Brazilian MP candidate pledges a strip club in every town

From: http://arbroath.blogspot.com/

It's an unusual campaign pledge: a strip club in every town. That, however, is what Adriely Fatal, a stripper and "erotic actress" from north-eastern Brazil, is promising voters as she hits the campaign trail in search of a place in parliament. With general elections taking place in October, four adult entertainers are preparing to battle it out for a seat in Ceara state's local assembly, aiming to rock the political establishment by forming a powerful "sex lobby" within government.

Leading Ceara's campanha erótica is 23-year-old Fatal, who also promises to focus on hospitals and education and is campaigning outside the local football stadium, where she dances on an open-backed truck dressed in skin-tight shorts. "My campaign is different to the others. I'm using sensuality to attract votes – I'm trying to attract young people and men," Fatal, a former stripper in Boate Tropical, one of the state capital Fortaleza's most popular erotic clubs, said.



"I campaign outside football stadiums, in squares and bars, in car garages, on the beach. I'm going to concentrate on healthcare and on showing people that just because I use tight clothes it doesn't mean that I can't do a proper job," added Fatal, a member of the Christian Workers party, who also counts waiters and taxi drivers among her support base and cites the leftist presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff as one of her political idols. Fatal, whose real name is Maria Isabel Gomes Cardoso, claims that the latest opinion polls show she already has around 10,000 votes in the bag.

If she can increase that to 12,000, her campaign manager, who was inspired by the Hungarian porn star La Cicciolina, elected to Italy's parliament in 1987, believes Fatal will soon become Fatal MP. Fatal is joined on the campaign trail by the Democrats party candidate Maria Adelina Nascimento, AKA Katia Heffner. Named after Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, she runs a popular swingers club in Fortaleza. Another adult entertainer, nicknamed Deborah Soft, is running for office with the slogan "Vote with pleasure".

Keith Olbermann Interviews Alvin Greene - 06/10/10

This is Ridiculous! How did this guy get nominated?
Please someone tell me...


MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Interviews South Carolina Democratic Senate Nominee Alvin Greene - 06/10/10

Woman Shouts "Heil Hitler!" At Jewish Man Praising Israel's National Health System (VIDEO)

Dear God. This is the way America is now. Some conservative radio host stages a "town hall" meeting in Las Vegas. The local news reports that it "was a packed house, full of opinions and no shortage of passion." How passionate? How does some dumb lady, yelling anti-Semitic slurs at another man grab you?

Media Monitor Jon, who holds it down daily on YouTube at NewsPoliticsNews, has the completely depressing clip, which shows an Israeli man holding forth on the virtues of Israel's health care system, which is "universal and compulsory, and is administered by a small number of organizations with funding from the government." I have no basis to judge its merits -- in 2000, the World Health Organization ranked it as the 28th best in the world. That said, let me sum up the countering argument, proferred by another town hall attendee: "Heil Hitler!"

That's right! Some idiot woman yells "Heil Hitler" at a Jewish man who was doing nothing more than being a passionate advocate for Israeli health care. The man, quite naturally, goes completely apoplectic, saying "Shame on you" over and over again. The woman counters by saying, "Well, you ought to be the most against President Obama." The poor man responds by saying, "I want to talk, not against Obama or for Obama. I want to talk about [health care]." He goes on to describe his own experiences with high-cost health care. For his efforts, the woman mocks him some more!

As ThinkProgress points out today, "Conservatives have strenuously denied that there is any anti-Semitism on display by anti-health reform protesters at town hall meetings nationwide." Those denials are no longer tenable, are they?

UPDATE: Various sources maintain that this awful woman is wearing an Israeli Defense Forces t-shirt, which is precisely the level of coherence we've come to expect from these Town Hall twits.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Frank Pushing Bill To Legalize Medical Pot

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Ryan Grim

ryan@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting

Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful House Democrat from Massachusetts, introduced a bill Thursday to allow states to make their own medical marijuana laws free of federal interference.

The bill would also move marijuana from the FDA's Schedule I to Schedule II. Its current designation indicates that it has no medical value, a high risk of abuse and is extremely harmful. By keeping marijuana in Schedule I, the federal government makes research into its medical benefits nearly impossible.

Moving marijuana to Schedule II would recognize its medical value, make access to it for research purposes easier and would facilitate the creation of a regulatory framework for the FDA to begin a drug approval process for marijuana.

The bill is HR 2835.

Frank's legislation would also explicitly protect patients from federal arrest in state's where medical marijuana is legal. (Rhode Island's governor vetoed on Friday a state bill that would have allowed medical marijuana sales by state-run dispensaries, despite the fact that Rhode Island already permits possession and use of medical pot.)

