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kpete's JournalMichael Sam's Classy Response To Anti-Gay Lobbyist
Michael Sam ✔ @MikeSamFootball
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Jack Burkman is going to need a Delorian, not some bogus bill, if he wants to prevent gay athletes from being in the locker room
11:33 AM - 25 Feb 2014
https://twitter.com/MikeSamFootball/statuses/438396364188577792
apology in advance - for Merkel & Netanyhu Pic
could not help myself
bad kpete
http://gawker.com/angela-merkel-did-nazi-this-one-coming-1530500601
via:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/02/25/gawker-wins-the-internets/
Since Legalization in CO: Arrests Are Down, Tax Revenue Is Up & Support Is Growing
These 5 Numbers Show Marijuana Legalization Is Going Well in Colorado
By: Jon Walker Tuesday February 25, 2014 8:20 am
Limited marijuana possession has been legal for over a year in Colorado and retail shops have been open for almost two months. This means there is now real data showing that legalization is going well and mostly as its backers intended. These five numbers tell the story:
1) 77 percent decrease in state court marijuana cases - Legalization has caused marijuana arrest to plummet saving the state money. This drop is remarkable given that Colorado already had fairly liberal marijuana laws before Amendment 64 was approved. The Denver Post found, “the number of cases filed in state court alleging at least one marijuana offense plunged 77 percent between 2012 and 2013. The decline is most notable for charges of petty marijuana possession, which dropped from an average of 714 per month during the first nine months of 2012 to 133 per month during the same period in 2013 — a decline of 81 percent.”
2) $184 Million in new tax revenue – Legal marijuana sales are now projected to bring in $184 million in new tax revenue for the state during the first 18 months. This is higher than initial projections. Much of this money will go to education and drug treatment.
This number isn’t just important because it will help the state balance its budget. Significant tax revenue also proves that people are choosing to move from the black market to the new legal system even though there are high excise taxes.
3) 58 percent support for legalization – Now the that people of Colorado have gotten a chance to directly experience legalization they are increasingly supportive. Currently 58 percent of voters in Colorado support the new legalization law while only 39 percent oppose it. By comparison, in 2012 the ballot measure only won by 55.3 percent yes to 44.7 percent no.
4) 10 percent last month usage rate – In the first month after retail stores opened only 10 percent of Colorado voters said they actually used marijuana. This is right in line with use rates before legalization, showing it has not turned the state into a “land of potheads.”
MORE:
http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2014/02/25/these-5-numbers-show-marijuana-legalization-is-going-well-in-colorado/
"I don't vote for black people…They got their place, I got my place. That's the way I was raised."
On NPR this morning, in a story about Sen. Landrieu's re-election, a Louisiana voter (Broussard) said "The dealbreaker for him was when she voted for the Affordable Care Act." This man has a good job in the oil industry where he gets good healthcare through his employer. The ACA doesn't affect his coverage, so why is he so adamant about Obamacare. Later he says, ""I don't vote for black people … . I don't vote for black people. They got their place, I got my place. That's the way I was raised." That kind of says it all.
"I don't vote for black people, lady," he says. "No, ma'am. I don't vote for black people. They got their place, I got my place. That's the way I was raised."
Broussard says Landrieu votes too much in line with the president's agenda -– he calls her "Obama Lady." But he insists that he might still have voted for her this November if she hadn't supported the Affordable Care Act, because he acknowledges Landrieu has helped the people of her state tremendously since she became a senator in 1997.
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/25/281396562/democratic-sen-landrieu-walks-a-fine-line-in-red-louisiana
"That's the way I was raised."
what a lame excuse...
Brewer Likely to Veto Anti-Gay Measure
Source: NBC
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is likely to veto the state’s controversial measure that could allow businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbians due to religious beliefs, according to three people close to the governor and familiar with her thinking.
One of those is longtime Brewer political adviser Chuck Coughlin, who told NBC News: “It’s been her proclivity in the past to focus on the priorities she wants them [the legislature] to accomplish, and this was clearly not part of her agenda.”
