Thursday, December 14th, 2017
Ryan Jennemann, - Raw Story/Newsweek
Stephan: Jeff Sessions, in my view, never should have been appointed, let alone confirmed, as Attorney General. Anyone who knows anything of his history knows he is an unreconstructed Confederate from another century. Worse yet he is corrupt, and a perjurer. Personally, having met him a couple of times, I think he is also a moron. But there he is.
His obsession against marijuana is of a piece with his other views, which is to say it is not fact based, but purely ideological, with a heavy spice of theological. Unfortunately, in the face of the current legal, and corporately created opioid crisis that afflicts America, particularly rural America, that is exactly not what is needed.
Here is the latest.
Republican Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Congress just gave the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment, which bars the Department of Justice from using federal funds to prosecute people buying or selling medical marijuana in states that have legalized it, a temporary reprieve until Dec. 22.
However, as Rep. Earl Blumenauer, (D-Ore.) stated, “Two weeks is not enough certainty,” especially when you are talking about patients’ well-being and a North American cannabis marketplace largely made up of small business owners and their employees that is expected to grow 33 percent to nearly $10 billion in 2017 and create tens of thousands of new jobs in the New Year.A recent Gallup poll revealed support for legalizing marijuana is the highest it’s been since the question was first asked in the US in 1969. The poll showed a four-point uptick from a year ago with 64 percent of Americans supporting legalizing marijuana for medical and adult use.In addition to Democrats or independents supporting legalization, Republicans for the first time backed fully legalizing cannabis, a plant found to be far less harmful than alcohol […]
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Thursday, December 14th, 2017
, - The Independent (U.K.)
Stephan: This story is getting zero coverage in the U.S. but it is a significant deal in the U.K., as demonstrated by this piece in The Independent one of the nation's most influential newspapers. I think it is a flashing red light on a trend line.
Think about this for a minute: The partnership of the U.S. and the U.K. was the foundation stone upon which the post World War II world was built. And now almost half the people of Great Britain don't even want the President of the United States to come to their country for a state visit. And that poll was taken before the Alabama vote.
The geopolitics of the world are changing radically, and not in a good way for America.
Around half of the British public think the UK must scrap its invitation for a full state visit to Donald Trump following his support for a British far-right group, a poll has revealed.
The exclusive survey for The Independent by BMG Research shows 48 per cent want the visit written off, with the figure soaring to 61 per cent once “don’t knows” are removed.
Hardening opposition to the official trip, which would see Mr Trump meet the Queen, came as the US ambassador to London signalled a less formal visit to the UK would take place in the new year.
Any journey by Mr Trump to Britain will likely be beset by demonstrations over the President’s support for the far right, his climate change policies, the “Muslim travel ban” and the decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The poll asked respondents whether, following criticism for Mr Trump’s promotion of videos posted by Britain First, “should his invitation be officially withdrawn for his state visit to the UK?”
Of more than 1,500 people in a controlled sample questioned, 48 per cent said the invitation should be withdrawn, 31 per cent […]
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Thursday, December 14th, 2017
Stephan: Anyone who reads SR regularly knows my views on Monsanto, and its chemical industrial toxin based model of agriculture. Here is the latest.
Burkino-Faso cotton farmers
BOBO-DIOULASSO, BURKINA FASO — In 2000, farmers in Burkina Faso, Africa’s top cotton grower, were desperate. Their cotton fetched top prices because its high-quality fiber lent a luxurious sheen to clothing and bedsheets. But pests – bollworms – were threatening the crop.
Even when you dropped the bollworm larvae into a bucket of poison, farmers said, they kept swimming.
U.S. seeds and pesticide company Monsanto proposed an answer: a genetically modified strain of cotton called Bollgard II, which it had already introduced in America and was marketing worldwide. GM was established in large-scale farming in South Africa, but not among the smallholders who produce most African cotton. The Burkina farmers agreed to a trial and the country introduced seeds with the gene in 2008.
The resulting cotton was pest-free, and the harvest more abundant. By 2015, three-quarters of all Burkina Faso’s production was GM, and it became a showcase for the technology among smallholders in Africa. From 2007 to 2015, delegations from at least 17 different African nations visited […]
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Wednesday, December 13th, 2017
The Editorial Board , - USA TODAY
Stephan: This is not the Eastern "liberal" press; this is the largest newspaper in the United States, with a conservative bias.
We are coming to a moment of crisis. The vibe is so much like Watergate, and I was in government and lived through that and knew almost all the players.
A president who’d all but call a senator a whore is unfit to clean toilets in Obama’s presidential library or to shine George W. Bush’s shoes: Our view
Credit: Gregg Pachkowski, Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal)
With his latest tweet, clearly implying that a United States senator would trade sexual favors for campaign cash, President Trump has shown he is not fit for office. Rock bottom is no impediment for a president who can always find room for a new low.
Donald J. Trump
In effort to bolster a global shift to 