Charles C. Lynch could have used that protection. On Wednesday, the Moro Bay, Calif. medical marijuana shop owner was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison despite the fact that medical pot is legal in California and despite President Obama's earlier assurance that he would not interfere with the law. Unfortunately, Lynch was arrested during the Bush administration era.

"Years from now, Mr. Lynch may well be remembered as the last American to go to federal prison for a mistake, the final victim of an already repudiated policy well on its way to the ash heap of history, but whose mean-spirited effects still linger," said Marijuana Policy Project head Rob Kampia.

"This sentence is a cruel and pointless miscarriage of justice," Kampia said.The sentence handed down by federal District Court Judge George H. Wu could have been worse. The Obama Justice Department wanted the mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years. The Justice Department declined to comment on the sentencing.

The lack of clarity from the Obama administration on medical marijuana prompted Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) to introduce language Tuesday attached to a Commerce, Justice and Science Departments Appropriations bill seeking clarification on the policy.

"It's imperative that the federal government respect states' rights and stay out of the way of patients with debilitating diseases such as cancer who are using medical marijuana in accordance with state law to alleviate their pain," said Hinchey.

Supreme Court Hands Medical Marijuana Major Victory

The U.S. Supreme Court handed medical marijuana patients and advocates a resounding victory on Monday, refusing to hear a case brought by San Diego County, which has long chafed at implementing statewide medical marijuana laws.

The state of California, in an effort to systematize the 1996 voter-approved initiative, required localities to implement identification card programs for patients with doctor approval in 2004. Such ID cards are required to enter medical marijuana shops in California and can be shown to police officers who find patients in possession of marijuana.

San Diego County, however, argued that the federal ban on marijuana trumps the state law, meaning they are not required to follow the state law. The county filed suit in 2006. Both the San Diego Superior Court and the Fourth District Court of Appeals rejected the argument, which was followed by the California Supreme Court's refusal to review the case in 2008.

The San Diego Board of Supervisors voted to appeal to the Supreme Court.

"The courts have made clear that federal law does not preempt California's medical marijuana law and that local officials must comply with that law," said Joe Elford, chief counsel with Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a national medical marijuana advocacy group with a large presence in California. "No longer will local officials be able to hide behind federal law and resist upholding California's medical marijuana law."

It is not the job, in other words, of local cops or municipalities to enforce federal laws. In fact, the federal government has never made such an argument. The California counties acted on their own.

The Supreme Court ruling, following the Obama administration's decision not to raid medical marijuana clubs acting in accordance with state law, removes one of the last barriers to full implementation of the state law.

ASA has now given notice to 10 conservative holdout counties (Colusa, Madera, Mariposa, Modoc, Mono, San Bernardino, San Diego, Solano, Stanislaus, and Sutter) of their legal obligation to implement the ID card program. In January 2009, ASA, something of an industry trade group, filed a lawsuit in January against Solano County for its refusal to implement the state ID card program.

ASA was joined by the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project in assisting the California Attorney General in the case against San Diego. San Bernardino teamed with San Diego.

"The Supreme Court and the lower courts in California have blown away the myth that federal law somehow prevents states from legalizing medical marijuana," said Rob Kampia, executive director for the Marijuana Policy Project.

Thirteen states have laws that allow certain folks to use medical marijuana if their doctor recommends it. Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York are currently considering medical marijuana bills in their state legislatures.

Ryan Grim is the author of the forthcoming book This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America

Marijuana No Laughing Matter, Mr. President

Norm Stamper

Retired Seattle police chief, member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Posted March 28, 2009 | 05:57 PM (EST)

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The president's busy. He's got important things to do, like rescuing the economy, saving jobs and mortgages and industries. But we ought not to let him off the hook for his frivolous dismissal of a widely popular question he faced in Thursday's Online Town Hall.

At the top of the televised event, the president announced that of the 3.5 million votes on the thousands of questions received in advance, one topic "ranked fairly high." It was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and encourage job creation. He responded: "The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy." He then asked rhetorically what the question says about "the online audience."

Get it? His in-the-flesh audience got it, chuckling politely at the allusion to a Stoner Nation plugged in to the "internets."

The problem for Mr. Obama is that marijuana reform was at or near the top of the list of all questions in three major categories: budget, health care reform, green jobs and energy. Our leader doesn't seem to understand that millions of his interlocutor-constituents are actually quite serious about the issue.

