Stephan: Yet more evidence that the marijuana prohibitionists live in a fantasy world of their own frenzied imaginations, and that none of their dire predictions about legalization are worth the paper it takes to print them on. This report gives us more data on the effect legalization has had on teenagers.
Marijuana Shop
Credit: www.tokeofthetown.com
A study released on Monday found that despite an increased acceptance of marijuana at city and state levels, adolescent use of the drug — as well as approval of it — is down across the country.
The study, published in the The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, looked at marijuana use among adolescents, as well as young people’s attitudes toward the drug, from 2002 to 2013. And the results were surprising.
According to the report, “The proportion of adolescents aged 12–14 reporting ‘strong disapproval’ of marijuana use initiation increased significantly from 74.4–78.9%. Concurrently, a significant decrease in past 12-month marijuana use … was observed among younger adolescents.” In that 12-14 age range, the percentage of those who had used marijuana in the past year decreased from 6 percent in 2002 to 4.5 percent in 2013. For older teens, from 15 to 17, disapproval of pot didn’t change, but the percentage of teens who had smoked weed in the previous year declined from […]
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Saturday, July 18th, 2015
Eric W. Dolan, - The Raw Story
Stephan: This story, which got zero coverage in the corporate media, tells the real truth about the Republican Party. Do you think it would be a good idea in the second decade of the 21st century to elect a President who thinks the world is 6,000 years old and was created by an elderly man in the sky in six days?
The corporate media simply will not accurately cover the story of the Theocratic Right's ascendency in the Republican Party. Just as they won't properly report on Bernie Sanders, even though his events draw more people than any other candidate.
American media is a rigged game.
Republican Governor Bobby Jindal
Credit: Derek Bridges/Flickr
A small Iowa church that teaches the universe is only 6,000 years old is a big draw for Republican presidential candidates.
White House hopefuls Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee have already visited the First Assembly of God Church in Indianola, and Bobby Jindal is scheduled to be at the church Saturday, according to the Des Moines Register.
The church hosted a five-day conference on young Earth creationism called the Indianola Hope Conference last year. Rev. Jordan Cleigh of the First Assembly of God Church told the Des Moines Register at the time that fossils discovered by scientists were evidence of the Great Flood described in Genesis.
“For the past 50 to 60 years public schools have been teaching evolution even though evolution doesn’t have all of the answers either,” Cleigh told the Register. “(Creationism) lets people believe in the Bible and Jesus.”
The conference featured a debate between Iowa State University professor Hector Avalos and Iglesia […]
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Kit O'Connell , - Mint Press News
Stephan: The level of American corruption is breath-taking. Whether it is Donald Trump's self-funded Presidential campaign — hey, everyone should have a hobby they can afford — or the Koch brothers, or Sheldon Adelson, or the meat industry, everybody who needs something from the government knows that for a price it can be bought. And the really depressing thing about it is how cheaply the purchase can be made.
And for a large number of the corrupters the real jackpot to get from the government is a war. War is so profitable for the U.S. corporate state that it is irresistible. A single Tomahawk missile, for instance, costs $575,000 and the beauty of them from the profit point of view is that you can only use these things once. Guaranteed.
An MRAP vehicle, of which ISIS has captured over 2,000, depending on how it is configured, costs between $500,000 and a million. War is just unbelievably profitable for corporations. For ordinary people who get shot and blown up not so much. But then who cares about them anyway? They're just your son or daughter. Certainly not Dick Cheney who managed to dodge the Viet Nam era draft, but who has made tens of millions from war, and has never met a war he didn't like.
MRAP vehicle. ISIS has captured over 2,000 of these things, each costing U.S. taxpayers $500,000 to a million dollars.
Credit: www.leidos.com
MINNEAPOLIS — As of April, the oil and gas industry had already spent over $34 million to influence American politics this year. Fossil fuel companies are one of the top sources of funding for Washington lobbying firms, and their deep pockets allow them to far outspend those who seek to protect the environment and the earth’s resources from exploitation.
The figures come from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization working “to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more transparent and responsive government.” According to their data, lobbying from the energy sector topped $141 million last year. The top single corporate spender was Koch Industries, Inc., which spent $13.8 million in lobbying, followed by Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum, one of the […]
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Christopher Ingraham, - The Washington Post
Stephan: As the middle class in the United States has collapsed so too has the creation of new businesses. Here are some facts.
The American economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last three decades. That’s the conclusion of a new study out from the Brookings Institution, which looks at the rates of new business creation and destruction since 1978.
Not only that, but during the most recent three years of the study — 2009, 2010 and 2011 — businesses were collapsing faster than they were being formed, a first. Overall, new businesses creation (measured as the share of all businesses less than one year old) declined by about half from 1978 to 2011
The authors don’t mince words about the stakes here: If the decline persists, “it implies a continuation of slow growth for the indefinite future.” This lack of economic dynamism, particularly the steep drop since 2006, may be one reason why our current recovery has felt like much less than a recovery. As Matt O’Brien noted on Wonkblog last week, annual job growth rates have stubbornly refused to budge above 2 percent for the duration of the recovery.
The authors of the Brookings study dug beyond the national […]
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