Pot Holder: DOJ Flips On State Marijuana Laws

In a huge shift on federal drug policy, Eric Holder and the Justice Department have issued new prosecutorial guidelines for marijuana-related offenses, which boil down to "as long as the states that have legalized pot keep it under control, we're good."

More than six months after Washington and Colorado passed ballot initiatives to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said today he would not sue to block the implementation of the laws — at least not until he sees how the laws operate in effect. This announcement came as little surprise, after reports from earlier communication between DOJ and the governor.

More significantly, the Department of Justice also issued new guidance to prosecutors today calling for scaled back prosecution not just of users of marijuana, but also of distributors and growers complying with state law.

The guidance includes this passage:

Accordingly, in exercising prosecutorial discretion, prosecutors should not consider the size or commercial nature of a marijuana operation alone as a proxy for assessing whether marijuana trafficking implicates the Department’s enforcement priorities listed above. Rather, prosecutors should continue to review marijuana cases and on a case-by-case basis and weigh all available information and evidence, including, but not limited to, whether the operation is demonstrably in compliance with a strong and effective regulatory system.

So yes, big change from raiding large pot growers just because they are large pot growers.  This is a big step in the right direction for the Justice Department, and the second major signal this month that the US has al but admitted to losing the War on Drugs.

And it's about damn time.

Well, If Wingers Didn't Hate The IRS Before...

...they'll SUPER ULTRA HATE the IRS after today.

All legally married same-sex couples will be recognized for federal tax purposes, regardless of whether the state where they live recognizes the marriage, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday.

The federal rules change is one of many stemming from the landmark Supreme Court decision in June that struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. That ruling found that same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits, but left open the question of how the federal government would actually administer those benefits.

“Imagine a pair of women who marry in Albany and then move to Alabama,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote at the time of the decision. “May they file a joint federal income tax return? Does the answer turn on where they were married or where they live?”

As of the 2013 tax year, same-sex spouses cannot file federal tax returns as if they were single. Instead, they will have to opt for filing as “married filing jointly” or “married filing separately.” The location of their marriage — as long as it is legal — or residence does not matter: a same-sex couple who marry in Albany and move to Alabama will be treated the same as a same-sex couple who marry and live in Massachusetts.

“Today’s ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax-filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in a statement. “This ruling also assures legally married same-sex couples that they can move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing status will not change.”

Three reasons why homophobic jackasses in the GOP are furious over this: One, well, the whole homophobia thing. Two, hey look, in one stroke, Obama's IRS are the good guys now! Reason number three comes from my friend Jeff Fecke:

The beauty of the IRS ruling is that a future GOP administration can't undo it without raising taxes.
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) August 29, 2013

Checkmate.

StupidiNews!

• With the UK Parliament rejecting PM David Cameron's preliminary request for military action in Syria, President Obama is facing increasing pressure from Congress for a similar vote.
• A Swedish firm is claiming to have invented a "hydro-nano" gas that traps airborne carbon, and could radically affect environmental efforts to lower the world's carbon output if true.
• President Obama has issued executive orders closing a background check loophole for guns issued to corporations rather than individuals and guns purchased from overseas.
• With the departure of CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft shareholders are proposing that the software giant spin off its Xbox division as a separate company in order to increase the value of shares.
• France is the latest EU country to look into NSA spying by the US in Europe as two French civil rights groups are suing the agency in court.

Last Call For The Principled Opposition

Republicans keep trying to break Obamacare on purpose, putting their own constituents at risk because they dislike President Obama.  The media is beginning to notice, too.  The Washington Post:

Several Republican-led states at the forefront of the campaign to undermine President Obama’s health-care law have come up with new ways to try to thwart it, refusing to enforce consumer protections, for example, and restricting federally funded workers hired to help people enroll in coverage.

And in at least one state, Missouri, local officials have been barred from doing anything to help put the law into place.

The actions have drawn less attention than congressional efforts to cut off funding for the law, or earlier state decisions to refuse to set up online insurance marketplaces or reject an expansion of Medicaid, which sharply limited the law’s reach.

But the moves could impede Obama’s most significant domestic accomplishment, which, despite having withstood a Supreme Court challenge and a presidential election, still faces doubts about its viability. And they could affect implementation at a crucial time, just as some of the major provisions of the law, also known as Obamacare, are set to go into effect.

Now understand these are real people behind these numbers, millions of them, as McClatchy points out in the 21 states where Republicans are actively trying to shut down Obamacare.  They're calling it the "coverage gap"

With limited access to preventative care, many in the coverage gap with manageable chronic illnesses could end up seeking primary care services in hospital emergency rooms, where medical aid is costly and fleeting.