Which is not to say that drugs, particularly pot, doesn't offer up a rich if predictable vein of humor. Cheech and Chong's vintage "Dave's not here!" routine is still a side-splitter. As Larry the Cable Guy would say, "I don't care who you are, that's funny right there."

But there's nothing comical about tens of millions of Americans being busted, frightened out of their wits, losing their jobs, their student loans, their public housing, their families, their freedom...

And show me the humor in a dying cancer patient who's denied legal access to a drug known to relieve pain and suffering.

Having just returned from Minnesota whose state lawmakers are entertaining a conservative, highly restrictive medical marijuana law, I can tell you what's not funny to Joni Whiting.

Ms. Whiting told the House's Public Safety Policy and Oversight Committee of her 26-year-old daughter Stephanie's two-year battle with facial melanoma that surfaced during the young woman's third pregnancy. The packed hearing room was dead quiet as Ms. Whiting spoke of Stephanie's face being cut off "one inch at a time, until there was nothing left to cut." She spoke of her daughter's severe nausea, her "continuous and uncontrollable pain."

Stephanie moved back to her family's home and "bravely began to make plans for the ending of her life." The tumors continued to grow, invading the inside and outside of her mouth, as well as her throat and chest. Nausea was a constant companion. Zofran and (significantly) Marinol, the synthetic pill version of THC, did nothing to abate the symptoms. Stephanie began wasting away. She lost all hope of relief.

Joni's other children approached their mother, begged her to let their sister use marijuana. But Ms. Whiting, a Vietnam veteran whose youngest son recently returned from 18 months in Iraq, was a law-abiding woman. And she was afraid of the authorities. There was no way she would allow the illicit substance in her house. As she held her ground, her grownup kids removed Stephanie from the family home.

Three days later, wracked by guilt, Joni welcomed her daughter back. "I called a number of family members and friends...and asked if they knew of anywhere we could purchase marijuana. The next morning someone had placed a package of it on our doorstep. I have never known whom to thank for it but I remain grateful beyond belief." The marijuana restored Stephanie's appetite. It allowed her to eat three meals a day, and to keep the food down. She regained energy and, in the words of her mother, "looked better than I had seen her in months."

Stephanie survived another 89 days, celebrating both Thanksgiving and Christmas with her family.

Shortly after the holidays, Stephanie's pain became "so severe that when she asked my husband and me to lie down on both sides of her and hold her, she couldn't stand the pain of us touching her body."

Stephanie died on January 14, 2003 in the room she grew up in, holding her mother's hand. A mother who, as she told the legislative committee, would "have no problem going to jail for acquiring medical marijuana for my suffering child."

Following Joni Whiting's presentation, it was all I could do to hold it together during my own testimony. Such was the power of this one woman's story. And of the sadness and rage roiling inside me as I reflected on the countless other Stephanies who are made to suffer not only the ravages of terminal illness and intractable pain but the callousness and narrow-mindedness of their leaders.

When I finished my testimony, a local police chief, a member of the committee, angrily accused me of disrespecting the police officers in the room--who'd shown up in force, in uniform, to oppose medical marijuana. Wearing a bright yellow tie with the lettering "Police Line, Do Not Cross," the chief charged me with placing more stock in the opinions of doctors than of Minnesota's cops. Guilty, as charged. Who are we, I asked him, to substitute our judgment for that of medical professionals and their patients? Who are we, for that matter, to deny the will of the people.

There's much value in humor, even during times of pain and tragedy. So long as the joke is not at the expense of the suffering.

It's been a bad couple of weeks for the president. His Leno comment about the Special Olympics while self-deprecating and not malicious was certainly tone deaf, followed soon after by his casting gratuitous aspersions at serious advocates of marijuana reform.

But Barack Obama is a decent and honorable man, compassionate and wise. I can't believe he would do anything other than what Joni Whiting did if, God forbid, he faced similar choices within his own family. I can't believe he doesn't realize the political value of taking a more reasoned, courageous stand on drug policy reform in general. Or of at least providing honest, thoughtful answers on the issue.

Perhaps we should show him what's in it for him? Perhaps we should make certain that in every future "town hall" the president is reassured of the seriousness of the legions of voters working to end cruel and ineffective drug laws.

Git-er-done!

Pot Saved My Life, Mr. President

Today, in the historic first online town hall, President Obama fielded questions from nearly a hundred thousand people online. One of the most popular questions, and indeed, one of the most popular questions in any forum that lets people vote on what matters to them, was about whether legalizing marijuana would help improve the economy and job creation.

Chuckling, the President said: "I don't know what this says about the online audience, but [laughing] this was a fairly popular question, we want to make sure it was answered. The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy."

