa prosecutor's office told AFP that the five graves on a Sinaloa ranch contained 11 bodies, two of them women. The Mexican government accused the Zetas gang of the Tamaulipas killings, but by late Tuesday officials had not named suspects for the Sinaloa graves.
However a prosecution source said on condition of anonymity that messages were found on the site apparently authored by the Zeta group, as well as messages from members of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/9190872/127-bodies-uncovered-in-north-mexico-mass-graves
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a knack for attracting high-profile litigation — just this week a U.S appeals court shot down a long-running lawsuit brought by twins Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss, who claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea to create Facebook.
But just as that conflict simmers down, a similar one is heating up.
On Tuesday, businessman Paul Ceglia filed a complaint in federal court claiming he's entitled to half of Zuckerberg's estimated $13.5 billion fortune.
As proof, Ceglia has produced a series of years-old email exchanges with Zuckerberg that cast the Facebook CEO as a backstabbing business partner. Though Ceglia has some skeletons in his closet, the fact that he's retained the well-respected law firm DLA Piper suggests he might just have a case.
North Korea has confirmed that it has arrested a US citizen and is preparing to charge him with "committing a crime" against the country.
Jun Young-su was arrested in November last year, the official KCNA news agency said. The US state department announced the arrest on Tuesday and is calling for the detainee's release on humanitarian grounds.
The US has not named him, but said that Swedish diplomats had visited him. The Swedish embassy in Pyongyang looks after American interests, as there are no diplomatic relations between North Korea and the US.
Back in July, federal district court judge Susan Bolton imposed a preliminary injunction on parts of the controversial immigration law passed by Arizona last year, SB-1070.
She enjoined provisions relating to warrantless arrests of suspected undocumented immigrants and document requirements, and also struck down the requirement that police check the immigration status of anyone they stop, detain, or arrest if they reasonably suspect the person is in the country illegally.
Today, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Bolton’s preliminary injunction on several major provisions of SB-1070.
Amazingly, Donald Trump has gone from downright silly all the way to full-blown pathetic in a matter of weeks.
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Channel where he desperately tries to gain favor with the religious right. In the process he once again shows himself to be a man with the self-awareness of a muffin.
http://mariopiperni.com/idiots/the-god-fearing-donald-trump.php
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer on Wednesday vetoed a bill that would have repealed the state's 7-year-old, voter-approved law legalizing marijuana for medical purposes.
Schweitzer's veto came as state lawmakers continued work on an alternative bill to tighten regulation of medical marijuana in the state, where 30,000 residents carry cards allowing them to lawfully use marijuana as treatment for one ailment or another.
Critics of the law, approved as a ballot measure by voters in 2004, say the statute has been abused by some as a pretext for recreational pot smoking and even for illegal drug trade.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/13/us-marijuana-montana-idUSTRE73C6WQ20110413
The protesters are speaking out against Gov. Rick Snyder’s imposition of financial martial law in the state through a budget bill gives businesses a $1.7 billion tax cut while slashing $900 million from education, taxes pensions. Snyder intends to raise taxes on and cut vital services for the poor and middle class.
Snyder implemented the first phase of his agenda last month by cutting unemployment benefits from 26 to 20 weeks.
Shortly after helping to elect Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), Koch Industries opened a new lobbying office in Madison near the state capitol. However, little has been disclosed about the Koch lobbying agenda in Madison. The New York Times reported that Koch political operatives privately pressured Walker to crush public employee unions. But Walker’s major payback to Koch relates to environmental deregulation.
Two of the nails used to crucify Jesus have been discovered in a 2,000-year-old tomb, according to a new film.
The film, 'The Nails of the Cross' by Simcha Jacobovici, follows three years of research during which he presents his assertions - some based on empirical data, others requiring much imagination and a leap of faith.
He hails the find as historic, but most experts and scholars dismissed his case as far-fetched, some calling it a publicity stunt. Many ancient relics, including other nails supposedly traced back to the crucifixion, have been presented over the centuries as having a connection to Jesus.
Many were deemed phony, while others were embraced as holy.
Mr Jacobovici, who sparked debate with a previous film that claimed to reveal the lost tomb of Jesus, says this find differs from others because of its historical and archaeological context.
"What we are bringing to the world is the best archaeological argument ever made that two of the nails from the crucifixion of Jesus have been found," he said.
Charles and David Koch, known far and wide as the Koch brothers, are major funders of climate change denial campaigns.
Owners of Koch Industries, Inc., the brothers have a combined net worth of $44 billion. As a recent report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) puts it, "The Koch brothers make their money from an oil-and-gas conglomerate that emits pollutants that contribute to climate change.
It should not be surprising, then, that the Koch brothers are also major contributors to organizations denying the effects of climate change."
The CAP report cites a Greenpeace report which states that Koch Industries is "now playing a quiet but dominant role in a high-profile national policy debate on global warming." Koch Industries, through its foundations, gave $24.9 to "organizations of the climate denial machine."
Koch Industries also fought the climate change bill, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009.