“If they fail to get an insurance card and don’t have ongoing adequate coverage, that’s how they’re going to continue to get care, in the most expensive, least efficient, least helpful way that they can,” said Ellen Kugler, executive director of the National Association of Urban Hospitals.

Gerald Friedman, a health care economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, summarized the options for those caught in the coverage gap.

“There’s no way they can afford individual coverage at that income level, so they’ll do what they do now, which is they go to the free care pools in the hospitals, they go to public health clinics, they borrow from friends, they go to free clinics,” Friedman said, “and they just get sicker and sicker.”

These are real consequences, and real people who will be hurt here, not some nebulous collection of stats and charts.  It's going to do real damage to people, not to mention hospitals, providers, emergency rooms, families, you name it.

Republicans are willing to cause serious damage to the health of millions just because they hate Obama.  That's everything you need to know about the GOP in 2013.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/28/200676/medicaid-coverage-gap-looming.html#storylink=cpy

 

 

Dayton Stands Up To Stand Your Ground

Dayton proves once again that while Ohio's GOP may have the reins now, those in opposition still get to make their voices heard.

City Commissioners have unanimously voted for a resolution opposing House Bill 203, which would expand Ohio law from the Castle Doctrine to the Stand Your Ground law. Ever since Ohio Legislators introduce house Bill 203 to bring the stand Your Ground Law to Ohio, City Leaders began speaking out against it.

"We have to take a stance when you look at the work we've put him in the city in an effort to try and reduce gun violence this kind of flies in the face of it," said City Commissioner Joey Williams.

"You're working as hard as you can Commissioner Williams as we all are here on commission to reduce gun violence why give people a legal way to kill," said Commissioner Matt Joseph.

Of all the citizens who spoke out at today's public hearing no one showed support of the Stand Your Ground proposal.

"All of the block parties that we have engaged in the last five years, all of the town-hall forums denouncing gun violence this proposed HB 203 would do nothing more than further separate alienate and increase the violence and not bring about peace," said Rev. Jerome McCorry of the Adam Project.

Wednesday's unanimous vote by the city commission fulfilled one purpose. It sent a message to the state that the city of Dayton will not stand for the stand your ground law.

"This is a dangerous law," said Bishop Richard Cox of the S.C.L.C. "It's a law that will affect every African-American male in this city and I'm glad you're sending a message to Gov. Kasich and the legislators."

A pretty strong coalition is building against SYG laws in Ohio, and it's a coalition that has beaten back the GOP before.  If there's one thing Gov. Kasich hates, it's bad press, and SYG is nothing but a nightmare for him.  Ohio voters will remember come 2014, and Kasich knows it.

Upper Class Twit Of The Year Awards

A new study shows some pretty interesting links between wealth, entitlement, and narcissism:  the more wealthy and educated you are, the more you think of yourself rather than others.

The fact that rich people often think they're better than poor people is one of those unspoken truths of society. We all know it happens, even if no one likes to admit it.

Luckily, we've got the research to prove it. In a series of studies, University of California at Berkley Psychologist Paul K. Piff tested the links between social class, entitlement, and narcissism.

"Americans may be more narcissistic now than ever, but narcissism is not evenly distributed across social strata," Piff wrote.

Piff and his team completed a number of studies, and every time found a significant link between wealth and narcissism.  The one shining spot:

Piff wanted to see whether simply reminding people of egalitarian values could change their levels of narcissism. He asked one group of people to list three benefits of regarding others as equals. He asked another group to list three activities they did during an average day. Afterward, both groups took a questionnaire meant to show their sense of entitlement.

Findings: People who thought about egalitarian things showed much lower entitlement than those in the control condition.

Injecting a bit of a reminder about the rest of us into the lives of those who think daily about themselves all the time seems like a good idea to me.  On the other hand, does self-absorption to the point of narcissism create wealth the way wealth creates narcissism?

That would be an interesting study.  When all you care about is getting ahead for your own benefit, do you actually benefit?

StupidiNews!

• The British government plans to publish evidence today linking last week's deadly attack in Syria to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons.
• An explosive Associated Press report on NYPD surveillance of NYC's Muslim community after 9/11 finds that the department treated all mosques in the city as "terrorist organizations".
• Penn State University has agreed to a $60 million settlement with 25 victims of convicted former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
• Verizon Wireless says it's nearing a $130 billion deal to purchase the 45% stake in the company back from British wireless giant Vodaphone.
• Climate scientists say an abundance of "La Nina" conditions in the Pacific has slowed the rise of global temperatures slightly, but eventual reversal would mean rapid global temperature gains.