I've never smoked pot in my life, indeed I've never smoked anything at all. Despite that, a couple years ago, I needed a double lung transplant. My lungs were scarred beyond repair due to side effects from radiation treatments I'd had nearly a decade earlier in my two battles with cancer.

I lost a lot of weight in this process, to the point where it was life-threatening. My lung doctor suggested "marinol," the synthetic (and legal) version of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. I laughed at him, and asked "Was this going to make me stupid? I don't want to be a pothead!" He said one of his patients put on 40 pounds with it. I didn't have any other option.

It worked. Marinol allowed me to put on enough weight to get me out of the danger zone until we figured out the underlying problem was a bleeding ulcer in my stomach, a reaction to one of the anti-rejection drugs I was taking for the transplant.

Pot saved my life. It's a miracle drug, even the crappy non-organic kind made in a lab.

The President will be asked this question again, and maybe next time he won't laugh at us.

UPDATE: Here's the video:

• Barack Obama

Today, in the historic first online town hall, President Obama fielded questions from nearly a hundred thousand people online. One of the most popular questions, and indeed, one of the most popular q...

Today, in the historic first online town hall, President Obama fielded questions from nearly a hundred thousand people online. One of the most popular questions, and indeed, one of the most popular q...

Related News On Huffington Post:

Obama Takes Pot Legalization Question During Townhall (VIDEO) The White House's innovative Open for Questions forum has produced plenty of substantive questions on wonky issues. But roughly midway through, the president preemptively took...

Official Inauguration Poster Released By Obama Team: Exclusive

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Sam Stein

stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting From DC

The Barack Obama Inaugural Committee is releasing an official inauguration poster playing off past themes and marking the history of January 20th in a uniquely Obama fashion.

Designed by famed street artist Shepard Fairey, the print, created especially for the 2009 Inauguration, boldly declares "BE THE CHANGE."

It is the next step in the branding of the presidency -- a development that is not unique to Obama but one that he has used better than any other politician in recent memory.

Fairey's initial design -- a guerrilla style, dark-colored portrait of the then-candidate -- proved to be a political and cultural phenomenon during the campaign. The current edition plays heavily off those themes and it seems likely to be a major symbol during the inauguration festivities. The image will be available on buttons, lapel pins, stickers and t-shirts.

The poster will officially be released tomorrow on the Inaugural Committee's online store.

Obama Plans Guantanamo Close, US Trials

MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN |

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In this June 6, 2008 file photo, reviewed by the U.S. Military, a guard stands at a gate at the Camp Delta detention compound, which has housed foreign prisoners since 2002, at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Obama's advisers are crafting plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and prosecute terrorism suspects in the U.S., a plan the Bush administration said Monday was easier said than done. Under the plan being crafted inside Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and others would be charged in U.S. courts, where they would receive constitutional rights and open trials.

But, underscoring the difficult decisions Obama must make to fulfill his pledge of shutting down Guantanamo, the plan could require the creation of a new legal system to handle the classified information inherent in some of the most sensitive cases.

Many of the about 250 Guantanamo detainees are cleared for release, but the Bush administration has not able been to find a country willing to take them.

Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

The plan being developed by Obama's team has been championed by legal scholars from both political parties. But as details surfaced Monday, it drew criticism from Democrats who oppose creating a new legal system and from Republicans who oppose bringing terrorism suspects to the U.S. mainland.

Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough said the president-elect wants Guantanamo closed, but no decision has been made "about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled."

Obama seeks a break from the Bush administration, which established military tribunals to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba and strongly opposes bringing prisoners to the United States. At the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday that President Bush has faced many challenges in trying to close the prison.

"We've tried very hard to explain to people how complicated it is. When you pick up people off the battlefield that have a terrorist background, it's not just so easy to let them go," Perino said. "These issues are complicated, and we have put forward a process that we think would work in order to put them on trial through military tribunals."

But Obama has been critical of that process and his legal advisers said finding an alternative will be a top priority. One of those advisers, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, acknowledges that bringing detainees to the U.S. would be controversial but said it could be accomplished.

"I think the answer is going to be, they can be as securely guarded on U.S. soil as anywhere else," Tribe said. "We can't put people in a dungeon forever without processing whether they deserve to be there."

The tougher challenge will be allaying fears by Democrats who believe the Bush administration's military commissions were a farce and dislike the idea of giving detainees anything less than the full constitutional rights normally enjoyed by everyone on U.S. soil.

