Marijuana is sold legally at a dispensary in California.
Credit: Mathew Sumner/AP
The introduction of medical marijuana laws has led to a sharp reduction in violent crime in US states that border Mexico, according to new research.
According to the study, Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations? The Effect of Medical Marijuana Laws on US Crime, when a state on the Mexican border legalised medical use of the drug, violent crime fell by 13% on average. Most of the marijuana consumed in the US originates in Mexico, where seven major cartels control the illicit drug trade.
“These laws allow local farmers to grow marijuana that can then be sold to dispensaries where it is sold legally,” said the economist Evelina Gavrilova, one of the study’s authors. “These growers are in direct competition with Mexican drug cartels that are smuggling the marijuana into the US. […]
Former President Jimmy Carter, a man of integrity
Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the Thom Hartmann Program that the United States is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Both Democrats and Republicans, Carter said, “look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.” (emphasis added)
Carter was responding to a question from Hartmann about recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign financing like Citizens United.
Transcript:
HARTMANN: Our Supreme Court has now said, “unlimited money in politics.” It seems like a violation of principles of democracy. … Your thoughts on that?
CARTER: It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff […]
Vermont Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders
Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Here is where we are as a planet in 2018: after all of the wars, revolutions and international summits of the past 100 years, we live in a world where a tiny handful of incredibly wealthy individuals exercise disproportionate levels of control over the economic and political life of the global community.
Difficult as it is to comprehend, the fact is that the six richest people on Earth now own more wealth than the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people. Further, the top 1% now have more money than the bottom 99%. Meanwhile, as the billionaires flaunt their opulence, nearly one in seven people struggle to survive on less than $1.25 (90p) a day and – horrifyingly – some 29,000 children die daily from entirely preventable causes such as diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia.
At the same time, all over […]
61% of Republicans satisfied with how things are going in U.S.- Overall, 29% in U.S. satisfied, including 9% “very satisfied”
- Americans remain more satisfied with state, local governments
WASHINGTON, D.C. — About six in 10 Republicans (61%) say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. — the party’s highest level of satisfaction since February 2007. This latest uptick comes on the heels of a major victory on tax reform for the president and congressional Republicans at the end of 2017.
Current GOP sentiment about the direction of the U.S. is a major turnaround for a party that suffered depressed levels of satisfaction earlier in the year after a number of legislative setbacks and various challenges to Trump’s White House in its first year. After bottoming out at 38% in October, the party’s rank and file became gradually more satisfied with the nation’s trajectory in the final quarter of 2017. Independents, too, have become more satisfied since October, after hitting a 2017 low of 20% that month. Currently, 31% of independents report satisfaction with the way things are going for […]
Scott Pruitt
Credit: Aaron P. Bernstein
The utter insanity of what’s going on at the Environmental Protection Agency is hard to capture. Forget the fact that the agency that’s supposed to protect the environment is engaged in jetting around the world to actively campaign for fossil fuels. Forget that the whole thing is run by a climate change-denier whose first actions on taking office included burying access to some of the most vital information on climate. Forget that scientists have been banned from the agency’s science advisory boards in favor of industry lobbyists.
All that stuff is nuts, sure. But it’s not as nuts as the other things Scott Pruitt has been up to.
Which includes hiring a Republican opposition research firm, on a no-bid contract, at taxpayer expense, to track news about the EPA and dig up dirt on those who dare oppose Pruitt. A group run by these guys …
Matt Rhoades, who… established America Rising, an ostensibly independent political action committee that works closely with the Republican National Committee […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