Last Call For MSNBC

Ratings are down big at MSNBC from this time last year, and for some shows it's by as much as half the audience.

Compared to August 2012, MSNBC was down -28% in total viewers and -32% in the A25-54 demographic in total day and -36% and -32%, respectively, in primetime. MSNBC was the only cable channel to see viewership growth last August, thanks in part to live coverage from the Olympics.
“Morning Joe” was down -9% in total viewers and -17% in the A25-54 demographic compared to the same month last year, which actually was a better result than many of the programs that came later in the day.

In primetime, “The Rachel Maddow Show” posted all-time low ratings in total and demo viewers, down -43% and -47%, respectively. “The Last Word” posted a low in total viewers, losing -40% of its total viewer audience and -42% of its demo audience. at 8 PM, “All in” was down -48% and -42% in total and demo viewers, respectively, placing behind CNN for the hour.

In dayside, MSNBC was down double digits in pretty much every hour in total and demo viewers, including 6 PM’s “PoliticsNation,” which was down -31% and -37% in total and demo viewers, and 3 PM’s “The Cycle,” which was down -15% and -18% in total and demo viewers. One of the few programs to improve year to year was “The Ed Show” on Saturday and Sunday, which was up both days in total viewers, and in the demo on Saturday. This may help explain why the channel replaced the 5 PM edition of “Hardball” with the former weekend program.

Part of that loss has been viewers like myself.  I've stopped watching Maddow.  I gave All In a month or so, but have stopped watching that as well.   Last Word really isn't much of an option for me, being that late at night (I'm up at 5 AM on weekdays.)

Much of this is the fact that I could basically turn on any other cable news channel and see the Village taking swipes at the Obama administration.   Joy Ann Reid has been pretty good the few times I've seen her guest host.  Ezra Klein remains abysmal in the same capacity, but for the most part there's nothing on MSNBC that differentiates itself from the other news guys, which I don't watch.

It's telling that the network's longest running show is Hardball, going on its 15th year soon.  All the other shows have increasingly become more like Hardball, not less.

And I hate to say this, but losing Olbermann was the biggest blow to the network so far.  Olbermann at least made for good broadcasting, and he was a pro.  Hayes, Maddow, O'Donnell, not so much.

The Names Remain The Same

As BooMan points out, the people behind the latest neo-con screed demanding President Obama authorize military action that would bring "meaningful consequences" to Bashar al-Assad's regime are the same neo-con assholes who got us into war with Iraq.

We urge you to respond decisively by imposing meaningful consequences on the Assad regime.  At a minimum, the United States, along with willing allies and partners, should use standoff weapons and airpower to target the Syrian dictatorship’s military units that were involved in the recent large-scale use of chemical weapons.  It should also provide vetted moderate elements of Syria’s armed opposition with the military support required to identify and strike regime units armed with chemical weapons.

Moreover, the United States and other willing nations should consider direct military strikes against the pillars of the Assad regime.  The objectives should be not only to ensure that Assad’s chemical weapons no longer threaten America, our allies in the region or the Syrian people, but also to deter or destroy the Assad regime’s airpower and other conventional military means of committing atrocities against civilian non-combatants.  At the same time, the United States should accelerate efforts to vet, train, and arm moderate elements of Syria’s armed opposition, with the goal of empowering them to prevail against both the Assad regime and the growing presence of Al Qaeda-affiliated and other extremist rebel factions in the country.

And guess who thinks this is a great idea?

The signatories on the letter addressed to President Obama inlcude Senator Joe Lieberman, Bernard-Henri Levy, Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, Elliott Abrams, Leon Wieseltier, and many others. Right now, 66 experts have signed the letter.  

Those "many others" include Tim Pawlenty, Norm Coleman, Dan Senor, Max Boot, Larry Kaplan and pretty much the rest of the neo-con jackasses who helped Cheney and his propaganda shop lie us into two decade-plus long wars.  There is no goddamn way I'm supporting Syria intervention of any sort if these bloodthirsty ghouls back it.

Please, Mr. President.  Reconsider.  These are people who think assassinating the entire Assad family will somehow end the conflict in Syria, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Let's not throw our lot in with them.

Orange Potatohead Pie

House Speaker John Boehner is on the road fundraising for his fellow House Republicans, which I guess is like holding up a big sign with an arrow pointing to Orange Julius that reads "I'm with Stupid! (Now Give Me $200,000)."  Monday he was in Boise, Idaho where he had some choice comments about taking the economy hostage again, because apparently it worked so well for them in 2012.

