March 18, 2015

A great description of today's GOP by Rodrigue Tremblay

March 18, 2015

March Is a Big Month for Marijuana! 5 States Move Toward Legalization

The legislative season is in full swing at statehouses around the country, and pot is hot. And we're not even talking about medical marijuana or decriminalization bills, we're talking about outright legalization bills.

Early this month, the General Social Survey, the "gold standard" of public opinion polls, reported that for the first time, a majority nationwide favor legalization. Other recent opinion polls, including Gallup and Pew, have reported similar results. And all have reported rather dramatic increases in support in recent years, with the trend still continuing upward.

While Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and DC have already legalized weed via the initiative process, it's taking a few years for state legislatures to notice. There was a similar political dynamic with medical marijuana. Californians voted to legalize medical in 1996, but it took four years for Hawaii to become the first state to do so legislatively.

It's now four years since Coloradans and Washingtonians voted to legalize marijuana. Isn't it time for some state legislature somewhere to get around to legalizing it? Well, maybe. But getting controversial, paradigm-shifting policy changes through such bodies is notoriously difficult and time-consuming. And while polls are reporting majorities for legalization, those are slim majorities. That means there are still a whole lot of people in this country who don't want to see pot legalized.

Still, legalization appears to be the wave of the future. Legalization bills have been or will be filed in at least 15 states this year (see below). Here are five states that are most likely to be the first out of the box when it comes to legalizing pot at the statehouse.

1. Maine. Rep. Diane Russell (D-Portland) has previously sponsored legalization bills and is doing the same this year. While her bill has yet to be assigned to a committee and the legislature is dominated by Republicans, the threat of legalization via voter initiative next year if legislators don't act this year could be enough to concentrate their minds.

See the rest of the states: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/march-marijuana-mania-5-states-moving-legalization

March 18, 2015

I am 86 years old...

And the republicans are back at it again:

March 18, 2015

Aaron Schock's Dad: 'Two Years from Now, He'll be Successful, if He's Not in Jail'

http://theobamadiary.com/2015/03/18/gop-screams-lame-duck-president-obama-moves-america-forward/

March 18, 2015

Glenn Beck Declares: I Am ‘Done’ with the Republican Party...Hahahahahahaaa...bullshit!

Glenn Beck has long flirted with the idea of leaving the Republican Party once and for all and during his radio show Wednesday morning he finally pulled the trigger.

“I’ve made my decision — I’m out. I’m out of the Republican Party,” Beck declared. “I am not a Republican; I will not give a dime to the Republican Party. I’m out.” And he had some advice for his listeners: “Run from the Republican Party. They are not good.”

Beck went on to accuse the GOP of abandoning their principles by failing to effectively stand against Obamacare and immigration reform. “They set us up,” he said. “Enough is enough.”

“They’re torpedoing the Constitution and they’re doing it knowingly,” the host continued. “They’re taking on people like Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and they are torpedoing them. Knowingly. And these guys are standing for the Constitution.”

More and see the video at: http://www.mediaite.com/online/glenn-beck-declares-i-am-done-with-the-republican-party/

March 18, 2015

Stephen Collinson: Obama Redefines The Lame Duck Presidency

At the time in his tenure when most presidents fret over their waning clout, Barack Obama is redefining the concept of the lame duck. His administration has been energized by his aggressive use of executive power. Some of the most hard-won achievements of his early years in office are beginning to pay off. And his political luck seems to be turning. With a term and a half behind him, Obama’s prospects are brighter than they have been for years. Though Republicans paint Obama’s glass as half full, and argued that the administration is overstating its record, that hasn’t rattled the man in the Oval Office.

The new sense of serenity in the White House solidified this week with figures showing that more than 16 million people have now signed up for health plans under Obamacare, the president’s top domestic achievement. That news came on the heels of booming jobs growth numbers and a tangible feeling that after years of slow recovery, things are looking up economically. The unemployment rate, at 5.5%, is at its lowest point since May 2008, before the Great Recession. And the U.S. economy is in much better shape than most of its rivals in the developed world. The White House believes that its initiatives on community college funding, the president’s moves to regulate the Internet and actions to reshape the immigration system are delivering a political dividend, reasoning that many Americans are happy to see gridlock broken and the president taking action, a factor that might be partly reflected in Obama’s better poll numbers. Obama, meanwhile, more relaxed than ever. He’s speaking about race more freely than any time since he became president, notably in his speech on the 50th anniversary of the Selma civil rights marches earlier this month. And the White House counts a climate accord with China and a visit to India earlier this year as big wins for its strategy of rebalancing foreign policy towards Asia. The GOP, for its part, is learning what the White House found out years ago — that winning the Senate last year, and with it control of both chambers of Congress, brings its own problems.

More here: http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/17/politics/obama-politics-white-house/index.html

http://theobamadiary.com/2015/03/18/gop-screams-lame-duck-president-obama-moves-america-forward/

March 18, 2015

Sanders: We need a budget which works for the working families of this country, not just the 1%.

March 18, 2015

Someone's having a good day....

http://theobamadiary.com/2015/03/17/eirinn-go-brach/

March 17, 2015

I wish I was black so I could get a free pass all the time and pull the race card.

Anonymous asked:

I wish I was black so I could get a free pass all the time and pull the race card.

#stevie4spiderman Answer:

I’ll tell you what. On behalf of all black Americans, I’m willing to make a trade. If we get to be paid 30% more on average, be in charge of almost all Fortune 500 companies, have the next forty-three Presidents in a row be black, have 90% of auditions in Hollywood be exclusive to black actors, receive 14% more of the total scholarship funding than our portion of the population, do and deal drugs at higher rates but be arrested less, not be killed every twenty-eight hours by the police, have our literature and history be almost exclusively the source of all compulsory education curriculums, be chosen for jobs if we have felony convictions over you even if your record is clean, be held as the standard of beauty worldwide, and hold a disproportionate amount of the country’s wealth, you can have the “race card.” If we can legitimately switch places, you can “pull the race card” every day and say the n-word eighty times on a megaphone every night before you go to sleep.

http://jean-luc-gohard.tumblr.com/post/113559817398/i-wish-i-was-black-so-i-could-get-a-free-pass-all

March 17, 2015

Éirinn go Brách with President Barack Obama and Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny

President Barack Obama smiles as he walks down the steps of the Capitol with Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny after attending a “Friends of Ireland” luncheon


President Barack Obama holds a book of poetry given to him by Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny during their meeting in the Oval Office



http://theobamadiary.com/2015/03/17/eirinn-go-brach/