“She doesn’t want to take any actions that could jeopardize the economic momentum we’ve seen here in Arizona,” said another person close to the governor.
The Republican governor is flying back to Phoenix on Tuesday after attending National Governors Association meetings this last week. Coughlin said she will meet with stakeholders on both sides on Wednesday and likely make her decision on Thursday or Friday. She has until Saturday morning to sign or veto the bill.
Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/brewer-likely-veto-anti-gay-measure-n38186
ARIZONA CONFRONTING AWKWARD REALIZATION THAT GAY PEOPLE HAVE MONEY, BUY STUFF
FEBRUARY 25, 2014
POSTED BY ANDY BOROWITZ
...................
Carol Foyler, a Tea Party Republican who supported the anti-gay law, said that the startling bombshell that gays play a role in the state’s economy put her and her fellow lawmakers “in a tight spot.”
“Quite frankly, we were blindsided by this,” she said. “We had no idea that gays had money and bought things just like regular people do.”
Acknowledging that her vote for the anti-gay law might have been calamitous for the state’s economy, Ms. Foyler placed the blame for it squarely on the shoulders of one group: the gays themselves.
“How was I supposed to know what gay people do with their money, etc., when I don’t personally know any gay people?” she asked. “I’m sorry, but it was up to the gays to tell us.”
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/02/arizona-confronting-awkward-realization-that-gay-people-have-money-buy-stuff.html
KRUGMAN: Down the Up Staircase
Down the Up Staircase
James Surowiecki makes an important point: if you want a society in which everyone has a decent life, you need to construct a society in which everyone has a decent life — not a society in which everyone has a small but equal chance of living the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
Not that we’re anywhere close to the second condition, anyway — the most important factor in whether you can become rich is whether you chose the right parents: Most people are going to end up with socioeconomic status close to where they started. But even if that weren’t true, those moving up the ladder would be matched by an equal number moving down. Since anyone could find himself or herself downwardly mobile, social mobility arguably actually strengthens the case for a strong safety net.
I think you want to read Surowiecki in the context of people like Eric Cantor, who first chose to celebrate Labor Day by congratulating people who start businesses — forgetting about the workers — then, more recently, tried to get his fellow Republicans to understand that most people work for other people, and that employees vote too. The point is that even in the best of worlds, only a few people will live out Horatio Alger stories; the quality of our society depends on what happens to everyone else.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/down-the-up-staircase/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Al Jazeera Offered WikiLeaks Money In Exchange For Cables
Al Jazeera Offered WikiLeaks Money In Exchange For CablesAn ex-WikiLeaks employee said the organization offered other things too: “I remember a remark along the lines of noting the women there were very lovely, and very friendly.” A WikiLeaks spokesman said a deal never materialized.
WASHINGTON — Al Jazeera offered WikiLeaks money in exchange for access to the diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks amassed in 2010, according to the accounts of Julian Assange’s former ghostwriter and of a former WikiLeaks employee.
In “Ghosted,” a story by Andrew O’Hagan in the London Review of Books about his experience ghostwriting an autobiography of Assange that was never published, he alleges that Al Jazeera offered Assange $1.3 million in exchange for WikiLeaks data.
“That night, a guy from al-Jazeera was talking to the group,” O’Hagan wrote of a night in January 2011. “The group was usually just Sarah, who lived there, and Joseph Farrell, a pleasant twenty-something whizz kid who came and went. Another guy, an activist and academic from Canberra University, was drinking wine and talking about how to mobilise the world. It turned out that the guy from al-Jazeera was hoping to strike a deal with WikiLeaks – that’s to say, with Julian. He was offering $1.3 million to get access (via encryption keys) to the data. He also wanted to organise a conference in Qatar on press freedom.”
According to James Ball, a former WikiLeaks employee, another meeting with Al Jazeera executives took place in December 2010 in the office of Mark Stephens, then Assange’s lawyer. Ball and WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson represented Assange’s side, while two high-level Al Jazeera employees, one described as the “third-in-charge” and one introduced as the head of investigations, represented Al Jazeera, according to Ball.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/al-jazeera-offered-wikileaks-money-in-exchange-for-cables
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