House Speaker John Boehner said Monday that getting the GOP-controlled House to agree to raising the U.S. debt ceiling will only come with a bipartisan deal to make cost-saving changes to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, farm programs and government pensions.

Before becoming speaker in 2011, Boehner said, he’d watched leaders of both parties delay a long-term solution to a baby-boom-fueled benefit crisis.

“I made up my mind that we weren’t going to kick the can down the road any more,” Boehner, R-Ohio, told a Boise lunch crowd at a fundraiser for Idaho’s 2nd District Congressman Mike Simpson. “We’re not going to inflict all of this pain and suffering on our kids and our grandkids.”

He's right.  The GOP is going to inflict all of this pain and suffering on the entire country instead.

“Now, it’s time to deal with the mandatory side,” Boehner said, winning applause from a crowd of 430 at the Boise Centre on The Grove. “I’ve made it clear that we’re not going to increase the debt limit without cuts and reforms that are greater than the increase in the debt limit.

“The president doesn’t think this is fair, thinks I’m being difficult to deal with. But I’ll say this: It may be unfair but what I’m trying to do here is to leverage the political process to produce more change than what it would produce if left to its own devices. We’re going to have a whale of a fight.”

Recalling the 2011 battle over raising the federal debt ceiling, Boehner recalled negotiations that spooked financial markets, prompted Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit rating and angered ordinary Americans. He warned the audience to expect more of the same.

“I wish I could tell you it was going to be pretty and polite, and it would all be finished a month before we’d ever get to the debt ceiling. Sorry, it just doesn’t work that way,” Boehner said. “If this were easy to do, somebody over the last 20 or 30 years would have gotten it done. We’re going to do it this fall.”

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/08/26/2726580/popkey-boehner-visits-boise-still.html#storylink=cpy

Good luck winning in 2014 with the strategy "We're going to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid or shut the government down trying!"  I'm looking forward to a Democratic House and Senate.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/08/26/2726580/popkey-boehner-visits-boise-still.html#storylink=cpy

StupidiNews!

• In something of a surprise move, Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, says it will offer health insurance benefits to same-sex couples starting in 2014.
• The NY Times website outage continues into its second day as the newspaper says it is the victim of a "malicious external attack", the Syrian Electronic Army claims responsibility.
• The Arab League has declared Syria's Assad regime "fully responsible" for last week's chemical weapons attack, paving the way for response from the US and Western allies.
• The latest international city to see a massive housing boom is Prague as the Czech National Bank has cut mortgage rates to near zero.
• In a change from previous upgrades, Microsoft is sending finished Windows 8.1 software to PC makers, but not to TechNet or other IT customers until launch day in October.

Last Call For More Turtle Busters

As if Mitch McConnell didn't have enough problems, he's now drawn a challenger in 2014 from the Libertarian Party.

Libertarian David Patterson has announced his intention to run for U.S. Senate in Kentucky.

A 42-year-old Harrodsburg police officer, Patterson said in a statement that he's making a bid to unseat Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell because voters are looking for an alternative.

Ken Moellman, chairman of the Libertarian Party's state executive committee, said he's pleased Patterson wanted to get into the race. Patterson will seek the party's nomination in an internal primary on March 1.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/08/26/2787050/libertarian-candidate-enters-senate.html#storylink=cpy

We don't know too much about Patterson other than he's a cop and Libertarian (which is umm...an interesting combo, Libertarian and government employee) but Patterson even drawing 1 or 2% from McConnell supporters, should he survive Matt Bevin in the primary, may make the difference in this race when it comes to getting a win for Alison Lundergan Grimes.  Should Bevin upset McConnell, Patterson could possibly split off a substantial chunk of Bevin's support if he continues to be the raging Tea Party jackass he is now.  Either way, I'm happy to see the Libertarians helping pull off a Hoffman Effect victory here for Grimes and the Democrats.

We'll see what happens.  Still well over a year to go.

About To Be Some Syria(s) Fighting

Yesterday's statement by US Secretary of State John Kerry on chemical weapons use near Damascus last week left little room for doubt as to whether or not we're about to attack Syria:

In some of the most aggressive language used yet by the administration, Mr. Kerry accused the Syrian government of the “indiscriminate slaughter of civilians” and of cynical efforts to cover up its responsibility for a “cowardly crime.” 

Mr. Kerry’s remarks at the State Department reinforced the administration’s toughening stance on the Syria conflict, which is now well into its third year, and indicated that the White House was moving closer to a military response in consultation with America’s allies. 

Administration officials said that although President Obama had not made a final decision on military action, he was likely to order a limited military operation — cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea at military targets in Syria, for example — and not a sustained air campaign intended to topple Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, or to fundamentally alter the nature of the conflict on the ground. 

