Friday, December 27th, 2013
JOE GAROFOLI, - San Francisco Chronicle
Stephan: This is the latest in the Marijuana Trend. Sebastopol, California may be only a town of 7,525 in the wine country, but it has done something historic as this report describes.
Here’s another marijuana-in-politics first: A marijuana activist is now mayor of a city.
This week, the Sebastopol City Council selected Robert Jacob – the founder and executive director of Peace in Medicine, two licensed medical marijuana dispensaries – as its mayor. He is believed to be the first dispensary operator to serve in an elected official capacity in local, state or federal government.
It’s hardly a surprise in town, where Jacob began serving on the city’s Planning Commission in 2011, then was elected to City Council in 2012. He was its vice mayor before getting the top job this week.
Jacob has worked to create statewide dispensary regulations as well as help craft local rules in Napa, Sacramento, San Jose, and Stockton. The North Bay Business Journal included Jacob in its annual listing of ‘Forty Under 40
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Friday, December 27th, 2013
MARIAH BLAKE, - Mother Jones
Stephan: Here is a particularly elegant and original Akido move by cities to hold the banks accountable. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out.
Some of the cities hardest hit by the sub-prime mortgage crisis are fighting back with lawsuits against the banks whose lending fueled the collapse of the housing market. Most recently, the city of Miami filed three separate suits against Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup, claiming their lending practices violated the federal Fair Housing Act and cost the city millions in tax revenue.
The cases, all of which were filed in the Southern District of Florida, focus on the banks’ treatment of minority borrowers. According to the city, minority residents were routinely charged higher interest rates and fees than white loan applicants, regardless of their credit history. They were also stuck with other onerous terms-such as prepayment penalties, adjustable interest rates, and balloon payments-that increased their odds of falling into foreclosure.
It’s no secret that some big banks discriminated against minority borrowers during the housing bubble. Racial bias ran so deep inside Wells Fargo’s mortgage division that employees regularly referred to subprime mortgages as ‘ghetto loans’ and African American borrowers as ‘mud people,’ according to testimony from former bank officials. In 2011, Bank of America paid $355 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit, charging that its Countrywide Financial unit steered […]
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Thursday, December 26th, 2013
RAY MCGOVERN, - Reader Supported News
Stephan: The other thought that has stayed with me over this Christmas holiday is the rise of America's surveillance police state. It's development no less bogus than the endless war that birthed it. And that made me remember President Harry Truman's famous Op-ed piece, 'Limit CIA Role to Intelligence.' His observations are of particular importance including the irony that it was Truman who created the CIA.
Fifty years ago, exactly one month after John Kennedy was killed, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled ‘Limit CIA Role to Intelligence.’ The first sentence of that op-ed on Dec. 22, 1963, read, ‘I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency.’
It sounded like the intro to a bleat from some liberal professor or journalist. Not so. The writer was former President Harry S. Truman, who spearheaded the establishment of the CIA 66 years ago, right after World War II, to better coordinate U.S. intelligence gathering. But the spy agency had lurched off in what Truman thought were troubling directions.
Sadly, those concerns that Truman expressed in that op-ed – that he had inadvertently helped create a Frankenstein monster – are as valid today as they were 50 years ago, if not more so.
Truman began his article by underscoring ‘the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency … and what I expected it to do.’ It would be ‘charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President without Department ‘treatment’ or interpretations.’
Truman then […]
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Thursday, December 26th, 2013
BARTON GELLMAN, - The Washington Post
Stephan: I know that some feel Edward Snowden is a traitor. I think of him as a whistle blower willing to sacrifice his life to get our attention about the out-of-control surveillance state that has arisen like a toxic black mold threatening the structure of our democracy.
MOSCOW – The familiar voice on the hotel room phone did not waste words.
‘What time does your clock say, exactly?
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Thursday, December 26th, 2013
LATEEF MUNGIN, MOHAMMED TAWFEEQ and JOE STERLING, - CNN
Stephan: This Christmas, as Ronlyn and I sat in our daily meditation, I could not get out of my mind the trillions of dollars spent for bogus reasons which have left hundreds of thousands dead, including nearly eight thousand young Americans, two nations, Iraq and Afghanistan in a chaos of destruction and one, the U.S., with a legacy of damaged young people and their families that will haunt us for a generation. The Latin phrase Cui bono -- who benefits -- kept coming to my mind. War contractors like Halliburton certainly benefited. People like Dick Cheney benefited. But I can't think of anyone else.
Two car bombs targeting Christians killed at least 38 people in southern Baghdad on Christmas.
In Afghanistan, two rounds of ‘indirect fire’ hit the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul, but no one was hurt.
The incidents highlight the security challenges with which both Iraq and Afghanistan are grappling.
Both countries have had a heavy U.S. military presence until recently.
The departure of U.S. forces from Iraq has done little to curb the near-daily cycle of violence. In Afghanistan, U.S. and Afghan officials are working on an important security pact to outline the future of American troops in Afghanistan.
Iraq attacks
In Iraq, a car bomb exploded outside a church in southern Baghdad just as worshipers were leaving a Christmas Day service, killing many. In another attack Wednesday, a car bomb went off at an outdoor market where many Christians shop, police said.
Altogether, at least 38 people were killed and some 70 others were wounded, the Interior Ministry said. The bomb outside the church killed 27 and wounded 56. The market attack left 11 dead and 14 wounded.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad condemned the attacks — in the Dora area of Baghdad — targeting ‘Christians celebrating Christmas.’
‘The Christian community in Iraq has suffered deliberate and senseless targeting […]
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