"I think that creating a new alternative court system in response to the abject failure of Guantanamo would be a profound mistake," Jonathan Hafetz, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represents detainees, said Monday. "We do not need a new court system. The last eight years are a testament to the problems of trying to create new systems."

Senate Judiciary Committee member John Cornyn, R-Texas, said it would be a "colossal mistake to treat terrorism as a mere crime."

"It would be a stunning disappointment if the one of the new administration's first priorities is to give foreign terror suspects captured on the battlefield the same legal rights and protections as American citizens accused of crimes," Cornyn said Monday, noting that the Senate overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding Senate bill last year opposing bringing detainees to the U.S.

Obama did not vote on that measure. He has said the civilian and military court-martial systems provide "a framework for dealing with the terrorists," and Tribe said the administration would look to those venues before creating a new legal system. But discussions of what a new system would look like have already started.

An Obama administration will want to avoid the criticisms that have marked the Bush administration's military commissions. Human rights groups and defense attorneys have condemned the commissions for lax evidence rules and intense secrecy. Some military prosecutors have even quit in protest.

"It would have to be some sort of hybrid that involves military commissions that actually administer justice rather than just serve as kangaroo courts," Tribe said. "It will have to both be and appear to be fundamentally fair in light of the circumstances. I think people are going to give an Obama administration the benefit of the doubt in that regard."

Some weren't so sure.

"There would be concern about establishing a completely new system," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the House Judiciary Committee and former federal prosecutor who is aware of the discussions in the Obama camp. "And in the sense that establishing a regimen of detention that includes American citizens and foreign nationals that takes place on U.S. soil and departs from the criminal justice system _ trying to establish that would be very difficult."

Though a hybrid court may be unpopular, other advisers and Democrats involved in the Guantanamo Bay discussions say Obama has few options.

Prosecuting all detainees in federal courts raises many problems. Evidence gathered through military interrogation or from intelligence sources might be thrown out. Defendants would have the right to confront witnesses, meaning undercover CIA officers or terrorist turncoats might have to take the stand, jeopardizing their cover and revealing classified intelligence tactics.

That means something different would need to be done if detainees couldn't be released or prosecuted in traditional courts. Exactly what remains unclear.

"I don't think we need to completely reinvent the wheel, but we need a better tribunal process that is more transparent," Schiff said.

According to three advisers participating in the process, Obama is expected to propose a new court system and may appoint a committee to decide how such a court would operate. Some detainees likely would be returned to the countries where they were first captured for further detention or rehabilitation. The rest could probably be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts, one adviser said. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing talks, which have been private.

One challenge will be figuring out what to do with the 90 or so Yemeni detainees _ the largest group in the prison. The Bush administration has sought to negotiate the release of some of those detainees as part of a rehabilitation plan with the Yemeni government. But talks have so far been fruitless.

Waleed Alshahari, who has been following Guantanamo issues for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, said the plan being discussed by the Obama team was an improvement over the current system. But he said he expects most detainees to be released rather than stand trial.

"If the U.S. government has any evidence against them, they would try them and put them in jail," Alshahari said. "But it has been obvious they have nothing against them. That is why they have not faced trial."

Whatever Obama decides, he should move quickly, Tribe said.

"In reality and symbolically, the idea that we have people in legal black holes is an extremely serious black mark," Tribe said. "It has to be dealt with."

McCain Uses Air Quotes To Mock Concerns For Mother's Health

The differences of opinion surrounding the issue of access to safe and legal abortion, and a woman's right to choose to have one, have long been a mainstay of political debate. But tonight, I believe, featured a historical moment in that debate, because until tonight, I had never seen the matter of a woman's health given AIR SCARE QUOTES. But that's precisely what John McCain did, sneeringly, as he attempted to portray support for a mother's health as an extreme position, when in fact, it is a mainstream position -- ground that even fervent pro-life individuals often concede.

Reached for comment, Megan Carpentier of womens' issues blog Jezebel had this to say:

It used to be that McCain was leading the charge to reform the Republican platform to include exceptions for the life and health of the mother to their anti-abortion plank. That tonight he declared his own position extreme -- let alone called a woman that chooses her own continued existence over the potential future life of a fetus "extreme" -- is a pretty significant and rather disgusting charge.

I concur, absolutely and without reservation.

[WATCH.]

UPDATE:

Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, weighs in:

"Tonight, John McCain showed he doesn't care about women's health when he described protecting "the health of the woman" as "extreme." John McCain doesn't seem to understand that women's health matters. He blatantly showed that he doesn't trust women to decide what is in the best interest of their own health. Barack Obama, on the other hand, stood up for women's health."