The follow-up by White House press secretary Jay Carney removed what little doubt was left after Kerry's statement.

But even if no decision has been made, Carney laid out a deliberate case for war against Syria, which appears to hinge on the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons. "The use of these weapons is a threat to our national interest and a concern to the entire world," Carney said. "It is because this international norm exits and because it has been so clearly violated that we and people around the world have to address this and seek an appropriate response." 

Syria is promising retaliation to any US action and for its part warns it has the backing of both Iran and Russia.

Syria's foreign minister says his country will defend itself using "all means available" in case of a US strike.

Walid al-Moallem says Syria has two choices, either to surrender or fight back, and it will choose the latter.

He declined to elaborate or say to what specific means he was referring.

Iran of course is ignoring the US and threatening Israel instead, vowing a "larger regional conflict".

A senior Syrian official on Monday issued a first direct warning that if attacked, his country would retaliate against Israel. Khalaf Muftah, a senior Baath Party official who used to serve as Syria’s assistant information minister, said in a radio interview that Damascus would consider Israel “behind the [Western] aggression and [it] will therefore come under fire.” 

And Russia is just outright concern-trolling at this point, continuing to blame Islamist Syrian rebels for inciting war, because really the al-Assad regime is filled with nice guys.

A Western military attack on Syria would only create more problems in the region, lead to more bloodshed and result in the same sort of “catastrophe” as previous such interventions in Iraq and Libya, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Monday.

“Hysteria is growing, and confrontation is incited,” Lavrov said in what he portrayed as an emergency news conference. He said the United States and its European allies have condemned the regime of Bashar al-Assad without any evidence that it actually used chemical weapons in an attack in the Damascus suburbs on Wednesday. 

So at this point, who knows.  I've been warning about the consequences of a Syria strike for almost two years now and been predicting US intervention for almost as long.  The difference this time is that the American people are very much against any Syrian intervention.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has finally found something that Americans like even less than Congress: the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Syria. Only 9 percent of respondents said that the Obama administration should intervene militarily in Syria; a RealClearPolitics poll average finds Congress has a 15 percent approval rating, making the country’s most hated political body almost twice as popular.

Nine percent.  That speaks volumes. 60% oppose any intervention outright.  Count me in that group.  There's no way limited strikes will do anything to Assad's grasp on power and bringing enough fireworks to actually force regime change will all but guarantee Iran and Israel go to war.  It's not worth it.

President Obama can still back down.  I pray he does.  If he decides otherwise, we'll go from there.  But put me as on the record as saying any Syrian military intervention by the US is a bad, bad idea.  Syria is not Libya or Egypt, and the results won't be anywhere near as tidy as Qaddafi's ouster.  We're already seeing massive pressure from the media that an attack is inevitable at this point, and I don't buy that.

Trust me on this one, folks.  If we pull the trigger, it's going to be something we regret.

Dear America

Another one of these this week.  Man, it's getting to be silly season out here.

"Boy, liberals sure are delusional kooks over this inequality crap.  Why can't they just accept that life isn't fair, we're not created equal by any stretch of the imagination, and that the haves will beat the have-nots every time?"

--Thomas Sowell, National Review Online

Bonus Verbatim Stupid(tm): 

The fundamental problem of the political Left seems to be that the real world does not fit their preconceptions. Therefore they see the real world as what is wrong, and what needs to be changed, since apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong.

This coming from people who believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and that all the scientific evidence otherwise was planted to test the faithless, that evolution is a horrific myth that must be challenged, that man-made global warming is a massive hoax designed to sell Tesla cars, that President Obama was born in Kenya, and that the scam of science itself is the primary function of academia the world over.

But the real world doesn't fit the left's preconceptions.  Sure, that's the problem.  This guy is projecting like a lighthouse hooked up to a nuclear reactor, methinks.

StupidiNews!

• UN inspectors continue to look for evidence of last week's reported Syrian chemical weapons attack as the US weighs intervention options, and Russia strongly protests US involvement.
• A judge has approved a $20 million Facebook settlement with users and privacy advocates over using "likes" as product endorsements.
• The US Treasury Department predicts that the federal government will run up against the debt ceiling's borrowing limit by the middle of October.
• Pharmaceutical giant Amgen will buy Onyx Pharmaceuticals in a $10.4 billion deal that will give Amgen access to Onyx's promising stable of new cancer-fighting drugs.
• Pressure from the NFL has sacked a ESPN/PBS joint documentary on concussions in pro football, but PBS plans to finish the film itself.